Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com. Hello, everybody, coming to you from my
Speaker 1: home office. We just got a bunch of new details
Speaker 1: about the Paul Pelosi attack. Nine to one call the
Speaker 1: bodycam footage and surveillance cam footage. So let's go chronologically.
Speaker 1: Number one, Fox News has the surveillance video footage of
Speaker 1: David Depath, the attacker, actually breaking into the Pelosi home.
Speaker 1: Let's watch that first, to Pap and you see him,
Speaker 1: you put some items down, You see him breaking some
Speaker 1: glass and the fragments of glass that are breaking. Now, Emily,
Speaker 1: talk to me about this as evidence in the case. Well,
Speaker 1: so keep in mind that this suspect is facing federal
Speaker 1: charges and stayed at the same time, right, all right,
Speaker 1: So clearly, what can we take away from that to
Speaker 1: Pap was not invited into the home. He broke his
Speaker 1: way in there, and there doesn't appear to have been
Speaker 1: enough of an alarm system in order to trip nine
Speaker 1: to one one or a broken glass window or trigger
Speaker 1: or anything like that to actually bring law enforcement to
Speaker 1: the scene. From there, where do we pick up Pelosi
Speaker 1: has been taken hostage by mister David Depap and somehow
Speaker 1: Pelosi is able to call nine to one one. So
Speaker 1: throughout the course of this nine one one call, we're
Speaker 1: about to listen to a couple of things. Number One,
Speaker 1: he's clearly in distress. Number two, what's he trying to do?
Speaker 1: He's trying to finesse the fact that he's literally being
Speaker 1: held hostage at the same time trying to get nine
Speaker 1: to one one to dispatch to actually send some officers
Speaker 1: to his house. Scariest moment of the call for me,
Speaker 1: specifically when they almost try and hang up on him
Speaker 1: and say, well, call back if you need us. So
Speaker 1: take a listen to that in full. Here just waiting
Speaker 1: for my wife to come back. He's just waiting person
Speaker 1: come back because he's not going to be here for
Speaker 1: a day. So I guess we have to wait. So
Speaker 1: I've got okay, no, no, no no, this this gileman just
Speaker 1: came into the house down and say, okay, who what's
Speaker 1: the gentleman's name? What's my name is David? The name
Speaker 1: is David. I'm a friend of theirs. Yeah, he says
Speaker 1: he's a friend, but that you don't know who he is.
Speaker 1: All right. So, as you could see really dicey moment
Speaker 1: when she almost hangs up on him, and then they
Speaker 1: start to figure out that something really weird is going on.
Speaker 1: She keeps saying, this is San Francisco Police. She's like,
Speaker 1: well do you know this man? Et cetera. Eventually then
Speaker 1: dispatching police over to the house. All right, So that's
Speaker 1: when the body cam footage kicks in. You have police
Speaker 1: officers arriving on the scene. They realize, okay, we're at
Speaker 1: the right house. They ring and kind of knock on
Speaker 1: the door, and that's when the door opens and we
Speaker 1: see a couple of things everything to look out for.
Speaker 1: Number One, Pelosi is in a strange mood. He's kind
Speaker 1: of smiling. He's also holding onto the hammer with David
Speaker 1: de pap My initial estimation is he's just trying to
Speaker 1: do everything you can to keep to Pap in the
Speaker 1: situation as least stressful as possible, keep the guy calm
Speaker 1: to Pap himself, has a really deranged look on his face.
Speaker 1: And also you know Pelosi having one hand on the
Speaker 1: hammer to Pap also with his hand on the hammer
Speaker 1: as well. Really dicey with the police there. That's what
Speaker 1: accelerates the situation. Let's take a listen in full. Just
Speaker 1: a warning for everybody watching this. It's it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: kind of disturbing, especially on the latter half of the
Speaker 1: video after he Pelosi actually does get attacked. Let's watch
Speaker 1: the full thing. How you doing? What's going on? Man?
Speaker 1: All right? Hey? What is going on? All right? So
Speaker 1: what do we take away from that? Man? Just? Uh,
Speaker 1: first of all, that horrible sound Pelosi making after being attacked,
Speaker 1: no matter what you think about anybody, and you know,
Speaker 1: things that they have done, old man like that in distress,
Speaker 1: getting attacked by a dranged individual like this is just horrific,
Speaker 1: absolutely horrific to see to Thank god, the police were
Speaker 1: able to arrive on the scene, and you know, I
Speaker 1: mean they immediately kind of sprang into action there to
Speaker 1: jump the guy. Off of him, and then honestly, just
Speaker 1: for Paul Pelosi himself, that took courage in that situation.
