Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 2: the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent.
Speaker 3: Coverage that is possible.
Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means
Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,
Speaker 2: Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Crystal, indeed, we do.
Speaker 4: I just don't know what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 4: There's barely anything.
Speaker 3: In a lot of developments in the cable news world.
Speaker 1: All right, So yesterday bloody Monday, Tucker Carlson out, Don
Speaker 1: Lemon out. There is huge political news this morning as
Speaker 1: President Joe Biden officially announced his Reelact. Have a launch
Speaker 1: video that we can show you in some details about
Speaker 1: exactly how the Democratic base is actually feeling about him
Speaker 1: right now, which is pretty interesting. We have developments with
Speaker 1: regard to the debt ceiling. We have developments with regard
Speaker 1: to the fact that Tony Blinken was ultimately behind that
Speaker 1: letter of the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Thing about Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden's laptop. We've got Kyle Condick in the show to
Speaker 1: break down all the political news. We also have a
Speaker 1: gigantic elephant in the room that I think we need
Speaker 1: to address, which is, what the hell is saga?
Speaker 5: Eric?
Speaker 3: What is going on here? Look?
Speaker 2: I made a pledge to our premium subscribers to commit
Speaker 2: this sartorial atrocity in the event that Don Lemon was fired.
Speaker 2: I didn't even remember of Actually, one of our premium
Speaker 2: subscribers reminded.
Speaker 3: We went back and we pulled a clip.
Speaker 2: Here's what I had to say at the time, with
Speaker 2: the breaking points and counterpoints. Seeing ever wear a hoodie
Speaker 2: and suit jackets on the air next time is Don
Speaker 2: Lemon segment.
Speaker 3: It would be a nice gag. Don't you think? You know?
Speaker 2: That might be the only time that I would deign
Speaker 2: to wear a hoodie with suit jacket. I will consider it.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you this when he gets fired, If that
Speaker 2: ever happens, I doubt it. Ever, Well, I will wear
Speaker 2: a hoodie on a suit jacket with hoodie with a
Speaker 2: s as an homage to Don Lemon.
Speaker 3: I like it. Yeah, So there you go. Never Here's
Speaker 3: that was like last week apparently.
Speaker 4: Last week and we had both already forgotten.
Speaker 2: I totally forgot. Yeah, I we were reminded. So listen,
Speaker 2: I'm a man.
Speaker 3: Of my word. Here it is.
Speaker 2: Here are a couple of problems wearing a hoodie with
Speaker 2: a suit jacket you wouldn't think about. First of all,
Speaker 2: Don Lemon, why do you have a suit jacket which
Speaker 2: is not tailored properly that actually violates As people can see,
Speaker 2: this is fitting quite tightly. This is the thinnest hoodie
Speaker 2: that I own. Shout out to VIORI. I wear this
Speaker 2: to the gym.
Speaker 3: It's a nice jacket. It's a very nice hoodie.
Speaker 4: Put them together and it looks around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it should be worn at the gym, not you know,
Speaker 3: with a suit. Now. The issue is is.
Speaker 2: That there's a lot of cloth and a normal sized hoodie,
Speaker 2: so normal suit jacket.
Speaker 3: This is actually a suit.
Speaker 2: Jacket from probably when I was at my fattest, and
Speaker 2: even then it barely fits over the same I'm not
Speaker 2: even wearing a T shirt underneath me.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing too, I feel like I don't watch
Speaker 1: a lot of Don Lemon, but I feel like his
Speaker 1: suit jackets normally fit him well tailored.
Speaker 3: Well, we're in a get of a.
Speaker 4: Special suit jacket to go over hoodies.
Speaker 3: So I did deep analysis on the jacket. It does
Speaker 3: appear to fit with the hoodie, which means.
Speaker 2: People, he actually got that jacket tailored specifically so that
Speaker 2: he could wear a hoodie underneath it. It also was a
Speaker 2: separate worn on top of khakis, which is a whole
Speaker 2: crime because we're talking about a thin stripe, a pin
Speaker 2: stripe window.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: I think it was a window pane.
Speaker 2: Black jacket on top of a gray hoodie with khakis.
Speaker 2: It was a complete travesty. I feel like a bum
Speaker 2: wearing this. It's not comfortable. I missed my miss my tie,
Speaker 2: I missed my shirt. It just it doesn't feel right.
Speaker 2: But you know, look, this is what I do for
Speaker 2: you people, and I'm going to do the whole show
Speaker 2: and look like an idiot. Farewell, don I'll have a
Speaker 2: lot more to say about that, and it's worth it.
Speaker 3: It's worth it to see him go absolutely say that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you shall be missed. I guess there.
Speaker 4: Is a lot more to get to you in the show.
Speaker 1: Before we do, though, we want to say thank you
Speaker 1: to all the people who have been signing up for
Speaker 1: premium subscriptions.
Speaker 4: You are really really helping.
Speaker 1: Us out in terms of being able to build out
Speaker 1: this new set that we're super excited.
Speaker 2: You guys are incredible as usual, So many you've been
Speaker 2: heeding the call for those of you who can again
Speaker 2: helping us.
Speaker 3: We've got about half the lights paid for now, half the.
Speaker 2: Lights that we've gotten there so far, so seriously, we
Speaker 2: appreciate it.
Speaker 3: As a reminder.
Speaker 2: We have a donation button there on the website, but
Speaker 2: in general, if you sign up yearly and lifetime members,
Speaker 2: especially for a cash flow perspective, it dramatically helps our business.
Speaker 2: Maybe I can go and buy a properly fitting suit.
Speaker 2: Then the point in every single of your hard earned
Speaker 2: dollars is being poured directly back into production value here
Speaker 2: on the set.
Speaker 3: The new set is beautiful.
Speaker 2: It is a what ten fifteen X step up for
Speaker 2: all of us, and I think for twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: it's exactly the note that we want to kick things
Speaker 2: off and just look at the way of what we're
Speaker 2: about to cover versus what we're doing here.
Speaker 3: We don't have declining ratings.
Speaker 2: Yesterday was one of our biggest days liter Ever, it
Speaker 2: was actually the biggest day ever in the history of
Speaker 2: our podcast downloads.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and so you put those together.
Speaker 2: Ours ratings continue to go up, our premium subscription is booming.
Speaker 2: We're hiring people when they are literally firing people. They
Speaker 2: are declining and falling apart. We have a lot more
Speaker 2: to say about this, but let's go ahead.
Speaker 3: And get to the news.
Speaker 2: We got the official announcement yesterday. It is over Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 2: As we reacted to all of you, fired from Fox News,
Speaker 2: we can now say fired definitively after some speculation Crystal
Speaker 2: in our initial reaction to video.
Speaker 3: Let's go and put this.
Speaker 2: Up there on the screen from the La Times quote,
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson departs Fox News.
Speaker 3: He was pushed out by Rupert Murdoch.
Speaker 2: So I've also asked around from what I have heard
Speaker 2: people who are not necessarily in the know.
Speaker 3: This was very, very tightly kept. But the Murdocks have.
Speaker 2: Been basically leaking and making it known that they were
Speaker 2: the ones who were in charge. And the impetus for
Speaker 2: firing Tucker is multifaceted number and really it does read
Speaker 2: like a succession level drum. Number one is their Murdocks
Speaker 2: right now are terrified, even though they have billions of
Speaker 2: dollars literally in the bank. Paying out seven hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty seven million is humiliating over the dominion lawsuit. Now,
Speaker 2: Tucker was not implicated in the dominion lawsuit at all. However,
Speaker 2: one of the problems is is that his text messages,
Speaker 2: which we were able to see some of them, with
Speaker 2: respect to Trump, to Sidney Powell and Dominion, that was
Speaker 2: a bit.
Speaker 3: Basically the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 2: It turns out that many of those texts Crystal Yes
Speaker 2: also denigrated Fox News management, Rupert Murdoch, many of his colleagues.
Speaker 2: And while we have not been able to read those
Speaker 2: text messages, his boss's lawyers were able to read those
Speaker 2: tech messages and made them available to him.
Speaker 1: His texts were the most embarrassing. I think it's fair
Speaker 1: to say of the texts that were released publicly, and
Speaker 1: apparently according to reporting, some of the ones that were
Speaker 1: redacted that the public did not have access to in
Speaker 1: terms of his internal positioning at Fox, were even more damning.
Speaker 1: But I think it was a sort of cumulative effect
Speaker 1: of you know, here's a guy who's sort of like
Speaker 1: embroiled and scandal after scandal, week after week. He's the
Speaker 1: center of controversy. He's sending out these text messages that
Speaker 1: are you know, that are degrading his colleagues, going after management.
Speaker 3: I mean that's look listen, who doesn't hate their boss?
Speaker 3: Like come sure?
Speaker 1: But then you also have you know, saying things like
Speaker 1: I hate Trump and Trump is a demonic force. And
Speaker 1: then you also had, you know, potential other legal issues
Speaker 1: going on, in particular a former producer on his show
Speaker 1: who was suing Fox News and names Tucker Carlson and
Speaker 1: his executive producer specifically in a discrimination case. And that
Speaker 1: may have been another piece of this. And with regard
Speaker 1: to the dominion lawsuit, I mean, he was implicated in
Speaker 1: that it was expected that if it had gone to trial,
Speaker 1: he was going to have to testify. So when you
Speaker 1: put all these pieces together and you've got a man
Speaker 1: in Rupert Murdoch who's you know, still the head han
Speaker 1: Sho ninety two years old, it just became too many
Speaker 1: things for him to have to deal with. It reminded
Speaker 1: me a little bit of Keith Olberman when he was
Speaker 1: ousted at MSNBC. I mean Keith Olberman, like was MSNBC
Speaker 1: at that point, but it just became he just became
Speaker 1: too much of a problem for them to have to
Speaker 1: deal with on a daily basis, and so they made
Speaker 1: the determination. And I think Fox News has made the
Speaker 1: determination not just here with Tucker Carlson, but also with
Speaker 1: Glenn Beck, also with Bill O'Reilly, also with Meg and Kelly,
Speaker 1: that the brand in the network is bigger and has
Speaker 1: to be bigger than any one individual talent. So even Tucker,
Speaker 1: who is not only the number one rated show on
Speaker 1: Fox News, but was the number one rated cable news
Speaker 1: show period, even he they are asserting here is not
Speaker 1: bigger than the Fox News brand.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I will save some of my commentary about why
Speaker 2: I think that's completely wrong today in today's age. It
Speaker 2: might have been true in the past, but a lot
Speaker 2: of change in the cable news business in terms of
Speaker 2: the circumstances. Though, I think it's very important to say
Speaker 2: that the text messages going after Fox News management apparently
Speaker 2: rangled Fox News management.
Speaker 3: I guess who knew.
Speaker 2: Secondly, it comes to that lawsuit that you referenced, is
Speaker 2: going to put this up there on the screen. One
Speaker 2: of the other things that wasn't noticed is that his
Speaker 2: executive producer Justin Wells was actually also fired from Fox News.
Speaker 2: That gives us a little bit of insight into how
Speaker 2: this could be at least connected some way to the
Speaker 2: Abbey Grosberg suit.
Speaker 3: That's what you reference for those who don't know.
Speaker 2: Grosberg was a booking producer who actually worked on Carlson's show.
Speaker 2: She has filed a lawsuit against the company last month,
Speaker 2: related in somewhat to the dominion case because she says
Speaker 2: that she had compelled false testimony on dominion, but also
Speaker 2: claiming that she and other women face sexism and harassment
Speaker 2: from coworkers and officials. According to Grosberg and her lawyers,
Speaker 2: she had recordings of phone calls and of internal workplace
Speaker 2: culture that possibly could have implicated them. But again, from
Speaker 2: what I heard, this is a multi fast this situation.
Speaker 2: It comes one week after dominion. Obviously they're running scared,
Speaker 2: There's no question about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Two, now they've got this lawsuit on his face. The lawsuit,
Speaker 2: he would have survived it from basically from what I
Speaker 2: could have seen, it may not have been a good look.
Speaker 2: And he certainly, I mean he admitted to using quote
Speaker 2: the C word in some of his testimony, which I mean,
Speaker 2: whatever if he' said privately in a text messages, fine,
Speaker 2: let's put that aside on the actual content though, from
Speaker 2: what I understand and also what the LA Times has
Speaker 2: been able to report, this also happened because of a
Speaker 2: showdown over January sixth coverage, specifically coverage related to Ray Epps. Now,
Speaker 2: for those who don't know, we've discussed mister Epps here before.
Speaker 2: He's the guy who is on tape going all over
Speaker 2: the Capital complex the night before and the morning of
Speaker 2: before the storming of the Capitol, saying we need to
Speaker 2: go into the Capitol. There has been reports and suspicions
Speaker 2: that mister Epps was allegedly an informant for the Federal
Speaker 2: Bureau of Investigation. He has since avoided jail time despite
Speaker 2: being seen very clearly instigate or trying to get people
Speaker 2: to go into the Capitol and was even quote called
Speaker 2: a fed by his fellow rally attendees. He was clearly
Speaker 2: a center of a Tucker Carlson documentary and also recently
Speaker 2: appeared in a sixty Minutes special specifically where he actually
Speaker 2: went after Tucker Carlson and claimed that he had ruined
Speaker 2: his life.
Speaker 3: Now, apparently there was.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess we could surmise there was some
Speaker 2: sort of response in the works for Monday on the
Speaker 2: show that evening to discuss the ray Epps situation. And
Speaker 2: this appears to be a redline for Rupert Murdoch, who
Speaker 2: apparently has been super pissed off. I also had somebody
Speaker 2: flagged to me something very important. Recall, Crystal, all of
Speaker 2: those hours of footage that were made available to Tucker
Speaker 2: by Kevin McCarthy, how much of that footage did we
Speaker 2: actually see?
Speaker 4: Right? Very little?
Speaker 2: Why is that even though even on his show he
Speaker 2: said that we were going to see hours and hours
Speaker 2: of the footage and we were going to do more.
Speaker 2: And we had one segment which happened to show the
Speaker 2: Qwanon Shahman just walking around the capitol. Yeah, now we
Speaker 2: were promised ours. Who wants to make the guests? Was
Speaker 2: it Tucker who made the call not to show anybody more?
Speaker 2: Or maybe was it somebody with an Australian accent who
Speaker 2: owns the company. And so anyway, there has been allegedly,
Speaker 2: by the way, according to my sources, So, just to
Speaker 2: save myself from the Murdochs and their lawyers, the point
Speaker 2: being there has been long standing simmering tension, and also
Speaker 2: it appears that Murdoch himself, Rupert Murdoch has just got
Speaker 2: to be one of the most capricious, strange CEOs who
Speaker 2: has ever ran a media company because he apparently never
Speaker 2: cared about the He never cared about the boycotts on
Speaker 2: the advertising.
Speaker 3: Again, this is a man worth tens of billions of
Speaker 3: dollars cared about the boycotts.
Speaker 2: Allegedly, his son Lachlan was very aligned with Tucker Carlson
Speaker 2: in terms of his views.
Speaker 3: Now they are trying to leak and.
Speaker 2: Make clear that Lochlan is apparently the one who made
Speaker 2: the call to fire him, But those who are in
Speaker 2: the no say it was Rupert himself who just basically
Speaker 2: wanted to wash his hands of the situation. All of
Speaker 2: it based again on the premise that you alluded to,
Speaker 2: Crystal with the idea that Tucker Carlson is not bigger
Speaker 2: than Fox News. Also, this comes back to the question
Speaker 2: of Tucker's future because he could currently be embroiled in
Speaker 2: a major contract litigation.
Speaker 3: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: Yesha, Ali media reporter here Tuck and saying Tucker will
Speaker 2: likely get paid out on his deal. This has now
Speaker 2: since been confirmed by The Wall Street Journal. Even when
Speaker 2: Fox feels that it has the cost of fire, it
Speaker 2: often pays out.