Speaker 1: He kept it diffused as possible, called nine to one one,
Speaker 1: was able to get the guy over there, and appears
Speaker 1: to have kept it at least non violent before the
Speaker 1: police officers arrived. So I guess we can take away
Speaker 1: a couple of things, you know, in terms of the
Speaker 1: rumors around what was weird, clearly DPAP did break into
Speaker 1: the residents. Also in terms of the attack itself has know,
Speaker 1: some people are focusing in on kind of how weird
Speaker 1: and almost jovial Paul Pelosi was when answering the door,
Speaker 1: But in context, I think with the nine to one
Speaker 1: one call, it's clear he's just trying to keep things
Speaker 1: as calm as possible. Overall, honestly a terrifying situation, and
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, my personal takeaway from it is
Speaker 1: always be prepared, man. You never know what's going to
Speaker 1: go down. And it still took a while for the
Speaker 1: police to get there. So if somebody breaks in your home,
Speaker 1: be prepared. Have an alarm system if it's your thing,
Speaker 1: if that's what you believe in, have something you can
Speaker 1: defend yourself with because you're the first line of defense.
Speaker 1: Breaking news happened right after we wrapped the show. Major
Speaker 1: entertaining news whenever it comes to CNN. We brought you before.
Speaker 1: They're exploring hiring a comedian, and it seems they have
Speaker 1: made their choice. Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: Bill Maher's post show overtime segment will now be aired
Speaker 1: on CNN on Friday nights beginning this week. So here
Speaker 1: is the official announcement. HBO's popular show segment, Overtime is
Speaker 1: coming to CNN Friday nights at eleven thirty pm Eastern Time,
Speaker 1: starting Friday, February third. It will air during CNN Tonight.
Speaker 1: Overtime features Mar and his guest continuing the discussion. I
Speaker 1: believe it's available on YouTube as I understand it, so
Speaker 1: not really sure why anyone will tune into it live,
Speaker 1: But maybe they'll take it off YouTube and make it
Speaker 1: CNN exclusive and maybe nobody will watch it. Mar headline,
Speaker 1: they ta blah blah blah. The executive producers of Real
Speaker 1: Time are Bill Maher, and they lay out all the
Speaker 1: other people who are involved. So this actually made the
Speaker 1: most sense. It's what we talked about in our segment
Speaker 1: about this, which is he's already under the Discovery platform,
Speaker 1: the Umbrella company, because it is owned by Discovery. HBO
Speaker 1: is a subsidiary of that company, same as CNN. So
Speaker 1: if you already have IP you need to fill in
Speaker 1: a slot, might as well take some stuff that you
Speaker 1: already own. Have somebody under contract who is a well
Speaker 1: known personality and slought him on to CNN. My initial
Speaker 1: take is, Bill, I dare you to feature criticism of
Speaker 1: CNN on CNN. Let's see how independent and how much
Speaker 1: FU money you actually have. Well, you know, I was looking.
Speaker 1: It matters a lot whether or not they pull it
Speaker 1: from YouTube, because there's no chance in hell he's going
Speaker 1: to get anywhere near the views on CNN that what's
Speaker 1: in lay right now. I mean the overtime segments they
Speaker 1: get like this last time. This last one had Bill Barr,
Speaker 1: Nancy Mace, and Andrew Sullivan. It's got almost a million views, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: CNN's not going to and on YouTube, you know a
Speaker 1: lot of those views are going to ultimately be in
Speaker 1: the demo, whereas on CNN, a lot of those views
Speaker 1: are not going to be in the demo. So many
Speaker 1: of these overtime segments, you know, do pretty well on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and for those of you, I don't know how many
Speaker 1: of you are like fans of the show or even
Speaker 1: watch the show, But over time is like the postgame.
Speaker 1: So you've already done on the topics, they lay down whatever,
Speaker 1: and they bring out all the guests and they do
Speaker 1: another little like half an hour after the fact. And
Speaker 1: it actually, in some times some ways it is the
Speaker 1: most interesting part of the show because people have kind
Speaker 1: of like got their like their angst to whatever from
Speaker 1: the doing the show and from the audience. Like that's
Speaker 1: over and people are a little more relaxed and candid.
Speaker 1: But I'm skeptical that CNN is ultimately going to be
Speaker 1: comfortable with this unless it's really sanitized, because you know,
Speaker 1: the rules on HBO are different. First of all, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not under FCC, but I know they have advertisement
Speaker 1: regulations or whatever. And also Bill at this point, I mean, politically,
Speaker 1: he's hard to peg and he'll say some things that
Speaker 1: you know, he's very anti Trump, so a CNN audience
Speaker 1: will be very comfortable with that, but there are other
Speaker 1: areas that that he's going to really piss off a
Speaker 1: CNN audience so I don't know, I'm just I'm skeptical
Speaker 1: that the juice is gonna be worth the squeeze here. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: for CNN, it seems to me like a bit of
Speaker 1: an odd mix in terms of the choice, other than
Speaker 1: just the ease of he was already under the umbrella.
Speaker 1: So I just looked at his show and one of
Speaker 1: his guests this week was Francis Hogan, and it's like
Speaker 1: the Star Wars meme. I'm like, that's a name I
Speaker 1: have not heard. I don't even know who is that.
Speaker 1: It's a Facebook whistleblower lady, you remember, Yeah, I was like,
Speaker 1: why is this lady on your show right now? Like
Speaker 1: what are you doing? But like, for example, I mean
Speaker 1: Andrew Sullivan, Yeah, is very controversial, but I'm saying that's
Speaker 1: a very controversial figure for liberals, right, So again it's
Speaker 1: just like, you know, you're really, you're really going to
Speaker 1: be pushing the boundaries with some of your audience in
Speaker 1: terms of what they're comfortable with. Now, maybe that's not
Speaker 1: a bad thing to like push them in some different directions,
Speaker 1: but you know, I don't know, We'll see. It seems
Speaker 1: to me like a strange fit to just sort of
Speaker 1: thank you horn this existing piece of the mar Show
Speaker 1: into a CNN time slot and listen. I'm also going
Speaker 1: to be very curious to see what the ratings are
Speaker 1: because I have guessed that they're not going to be great.
Speaker 1: It's not a great time slot. Friday night at that
Speaker 1: point time anyway is not a great time slot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good point, man, weird guess. I'm looking through this. Some
Speaker 1: of these, I'm like, Wow, that's great. Some of these
Speaker 1: I'm like, why would you ever book that person? But hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not the key demo clearly, at least for these people.
Speaker 1: Big news in the world of chat GPT and journalism,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are talking about this. Let's put
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. BuzzFeed announcing that it
Speaker 1: will increase the use of chat GPT to create listicles
Speaker 1: and content after cutting twelve percent of its workforce, stock
Speaker 1: is up a staggering one hundred and forty six percent.
Speaker 1: I think the first case of chat GPT genuinely replacing
Speaker 1: a white collar workforce. It's an interesting one, I think,
Speaker 1: to say the least. Here's the problem, though, what have
Speaker 1: we already covered? And I guess with BuzzFeed the stakes
Speaker 1: are low some bullshit listical about here's the twelve things
Speaker 1: or whatever that say that you're witch Harry Potter, else
Speaker 1: you're in I'm Slytherin. By the way, I have a
Speaker 1: Slytherin scar. What does that tell you, though, which is
Speaker 1: when the stakes are low, I think it's fine already.
Speaker 1: C net and what was it? C net and bank
Speaker 1: Rate have had to suspend the use of chat shept
Speaker 1: when writing articles because it was getting basic facts wrong.
Speaker 1: So it's one of those where and maybe it'll get there.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a titanic and a
Speaker 1: very difficult struggle to genuinely do. Also, because you know,
Speaker 1: factual journalism in the way that they're considering it in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley that is already essentially commoditized and is already
Speaker 1: concentrated to the AP, Reuters and Bloomberg. You don't need
Speaker 1: you know, like none of us are suffering, or like
Speaker 1: mass employment does not exist to say X event happened.