Speaker 3: On deals in order to avoid litigation.
Speaker 2: He signed a multi year extension on his deal in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one and likely has anywhere from one to
Speaker 2: three years left on his deal. Now. The reason why
Speaker 2: this matters is that because Fox, we don't know about
Speaker 2: Tucker's contracts specifically, obviously, but Fox as a matter of
Speaker 2: course has had non competes in its talent deals for
Speaker 2: many years. If he had signed any sort of non
Speaker 2: compete and they continue to pay him out on his deal,
Speaker 2: then technically they might be able to try and silence
Speaker 2: him for several at least one to three years the
Speaker 2: period of his contract and possibly even after the extension.
Speaker 2: One of the other reports has come out since is
Speaker 2: that he has gone ahead and hired like a rest
Speaker 2: of media lawyer, apparently the same one that Don Lemon
Speaker 2: hired to negotiate his exit. But this very much could
Speaker 2: be part of the contention around his future. And you know,
Speaker 2: we may not be able to hear from him for
Speaker 2: some time because we have literally tens of millions, hundreds
Speaker 2: of millions, possibly of dollars at stake in terms of contract.
Speaker 1: Negotiation, well certainly in terms of while this is all
Speaker 1: being resolved, he will not be on air you know,
Speaker 1: with Fox obviously, but anywhere else very likely, And so
Speaker 1: we'll see how this has ultimately resolved. You know, the
Speaker 1: non competes are very common in the media industry, not
Speaker 1: just at Fox News but at every other cable news
Speaker 1: network as well. Even though he makes a lot of
Speaker 1: money there, or made a lot of money while he
Speaker 1: was at Fox News, think about how little that is
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of like the four billion dollars
Speaker 1: that they have sitting in a bay. So again, I
Speaker 1: think they probably just looked at this as like cost
Speaker 1: of doing business, you know, on the ray ups like
Speaker 1: January sixth stuff. Apparently this has been according to some
Speaker 1: of the reporting, this has been a source of friction
Speaker 1: between him and Murdoch for a while, and Tucker of
Speaker 1: course has as he does, like taken something that has
Speaker 1: a grain of some interest in it. Thinks we have
Speaker 1: covered here like the potential you know involvement.
Speaker 4: Now we know the definite involvement.
Speaker 1: Of FEDS who were in Proud Boys, informants and.
Speaker 4: Oath keepers and all.
Speaker 1: You know, all of these different organizations were infiltrated by FEDS.
Speaker 1: He takes that and spins it into a whole grand
Speaker 1: conspiracy and goes way further than what any of the
Speaker 1: evidence suggests. And even the fixation on Ray Apps. Bronco
Speaker 1: Marcatic made this comment which is like, I don't know
Speaker 1: why the fixation on him when we literally know there
Speaker 1: were dozens of FED informants inside of the.
Speaker 2: Proud I think it's the video element, Crystal, It's the
Speaker 2: video montage.
Speaker 1: But again there's you know, maybe, but there's no evidence
Speaker 1: that actually proves that Rayepps is a FED, and Tucker
Speaker 1: goes way too far in asserting some of these things.
Speaker 1: So just on the merits, I wanted to put that
Speaker 1: out there, you know, ters of is he bigger than
Speaker 1: Fox News? I think it sort of makes sense that
Speaker 1: Fox News doesn't really need Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 4: They do have a very committed.
Speaker 1: Sort of default audience that shows up for them regardless
Speaker 1: of who's sitting in the chair. Now, will whoever they
Speaker 1: fill in for Tucker? You know, Jesse Waters has been
Speaker 1: floated as one potential replacement will they be able to
Speaker 1: garner the ratings that Tucker was able to garner, Probably not,
Speaker 1: at least not immediately. But then again, no one thought
Speaker 1: that anyone would be able to match Bill O'Reilly's ratings
Speaker 1: when he was pushed down, and I don't know that
Speaker 1: Tucker matched him, but he came pretty darn close. So
Speaker 1: their audience is elderly, they're setted their habits. In much
Speaker 1: of the country, Fox News is just like the default
Speaker 1: program that's on, sort of like CNN is on at
Speaker 1: the airports. Fox News is just on in businesses and
Speaker 1: homes across the country. So I think they're right in
Speaker 1: a sense that they don't need Tucker Carlson. They're business
Speaker 1: is going to be okay, and that whatever issues he
Speaker 1: was causing internally, in the fact that he was embroiled
Speaker 1: in these controversies one after another and he basically just
Speaker 1: became a real pain in the ass for Rupert Murdock
Speaker 1: and management, I think that makes sense. But I also
Speaker 1: think it makes sense that Tucker doesn't need Fox News either, correct,
Speaker 1: And so you know, whenever he's able to do whatever
Speaker 1: he wants to do next, there's no doubt that he's
Speaker 1: going to find an audience, find success. Now, will it
Speaker 1: be as prominent and as influential as his position at
Speaker 1: Fox News. I would say probably not, because legacy media
Speaker 1: still obsesses over what happens on cable news. You're not
Speaker 1: going to be involved in those big nights of presdential
Speaker 1: debate coverage. You're not going to be, you know, playing
Speaker 1: in the background the McDonald's in flyover Country, and so
Speaker 1: there's a lessening of your cultural cache, even as I
Speaker 1: think that he will, you know, undoubtedly find an audience
Speaker 1: to be successful whenever he turns up to do whatever
Speaker 1: he wants to do.
Speaker 3: Next, no question.
Speaker 2: So let's just go to the next part here, because
Speaker 2: I think this is an important set piece about Tucker's
Speaker 2: future and also just about what exactly all of this
Speaker 2: means for the future of Fox Now. You have pointed
Speaker 2: long to this Vanity Fair piece that's going to put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. Guys, this is important
Speaker 2: inside the Rupert Murdoch succession drama, specifically about the war
Speaker 2: in between the Murdoch Empire between Lachlan Murdoch and his
Speaker 2: son James. James is kind of your doctrinaire I guess.
Speaker 2: Establishment lib is probably the best way to put it.
Speaker 2: He married a woman apparently is very anti Fox News,
Speaker 2: left the company. It's very worthy of a television show.
Speaker 4: I understand. It's sort of like Resistance lib.
Speaker 2: He's about his resistance lib as. It gets kind of
Speaker 2: a joke within the family. So that's James Murdoch. Lachlan
Speaker 2: Murdock is much more aligned with his father, much more
Speaker 2: with the Tucker Carlson view. But Lachlan also is a
Speaker 2: multi billionaire who lives in Los Angeles in one of
Speaker 2: the largest homes. He likes to go to parties, and
Speaker 2: he doesn't like being told that Fox News is such
Speaker 2: an awful place, and why does he continue to do
Speaker 2: this to the country. So he's pulled in a couple
Speaker 2: of different directions. Who doesn't like to go to Sun Valley,
Speaker 2: Idaho and meet with Warren Buffett. Right, it's a tough
Speaker 2: life for these folks anyway. So these guys, they're torn
Speaker 2: in all these different places.
Speaker 3: The war is over.
Speaker 2: Whatever Murdoch has left and has not sold over to Disney.
Speaker 2: The vast majority of his empire he sold for cash
Speaker 2: to the Disney Corporation, Fox Properties, Fox Studio, all that stuff,
Speaker 2: Fox News, his baby and the Dow Jones Company were
Speaker 2: really the ones that he loved the most.
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal. That's like his bread and butter.
Speaker 2: So within that the war over control and his future
Speaker 2: is one where they're tugged in a bunch of different directions.
Speaker 2: Here is why Crystal, I think I will dispute what
Speaker 2: we were talking about earlier. O'Reilly's departure was in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: That was a media eternity ago. So Fox is very
Speaker 2: cagey about its average age of audience. But from the
Speaker 2: best that I can tell, in twenty and fifteen, the
Speaker 2: latest study that has yet come out about the median
Speaker 2: viewer was sixty eight years old the medium in two
Speaker 2: thousand and fifteen.
Speaker 3: That was eight years ago.
Speaker 2: So we are talking here there's no reason to believe
Speaker 2: that that hasn't changed. So all of those people have
Speaker 2: actually aged. So now we are talking about a median
Speaker 2: age of somewhere in the seventies. Now, according to Fox's
Speaker 2: own data, I had to dig deep and pull from
Speaker 2: their own article which they were touting about beating CNN,
Speaker 2: they average only one hundred and seventy four thousand people
Speaker 2: in the key demographic primetime average is two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty nine thousand. Consider this, That is pathetic. Now, one
Speaker 2: of the reasons why the Tucker Carlston Show was important
Speaker 2: to Fox News was not only did it get three
Speaker 2: point eight million concurrent viewers while it was live, he
Speaker 2: had the most amount of young people who watched the
Speaker 2: show both live and on YouTube. Now, the other thing
Speaker 2: is that he was the keystone of the Fox Nation
Speaker 2: streaming platform, the Tucker Carlson Today Podcast, of which they
Speaker 2: rolled much of his rights into the overall Fox News brand.
Speaker 3: Now that's over, So.
Speaker 2: What are they going to do with their bet on
Speaker 2: the future? All of this comes back to it's not
Speaker 2: that their business will be fine in the first one
Speaker 2: to two years, certainly, what about seven years from now?
Speaker 3: So I've been complete, I've been looking at this.
Speaker 2: The next cable carriage negotiation is within the next decade
Speaker 2: for the company. They have to make the case that
Speaker 2: their aging viewers are going to be worth some of
Speaker 2: the highest cable carriage fees in the entire business to
Speaker 2: justify a two billion dollar profit for the Fox News Channel.
Speaker 2: I just don't think that that case exists anymore. And
Speaker 2: I'm not the only person. A lot of people in
Speaker 2: the industry are saying this as well. From one of
Speaker 2: the comps that I'm trying to make here is O'Riley
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen also came on the heels of what why
Speaker 2: did everybody and cable become a star Trump? Well, the
Speaker 2: era of that level of coverage it's gone. Even if
Speaker 2: Trump comes back, nobody's going to cover him in the
Speaker 2: same way. Right now, Fox News is ten out of
Speaker 2: ten for all programming, but their overall.
Speaker 3: Number of views is quite low.
Speaker 2: Again, the best of them was Tark Carlson three point
Speaker 2: two million as of literally last week, three point eight
Speaker 2: usually at the overall cap the average young demo. As
Speaker 2: I said, the comparison I'm using is this, if you
Speaker 2: were the number one classified ads business in two thousand
Speaker 2: and one, why should we care? By twenty ten, it's cool.
Speaker 2: It's great to be a classified business. Classified ads print
Speaker 2: classifies and that's a multi billion dollar.
Speaker 3: Business Washington Post company.
Speaker 2: These people were go flying on private jets, you know,
Speaker 2: making bank.
Speaker 3: Guess what a.
Speaker 2: Decade later, nobody cared. They're all bankrupt.
Speaker 1: Well, let me let me clarify because I see Fox
Speaker 1: News in the same light I see MSNBC and CNN,
Speaker 1: which is that they are all on a path of
Speaker 1: managed decline. Yes, the business model is already effectively defunct,
Speaker 1: that they are trying to hold on to the scraps
Speaker 1: of what they already have. Now, Fox News has the
Speaker 1: largest of the scraps. They consistently have the highest ratings,
Speaker 1: even as all of these networks have a very elderly
Speaker 1: audience and young people are buying large not going to
Speaker 1: Fox News, even Tucker Carlson Show. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look at the numbers of like, you know, thirty year
Speaker 1: olds who are.
Speaker 3: Watching that show, it's like two hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: It's very small, right, So I don't think that whether
Speaker 1: Tucker is there or Tucker is not there, that they
Speaker 1: had a very compelling case for the next negotiation with.
Speaker 4: So you can't.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you have an entire twenty four hour
Speaker 1: news network and you're trying to figure out some streaming play,
Speaker 1: which even with Tucker involved, and that was not particularly successful,
Speaker 1: I don't think that his presence there was going to
Speaker 1: rescue them one way or the other.
Speaker 4: So that's why listen.
Speaker 1: And to speak to Tucker's role at the network and
Speaker 1: whether he was like uniquely good or uniquely.
Speaker 4: Bad or whatever.
Speaker 1: I think it's always important to take a step back
Speaker 1: with all of these networks and think about what their
Speaker 1: bottom line is. Fox News has a dual bottom line.
Speaker 1: They are first and foremost a partisan outfit.
Speaker 4: I mean they were.
Speaker 1: Set up explicitly as a partisan pro Republican party play,
Speaker 1: and that is another thing that comes out in the
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch texts and all of the texts that were
Speaker 1: east as part of the Diminion lawsuit. They're actively talking
Speaker 1: about like how do we prop up the Republican candidates
Speaker 1: in Georgia? And Rupert Murdock is actively telling Ronda Santis
Speaker 1: like I want you to be the Republican nominee.
Speaker 4: I'm going to push you.
Speaker 1: So this was an explicit partisan play and it's a
Speaker 1: money making venture. It's both of those things. And so
Speaker 1: how did Tucker fit into that universe? I mean, his
Speaker 1: ratings just made him a very valuable asset, no doubt
Speaker 1: about it, even with advertiser backlash, still a very valuable asset.
Speaker 1: And ultimately I think he was also a very effective.
Speaker 4: Partisan.
Speaker 1: He was a more effective partisan operative because he could
Speaker 1: be at times more interesting and wouldn't always say the
Speaker 1: thing that you would expect him to say, Sean Hannity,
Speaker 1: you always know what you're going to get night after
Speaker 1: night after night. But because Tucker not only pushed Republican
Speaker 1: candidates overall, but engaged in some of the inter Republican
Speaker 1: in trub Republican Party fights and was trying to shape
Speaker 1: the direction of the Republican Party, that made him more
Speaker 1: interesting and I think more effective as sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, a partisan propagandist for the network. However, you know,
Speaker 1: part of I think where some of the tension comes
Speaker 1: from and what comes out in like the January sixth
Speaker 1: tension and stuff like that, is the side of the
Speaker 1: Republican Party that he allied himself with was not the
Speaker 1: side that Rupert Murdock was most comfortable with, which is
Speaker 1: signaled by the fact you know that Murdoch is going
Speaker 1: all in for Ronda Santis and clearly has made a
Speaker 1: decision he wants to move on from Trump.
Speaker 4: And so I think.
Speaker 1: That's sort of even as Tucker was still delivering for
Speaker 1: them in terms of money, still delivering for them, because ultimately,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, Tucker is still about,
Speaker 1: you know, pushing you to vote for whatever Republican candidates
Speaker 1: in front of you. Still very effective at that, and
Speaker 1: I would say probably the most effective of all of
Speaker 1: their hosts at that. The tension comes from which side
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party split he ends up And I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, when you compile it with okay,
Speaker 1: potential sexual harassment, and I don't doubt that she's got
Speaker 1: some stuff that was going to be very embarrassing and
Speaker 1: very difficult and that they were going to have to
Speaker 1: deal with again. You know, when you put all of
Speaker 1: these things together and that intra Republican party fight that's
Speaker 1: going on, I think that's why he ends up out.
Speaker 3: I think you. No, I don't disagree with you.
Speaker 2: I personally think it probably had it was equal parts
Speaker 2: ideology and equal parts business, and for Murdoch, he finally.
Speaker 3: Just was like I've had enough.
Speaker 2: And basically, also from what I've heard, people inside Fox
Speaker 2: are furious, not necessarily about the Tucker thing, but they're
Speaker 2: just like, how are you so capricious in the way
Speaker 2: that you're handling this. You won't settle the damn lawsuit
Speaker 2: until we've humiliated ourselves everybody, and then you spend a
Speaker 2: billion to do so. It's like fairy threw you embarrassed us,
Speaker 2: and then you paid a billion dollars out You should
Speaker 2: have just paid a billion from the.