Speaker 1: That's already outside what the real business is and being
Speaker 1: like what does this mean? Let's string like six things
Speaker 1: together and tell a story. That's what most things in
Speaker 1: the New York Times are. It's not just news, it's context.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of what we do over here as well.
Speaker 1: Can AI replace that? Maybe? You know, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say no. I've been amazed at the technology so far,
Speaker 1: but I also you have to recognize limitations when you
Speaker 1: play with it. You see the limitations really really clearly.
Speaker 1: I was looking online. Actually there was If you ask it,
Speaker 1: what is the most cited economic paper in history? I
Speaker 1: think that's a question. It actually returns to you a
Speaker 1: paper that does not exist. Oh wow, by real economists,
Speaker 1: but economists who did not you know, maybe they work together,
Speaker 1: but they did not write this paper. And then they're
Speaker 1: claiming that this paper was the most cited economics paper
Speaker 1: in history. And so there is a whole analysis actually
Speaker 1: online of the way that the AI would arrive at
Speaker 1: like inventing this paper. But this is just an example
Speaker 1: to show you that there's still a lot of failings,
Speaker 1: that a lot of weaknesses in this And again, if
Speaker 1: you ask it to do something for you, that becomes
Speaker 1: extremely clear, extremely quickly. So my guess is BuzzFeed was
Speaker 1: already planning to cut these jobs with or without chat GPT.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, I mean, there are mass
Speaker 1: media layoffs at a lot of news outlets across the country,
Speaker 1: and you know, a lot of stock rewards for laying
Speaker 1: off those workers. Ultimately, so you know, we'll see if
Speaker 1: this works out for their little listical creation business. But
Speaker 1: I think it also shows you the level of sort
Speaker 1: of respect that they have for their audience and commitment
Speaker 1: they have to the integrity of the listical creation process.
Speaker 1: I guess as well. Just churn, churn and burn, churn
Speaker 1: and burn. It's very twenty twelve. That's why the company
Speaker 1: fits true. It had nothing to do with the journalist.
Speaker 1: It's just a crap business model. That's really what it's
Speaker 1: all about. It's not what people want at all. But
Speaker 1: you know, good luck on your views. I hope it
Speaker 1: works out, especially when adrates are down by like forty
Speaker 1: five percent. The new chairman of the Senate Health Committee
Speaker 1: has a message for the pharmaceutical industry that they're probably
Speaker 1: not going to like. Let's roll that it's a new
Speaker 1: chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Punching Committe. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do everything I can to protect the needs of
Speaker 1: a struggling working class in this country. That means we're
Speaker 1: going to take on to greed. The pharmaceutical industry the
Speaker 1: highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. To lower
Speaker 1: those prices, We're going to expand healthcare in this country.
Speaker 1: Our eventual goal is healthcare for all through a Medicare
Speaker 1: for Old single payof program. We're going to deal with
Speaker 1: the crisis in childcare in this country, outrageous the working
Speaker 1: families have to pay fifteen thousand dollars a year to
Speaker 1: get the kids into childcare. We're can deal with the
Speaker 1: issue of student debt. We'll deal with the fact that
Speaker 1: so many of our teachers are fleeing the profession at
Speaker 1: a time when we need the best public school system
Speaker 1: that we possibly can have. So we got an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of work to be done. To look forward to
Speaker 1: work with you, the American people, and standing off the
Speaker 1: powerful special interest you can start developing policy that works
Speaker 1: for all. Just a one percent. Thanks. This is neither
Speaker 1: here nor there. But did you notice that he's wearing
Speaker 1: his I am asking you one more time jacket in there? Oh?
Speaker 1: He always wears that in winter. This is his permanent
Speaker 1: state of existence. It's very thet Bernie Sanders has one
Speaker 1: really nice jacket, right, How good from your perspective? Vi
Speaker 1: iss it to say Chairman of the Senate to help
Speaker 1: Committee Bernie Sanders. I mean, this guy ten years ago
Speaker 1: was considered so fringe, right, like, nobody really took him
Speaker 1: seriously in Washington, d c. Except for leftists the progressive movement.
Speaker 1: Obviously it has taken him seriously since then. But I
Speaker 1: think it's it's an incredible testament to the work he's
Speaker 1: done over the last decade that he's now the chairman
Speaker 1: of the committee. Yeah, it was, and it was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun saying Budget Committee chairman while the reconciliation
Speaker 1: process was was the thing that everything was revolving around
Speaker 1: in the Senate. Having having him be the one with
Speaker 1: the pen on that was I think, you know, I
Speaker 1: think meant a significant difference in the Senate and then
Speaker 1: as a result in the lives of you hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of people afterwards. So yes, you know, we can
Speaker 1: put up this Axios tear sheet here, which has some fun,
Speaker 1: you know, sad quotes from drug maker lobbyists saying, actually sponsors,
Speaker 1: by the way, their corporate sponsors definitely includes some of
Speaker 1: the farm companies. Yes, and oh for sure. They it's
Speaker 1: you know, basically everything in Washington is funded by drug makers,
Speaker 1: weapons makers. Uh, you know, whatever kind of variety of
Speaker 1: content creators need need protections for whatever rents they're seeking
Speaker 1: at the time, and that that's that and oil and
Speaker 1: gas like that's those those are like if you flip through,
Speaker 1: uh you know, the kind of role call political hill
Speaker 1: on the on the hill, that's those the full page
Speaker 1: ads that you're going to see. Uh. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: a bunch of bunch of fun quotes from them saying,
Speaker 1: you know, don't worry, we'll be ready. We but we
Speaker 1: do expect that we're going to take a beating, uh
Speaker 1: with Axios acknowledging that Republicans, you know, control the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives so that Sanders won't be able to enact
Speaker 1: some of his more ambitious schemes. So, but we wish,
Speaker 1: but we should get some good hearings out of it,
Speaker 1: at least one pharma this is this is to Axios.
Speaker 1: One pharmaceutical industry source said, quote, I think that's going
Speaker 1: to be a really real challenge. Referring to quote, I
Speaker 1: have no doubt there will be tough hearings with people
Speaker 1: from industry being forced to testify, subpoenas to testify, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And then the source goes on to say that's going
Speaker 1: to be a real challenge. It is going to be
Speaker 1: a real challenge. And there are more quotes over the
Speaker 1: course of this article where this is a consultant for
Speaker 1: Forma who says we're seeing companies intensify their proactive education
Speaker 1: and advocacy efforts while also preparing to deal with fresh
Speaker 1: attacks from the senator. Actually says the consultant added that
Speaker 1: there's hope attention could shift to other players in the
Speaker 1: drug supply chain. Yes, which is fine. Why not? Both
Speaker 1: would be mine, right, And that goes back to this
Speaker 1: story we were talking about last week where big tech
Speaker 1: is urging Congress not to focus on big tech but
Speaker 1: to go after Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which, yeah, go
Speaker 1: after Live Nation Ticketmaster, but doesn't mean don't go after
Speaker 1: big tech as well. Yeah. And actually, this is another
Speaker 1: really interesting part of the Sanders wrote a Fox News
Speaker 1: op ed where he said, quote, greedy farmer rips off Americans.
Speaker 1: That's the move to put that in Fox News, And
Speaker 1: I think he's placed off eds there before, when, by
Speaker 1: the way, it was a controversy for Democrats to do
Speaker 1: town halls on Fox News in twenty twenty or whatever,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that maybe some of the people who
Speaker 1: watch Fox News are completely open to different messages on
Speaker 1: different issues because it has a big audience. Whatever you
Speaker 1: think of as the average Fox News viewers is certainly
Speaker 1: like a stereotype that's not representative of the bulk of
Speaker 1: people that are watching that show, because it just gets
Speaker 1: big audiences, meaning that there are a lot of people listening.
Speaker 1: And if you're watching Tucker Carlson, you've probably seen a
Speaker 1: lot of overlap between Tucker and some people on the left.
Speaker 1: So it's I think very shrewd to Bernie to go
Speaker 1: after quote greedy Pharma in Fox News. And I'm also
Speaker 1: curious whether or not he's going to use it as
Speaker 1: a wedge against Republicans who are now talking about strengthening Medicare.
Speaker 1: By strengthening, as we talked about earlier Sedacare, they mean
Speaker 1: cutting it. And you'll also see I think it was
Speaker 1: Jim Jordan, or maybe with Steve Scalise recently saying, look,
Speaker 1: why are you coming after us for saying that we're
Speaker 1: going to cut medicare when the only people who have
Speaker 1: cut Medicare are these Democrats who cut hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars out of Medicare with their reconciliation package. And
Speaker 1: what they mean by that is they allowed Medicare to
Speaker 1: negotiate drug prices and that's going to save Medicare money.