Speaker 3: Beginning and it saved us all the humiliation.
Speaker 4: Definitely the case, of course, it's the case.
Speaker 3: And then and.
Speaker 1: Remember there's other lawsuits to cut. There's the Smart Mattic
Speaker 1: lawsuit to come in on top of this. You know,
Speaker 1: Abby Grosberg is lettername producer suit. There's potential shareholders, like,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more that's coming down the pike here
Speaker 1: as well that has potential business impact.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know, we can look from the outside and be
Speaker 1: like Fox News is a juggernaut, which they continue to be,
Speaker 1: even as I do think they're in the state of
Speaker 1: longer term managed to climb just like the other cable
Speaker 1: news networks. But when you are in charge of running it,
Speaker 1: I can imagine how it feels more precarious. You know,
Speaker 1: they saw Newsmax and One American News eating into their
Speaker 1: eating their lunch and eating into their bottom line. They
Speaker 1: see the way that independent media is rising up, and
Speaker 1: you know that these creators sort of like Top Talent
Speaker 1: doesn't really need them anymore. Dan Bongino just left the
Speaker 1: network as well after they couldn't come to terms over
Speaker 1: some kind of a deal. So they see the way
Speaker 1: the media landscape is shifting. They don't know how to
Speaker 1: handle it, just like none of the other networks know
Speaker 1: how to handle it either.
Speaker 4: And so even.
Speaker 1: Though we look at and your we're like, you have
Speaker 1: four billion dollars in the bank, like, You're fine, they
Speaker 1: see the landscape and they understand how tricky and precarious
Speaker 1: their situation.
Speaker 4: Actually, I think they should be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Chrystal, what were you doing in twenty seventeen when
Speaker 2: O'Reilly left?
Speaker 3: Or was that early days of Rising or was that
Speaker 3: before that before I even joined this?
Speaker 2: Yeah that was before Rise, right, I was a white
Speaker 2: house course, Like, yeah, that's how long ago it was.
Speaker 3: Now our show is where it is.
Speaker 2: We're one of the number one podcasts in the United
Speaker 2: States whenever it comes to news.
Speaker 3: That's how quickly the internet can change things.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying we're anywhere even close to the par
Speaker 2: but I am saying very clearly people are watching us,
Speaker 2: which it's a zero sum game in their opinion, and
Speaker 2: that means that they're not or they're watching the Glenn
Speaker 2: Greenwall Show or the Jimmy Door Show or the Kyle
Speaker 2: Kolinski Show, or the Tim Poole Show, or the Ben
Speaker 2: Shapiro Show, any of our aggregate increases in the audience
Speaker 2: is a huge existential threat.
Speaker 3: To all of them.
Speaker 2: And I think that's a big, big problem for them,
Speaker 2: which they wouldn't be stupid. Let's actually get to Tucker's
Speaker 2: future now. Yeah, after that very interesting debate error around
Speaker 2: Fox News in the future of media. As you can tell,
Speaker 2: there's a lot to say, Well, Fox's competitors, specifically to
Speaker 2: this point, go ahead and put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen.
Speaker 3: Newsmax CEO.
Speaker 2: Sorry, Actually, first of all, in terms of the value
Speaker 2: that it costs Fox six hundred and ninety million dollars
Speaker 2: in value on their stock the very same day, almost
Speaker 2: roughly equivalent to the value of what they had to
Speaker 2: pay out. Now, obviously it's not a realized gain, but
Speaker 2: you know, still it shows you that Fox shareholders are
Speaker 2: not too happy about Tucker's leaving the company, and they're
Speaker 2: specifically looking to the future earnings on their ability to
Speaker 2: make up for it. Second, put this up there, please.
Speaker 2: The Newsmax CEO came out and said, quote, for a while,
Speaker 2: Fox has been moving to become established in media Tucker
Speaker 2: Carlson's removal is a milestone in that effort. Millions of
Speaker 2: viewers who liked Fox News that have made the switch
Speaker 2: to Newsmax, and Tucker's departure will only fuel that. So
Speaker 2: the competitors in the linear format are absolutely pouncing on
Speaker 2: Fox right now. Also in terms of the other people
Speaker 2: who he may work with. By the way, I want
Speaker 2: to be clear, I have no inside knowledge. I have
Speaker 2: not spoken to Tucker Carlson since then. However, I have
Speaker 2: seen a lot of right wing online companies who I
Speaker 2: mentioned previously who are coming out and making it clear
Speaker 2: that they would absolutely be willing to make a deal
Speaker 2: with him if needed. Throw this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: The CEO of The Daily Wire, Jeremy Bori, saying, a
Speaker 2: lot of people are asking if Tucker Carls is coming
Speaker 2: to the Daily Wire. I suspect he already has a plan,
Speaker 2: but we'd break out the big novelty check book for
Speaker 2: him if he doesn't.
Speaker 3: Making it very clear.
Speaker 2: Chris Pavlovski, who's the CEO of Rumble, also put this
Speaker 2: out there. Put the next one up there quote, Cable
Speaker 2: television is now completely controlled speech. Rumble is now the
Speaker 2: only bastion for authentic speech. Don't forget Chris personally made
Speaker 2: that offer of one hundred million dollars to Joe Rogan,
Speaker 2: and you know, I presume that some similar offer absolutely
Speaker 2: could be made there. Again, I don't have any inside
Speaker 2: knowledge here. The next one up here, let's put this
Speaker 2: obviously AA troll one from RT Russian media says, well, Tucker,
Speaker 2: if you need a job, you can come on over
Speaker 2: and work here.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm sure I'll take him, so in that way,
Speaker 4: it's not a trick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess you're right.
Speaker 2: I guess they would take him, you know, have taken
Speaker 2: some other MSNBC personalities and all that.
Speaker 3: Tucker, though, appears to have something in the works.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on his website that he
Speaker 2: has updated since then. He says, text Tucker to figure
Speaker 2: find out what he's up to next. You can sign
Speaker 2: up by a text or email. Yeshar A Lea speculating
Speaker 2: I suspect Tucker already knows exactly what he's going to
Speaker 2: do next.
Speaker 3: We'll see.
Speaker 4: I'm not so sure about that.
Speaker 3: He there's a lot of options, but.
Speaker 2: Really more so, it's like he needs to get paid
Speaker 2: and he needs to get himself out of that non
Speaker 2: compete before it before anything. That's going to be like
Speaker 2: the immediate.
Speaker 4: That'll be the immediate for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if he has plans already
Speaker 1: in the works, but we do know apparently according to
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, which of course is a Murdoch property,
Speaker 1: so you should probably believe they're reporting here, he was
Speaker 1: informed ten minutes before all of us found out, right,
Speaker 1: ten minutes and they all, I mean.
Speaker 4: This is this is what they do.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter how long you've been there, doesn't matter whether
Speaker 1: you've been a good soldier, a bad soldier, or a
Speaker 1: medium soldier.
Speaker 4: Like they will protect.
Speaker 1: Their own brand and they will not give you a
Speaker 1: chance to, you know, God forbid, go on air and
Speaker 1: say something like tweet something before they can put out
Speaker 1: their release and their spin on it, et cetera. So yeah,
Speaker 1: his staff, you know, outside of his EP executive producer
Speaker 1: who also was let go, His staff found out by
Speaker 1: the same news alert that all of us found out,
Speaker 1: which it's.
Speaker 2: A good remind wild all these people. Tucker got paid
Speaker 2: some twenty twenty five million dollars a year. Don Lemon
Speaker 2: was getting paid probably five ten million dollars a year,
Speaker 2: Jake Tapper, all these people, they hold themselves.
Speaker 3: Up as bastions, as independent.
Speaker 2: Guess what, they can fire your ass until yes, I
Speaker 2: mean look at that, really really.
Speaker 3: Understand like they work for somebody.
Speaker 2: And that's why both of us, Crystal, we've had some experiences,
Speaker 2: certainly with being screwed with by executives, bosses and all that,
Speaker 2: we set our business up exactly this way. Like you know,
Speaker 2: you can never be a freeman, never or free what
Speaker 2: you will never be free in your head when you
Speaker 2: have the axe hanging.
Speaker 3: Over you like that.
Speaker 2: He worked there for he worked there since twenty eleven
Speaker 2: as a contributor. I remember him coming back from the office,
Speaker 2: going up there on the weekend to do Fox News,
Speaker 2: Fox and Friends in New York City, shuttling back and forth.
Speaker 3: They treated him well.
Speaker 2: They treat you like a king when you're a king,
Speaker 2: and then they will cut your head off like that
Speaker 2: with no remorse.
Speaker 1: And if you don't think that that does hang over
Speaker 1: all of them and impact the way that they do
Speaker 1: their jobs, you're a fool. Because they all know the
Speaker 1: limits of where they can go and what they can say.
Speaker 1: What's going to rankle management what's going to get them
Speaker 1: in trouble, what's not going to get them in trouble?
Speaker 1: And so that is, I mean, that is a core
Speaker 1: part of how you end up with the like very boring, predictable,
Speaker 1: not good content that you have on cable news.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it gets to look at Brian kill Me.
Speaker 2: Brian kill Meat has worked at this company for what
Speaker 2: well over a decade. He's just Fox and Friends star.
Speaker 2: Look at the hostage fear in his eyes as he
Speaker 2: opens for the Tucker Carlson Show when the boss has
Speaker 2: clearly told him that he had to take over. Very
Speaker 2: bizarre in the way that he opens Tucker's own show
Speaker 2: in that time slot with a less than fifteen second
Speaker 2: passing comment and immediately getting to it.
Speaker 3: Take a listen, Hi, everybody, and welcome to Fox News Tonight.
Speaker 3: I am Brian kill Me. As you probably have heard,
Speaker 3: Fox News and Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 5: I have agreed to part ways.
Speaker 3: I wish Tucker the best. I'm great friends with Tucker
Speaker 3: and always will be.
Speaker 6: But right now it's time for Fox News Tonight.
Speaker 3: So let's get started that quick. That's all it takes.
Speaker 3: You're right to it. You get ten seconds? Yeah, sure
Speaker 3: is definitely for it.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, somebody, you know, they axs you
Speaker 2: and then you go on there and you fill in
Speaker 2: that night. That's a little bit scummy in my opinion.
Speaker 2: But hey, look that's just me talking. It also is
Speaker 2: a real loss, you know, kill Mead look from a
Speaker 2: basic ideological perspective, at least a Tucker Carlson show was
Speaker 2: willing to air some very very dissonant views on the
Speaker 2: war in Ukraine. Brian kill Mead is a warmongering neo
Speaker 2: Kon Reaganite low IQ moron and has been for over
Speaker 2: fifteen years over on Fox and Friends. Some of the
Speaker 2: interviews that he has conducted are genuinely brain dead, and
Speaker 2: it would be a massive loss, all right. Who knows
Speaker 2: in terms of impacting all that, But at the very
Speaker 2: least cultural impact is you're saying, Crystal, to not have
Speaker 2: a single anti or single like a single dissonant voice
Speaker 2: on the Ukraine war, I think is going to be
Speaker 2: Maybe it's better for us, you know, maybe it's better
Speaker 2: to have it all online. I'm not sure, but at
Speaker 2: the very least, like I thought it was making an impact.
Speaker 3: We'll see.
Speaker 2: Also Trump himself also weighed in on the reaction to
Speaker 2: the Tucker Carlson Show or to the Tucker Carlson firing.
Speaker 2: In an exclusive interview over on Newsmax, here's what he
Speaker 2: had to say.
Speaker 7: I don't know if it was voluntary or was it
Speaker 7: somebody fired, But I think Tucker's been terrific. He's been
Speaker 7: especially over the last year or so, he's been terrific.
Speaker 8: To me.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of turmoil over there at Fox.
Speaker 7: I mean, seventy eighty seven, they just paid.
Speaker 5: Why would they get rid of a guy who's performing.
Speaker 6: Why would somebody do that to their business because they're
Speaker 6: losing money right now.
Speaker 5: Their socker's gone down.
Speaker 7: Well, I was surprised that they made a settlement in
Speaker 7: that case.
Speaker 2: I thought that was a case that.
Speaker 7: Should easily be won, and they made a settlement. Look,
Speaker 7: you'll have to ask them. I'm not representing them at
Speaker 7: all by any means. But the Tucker situation, again, you
Speaker 7: didn't know.
Speaker 5: If it's a firing.
Speaker 7: Maybe he left because he wasn't being given a free
Speaker 7: rein he wants free rain. Maybe, but I was surprised.
Speaker 3: By what did you make of that, Crystal?
Speaker 2: It was interesting to watch him couch his words because
Speaker 2: Trump both wants to hit fox Es, but he also.
Speaker 4: Wants wants to keep them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he felt like he was walking a very careful
Speaker 1: line there and by the time, but also his whole like, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't know whether he was fired or whether he
Speaker 1: walked away.
Speaker 4: By the time that.
Speaker 1: He was recording this interview, we knew damn well that
Speaker 1: he had definitely been fired. So yeah, he's very carefully
Speaker 1: choosing his words there. Also, that was on Newsmax with
Speaker 1: Greg Kelly, who I think is their highest rated program
Speaker 1: or one of their higher rated programs.
Speaker 4: But they're trying to make the most of this.
Speaker 1: But I do think it's important to put in perspective
Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons where Newsmax actually actually stands.
Speaker 1: At this point in the demo, they're getting like nine, ten,
Speaker 1: eleven thousand viewers, So it's kind of astonishing that Fox
Speaker 1: considered them such a threat that they were willing, they
Speaker 1: were freaking out internally, and they were shifting their approach
Speaker 1: to how they were going to handle like these you know,
Speaker 1: stupid stop the Steel election claims all for this network
Speaker 1: that now gets like ten thousand people in the demo.
Speaker 4: But again, it.
Speaker 1: Shows you how precarious they think themselves to be, and
Speaker 1: in a sense, they're really not wrong.
Speaker 4: They're really not wrong.
Speaker 3: Oh I think you're right.
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, ten to fifteen thousand can start out small,
Speaker 2: but then it can snowball. It was I think, I
Speaker 2: believe Chrystal during the election in November of twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Wasn't it like twenty five or fifty thousand. That's quite
Speaker 2: slow for them.
Speaker 4: Yes, so they during that stopped the steel part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they did search there you go, and.
Speaker 1: There was you know, a more sizeable audience that was
Speaker 1: tuning in there, maybe even as many as one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand in the demo. I'd have to go look back
Speaker 1: and look back at it specifically. And Fox of course
Speaker 1: was seeing their ratings collapse. So that's what fed into
Speaker 1: their sense of like, oh my god, this could really
Speaker 1: be the end for us, and people could change their
Speaker 1: viewing habits, and you know, I think it also was
Speaker 1: a wake up call for them in terms of how
Speaker 1: much control they had over their audience and their position
Speaker 1: there is dramatically weakened. You only have to look at
Speaker 1: the Republican primary polls of how much Trump is dominating.
Speaker 1: When they went all in effectively for DeSantis, and Murdoch
Speaker 1: is pushing for DeSantis and obviously their their audience as
Speaker 1: a mind of their own. So even though now Newsmax
Speaker 1: and One America have fallen back to quite low ratings,
Speaker 1: especially in that key demographic, which, by the way, for
Speaker 1: cable news is the only demographic that matters for advertisers,
Speaker 1: et cetera, even though they have fallen back to those
Speaker 1: small numbers, it does show you that you know, there
Speaker 1: are alternatives.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: The whole reason that Fox built the juggernaut is because
Speaker 1: they were effectively a monopoly and the only game in town,
Speaker 1: and that is simply not the case anymore. I think
Speaker 1: zooming out from Fox, looking at the whole cable news
Speaker 1: landscape which we're about to transition to CNN, you're going
Speaker 1: to see it be less about these individual stars and
Speaker 1: more about just the sort of like standard issue replaceable whoever,
Speaker 1: because if you are a genuine star who can drawn audience,
Speaker 1: you just don't need these platforms. And having your freedom,
Speaker 1: you know, impinged in that way, and having a boss
Speaker 1: over your head who can cut you loose at anytime,
Speaker 1: you know it's worth even if you take a hit
Speaker 1: on cultural relevance. Even if you take somewhat of a
Speaker 1: hit monetarily, it's worth it in some instances not to
Speaker 1: have that axe hanging over your head. So I think
Speaker 1: the era of the sort of like gigantic cable news star.