Speaker 1: And so they're calling that a cut. And so you
Speaker 1: wind up then kind of jamming Republicans up. It seems
Speaker 1: like saying, wait a minute, you don't support allowing Medicare
Speaker 1: to negotiate for lower drug prices. That's like when they
Speaker 1: pull that, I think that pulls. That pulls higher than
Speaker 1: the number of people in Santos's district who think you
Speaker 1: should resign. Well, back in the Tea Party years, there
Speaker 1: was this real effort to color people as either makers
Speaker 1: or takers and to really shame people. Paul Ryan's failed
Speaker 1: to tempt it. Yeah, spreading. Yeah, it's a dichotomy. You're
Speaker 1: either a maker or your taker. And obviously a taker
Speaker 1: is pejorative and maker is this huge compliment. And you'd
Speaker 1: see them talk about CEOs and obviously this has been
Speaker 1: true of Republicans for a long time. No, they're right,
Speaker 1: they're makers. They're not takers, of course, even though of
Speaker 1: course they're corporate welfare queens are a much bigger threat
Speaker 1: to the country. But all that is to say, I'm
Speaker 1: really curious if Republicans can make this logical leap in
Speaker 1: their head, which is such an easy one to do.
Speaker 1: They've been really upset with I think some of the
Speaker 1: reprehensible tactics. I'm sure you see it in pharma. We've
Speaker 1: seen it in the defense industry. We've seen it in
Speaker 1: the media, corporate media space. We've seen it from just
Speaker 1: about every major corporation, these awful like signals on different
Speaker 1: issues that I think have really changed the norms in
Speaker 1: this country that have been damaging on a variety of issues.
Speaker 1: That cancel culture is a really good one. If they're
Speaker 1: upset about woke CEOs and they think that reflects a
Speaker 1: lack of character, they think these CEOs are awful, should
Speaker 1: they not then logically extend that to the character of
Speaker 1: the CEOs treating other human beings like garbage. Like. If
Speaker 1: you think they're going to do it on cultural issues,
Speaker 1: what tells you that these are not greedy pharma executives,
Speaker 1: that it's not excessive greed beyond what is necessary to
Speaker 1: power the free market. If you can make that logical leap,
Speaker 1: you can see how economically, they do mean the same
Speaker 1: bs because they don't care who they hurt in the process.
Speaker 1: Except these are their big donors, and they don't know
Speaker 1: who they hurt in the process, right, These are their
Speaker 1: donors that the CEOs, the presidents, the CFOs, the executive
Speaker 1: vice presidents, the lobbyists that work for them, they're all
Speaker 1: their big donors, and so they might believe that, but
Speaker 1: they're not going to say it to them. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: curious to see the rest of the committee from Democrats
Speaker 1: because again, social care and medicare those are you know,
Speaker 1: sacri saying Democrats are never going to talk about them,
Speaker 1: you know, post twenty eleven and whatever Obama was doing
Speaker 1: during that re election campaign when he was flirting with austerity.
Speaker 1: But Democrats when you start getting into like really chipping
Speaker 1: away at the power of pharma, and if Bernie Sanders
Speaker 1: is the chairman of the Help Committee, he probably is
Speaker 1: going to push them in some uncomfortable directions too. Looking
Speaker 1: forward to it sounds fun to me, Well, live stream it.
Speaker 1: We should did that. It would be really fun. We'll
Speaker 1: have some popcorn, all right, We'll see you. Then. Bill
Speaker 1: Gates was put on the spot again over his relationship
Speaker 1: with Jeffrey Epstein, which he has been less than forthcoming
Speaker 1: about over the years. You've got to take a look
Speaker 1: at this clip. This is Australia's ABC seven thirty host
Speaker 1: Sarah Ferguson in an interview on Monday, pressing Gates on
Speaker 1: some questions that he's gotten before. But it's always worth
Speaker 1: getting his answers to them given the seriousness of the allegations.
Speaker 1: It's world. The clip that one of these dogged you
Speaker 1: is that of your relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Do you
Speaker 1: regret the relationship that you maintained with him against Melinda's
Speaker 1: advice and wishes. Oh, I've said that. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is you're going way back in time. But yeah, a
Speaker 1: new audience, I will say for the you know, over
Speaker 1: one hundred times, Yeah, I shouldn't have had dinners with him.
Speaker 1: Epstein had a way of sexually compromising people. Is that
Speaker 1: what Melinda was warning you about? No, I mean it's no,
Speaker 1: I had dinner with them and that's all, And that
Speaker 1: you regret the relationship, the acquaintance that I had dinner
Speaker 1: with them and the relationship between the Foundation and Epstein,
Speaker 1: which there never was any relationship of any kind. So
Speaker 1: that's not true, and he's really trusting the truth to
Speaker 1: be able to say there was never any relationship at
Speaker 1: any time. A flight log show that he flew to
Speaker 1: Palm Beach, despite saying at one point he had never
Speaker 1: been to Palm Beach. His excuse was on Epstein's jet.
Speaker 1: His excuse was that he didn't know what was Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Epstein's jet. Several meetings at the Manhattan Townhouse, the famed
Speaker 1: the infamous Manhattan Townhouse took place. Bill Gates was there
Speaker 1: for those. So to say there was no relationship is
Speaker 1: a complete lie on that question. And you can see
Speaker 1: him in that interview. I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: it's valuable, valuable to continue putting him in the spot,
Speaker 1: especially in live physical interviews. He's physically squirming. He's trying
Speaker 1: to make the interviewer uncomfortable for asking the question. He's like,
Speaker 1: I've done it, I've asked it, I've asked it. But
Speaker 1: I thought she asked a great question. This was allegedly
Speaker 1: one of the reasons Melinda Gates divorced him. This played
Speaker 1: a role, she says in their divorce. I don't know
Speaker 1: how true that is or whether it was just, you know,
Speaker 1: a way to get herself out the hook, off the
Speaker 1: hook for having this involvement. But Bill Gates just said
Speaker 1: people told him that Epstein was rich, maybe he could
Speaker 1: get some money for the Gates Foundation out of him.
Speaker 1: I think what Gates means is that he didn't upon
Speaker 1: intended to consummate the relationship between the foundation and the
Speaker 1: Gates Foundation. No money changed hands, right so, because there
Speaker 1: were meetings and there were discussions and dinners about where
Speaker 1: Epstein was saying that. He even said at one point
Speaker 1: that he had potentially trillions of dollars of his client's
Speaker 1: money that he could put toward a foundation Gates was running.
Speaker 1: That was a red flag for some of Gates's staffers,
Speaker 1: who are like, no, you know, you definitely do not
Speaker 1: have trillions of dollars like that. That's completely absurd. His
Speaker 1: staff also learned that he was a sex criminal. And
Speaker 1: what distinguishes Bill Gates' relationship for a couple of years
Speaker 1: with Epstein from some of the other people is that
Speaker 1: a lot of them met him before he was arrested
Speaker 1: basically statutory rape. Some of them continued hanging out with him.
Speaker 1: He remained popular in New York after he got out
Speaker 1: of this Florida prison for doing that very short stint
Speaker 1: that he did. Gates, however, met him after he got
Speaker 1: out of prison. Yes, which which somehow was just a
Speaker 1: level above That is the key part of the story.