Speaker 1: I really think that that's probably coming to an end.
Speaker 5: Listen.
Speaker 3: I can only hope that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: That's definitely a good thing. All right, So let's talk
Speaker 1: about CNN. Minutes after we finished recording, are like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, Tucker Carlson's been fired segment yesterday, we get
Speaker 1: the note of that, oh my god, Don Lemon is
Speaker 1: actually on at CNN. That, as we discuss at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the show, is why Sager is wearing this
Speaker 1: absolutely ridiculous outfit.
Speaker 3: Look at this. This is not meant to be done
Speaker 3: with people. It's not never meant to be done.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. It genuinely looks terrible. So what's
Speaker 1: interesting is even on the way out, it was kind
Speaker 1: of ugly and messy over at CNN. So Don Lemon
Speaker 1: put out a statement that was complaining that after all
Speaker 1: these years of service at CNN, that they didn't tell
Speaker 1: him personally, that they told him through an agent CNN
Speaker 1: did not appreciate this tweet that he put out, and
Speaker 1: so they put out their own comments here put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. So initially, if you look at
Speaker 1: the bottom, this is what they put on initially Initially,
Speaker 1: is this very diplomatic. CNN and Don have parted ways.
Speaker 1: Don will forever be a part of the CNN family.
Speaker 1: We thank him for his contributions over the past seventeen years.
Speaker 1: We wish him well, and we'll be cheering him on
Speaker 1: in his future endeavors. Then after he puts out his
Speaker 1: like Caddie aggrieved statement, then they come back with Don
Speaker 1: Lemon's statement about this morning's events is inaccurate. He was
Speaker 1: offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released
Speaker 1: a statement on Twitter. We also have some reporting about
Speaker 1: exactly what went down with Don Lemon, and some of
Speaker 1: this has been visible for anyone who has been watching
Speaker 1: their poorly rated Terrible Morning show, which is that his
Speaker 1: female co host, Caitlin Collinson Poppy Harlowe hate his guts,
Speaker 1: and for good reason, because he doesn't know how to
Speaker 1: play well with others. Look, it is a very different
Speaker 1: deal when you have your own show and you can
Speaker 1: do with it what you want, and you can take
Speaker 1: up as much space and as much airtime as you want.
Speaker 1: But as someone who has co hosted with a lot
Speaker 1: of people, not all of whom are as wonderful to
Speaker 1: work with as Saga, if you have someone in that
Speaker 1: role who wants to hog up all the space and
Speaker 1: not let anyone else in, it becomes a very tense
Speaker 1: situation amongst the co host and it becomes very tense
Speaker 1: for the audience to watch because they can feel.
Speaker 4: That that friction and that tension.
Speaker 1: Who wants to like start their day with this weird
Speaker 1: underlying psychodrama that's going on, So apparently it's put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. For The New York Times, they
Speaker 1: had some reporting about exactly what was going on behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. They say Don Lemon ousted from CNN in
Speaker 1: move that left him stun Hours before those dueling statements,
Speaker 1: he was on air in his usual anchor chair. He
Speaker 1: showed no signs of knowing what was about to happen.
Speaker 1: The end, he signed off to viewers with a smile
Speaker 1: and friendly by everybody. But they said in recent weeks,
Speaker 1: CNN's bookers had discovered some guests didn't want to be
Speaker 1: on the air with mister Lemon. Research on the Morning
Speaker 1: Show reviewed by CNN executives found his popularity with audiences
Speaker 1: had fallen, and on Wednesday, he made headlines again after
Speaker 1: a highly contentious on air exchange with Vivek Ramaswami, a
Speaker 1: Republican residential candate segment.
Speaker 4: Deteriorated as the men fiercely debated.
Speaker 1: Questions have black history in the Second Amendment. Mister Lemon's
Speaker 1: co anchor, Miss Harlowe, could be seen sitting silently beside him,
Speaker 1: at times, casting her gaze elsewhere and scrolling through her smartphone.
Speaker 4: I want to show you, guys a little.
Speaker 3: Bit of this.
Speaker 1: They go on to say that that incident left several
Speaker 1: CNN leaders exasperated.
Speaker 4: I want to show you a little bit of this incident.
Speaker 1: Not because of the content of the debate, which in
Speaker 1: my opinion, both of them lost for various reasons, but
Speaker 1: because you can see on Poppy Harlow's face and her
Speaker 1: body language and what she is doing there, just how
Speaker 1: much she hates the situation she's in.
Speaker 4: Take a look at a bit of this A.
Speaker 9: The way, please, I cannot keep a thought if you
Speaker 9: guys are talking to me my ear, so hang on
Speaker 9: one second, so to say that that black people would
Speaker 9: say what you said again.
Speaker 3: Historical fact, but notical.
Speaker 5: The part that I find is you say it's historical.
Speaker 9: Part part that I find insulting that you're regarding you
Speaker 9: here as a fellow citizen.
Speaker 5: You're starting to.
Speaker 9: Hear whatever ethnicity you are explaining.
Speaker 3: To me, continuing that conversation.
Speaker 9: Well, thank you the conversation.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Thank.
Speaker 5: You, Papa.
Speaker 4: We'll talk about China, yes, chime you come back.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you much to say on declaring independence from China.
Speaker 3: So you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, her face if you're just listening, stone face
Speaker 1: the whole time, she looks. I mean, I honestly have
Speaker 1: been in that situation. I know exactly what it feels like.
Speaker 1: When she had prepared for the segment too, she had
Speaker 1: things that she was something she wanted to tell its
Speaker 1: presential contender. Clearly she wanted to talk to him about China,
Speaker 1: which he has made some really you know, aggressive and
Speaker 1: kind of out there statements that you could you could
Speaker 1: go back and forth and have an interesting exchange on,
Speaker 1: and instead Don Lemon decides he's going to take up
Speaker 1: the entire time with this weird debate that they this
Speaker 1: weird like esoteric historic debate and what ultimately made for
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable and not good television.
Speaker 4: If it was just that exchange, I'm.
Speaker 1: Sure no big deal because everybody oversteps somebody. It's it's
Speaker 1: a little you know, delicate dance you're doing with your
Speaker 1: co hosts, et cetera. But there have been so many
Speaker 1: visible incidents, let alone what we don't know behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: and clearly they decided this man is getting paid a
Speaker 1: lot of money, and the guests don't like him, the
Speaker 1: audience doesn't like him, his co hosts don't like him,
Speaker 1: Like this is supposed to be Chris Lick's new flagship show.
Speaker 4: What are we doing here?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just psycho because you know, when you
Speaker 2: respect somebody, It's like Chris, when we interview people and
Speaker 2: you want to ask a question, I'll look at you
Speaker 2: and be like you want to like, okay, cool, you know,
Speaker 2: saying vice versa. I'll be like, hey, I have a
Speaker 2: follow up, like put a finger up or something like that.
Speaker 2: Both have things. We'll even talk about it a little
Speaker 2: bit before. This man has no respect for his co os,
Speaker 2: and I honestly, I am going to and look, you know,
Speaker 2: I am not this guy. I don't think he respects women.
Speaker 2: I like, from the takeaway of the tech, that crazy
Speaker 2: text message scenario whenever he was texting fifteen years ago
Speaker 2: off a burner phone, basically like weird threatening messages because
Speaker 2: he didn't.
Speaker 3: Get a job.
Speaker 2: Clearly coupled with the past your prime comments on top,
Speaker 2: he's not only a crea madonna. I think he is
Speaker 2: such like an insane misogynist narcissist. And it takes a
Speaker 2: lot for me to say that, but like I've seen
Speaker 2: it enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I've seen it enough.
Speaker 1: Having a little bit of inside CNN knowledge, I think
Speaker 1: your comments fit with some of the things that I
Speaker 1: have heard behind the scenes. But I think all of
Speaker 1: his I think everybody that worked with him couldn't stand him.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why the knives came out for him
Speaker 1: the minute that he was vulnerable here and again, look,
Speaker 1: there's another thing to say about this, which is Chrislick
Speaker 1: comes into CNN, he's supposed to be turning around the network.
Speaker 1: He's supposed to be, you know, ushering in a new era.
Speaker 1: Going back to the basics of what made CNN Great,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. It is the most basic understanding
Speaker 1: of how to create television, and especially how to create
Speaker 1: a morning show that people are going to watch. You
Speaker 1: have to think about who you're putting together and whether
Speaker 1: they have keme. You can't just slap random three anchors
Speaker 1: together who may or may not be on their own
Speaker 1: and think it's just going to.
Speaker 4: Gel and work.
Speaker 1: It is actually rare to have a situation where you
Speaker 1: have chemistry with someone, where you have that give and take,
Speaker 1: where it is comfortable, where you have that good working relationship,
Speaker 1: where you can disagree at times and debate at times,
Speaker 1: and you know how to hand off the ball, and
Speaker 1: all of those things are not a guarantee, far from it.
Speaker 1: So I also want to say, you know, Don Lemon
Speaker 1: is Don Lemon, and it was no surprise who this
Speaker 1: man was before you put him in the slot. It's
Speaker 1: humiliating for Chris Lipt that this this is the morning
Speaker 1: show thing was supposed to be like what he does,
Speaker 1: This was supposed to be his specialty. This was his
Speaker 1: big flagship ship effort as he took over in the network,
Speaker 1: to put his imprint on it. And it just is
Speaker 1: a complete visible catastrophe, and you know, to get back
Speaker 1: to like the tension between that was obvious between Don
Speaker 1: Lemon and his misogyny and Soger points out towards women.
Speaker 1: What sort of set off this whole chain of events
Speaker 1: that ends up with him being fired is his comments
Speaker 1: about Nicki Haley and whether or not she's in her prime.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to a bit of that this troll.
Speaker 9: We'll talk about age to be uncomfortable. I think that
Speaker 9: I think it's the wrong road to go down. She
Speaker 9: says people, you know, politicians or something and not in
Speaker 9: their prime. Nicki Haley isn't in a prime. Sorry, when
Speaker 9: a woman is considered being in our prime in her
Speaker 9: twenties and thirties and maybe forty, that's not according to me.
Speaker 5: For what it depends, And it's just like prime.
Speaker 9: If you look it up, it'll if you if you
Speaker 9: google when does a woman in a prime? It'll say twenties,
Speaker 9: thirties and forties forties. So I got another So I
Speaker 9: agree with that. So I think she has to be
Speaker 9: careful about saying that, you know, politicians aren't.
Speaker 10: In their prime?
Speaker 4: Are you talking about prime for like child or.
Speaker 5: In facts? Are Google and everybody at home. When is
Speaker 5: a woman in a prime?
Speaker 9: It says twenties, thirties and forties. And I'm just saying,
Speaker 9: Nicki Haley should be careful about saying that politicians are
Speaker 9: not in their prime and they need to be in
Speaker 9: their prime when they serve, because she wouldn't be in
Speaker 9: a prime according to Google, Google or.
Speaker 10: Whatever it is.
Speaker 4: And there were other incidents where.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel so bad for her. Apparently, you know,
Speaker 3: she stormed off.
Speaker 2: She was crying afterwards, like what's wrong with you, dude, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, from a very basic level, even if you
Speaker 2: believe it, why would you say that to somebody right
Speaker 2: to her faith? Her ass is getting up at four
Speaker 2: point thirty in the morning. I don't know if she
Speaker 2: has kids or not. That ain't a fun life, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like and then basically saying that like she's like
Speaker 2: wasting her life or whatever like that to her, it's
Speaker 2: just really gross.
Speaker 4: It is gross.
Speaker 1: And there was another Remember there was another really visible
Speaker 1: incident where again Don Lemon is acting like this is his.
Speaker 3: Show alone, Yeah yeah, and talking over.
Speaker 1: Caitlyn is trying to get in and just to like
Speaker 1: contribute to I think we're like talking about Biden was
Speaker 1: getting off an airplane or something, and Caitlyn covered the
Speaker 1: White House, so she felt like, Okay, this is my
Speaker 1: time to jump in and sort of commentate this and
Speaker 1: do this thing. And Don got so irritated with her
Speaker 1: that she was even trying to be in this segment
Speaker 1: at all. And apparently there was some ugly scene after
Speaker 1: the fact that many people were witnessed to. So in
Speaker 1: any case, the math here just didn't make sense. At
Speaker 1: the end of the day, whatever, I'm sure they'll probably
Speaker 1: have to pay him out some settlement as well, pay
Speaker 1: out his contract whatever.
Speaker 4: He probably just a new deal when.
Speaker 1: He got put on this morning show, so I wouldn't
Speaker 1: doubt that he has a number of years left on
Speaker 1: his contract. But they just looked at the math and
Speaker 1: they were like, what are we getting out of this situation?
Speaker 4: I already hates this dude. His female co hosts definitely
Speaker 4: hate this dude.
Speaker 1: The show was getting terrible ratings. Why are we going
Speaker 1: forward with this? And so at the you know, once
Speaker 1: they got this research back, apparently that was like the
Speaker 1: audience doesn't like him, the guests don't like him, his
Speaker 1: coworkers nowhere like him, his co hosts don't like him.
Speaker 4: They're like, all right, we're done here.
Speaker 3: Well, good ridding, Stan. I hope they don't pay him.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, here was the only thing I enjoyed.
Speaker 2: He was second rate news. Even on the day of
Speaker 2: his firing, he wasn't at the top of I checked
Speaker 2: all the major outlets.
Speaker 3: You would have been at one point, would have.
Speaker 2: Been the front page because Tucker was a bigger story.
Speaker 2: It was everywhere, even in terms of our own viewers.
Speaker 2: Our viewers cared much more about Tucker than Don Lemon.
Speaker 2: I see it everywhere Sonner number two, even on his
Speaker 2: way out, I can.
Speaker 4: Imagine him having a second act.
Speaker 1: I could if he goes, if he goes back to
Speaker 1: remember how he used to do during the Obama era,
Speaker 1: all that like like black respectability, like pull up your
Speaker 1: pants and all that stuff. If he leaned into that
Speaker 1: sort of like you know, conservative respectability politics, I could
Speaker 1: see him having a second US.
Speaker 3: It's possible.
Speaker 2: You said, Crystal that it was the prime video. I
Speaker 2: think it's the hoodie What did it?
Speaker 3: That was it? That was the end committee. That's what
Speaker 3: put him over the edge.
Speaker 4: That could be all right, So it is put up
Speaker 4: or shut up?
Speaker 1: Time in terms of Republicans and debt sealing negotiations. Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy offered a bill, but there's a real open question
Speaker 1: whether he can get his own caucus to go along
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 4: Remember, he can only lose five votes, well really four votes.
Speaker 4: Once he loses the fifth, that's it. It's over.
Speaker 1: And he is facing challenges on both ends of the
Speaker 1: ideological spectrum.
Speaker 4: He's got moderates who are leaning no.
Speaker 1: He's got sort of like House Freedom Caucus right wing
Speaker 1: people who are leaning no. So we'll see how this
Speaker 1: all works out. Let's go and put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. It's from Jake Sherman. A little bit of
Speaker 1: detail about where things stand. They say the GOP whip
Speaker 1: team works through on the weekend to shore up the
Speaker 1: vote count on their debt limit bill. House Freedom Caucus,
Speaker 1: that's HFC pushing for work requirements to kick in in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four instead of twenty twenty five, so they
Speaker 1: have some disputes with how this is all going to
Speaker 1: work out. They also want to up the hours for
Speaker 1: work requirements to Leadership is not interested in either.
Speaker 4: Number two.
Speaker 1: He also says that Dems seem to be trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what McCarthy is up to, but it's quite
Speaker 1: simply he wants a negotiation with Biden's ultimate goal of
Speaker 1: spending reductions work requirements in permitting reform. They also go
Speaker 1: on to say here that House Rules will take up
Speaker 1: the bill sometime today, likely around four pm. Goal is
Speaker 1: to get a vote by Wednesday, but that easily could slip.
Speaker 1: But those next peece up on the screen from NBC News.
Speaker 1: This gives a little bit of the sense of who
Speaker 1: exactly are the holdouts. They say McCarthy faces his first
Speaker 1: big test as speaker, diffusing a debt sealing time bomb.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's a debt sealing time bomb of his
Speaker 1: own making, but put that aside, five Republican no votes
Speaker 1: would derail the macarth the debt bill. Democrats will all
Speaker 1: be opposed to it. Several of the twenty hard right
Speaker 1: conservatives who initially blocked McCarthy from winning the speakership three
Speaker 1: months ago have threatened to vote no this week. To
Speaker 1: give you a sense of some of the things that
Speaker 1: they're concerned about, you've got former Freedom Caucus chair Andy
Speaker 1: Biggs saying that he told the gop Whip team he's
Speaker 1: leaning no over its main provision, which is lifting the
Speaker 1: debt sailing by one point five trillion dollars. You know,
Speaker 1: some of these people say they won't vote for any
Speaker 1: debt seiling increase.
Speaker 4: Which I don't know how you work with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good luck.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Matt Gates has demanded quote more rigor on work requirements
Speaker 1: and recipients of Medicaid and other safety net programs. Victoria's Sparks,
Speaker 1: another House Freedom Caucus type, went back and forth on
Speaker 1: supporting McCarthy. For Speakers, said she's also undecided, arguing if
Speaker 1: her party wants to target the poor, it should also
Speaker 1: challenge the rich monopolist. Okay, fair enough, I like that one. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: centrist or swing district Republicans like Representatives Tony Gonzalees of
Speaker 1: Texas and Nancy Maace of South Carolina also are withholding support.
Speaker 1: Mace said she is leaning no because the bill doesn't
Speaker 1: balance the budget and could harm green energy business.
Speaker 4: In her state.
Speaker 1: That is I think a key piece here because within
Speaker 1: this bill, all of the various cuts that are going
Speaker 1: to be contemplated, there are going to be some districts
Speaker 1: that benefit from the green energy credits. There are I
Speaker 1: was just reading a report yesterday about how breadlines are
Speaker 1: expanding and need for food aid is actually massively increasing
Speaker 1: due to inflation across the country. And it's at this
Speaker 1: very moment that you want to cut snap food stamp benefits,
Speaker 1: You're going to have centrists who are concerned about that.
Speaker 1: So I don't know whether he's going to be able
Speaker 1: to pull this one off or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's going to be really tough now
Speaker 2: as I understand it. The way that the White House
Speaker 2: and the Senate Dems are basically doing is they're holding
Speaker 2: their breath. If McCarthy can pass the bill, then he's
Speaker 2: a serious negotiator.
Speaker 3: Yeah. If he doesn't, all eyes are going to be
Speaker 3: in the Senate.
Speaker 2: So effectively, what I understand is that the very first
Speaker 2: bill passed by the House of Representatives was that repeal
Speaker 2: of the IRS to the IRS budget increase. That's called
Speaker 2: a revenue vehicle. Revenue vehicles all have to originate in
Speaker 2: the House of Representatives because of the Constitution. That's the
Speaker 2: only revenue vehicle bill that's been sent over to the Senate.
Speaker 2: The Senate is sitting on that bill. The reason why
Speaker 2: is they can now amend that to include the debt
Speaker 2: ceiling if they want to. So basically everyone is waiting
Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer and McConnell. If mcarthy can pass the bill, okay,
Speaker 2: then we're not going to be using this. Otherwise McConnell
Speaker 2: will then probably step in. They will negotiate whatever the
Speaker 2: debt ceiling is. Biden will get involved with those two.
Speaker 3: It will pass the Senate kick to the House. Then
Speaker 3: it's a game of chicken.
Speaker 2: Does McCarthy let it come up to the floor for
Speaker 2: a vote. Do the Dems use it as a discharge
Speaker 2: petition and get it to the floor anyways and maybe
Speaker 2: get ten Republicans to vote for them. It comes down
Speaker 2: to some really crazy, high stakes chicken negotiation, but in
Speaker 2: my opinion, it's probably the most likely.
Speaker 3: I don't think you can pass a stamp bill. What
Speaker 3: do you think?
Speaker 2: I don't see when you got Nancy Mace over here
Speaker 2: saying I don't want to cut green energy jobs because
Speaker 2: we're talking about a billion dollars in stuff used GOP
Speaker 2: districts in many cases, and then you got somebody over
Speaker 2: hear says I don't want to raise the destining at all.
Speaker 3: How are you going to get nine votes to agree
Speaker 3: to agree to those.
Speaker 1: And none of these people care about like the good
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party. They're looking out for their own
Speaker 1: personal interests in their own very different districts. Yes, so
Speaker 1: for a Matt Gates, it makes all the political sense
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 4: And he has gone a long way.
Speaker 1: He's the reason we know his name from being a
Speaker 1: hard hard line, you know, being difficult, like causing problems
Speaker 1: for Republican leadership, taking the furthest fringe.
Speaker 4: That is really good for him in terms.
Speaker 1: Of his politics and his desire to be on cable
Speaker 1: news and his desire to fundraise or whatever it is
Speaker 1: he wants to do. And if you're Nancy Mace or
Speaker 1: one of these New York Republicans who are representing Biden districts, well,
Speaker 1: guess what benefits you. You have to be able to
Speaker 1: go and say to your constituents, Look, I'm not like
Speaker 1: these other hardline Republicans. I'm different. I'm reasonable. I you know,
Speaker 1: pushed back when they wanted me to go along with
Speaker 1: all of these cuts that would have heard our district.
Speaker 1: So each of them looking out for the individual interest
Speaker 1: makes it very difficult an they're holdout, by the way,
Speaker 1: is George Santos who represents one of these more moderate
Speaker 1: New York districts, and I mean also is very likely
Speaker 1: to lose because of all of the other George Santos
Speaker 1: things that we know about. But he's another one that
Speaker 1: told I think it was the have an impost that
Speaker 1: he right now is a no. I'm not sure exactly
Speaker 1: what his reasoning is, but it just shows you all
Speaker 1: of the balls that McCarthy has to juggle and all
Speaker 1: of the competing interests that it's just impossible to get.
Speaker 4: Them to align.
Speaker 1: The only way I think he gets this through is
Speaker 1: if the Caucus really does believe that it will be
Speaker 1: sort of humiliating for Republicans as a whole and really
Speaker 1: damaging to their prospects of doing anything if they don't
Speaker 1: pass this particular bill. But again, when you have individual
Speaker 1: self interest competing with the good of the party, guess
Speaker 1: what's very likely to win out in the end. And
Speaker 1: that's clearly what the White House is betting on. At
Speaker 1: the same time, you do have Wall Street starting to
Speaker 1: kind of break down a little bit. You'll recall Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy made what I thought was kind of a weird
Speaker 1: trip to Wall Street, gave a speech to the New
Speaker 1: York Stock Exchange went on CNBC to try to convince them, like, hey,
Speaker 1: y'all should really be on my side, and they're like,
Speaker 1: we're interested in making money and you're holding the entire
Speaker 1: economy and market hostage.
Speaker 4: We are not on your side.
Speaker 1: But this next vis up on the screen from Politico,
Speaker 1: they say, nobody knows when it's going to happen.
Speaker 4: Wall Street wakes up to default threat.
Speaker 1: The government has until the summer to strike a deal,
Speaker 1: so there are some sort of under the radar signs
Speaker 1: that Wall Street is beginning to really get serious about
Speaker 1: this threat. They quote the chief political economist at Goldman
Speaker 1: Sachs saying, there's this few in DC that the market
Speaker 1: isn't freaking out enough. And that may be true to
Speaker 1: an extent, but I'm dealing almost exclusively with this issue
Speaker 1: the last few weeks, and there's actually more concern now
Speaker 1: than even back in twenty eleven, which is the last
Speaker 1: time that this all really happened, when SMP downgraded US
Speaker 1: debt during a similar standoff. It's just that nobody knows
Speaker 1: when it's going to happen or what to do about it.
Speaker 1: They also point to the shift from general nonchalance to
Speaker 1: rising concern can be seen in an obscure corner of
Speaker 1: the market, the soaring cost of ensuring against exposure to
Speaker 1: US debt through instruments called credit default swaps. The cost
Speaker 1: of ensuring against the US default rose to its highest
Speaker 1: level in over a decade after JP Morgan analysts said
Speaker 1: there was a non trivial risk of at least a
Speaker 1: technical default on the government's debt. And you have a
Speaker 1: bunch of quotes in this article from various Wall Street
Speaker 1: analyst types.
Speaker 9: You had.
Speaker 1: City CEO Jane Fraser said her bank believes it's quote
Speaker 1: now more likely that the US will enter into a
Speaker 1: shallow recession later this year. The biggest unknown, she told
Speaker 1: analysts on the bank's recent earnings call, is how the
Speaker 1: debt ceiling plays out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is where all eyes are. As
Speaker 2: you said, Look, Wall Street doesn't care. They don't give
Speaker 2: a damn whether you increase spending or decrease spending. All
Speaker 2: they care about is are the interest rates going to
Speaker 2: stay flat? And are you not going to screw with
Speaker 2: what's going on in the markets. And no matter which
Speaker 2: way it goes, brinksmanship and default is bad for the
Speaker 2: overall US economy, which would basically crash the stock market
Speaker 2: and cause them a bunch of headaches. Once again, they
Speaker 2: literally do not care whatsoever as long as you don't
Speaker 2: raise taxes on them. They'll be like, listen, you do
Speaker 2: whatever you want. So McCarthy's gamble was kind of foolish
Speaker 2: from the beginning. He was trying to calm markets with
Speaker 2: the idea that listen, any brinksmanship is going to invite
Speaker 2: a massive market reaction, doesn't matter whether they think you're
Speaker 2: a serious guy or not. Now again, we comes back
Speaker 2: to this question, can he pass it or not. If
Speaker 2: he can't pass it, it's going to the Senate, and
Speaker 2: then we're looking at some wild eleventh hour votes in
Speaker 2: the House of Representatives, maybe till three in the morning
Speaker 2: or whatever, where we technically breach, but don't breach.
Speaker 3: Let's all just try and avoid that if possible.
Speaker 2: But I honestly, I don't know, you know, looking at
Speaker 2: the situation, it looks bad.
Speaker 3: It really does look bad.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I don't need to underscore for people
Speaker 1: that the economy is already in a very precarious position,
Speaker 1: that people wages are getting eaten up by inflation, that
Speaker 1: the Fed's continued interest rate hiking has been a real
Speaker 1: problem for ordinary people, and you know, their day to
Speaker 1: day life economic anxiety already very high, a lot of
Speaker 1: concerns about a you know, some type of recession, deep shallow,
Speaker 1: who knows, And so into that mix of tons of
Speaker 1: uncertainty and economic challenges, you're going to hold the whole
Speaker 1: global economy hostage to get some work requirements on SNAP
Speaker 1: and on Medicaid, Like, come on, you think the American
Speaker 1: people are going to be on your side and you
Speaker 1: think Wall Street's going to be on your side on that?
Speaker 4: Not a chance.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, with McCarthy, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is the deal with the devil he made in order
Speaker 1: to ascend to the speakership, and so if he doesn't,
Speaker 1: this is also his speakership on the line right here.
Speaker 1: So you know, he he's doing what he told the
Speaker 1: House Freedom Caucus and the whole downs that he would
Speaker 1: do ultimately, and we'll see if he survives this, We'll
Speaker 1: see if the economy survives this, will see how this
Speaker 1: all works out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, good luck to him. I certainly
Speaker 2: think that he's going to need it. And it fits
Speaker 2: very well actually with President Biden. And his announcement for
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: Yes, so we told you yesterday.
Speaker 1: It looked like Biden was going to announce officially for
Speaker 1: his reelection today, and he did in fact do that
Speaker 1: with what they're describing as a soft launch, putting out
Speaker 1: a video here announcing he is in fact running for reelection.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 10: Freedom. Personal freedom is fundamentally who are as Americans. There's
Speaker 10: nothing more important, nothing more sacred.
Speaker 5: That's been the work of my first term to fight
Speaker 5: for our.
Speaker 10: Democracy, be sure to be a greater volution, to protect
Speaker 10: our rights, to make sure that everyone in this country
Speaker 10: is treated equally and that everyone is given a fair
Speaker 10: shot at making. But you know, around the country, Maggie,
Speaker 10: extremists are lying enough to take on those bedrock freedoms,
Speaker 10: cutting Social Security that you paid for your entire life,
Speaker 10: while cutting taxes from the very wealthy, dictating what healthcare
Speaker 10: decisions women can.
Speaker 8: Make, banning books, and telling people who they can love.
Speaker 10: All I making is more difficult for you to be
Speaker 10: able to vote. When I ran for president four years ago,
Speaker 10: i said, we're in a battle for the soul of America.
Speaker 5: And we still are.
Speaker 10: The question fors pation is whether in the years ahead
Speaker 10: we have more freedom or less freedom, more rates or fewer.
Speaker 10: I know what I want to ask them to band.
Speaker 5: I think you do too.
Speaker 10: This is not a time to be complacent. That's why
Speaker 10: I'm running for re election because I know America. I
Speaker 10: know we're good and decent people. I know we're still
Speaker 10: come to the beliefs in honesty and respect and treating
Speaker 10: each other with dignity. That were a nation where we
Speaker 10: give hate, no safe hardware. We believe that everyone is equal,
Speaker 10: that everyone should be given a fair shallenge to succeed.
Speaker 2: In this country.
Speaker 10: Every generation of America is it's faced the moment when
Speaker 10: they have to defend democracy, stand up for a personal freedom,
Speaker 10: stand up for the right to vote, in our civil rights.
Speaker 10: And this is our moment.
Speaker 8: So if you're with me, how Joe Biden not classic,
Speaker 8: Let's phantasy this job. I know we can't because this
Speaker 8: is the United Space of her Here's nothing else.
Speaker 5: Nothing we cannot do for.
Speaker 4: Let's finish the job sold America that stuff. Let me.
Speaker 1: I have a lot to say about this. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, do I think it's a good and clever
Speaker 1: srategic ad?
Speaker 4: Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: This is all of the points that were effective for
Speaker 1: Democrats leading into the midterms. January sixth, Abortion extremism, protecting
Speaker 1: social Security and Medicare on the merits number one. None
Speaker 1: of these things are issues that you're actually pushing forward,
Speaker 1: like you're literally just saying, I'm going to protect the
Speaker 1: status quo. Not even because it's not like he protected
Speaker 1: abortion rights. It's just I'm going to make sure that
Speaker 1: the Republicans don't roll them back even further. It's not
Speaker 1: like they passed voting rights legislation. It's just, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be here as a bulwark against the
Speaker 1: right on doing whatever they're going to do with regards
Speaker 1: to that. It's not I'm going to expand Social Security Medicare.
Speaker 1: It's just I'm going to make sure that they don't
Speaker 1: come in here and change it. So it is a
Speaker 1: status quo message where they are explicitly banking on that.
Speaker 1: The Republican agenda and Donald Trump very likely being the
Speaker 1: nominee is so distasteful that the American people will accept,
Speaker 1: let's just not have things get any worse.
Speaker 4: That's the core of what this campaign pitch is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think it's pathetic on several levels. So
Speaker 2: I also think it's smart. So is that possible to
Speaker 2: say that on the merits pathetic? Right here, we have
Speaker 2: a sitting president of the United States or the greatest
Speaker 2: bully pulpit known to the history of man, who could
Speaker 2: throw a massive Well, I guess theoretically should be able
Speaker 2: to throw a massive rally, a titanic speech, a video,
Speaker 2: kick it off, have some energy, have some people, thousands.
Speaker 3: Of people who are there, people who are excited.
Speaker 2: He releases a Twitter video at six am in the morning. Okay,
Speaker 2: to guess to lead the news. You know he succeeded.
Speaker 2: We are certainly covering it here. But also what Chrystal,
Speaker 2: He's going to immediately to a donor event.
Speaker 3: He's not doing anything.
Speaker 2: Now, look again, I want to say I think it's smart,
Speaker 2: and I think the reason why is Republican repealing of
Speaker 2: abortion is so unpopular. All you have to do is
Speaker 2: say I won't let that happen, or at least it's
Speaker 2: not going to happen under my watch. He hasn't promised
Speaker 2: us anything, so he almost can't fail. It's actually very
Speaker 2: difficult to fail. I won't touch your social security I'm
Speaker 2: not going to do anything it in the future or anything.
Speaker 2: But you know, also, I just won't touch it. There
Speaker 2: is a reason that he led and I also think
Speaker 2: it was brilliant framing personal freedom.
Speaker 3: This is what people understand.
Speaker 2: Americans are freedom loving people, regardless of what a lot
Speaker 2: of people think. One of the most salient messages on
Speaker 2: abortion is really, I don't like being told what to do,
Speaker 2: and if you really think about so many methods of politics,
Speaker 2: this comes back to wokeism too.
Speaker 3: A lot of people are like, yeah, you're not going.
Speaker 2: To tell me to not say Latino, Like, it's just
Speaker 2: not going to happen, especially when I'm Latino. You're not
Speaker 2: going to tell me which in how I get to speak,
Speaker 2: or that my grandfather's a racist because he speaks in
Speaker 2: a way that they used to in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: Like it's you're not going to sit here and dictate
Speaker 2: the way I live my life. That also transfers well
Speaker 2: over to the abortion conversation. That's where a lot of
Speaker 2: Americans are specifically in a much more secular country than
Speaker 2: we had lived in even twenty years ago, let alone
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three or whatever. Whenever Roe versus Weighed was
Speaker 2: originally passed, so I thought it was smart framing and
Speaker 2: then immediately pivot from that to social security. Here the
Speaker 2: other smart thing he didn't mention COVID. Most people are
Speaker 2: not happy with the way Joe Biden handled COVID. They
Speaker 2: kind of were at the time, but they think it
Speaker 2: all went mess good.
Speaker 3: Don't talk about it. Yeah, but it's not a strength
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 1: Nobody cares about COVID anymore. I mean, voters are not
Speaker 1: voting on COVID, agree, not in the Democratic Party, not
Speaker 1: in the probably, not in independence. So it's not like
Speaker 1: a top of mind issues. So it would be silly
Speaker 1: for him to talk about that.
Speaker 3: As those I'm with you more.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying is he's not even trying the whole
Speaker 2: here's my accomplishments thing. He's not here like homery, vaccines
Speaker 2: or whatever I did with the American He's like, these
Speaker 2: are the two things I'm going to protect. They both
Speaker 2: poll around seventy percent. I'm not going to touch him.
Speaker 2: airG vote for me now. Like I said, I think
Speaker 2: that is a very sad place to be when that's
Speaker 2: your only pitch.
Speaker 3: But I think it's a smart pick.
Speaker 1: Let me also say that while I agree with you,
Speaker 1: that there is wisdom in the strategy, given that, you know,
Speaker 1: number one, Joe Biden and his team are like ideologically
Speaker 1: opposed to actually doing anything real for the American people.
Speaker 1: And number two, the Republicans, especially on the issue of abortion,
Speaker 1: have become so extreme and the threat of some national
Speaker 1: abortion ban or something like that hangs so heavily over
Speaker 1: the American public, and that issue is so potent that
Speaker 1: I think leaning into that is, you know, is a savvy,
Speaker 1: intelligent move that has a track record of being effective.
Speaker 4: But there's also a real.
Speaker 1: Risk here because the bottom line still remains that people
Speaker 1: care a lot about whether or not they can feed
Speaker 1: their kids, about whether or not they're earning enough income
Speaker 1: that maybe one day, in a far.
Speaker 4: Off distant land, they might be able to buy a home.
Speaker 1: They care a lot about whether or not they can
Speaker 1: afford to go to a doctor when they're sick. And
Speaker 1: if you are taking all of that off the table,
Speaker 1: you are opening up a huge lane, especially at a
Speaker 1: time when you have so many Americans saying I'm struggling economically,
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about a recession. I think we may already
Speaker 1: be in a recession. Inflation is eating into my wages
Speaker 1: and making it so that every single month it.
Speaker 4: Is harder and harder to get by.
Speaker 1: So if you are not speaking to that whatsoever, I
Speaker 1: do think that that is a risky place to stand.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: Given who Joe Biden is, perhaps this is the best
Speaker 1: case that he can muster. And that's why I say,
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps this is like there's some wisdom here
Speaker 1: to this approach, but I do think there is a
Speaker 1: real vulnerability. And the other thing that I have to
Speaker 1: say is that anytime I hear any of these freaking democrats,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden in particular, talk about democracy and how committed
Speaker 1: they are to preserving our democracy, and yet they are
Speaker 1: not even going to allow debates in a democratic primary
Speaker 1: when you have a seventy percent of the country is like,
Speaker 1: we don't want you to run, dude, we want to
Speaker 1: evaluate our options.
Speaker 4: And you are just completely shutting that off.
Speaker 1: And you aren't sitting for interviews, are doing press conferences,
Speaker 1: You're barely interacting with the press whatsoever. Spare me your
Speaker 1: rhetoric about how much you care about democracy, because your
Speaker 1: actions speak way louder.
Speaker 3: Than your words. Oh absolutely cool.
Speaker 2: Well, Chris, So you found this Washington Post article which
Speaker 2: actually highlights some of your vulnerabilities you're discussing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Washington Post interviewed a bunch of like committed
Speaker 1: Democratic voters. These are not like on the fence, independence whatever.
Speaker 1: These are people who voted for Joe Biden. Many of
Speaker 1: them were activists, They were knocking doors. Some of them
Speaker 1: are local party officials.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 1: These are Team Blue people and they feel very like, eh,
Speaker 1: not sure about this with regards to Joe Biden. Put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen from the Washington Post is
Speaker 1: a long piece here. They say Democrats reluctant about Biden
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, but they see no other choice. Of course,
Speaker 1: the media make sure that they see no other choices.
Speaker 1: The subhead here is they are lukewarm about picking Biden
Speaker 1: as their nominee, but many believe he may be the
Speaker 1: best hope of preventing a second Trump term and fighting extremism.
Speaker 1: Let me go ahead and put some of the quotes
Speaker 1: here up so you can see what people were telling
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. And again, these are like Democratic Party activists,
Speaker 1: committed Democratic volunteers. Put this up on the screen. This
Speaker 1: first quote, they say, this is from Debbie Watson. She's
Speaker 1: a sixty six year old paralegal, and she is a
Speaker 1: Democratic Party volunteer. She said, I noticed in speeches when
Speaker 1: he gets off script and he starts to make mistakes.
Speaker 4: I'm worried about his health.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how much I like Vice President
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris if something happens to him. Put this next
Speaker 1: piece up on the screen, which underscores the vulnerable position
Speaker 1: that Biden is versus with regards to his own party
Speaker 1: versus previous Democratic presidents. Only thirty eight percent of the
Speaker 1: Democratic base, the Democratic base wants to renominate Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: fifty seven percent wants someone else. That compares to when
Speaker 1: it was Trump. Seventy three percent of Republicans wanted to
Speaker 1: renominate Trump, seventy five percent of Democrats wanted to renominate
Speaker 1: Obama back when it was Obama, and fifty percent of
Speaker 1: Democrats wanted to renominate Clinton. So even Bill Clinton amidst
Speaker 1: you know, scandal whatever, even he had a fifty percent
Speaker 1: majority rating, Biden significantly lower than that, and that comes
Speaker 1: out in these quotes. Let's put the next week one
Speaker 1: up on the screen. This is from a Fulton County
Speaker 1: Democratic Party leader and former mayoral candidate Dante Carter. He said,
Speaker 1: when activists tell you we're having a tough time getting
Speaker 1: people to the polls, it's because people are still pissed off.
Speaker 1: They're pissed off and asked the question, when are you
Speaker 1: going to do what you said you were going to do?
Speaker 1: How do I go back into these neighborhoods where I
Speaker 1: told folks that this time it was going to be different,
Speaker 1: And I don't have any receipts to show the difference.
Speaker 1: Next quote from a Democratic local Democratic committee woman. I
Speaker 1: think my view is like, I'm not opposed, I'm not excited. Well,
Speaker 1: I vote for him, absolutely, Well, I can't campaign for him,
Speaker 1: of course. Am I like thrilled? Am I like getting
Speaker 1: to see him run again?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: That was sh and Bodwin Raya, a local Democratic committee woman.
Speaker 1: And this last one from a college student is really
Speaker 1: something and this underscores what is a core concern here
Speaker 1: about his age and his capability of fulfilling the office
Speaker 1: of the presidency for another four years. Avery Burns says,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if he'll make it to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, Like he's just old, not even to be dark.
Speaker 1: I think president shouldn't be older than like seventy, your
Speaker 1: brain starts to go. So this is the enthusiasm for
Speaker 1: this re elect that you're seeing amongst the core committed
Speaker 1: Democratic base, volunteers, local party activists. You can only imagine
Speaker 1: how everybody else feels.
Speaker 2: Well, obviously, and also, look, it's never been more clear.
Speaker 2: Vote for Joe Biden is almost a fifty percent vote
Speaker 2: for maybe not even fifty percent if you're looking at
Speaker 2: an actuar aial table, considering his age, considering the amount
Speaker 2: of stress that he's under, it could actually be more. Again,
Speaker 2: not to be morbid, but listen, it's at least a
Speaker 2: fifty percent vote for Kamala Harris for a second term.
Speaker 2: Remember this January twenty twenty nine be on the verge
Speaker 2: of his eighty seventh birthday. I think people really need
Speaker 2: to understand that for context, Diane Feinstein went senile right
Speaker 2: around I don't know eighty five, a year before he
Speaker 2: would be finished up as president. So that is a
Speaker 2: very real possible. That's if he lives to see the end. Now, Listen,
Speaker 2: I hope he does. I hope he lives a very
Speaker 2: long and a healthy life. My own grandfather's ninety one
Speaker 2: years old and he's doing great. Actually, all my grandparents
Speaker 2: are over ninety, which is crazy, and that's awesome. You know,
Speaker 2: none of them have to mention it's certainly possible, but statistically,
Speaker 2: nobody's a fool about what could happen here, ye at
Speaker 2: any moment, and they are all retired, they're not in
Speaker 2: the most stressful job on earth. Yeah, that's one of
Speaker 2: those where you really got to consider what you're signing
Speaker 2: somebody up for.
Speaker 3: And the media wants you to think this is ageist.
Speaker 2: And gross to talk about. I'm sorry, like, we're paying
Speaker 2: your salary. You're responsible for the world's nuclear arsenal. This
Speaker 2: is not a joke here. Let's not like, let grandpa
Speaker 2: be ceo emeritis. Yes, I feel like he has a
Speaker 2: little bit of responsibility.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's vulnerabilities here are so great that really the
Speaker 1: only thing that is saving him, even in terms of
Speaker 1: the Democratic nomination is a collusion between the media and
Speaker 1: the Biden campaign to convince voters that there are really
Speaker 1: no other options. In this article, they have that same
Speaker 1: standard line. No serious primary contenders don't even mention the
Speaker 1: fact that there are in fact two declared candidates who
Speaker 1: have national profiles, who are polling higher than most of
Speaker 1: the Republicans who are in the field, who they very
Speaker 1: much considered to be serious candidates. They have to make
Speaker 1: sure that those alternatives are completely smeared, dismissed, invisibilized, etc.
Speaker 1: Because the vulnerabilities here are quite real. Now it is
Speaker 1: always look, he's an incumbent president that's difficult to unseat,
Speaker 1: and certainly in a primary, even in a general election.
Speaker 1: But this is also an extraordinary set of circumstances when
Speaker 1: you have an overwhelming majority of Democrats in virtually every poll, Like, no,
Speaker 1: for real, we want to go in a different direction
Speaker 1: because we don't know that this guy's going to make it,
Speaker 1: and we really don't want to be stuck with Kabla
Speaker 1: harris An. That is a unique, like historically unique set
Speaker 1: of circumstances that they're facing.
Speaker 2: I believe a Kamala presidency would plunge the world into war.
Speaker 3: I'm not being hyperbolic, I do not.
Speaker 2: I think she might be one of the most irresponsible
Speaker 2: least not even about quo leave alone like qualifications on paper,
Speaker 2: she has shown us very clearly not a good steward
Speaker 2: of the nation, not a good politician, unable to connect
Speaker 2: with people, bad decision making, bad staff turnover. It would
Speaker 2: be like Andrew Johnson two point zero. I think it
Speaker 2: would be a complete nightmare for.
Speaker 4: I think it's very scary and people shouldn't.
Speaker 2: People should really think about that before they cast their vote. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and we'll talk about Anthony Blincoln.
Speaker 3: This was a big story we wanted to cover earlier.
Speaker 2: Obviously there's been a lot going on, but it's still
Speaker 2: very important. We will recall that letter that was orchestrated
Speaker 2: by the Biden campaign, which we found out a little
Speaker 2: while ago, that came out during the twenty twenty election,
Speaker 2: in which multiple former members of the CIA, the FBI,
Speaker 2: the intelligence community came out and said that the Hunter
Speaker 2: Biden laptop had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. This
Speaker 2: was a sign letter that was distributed to the press.
Speaker 2: It was then reported by the press, specifically Politico and
Speaker 2: several other outlets that spread it out. There the idea
Speaker 2: that the true Hunter Biden laptop was in some way
Speaker 2: Russian propaganda airgo Why NPR and other outlets did not
Speaker 2: need to cover said Hunter Biden laptop.
Speaker 3: What we now know though, via.
Speaker 2: A release from the House Judiciary Committee in Fox News.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put this up there on the screen,
Speaker 2: is that the Biden campaign and specifically now Secretary of
Speaker 2: State Anthony Blincoln, actually played a role in the inception
Speaker 2: of that public statement, soliciting and organizing former CIA intelligence
Speaker 2: officials and others to sign this letter fifty one former
Speaker 2: intelligence officers that falsely did credited the New York Post
Speaker 2: story and the very least influenced the way that the
Speaker 2: public thought about what at the undeniably.
Speaker 3: Was a story.
Speaker 2: Now it was the most important story, was the most
Speaker 2: important issue in the country. No, but I mean it
Speaker 2: did certainly show corruption at the highest level for the
Speaker 2: president's son and possibly links that remained to be investigated
Speaker 2: around President Biden and his own financial connection to his son,
Speaker 2: who certainly was going through personal struggles.
Speaker 3: But the personal struggles on at the.
Speaker 2: Point the exploitation of the Biden name to print hundreds
Speaker 2: of thousands of dollars a month is the actual point
Speaker 2: of the story.
Speaker 3: Now you put that all together and you.
Speaker 2: Were seeing, basically this is the equivalent of like if
Speaker 2: Hillary had won the presidency and the guy who organized
Speaker 2: the Steele dossier became one of the most powerful people.
Speaker 3: In the United State, the Secretary of the State. Let's
Speaker 3: put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: And you know, now, the State Department says they have
Speaker 2: no comment, zero comment on arranging.
Speaker 3: The spies who lie letter.
Speaker 2: They're just simply leaving and letting it just completely go
Speaker 2: by the wayside. I mean, I think this is to
Speaker 2: only crazy because again, this is not even a deniable fact.
Speaker 2: This EXCIA director Michael Morrell testified to the House Judiciary
Speaker 2: Committee straight up that Anthony Blincoln was the person who
Speaker 2: organized this. This isn't you know, like it's it's straight
Speaker 2: from the horse's mouth. One of the people who signed
Speaker 2: the letter, who also happened to work for President Obama
Speaker 2: just so people know, and also coincidentally was the guy
Speaker 2: who briefed Bush about nine to eleven on the day
Speaker 2: of nine to eleven, which is pretty crazy. So you
Speaker 2: put that all together, you've got a deep state gohoule
Speaker 2: who has been deep inside the system for a long time,
Speaker 2: who was one of these people, who is he is
Speaker 2: even throwing Anthony Blincoln under the bus, and the State
Speaker 2: Department Crystal has no comment. I mean, this is we're
Speaker 2: not saying it's the most important story, but it's a
Speaker 2: media story in that the only person who asks are
Speaker 2: the New York Posts and Fox News. It's only they're
Speaker 2: the only people who cover this. This is not even partisan.
Speaker 2: This is just straight up insanity. I mean, you're organizing
Speaker 2: a false letter. You need to apologize. You need to
Speaker 2: explain to people why did you do that?
Speaker 3: What about now? Do you stand by that letter?
Speaker 2: What were you doing in your capacity as then a
Speaker 2: chief form policy advisor to the Joe Biden campaign.
Speaker 1: I think the thing that bothers me the most is
Speaker 1: they feel no shame about it. They feel they don't
Speaker 1: feel pressure to even have to comment about it, certainly
Speaker 1: not to apologize about it, because they know that the
Speaker 1: media won't cover it. That'll only get picked up in
Speaker 1: right leaning news outlets. It'll be all fed through like
Speaker 1: a partisan lens. To the extent that the MSNBC or
Speaker 1: New York Times World even knows that any of this
Speaker 1: is happening, which is probably they don't know about it
Speaker 1: at all. And so yeah, they get caught right handed,
Speaker 1: and they don't even feel a sense of shame to
Speaker 1: have to say.
Speaker 4: A word about it.
Speaker 1: That's what maybe bothers me the most about this whole thing,
Speaker 1: and it didn't take a rocket scientist. At the time,
Speaker 1: it was so obvious that this was all total and
Speaker 1: complete bullshit.
Speaker 4: They didn't offer.
Speaker 1: Any evidence that this was quote unquote Russian disinformation. Bears
Speaker 1: all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Oh really, okay, well
Speaker 1: give me some proof. I don't need hallmarks, I don't
Speaker 1: need a Christmas card. I need some proof. And to
Speaker 1: the contrary, what we really had from the Biden campaign
Speaker 1: was effectively in an admission because they didn't deny that
Speaker 1: the contents were real.
Speaker 4: They didn't offer to the press even.
Speaker 1: A single email, a photo, or anything that had been altered.
Speaker 1: It was very clear that this, overwhelmingly more likely than not,
Speaker 1: was legitimately his laptop, and that it got obtained through
Speaker 1: sketchy circumstances.
Speaker 4: Who cares?
Speaker 1: Who cares all kinds of journalistically relevant information comes from
Speaker 1: sketchy sources.
Speaker 4: That does not matter.
Speaker 2: Three hours into it, I knew it was true. You
Speaker 2: know why, because they hadn't denied it.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Simple, It's like if somebody put something out and said
Speaker 2: this came for your laptop, wasn't from my laptop, I'd
Speaker 2: be like, that's not form my laptop. If it was
Speaker 2: for my laptop. I'd probably just be like, yeah, you
Speaker 2: got me, it's from my laptop.
Speaker 4: But you know it.
Speaker 3: But what he decided to do is just stay completely silent.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: Three hours in it was over. It was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's obviously real. It does not take a genius to
Speaker 2: figure out.
Speaker 4: And by the way, the rest of the media knows
Speaker 4: how this works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not stupid. They deal with this more than
Speaker 1: we do. Where they're trying to get you know, things
Speaker 1: confirmed or whatever. And if the government officials don't immediately
Speaker 1: wave you off and give you like, no, here is
Speaker 1: proof that this is not accurate, then it's probably true,
Speaker 1: probably true. And now can you like definitively run with
Speaker 1: it and say conclusively one no, but can you in
Speaker 1: your mind be like, yeah, that thing is probably true.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, And then you can say, well, he didn't
Speaker 2: deny it a laptop purporting to belong to Hunter Biden,
Speaker 2: of which he has no comment on.
Speaker 3: You decide what exactly it means.
Speaker 4: For that, all right, sago, what are you're looking at?
Speaker 2: So much of the hype around cable news and its
Speaker 2: hopeful demise given recent events is a reminder of why
Speaker 2: their demise is so important because their active propaganda work
Speaker 2: to keep half the country and keep it dumber less
Speaker 2: informed during some of the most critical times in modern
Speaker 2: American history. Now, as I've always said, what cable news
Speaker 2: chooses not to show you is far more important than
Speaker 2: what they do show you. Selection bias is half the battle,
Speaker 2: as anyone who's ever looked at any scientific research actually knows.
Speaker 2: Perhaps no area of this was more glaring than that
Speaker 2: of the lab leak theory. I know it has been
Speaker 2: years now at this point, but I cannot believe that
Speaker 2: a single cable news channel outside of Fox, which only
Speaker 2: told about one twenty fifth of the story, is ignoring
Speaker 2: this new report from the Senate Health Committee, which, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, basically solves once and for all the question
Speaker 2: of whether COVID leaked from the lab. This three hundred
Speaker 2: and two page report, which has been in the works
Speaker 2: for almost two years, was made public a few days ago.
Speaker 2: The details compiled together are absolutely damning. I encourage you
Speaker 2: all to go read it for yourself. Let's make our
Speaker 2: way through the report and the most important new details.
Speaker 3: Number One, an.
Speaker 2: Epidemiological look at COVID and its emergence in the city
Speaker 2: of Wuhan. Sometime in late October twenty nineteen, According to
Speaker 2: China's own data that it provided the WHO and a
Speaker 2: new review, a large spike of quote adult like influenza
Speaker 2: symptoms began spreading across the city in November twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: The spike was accompanied by negative tests internally for any
Speaker 2: known type of said influenza, despite thousands of cases spreading
Speaker 2: across the city and all of China. The committee gained
Speaker 2: access to unpublished reports inside China would show official Chinese
Speaker 2: CDC records who even identify a person in Hubei Province
Speaker 2: contracting confirm COVID November seventeen, twenty nineteen, weeks before China
Speaker 2: warned the world about COVID, and of course shows deception
Speaker 2: from day one. More So, the Committee dedicated major resources
Speaker 2: to looking at a natural origin hypothesis of COVID and
Speaker 2: systematically dismantling any credibility for it. The Committee notes that
Speaker 2: in almost every single recent natural zoonotic spillover, there has
Speaker 2: been evidence left behind in animal samples to see the
Speaker 2: exact evolution of the disease. That includes the original stars virus,
Speaker 2: which showed a clear and a credible jump from a
Speaker 2: civit cat over to an intermediate species to humans, and
Speaker 2: if the wet market theory were true, scientists would have
Speaker 2: to show not only the prevalence of COVID and animals
Speaker 2: at the market or samples, but they would have to
Speaker 2: show how COVID got there.
Speaker 3: And how it morphed right from there to humans.
Speaker 2: The committee notes the China's CDC shows it collected thirteen
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty samples from the Wuhan met market in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, so well after COVID was swamping the entire
Speaker 2: city of Wuhan, and even then, not one sample from
Speaker 2: that market tested positive for sarscob two. In fact, the
Speaker 2: only traces of sarscob two that was found at the
Speaker 2: market were the exact same strain found.
Speaker 3: In humans at the time, indicating.
Speaker 2: It was the humans who brought the virus to the market,
Speaker 2: not vice versa. It's important to establish a few things. One,
Speaker 2: we know all of this.
Speaker 3: This COVID was all over Wuhan by mid November, not.
Speaker 2: Just Wuhan, but confirmed cases all over China, according to
Speaker 2: internal Chinese communications.
Speaker 3: Second, even samples from the.
Speaker 2: Lab wet market months after the spread didn't even show
Speaker 2: zh COVID inside of these animals. Ergo, we can say
Speaker 2: with confidence the timeline from China and its theory of
Speaker 2: spread absolutely wrong, not correct. So then what about the
Speaker 2: lab here? We will tread again on obvious ground. The
Speaker 2: Wuhan lab was cited for safety violations No. Twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: by an internal US Department of State cable and actually
Speaker 2: the committee found a warning from March of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Listen to this China's own CDC director who warned this
Speaker 2: March twenty nineteen quote a potential major risk stems from
Speaker 2: stocks of concentrated infectious pathogens stored in laboratories and the
Speaker 2: absence of adequate biosecurity measures. Non compliance of approved biocontainment
Speaker 2: and biosafety protocols could result in the accidental or deliberate
Speaker 2: release of pathogens in the environment. Anetic modification of pathogens,
Speaker 2: which may expand host range as well as increase transmission
Speaker 2: and virulence, may result in new risks for epidemics. Specifically,
Speaker 2: synthetic bat origin stars like coronaviruses in acquired an increased
Speaker 2: capability to infect human cells.
Speaker 3: So yes, you heard that correctly.
Speaker 2: Months before COVID leaked from the lab China's own CDC
Speaker 2: director warned of a potential lab leak for genetically modified
Speaker 2: back coronaviruses with had the ability to more infect human cells. Worse,
Speaker 2: the committee's review found the Wuhan Lab was conducting years
Speaker 2: long research on genetically enhanced back coronaviruses with an inappropriate
Speaker 2: level of safety at the lab, violating US guidelines for
Speaker 2: the way it should have been done here and raising
Speaker 2: questions again as to why doctor Vauci and the Eco
Speaker 2: Health Alliance were funding it in the first place.
Speaker 3: Then there is even more evidence, as.
Speaker 2: We know the Wuhan Lab took down any record of
Speaker 2: the samples that they were studying in late September twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: only to vanish them for all time. It is presumed
Speaker 2: that this sample list would guarantee to show stars Kobe two.
Speaker 2: More interesting is the committee's revelation that Chinese officials in
Speaker 2: November twenty nineteen miraculously were able to begin production and
Speaker 2: research of a vaccine against stars Kobe two. The report
Speaker 2: finds something astonishing. The only way that a patent on
Speaker 2: the original Chinese vaccine for COVID would make any sense
Speaker 2: is if they had begun development of the vaccine before
Speaker 2: the first acknowledged outbreak of COVID, so otherwise they it
Speaker 2: was impossible then for a begun vaccine production without having
Speaker 2: access to the sample itself. So when you put it
Speaker 2: all together, what do you find in the conclusion for
Speaker 2: lab leak? Is this one the fact that China is
Speaker 2: hiding records that can prove this definitively. Two that there
Speaker 2: is a zoonotic origin for past viruses like cars three
Speaker 2: back coronaviruses exist in nature. Four there have been pandemics
Speaker 2: sparked by wet markets in the past. And five yes,
Speaker 2: that wet market in particular was maintained in bad conditions.
Speaker 2: Those are the cons All of those can be true,
Speaker 2: But when you look at each of the specifics, none
Speaker 2: of them hold up under any scrutiny. I say again
Speaker 2: as I did the last time a report like this
Speaker 2: came out. It's not a debate anymore. It's not even
Speaker 2: a hypothesis. At this point, it's almost one hundred percent true.
Speaker 2: COVID leaked from the Wuhan lab sometime in September or
Speaker 2: October twenty nineteen. The preponderance of evidence has always point
Speaker 2: of that way. The only reason you don't even know
Speaker 2: any of this for two years earlier. Is because nobody
Speaker 2: in the media did their jobs. They have to let
Speaker 2: the government let us know via report instead of in
Speaker 2: real time. We actually needed it the most. I mean,
Speaker 2: at least we have it now. You could send any
Speaker 2: relative or friend doubting lab leak this video if you
Speaker 2: need to. It's really just not for discussion anymore, isn't
Speaker 2: it crazy?
Speaker 3: Crystal? I mean I did an update on the first
Speaker 3: part of their monologue way back when.
Speaker 2: That's what I was talking about, the hospitals and the
Speaker 2: geospatial intelligence around the part.
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagre's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 3: Crystal, what do you take a look at?
Speaker 1: Well, guys, Harvard is out with their annual survey of
Speaker 1: young people, and the results here are quite revealing. Contrary
Speaker 1: to the stereotype, voters under thirty are highly engaged, even
Speaker 1: as they are disgusted as we all are, with the
Speaker 1: current political class, and they're very anxious about the present
Speaker 1: and their own futures. They're depressed, fearful about their own
Speaker 1: personal safety. They really can't stand Joe Biden, and they
Speaker 1: hate the Republican Party even more. But what stood out
Speaker 1: to me the most was their relative political radicalism compared
Speaker 1: to other generations. On issue after issue, young voters have
Speaker 1: shifted left in the past decade in ways that will
Speaker 1: have profound implications for our politics and especially for the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. A massive generational divide has opened up just
Speaker 1: as young Americans are determined to claim their power now.
Speaker 1: It may seem hard to believe, but Joe Biden actually
Speaker 1: did enjoy quite a honeymoon period with young voters at
Speaker 1: the very start of his presidency. At the beginning of
Speaker 1: his term, Joe Biden had Barack Obama levels of approval.
Speaker 4: With the youths.
Speaker 1: He was sitting at fifty nine percent. In every subsequent
Speaker 1: subsequent poll. However, that support has dropped like a rock. Currently,
Speaker 1: only thirty six percent of those who are under the
Speaker 1: age of thirty approve of the job that he is doing.
Speaker 1: This in spite of the fact that this group overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: voted for him in the last election.
Speaker 4: This makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: Of course, at the beginning of his term, he delivered
Speaker 1: on stimulus checks and other aid measures that were a
Speaker 1: lifeline for a lot of young people who were just
Speaker 1: getting started in life when they got kicked in the
Speaker 1: face by the COVID pandemic. Since then, he has completely
Speaker 1: abandoned any sort of larger program, even as young people,
Speaker 1: like everyone else, are getting hammered by inflation. In fact,
Speaker 1: on every issue they tested, Biden gets extremely poor marks
Speaker 1: with this demographic group only thirty seven percent, a proof
Speaker 1: of his handling of Ukraine only twenty seven percent, a
Speaker 1: proof of his handling of gun violence only thirty eight percent,
Speaker 1: a proof of his handling of race relations. But tellingly,
Speaker 1: nowhere is his performance as dismal as it is on
Speaker 1: the economy. Only twenty eight percent think he's done a
Speaker 1: good job on the economy, and only twenty two percent
Speaker 1: say that he has done a good job on inflation.
Speaker 1: These numbers suggest a profound betrayal of the Biden administration
Speaker 1: towards a core constituency which effectively handed him the White House.
Speaker 1: This is an age cohort that has only known crises
Speaker 1: since they came of age, with COVID just being the
Speaker 1: latest in a string of world changing catastrophes, So no
Speaker 1: one should be surprised that Biden's plotting corporate friendly incrementalism
Speaker 1: doesn't sit well with the generation of people. For heim,
Speaker 1: when the status quo has meant rapid and constant change,
Speaker 1: a generation from the status quo has also often meant disaster.
Speaker 1: This is in direct contrast the world of middle class
Speaker 1: stability that the Boomers benefited from. They grew up in
Speaker 1: a time of union strength, shared prosperity, affordable housing, education, healthcare.
Speaker 1: Inequality was comparatively low, wages were comparatively high, and you
Speaker 1: can still see it in the stats that demonstrate that
Speaker 1: Boomers were able to build wealth and escape for charity
Speaker 1: much more quickly and in many larger numbers than millennials
Speaker 1: or now gen Z. So it makes sense that their
Speaker 1: politics would diverge so dramatically from that of younger generations
Speaker 1: who have grown up any profoundly different landscape. There are
Speaker 1: signs that after a multi decade abandonment of class material
Speaker 1: politics by generations that could take a basic level of
Speaker 1: economic stability for granted, young voters might actually be reclaiming
Speaker 1: these older New Deal era traditions, fusing them together with
Speaker 1: identity based liberation struggles. The general vibe is basically non binary.
Speaker 1: Starbucks Baristas launching a grassroots labor movement that has literally
Speaker 1: broken the brain of CEO Howard Schultz. In fact, on
Speaker 1: every issue tested by Harvard, young people over the past
Speaker 1: decade have swapped a Clintonian neoliberal view for a Bernie
Speaker 1: style democratic socialist view of government involvement in society. Take
Speaker 1: a look at this. Sixty five percent now say healthcare
Speaker 1: is a basic right. That is a twenty three point
Speaker 1: shift in a decade. Fifty nine percent say government should
Speaker 1: spend war to reduce poverty. That is a twenty four
Speaker 1: percent shift in just a decade. And sixty two percent
Speaker 1: believe that basic necessities such as food and shelter are
Speaker 1: a right which should be provided by the government to
Speaker 1: those unable to afford them. That is an eighteen point
Speaker 1: shift over the past ten years. Large majorities believe that
Speaker 1: housing is a human right, large majorities believe homelessness can
Speaker 1: happen to anyone, and sizeable numbers fear that homelessness could
Speaker 1: happen to them. But while contrary to stereotypes, these voters
Speaker 1: are actually highly engaged, they also feel really frustrated with
Speaker 1: their limited political impact. A majority believes that people like
Speaker 1: me do not have any say. Only twenty one percent
Speaker 1: disagrees with that sentiment. A plurality believes that their vote
Speaker 1: will not make any real difference. Fifty eight percent say
Speaker 1: that the government does not represent the America I love.
Speaker 1: Only eight percent said.
Speaker 4: That it did.
Speaker 1: So you've got a large group of voters highly engaged,
Speaker 1: disgusted with the status quo, feel dismissed and crushed by
Speaker 1: our current political class. They despise the Republicans, are disgusted
Speaker 1: with the impotence and limited ambitions of the Democrats led
Speaker 1: by Joe Biden. The dam is going to break one day.
Speaker 1: It is only a question of when I thought. The
Speaker 1: shifts over a decade are both astonishing but also make
Speaker 1: all the sense.
Speaker 4: In the world.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 2: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
Speaker 1: Excited to be joined now by Kyle Konde, great friend
Speaker 1: of the show and writer for Sabato's Crystal Ball at
Speaker 1: the UVA Center for Politics.
Speaker 4: Great to see a friend.
Speaker 3: Good to see you man, Thanks for having me so.
Speaker 1: You have I think very smart anawo here of Joe
Speaker 1: Biden's prospects for reelection. Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: You say, is Biden's approval rating two week for him
Speaker 1: to win? Just like in twenty twenty two, soft disapprovers
Speaker 1: are a key block. So, as you point out here,
Speaker 1: presdential approval ratings oftentime determine whether or not an incumbent
Speaker 1: president is.
Speaker 4: Going to get reelected.
Speaker 1: Biden's approve approval rating has been consistently now for a while,
Speaker 1: fairly poor. So what do you make of that landscape
Speaker 1: and what it means for his chances?
Speaker 6: Well, look, I think either Biden is going to have
Speaker 6: to get to fifty percent approval or better, or he's
Speaker 6: going to have to do what Democrats showed some success
Speaker 6: in doing in twenty twenty two, which was that you know,
Speaker 6: Democrats were able to win. The group of voters was
Speaker 6: like ten to twelve percent of voters in twenty twenty
Speaker 6: two who said that they had a somewhat disapproved of Biden,
Speaker 6: but they voted Democratic anyway in the in the House
Speaker 6: elections in twenty twenty two, according to the exit polls.
Speaker 6: And you know, typically I think you would look at
Speaker 6: Biden as being you know, forty two forty three percent
Speaker 6: approved fifty to you know, fifty three percent disapprove, and
Speaker 6: you'd say, is the President's probably not gonna win again,
Speaker 6: but he's so reliant, just like he was in twenty twenty,
Speaker 6: and basically the weakness of the Republican Party and the
Speaker 6: weakness of the Republican nominee, you know, with Trump in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty and maybe Trump again in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 6: that you know, I still think Biden's got a decent
Speaker 6: chance despite his own weaknesses. But that's because you know,
Speaker 6: he always has this line about, you know, don't compare
Speaker 6: me to the almighty comparement of the alternative, and he's
Speaker 6: very reliant on the alternative, I think.
Speaker 2: Right, So this is the very interesting thing, Kyle. Do
Speaker 2: we have a modern precedent for president where the vast
Speaker 2: majority of his own party doesn't necessarily want him to run, however,
Speaker 2: sees him still as preferable, and still the independent voters
Speaker 2: would still push him over the edge to make him
Speaker 2: quite electable. I'm trying to think in my mind. I mean,
Speaker 2: even if we look at the Carter primary, he still
Speaker 2: did win a competitive primary against Ted Kennedy. Do we
Speaker 2: have a historical parallel for what's happening right now?
Speaker 6: You know, if you went back and looked at some
Speaker 6: of Reagan's numbers in early nineteen eighty three, you can't
Speaker 6: find a lot of hesitance about him running again and
Speaker 6: concerns about his age and those sorts of things. Now, look,
Speaker 6: I think Reagan was also obviously he ended up winning
Speaker 6: a huge landslide. He did have a fairly weak Democratic opponent,
Speaker 6: Walter Mondale, but he also had some things breaking in
Speaker 6: his favor on the economic front over the course of
Speaker 6: eighty three and eighty four.
Speaker 5: But you know, Reagan, just like you know Biden.
Speaker 6: Biden's the oldest president ever, but Reagan is near the
Speaker 6: top of the list too, and there were some concerns
Speaker 6: about him as well. Though you know, Reagan ended up
Speaker 6: not having really any primary opposition. Biden does have some
Speaker 6: primary opposition, but I wouldn't consider it particularly strong. So
Speaker 6: you know, yeah, there's some softness there, but you know,
Speaker 6: there's been softness for you know, for previous presidents too,
Speaker 6: who ended up getting getting getting re elected.
Speaker 1: I do think it's unique, though, how what a small
Speaker 1: percentage of his own party wants him to be renominated,
Speaker 1: which is you know, I was just looking at the
Speaker 1: number earlier in the show, which does stand down as
Speaker 1: a contrast from you know, from Clinton, from Obama, from
Speaker 1: Trump certainly as well, where Trump was very unpopular but
Speaker 1: his own party was enthusiastic about him, which is different
Speaker 1: for Biden. You know, with Biden, the feelings towards him
Speaker 1: are and this has been I think fairly consistent since
Speaker 1: he's been running for the presential nomination. It's just been
Speaker 1: sort of like, eh, you know, people don't love him,
Speaker 1: they don't like hate him the way that they hate
Speaker 1: a Trump like figure. And so you point to something
Speaker 1: here that I think is really key, which is what
Speaker 1: you describe as soft Biden disapprovers, people who probably don't
Speaker 1: like either of these candidates and maybe like maybe they
Speaker 1: hate Biden less than they hate Donald Trump, which I
Speaker 1: think was kind of a key factor for him in
Speaker 1: winning the presidency to start with.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6: I mean, if you go back and look at in
Speaker 6: twenty sixteen, you know, there were a lot of people
Speaker 6: who had an unfavorable view of both Hillary Clinton, he
Speaker 6: and Donald Trump. But at the end those folks broke
Speaker 6: toward Trump because they wanted it change. You know, right now,
Speaker 6: I don't know if the you know, I think that
Speaker 6: that Trump might have our time winning over those voters.
Speaker 6: But you know, the thing is too is like, you know,
Speaker 6: you can't just say, oh, well, Trump can't win again.
Speaker 5: I mean, of course he could win again.
Speaker 6: I mean the floor for both parties I think is
Speaker 6: really high in American politics. I think historically you'd think, oh, well,
Speaker 6: a major party nominee is going to get you know,
Speaker 6: forty percent of the vote or something. Now it's probably
Speaker 6: more like forty five or forty six or something like that.
Speaker 6: So we're only talking about, you know, kind of a
Speaker 6: relatively small sliver of the electorate and a relatively small
Speaker 6: number of swing states. When I was talking yesterday to
Speaker 6: a pretty prominent political reporter and we were going back
Speaker 6: and forth at the Electoral College, and you know, there
Speaker 6: were seven states that were decided by three points or
Speaker 6: less in twenty twenty, and we were thinking, boys, Michigan
Speaker 6: like really a swing state?
Speaker 5: Is North Carolina really a swing state?
Speaker 6: And then you start to whittle down the list and
Speaker 6: maybe it's just like three or four states like Arizona, Georgia,
Speaker 6: you know, Wisconsin, Nevada that are like true toss ups
Speaker 6: for twenty twenty. So you know, there's there's not a
Speaker 6: whole lot of persuadable voters out there.
Speaker 5: The floors for both parties are very high.
Speaker 6: You don't have a lot of super competitive swing states,
Speaker 6: and so you know, there's not to you know, again,
Speaker 6: there's there's there are there are key voting blocks.
Speaker 5: They are going to be important here. But but again
Speaker 5: the floors for both parties are pretty high.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a really axcell point.
Speaker 2: Somebody I always point out, I'm like, listen, any nominee
Speaker 2: of a major party can win the presidency period. It's
Speaker 2: there is no somebody can't win. It's like, if you're
Speaker 2: the nominee the Republican or Democratic Party, you absolutely can win. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a game of inches basically.
Speaker 3: From there.
Speaker 2: If we're to look at some of the most determinative factors, Kyle,
Speaker 2: the economy is one which I remember in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: the Trump campaign always told me. They said, yeah, they
Speaker 2: don't approve COVID, they don't Buty's economic numbers. Those are
Speaker 2: always strong, and it was much closer than a lot
Speaker 2: of people thought. What are the similar historical metrics people
Speaker 2: should track for Joe Biden to see how things will
Speaker 2: be trending towards election day in the next coming months,
Speaker 2: before November twenty twenty four.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I do think just by approval rating is a
Speaker 6: great catch all for like how people feel about the
Speaker 6: state of the country. And look, I don't I'd be
Speaker 6: very surprised if Biden got to fifty percent approval by
Speaker 6: you know, November twenty twenty four. But you know, I
Speaker 6: think the trajectory probably matters. You know, again, he's in
Speaker 6: the kind of low to mid forties right now. You know,
Speaker 6: if he does kind of clear you know, climb clearly
Speaker 6: over forty five percent by the time election comes, that
Speaker 6: combined with the potential weakness of the Republican nomine I mean, hey,
Speaker 6: maybe the Republicans will nominate a great candidate who's popular
Speaker 6: and who runs circles around Biden. I mean, we don't
Speaker 6: know that yet, but I don't think that that candidate
Speaker 6: is Trump if if Trump does in fact get renominated.
Speaker 6: But you know, the approval rating would also kind of
Speaker 6: pick up people's broader concerns about the country, so like
Speaker 6: to the extent that they care about the economy and
Speaker 6: attribute that to presidential performance.
Speaker 5: You know, that would appear in the approval rating.
Speaker 6: You know, I mean, if Biden is like lower in
Speaker 6: approval in you know, in next fall than he is now,
Speaker 6: that would I think be a pretty clear warning sign
Speaker 6: that he was going to lose. So so again, don't
Speaker 6: necessarily think that Biden has to be in fifty, but
Speaker 6: I think the trajectory that probably matters. And you know,
Speaker 6: obviously there are these big economic indicators. Although you know,
Speaker 6: we did just go through an election where you know,
Speaker 6: the Republicans seem to have the economic argument kind of
Speaker 6: handed to them on a silver platter, and voters you know,
Speaker 6: generally trusted them on the economy more. And yet it
Speaker 6: was a pretty mixed and fairly weak result for the Republicans,
Speaker 6: even though they did flip the House. So there's a
Speaker 6: lot more that people are voting on than just the economy.
Speaker 6: I think these things are maybe a little bit more
Speaker 6: complicated than they used to be, and people are maybe
Speaker 6: more tribal or voting on cultural matters. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 6: abortion I think continues to be a really big deal,
Speaker 6: particularly in the wake of the Dobbs decision. But you know,
Speaker 6: even if the economy is bad, I don't necessarily know
Speaker 6: if that means that that Biden can't win and you
Speaker 6: may not have said that like a generation or two
Speaker 6: about about right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think abortion was the rail has
Speaker 1: has really upended politics. I mean the results that we
Speaker 1: just have from that Wisconsin State Supreme Court of Race,
Speaker 1: where Wisconsin is the ultimate swing state, and you got
Speaker 1: a candidate who's winning on abortion by more than easily
Speaker 1: double digits. That shows you the power and how visceral
Speaker 1: that issue is for a lot of folks. You know,
Speaker 1: speak a little bit to enthusiasm and turnout. One thing
Speaker 1: that Trump has consistently done is he has increased turnout.
Speaker 1: He's increased turnout among Republicans. He's also increased turnout in
Speaker 1: Democrats who want to vote against him. What do you
Speaker 1: see in the numbers in terms of, you know, the
Speaker 1: Republicans still feel as enthusiastic about Trump that they really
Speaker 1: want to show up to vote for him. Do Democrats
Speaker 1: still feel as enthusiastic as they did to vote against
Speaker 1: him and see him as the central threat that they,
Speaker 1: you know, have since he really came on the scene
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. What do you see in those indicators?
Speaker 6: I suspect that you know, they if Trump is in
Speaker 6: fact renominated that sort of voting against Trump will probably
Speaker 6: be a bigger motivator for Democrats and voting for Biden,
Speaker 6: which was the case in twenty twenty.
Speaker 5: I think it's also worth.
Speaker 6: Noting that that, you know, an unenthusiastic vote is worth
Speaker 6: just as much is an enthusiastic vote, right, And this
Speaker 6: I remember this specifically from the twenty twelve election because
Speaker 6: Democrats Republicans at times had enthusiasm advantages in polling, but
Speaker 6: you know, the sort of the likely voter models and
Speaker 6: what have you still indicated that enough Democrats were going
Speaker 6: to show up to reelect Obama. It was a close election,
Speaker 6: but a pretty clear victory for Obama. And I kind
Speaker 6: of wonder if, you know, if Biden were to win
Speaker 6: again this time, if it might be a similar sort
Speaker 6: of situation where Democrats are not necessarily enthusiastic about Biden.
Speaker 6: In fact, there's certainly less enthusiastic about him than they
Speaker 6: were for Obama was sort of a more dynamic, charismatic figure.
Speaker 6: But at the same time, you know, just the specter
Speaker 6: of Trump winning again could very well be motivating for
Speaker 6: you know, for for Democrats to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, based on the launch video today, you know
Speaker 1: that's certainly the case that they're betting on I routinely
Speaker 1: bring up, but I think it's really central to the thinking.
Speaker 1: Ron Klaan tweeting wake of Emmanuel Matcron getting reelected with
Speaker 1: like a thirty something percent of approval riting in France, like, hey, interesting,
Speaker 1: Apparently there's something that we can work with there if
Speaker 1: the opposition is sufficiently odious enough. So, Kyle, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for analysis. It's always great to have you.
Speaker 3: Good to see you man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you our pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate
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