Speaker 1: I mean, he knew and his staff was like came
Speaker 1: to him. It seems like it said, well, you know
Speaker 1: that this guy went to prison for sex crimes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is who you're setting us up with to
Speaker 1: meet about like merging our foundations. You really think that
Speaker 1: would be a good look for us? So and then Epstein,
Speaker 1: there's emails where Epstein gets frustrated that Gates is now
Speaker 1: ghosting him after a couple of years of them having
Speaker 1: met every every now and then at the mansion or
Speaker 1: having dinner and so like. Gates said that money didn't
Speaker 1: change hands, but it seemed like there had to be
Speaker 1: some pressure. I liked the way that the presenter, though,
Speaker 1: was pressing him on what was it that Melinda Gates
Speaker 1: was so nervous about, Like why was she warning you
Speaker 1: against him? I just I think that's so key, and
Speaker 1: I'm really glad she pushed on that question. Because Bill
Speaker 1: Gates is not an idiot. Bill Gates had all of
Speaker 1: this evidence. I mean Jeffrey Epstein obviously, you know, the
Speaker 1: case didn't completely blow up until it got more and
Speaker 1: more national at tension at a later date. But they knew,
Speaker 1: they knew he had served the jail time for I
Speaker 1: think it was the charger of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Speaker 1: They knew he was a registered sex offender. They're probably
Speaker 1: justifying this is the very best case scenario. They're justifying
Speaker 1: in their mind, well, hey, you know we can if
Speaker 1: we can help the Gates Foundation and the benefactors of
Speaker 1: the Gates Foundation by securing this guy's money. He's probably
Speaker 1: not so great, but we can get the money out
Speaker 1: of him, and it's fine. But Bill Gates should know
Speaker 1: that Jeffrey Epstein is rumored to have intelligence connections. He
Speaker 1: should know that Gillian Maxwell comes from a family that's
Speaker 1: rumored to have intelligence connections. And he should know that
Speaker 1: either way, an alleged billionaire who is a registered sex
Speaker 1: offender might be doing something that could harm him, could
Speaker 1: harm his foundation, could harm his businesses, And so to
Speaker 1: make multiple trips to fly on the jet it does
Speaker 1: not add up whatsoever. Not impressive. Super super worth Following
Speaker 1: up on this. If you're a journalist out there who
Speaker 1: gets another sit down with Bill Gates, don't let him
Speaker 1: tell you that it's asked un answered. He's been there,
Speaker 1: done that, and will obviously continue to follow any updates
Speaker 1: on the saga of Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein as
Speaker 1: they become available. Hi, my name is Spencer Snyder. I
Speaker 1: am very excited to be here on Breaking Points because
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about something that I
Speaker 1: think is very important. Now. This is George Santos, But
Speaker 1: I am sure you already know all about this guy.
Speaker 1: You know that he never worked at Goldman Sachs. You
Speaker 1: know that he was connected to a Ponzi scheme in Florida.
Speaker 1: Not only did he claim to go to a college
Speaker 1: he never attended, he lied about being a star athlete there.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like a George Costanza be story.
Speaker 1: It's all crazy, but as agregious as the lies are,
Speaker 1: and as interesting as it's going to be to watch
Speaker 1: the investigations play out, I think there might be a
Speaker 1: slightly bigger lesson in all this. And before we get
Speaker 1: to the narrative that I think is largely missing, we
Speaker 1: have to ask what about our political vetting system is
Speaker 1: so broken that it failed to weed out such a
Speaker 1: profound liar. Because it's not like people didn't know he
Speaker 1: was a liar before the election, and actually quite a
Speaker 1: few people knew something was up. Look. I sat down
Speaker 1: and I had lunch with him three years ago for
Speaker 1: about an hour and a half, and I asked a
Speaker 1: lot of very detailed and focused questions, and he was
Speaker 1: evasive and weirdly ragging and egotistical, and right from the
Speaker 1: start it just sat role. Okay, So that's Grant Lally.
Speaker 1: He publishes a small paper called The north Shore Leader
Speaker 1: on Long Island. So he was talking about getting a
Speaker 1: bad feeling a few years ago, and we're going to
Speaker 1: come back to him because he represents kind of a
Speaker 1: special player in this. But he was not alone. Josh Eisen,
Speaker 1: a small businessman running for Congress in Westchester, met Santos
Speaker 1: often on the political club circuit in twenty nineteen and
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and remember Santo's frequently bragging about his gonzo
Speaker 1: fundraising numbers, saying that he was bringing in hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars. And then I would look in his
Speaker 1: filings and see that it was a four figure quarter.
Speaker 1: Santos is bragging, of course, about funds he was bringing
Speaker 1: in for his twenty twenty campaign against Tom Swazi, and
Speaker 1: a couple things happened here. First, some people allowed themselves
Speaker 1: to assume that because Santos made it out of a
Speaker 1: campaign against Tom Swazi unscathed for the most part, that's
Speaker 1: evidence that opposition research didn't turn out much, except Swase
Speaker 1: didn't do much opposition research. And second, it turned out
Speaker 1: that Santos was a huge sore loser because one of
Speaker 1: the first things he did was start a fight with
Speaker 1: the chairman of the Nassau County GOP, accusing him of
Speaker 1: sabotaging the election, and then, despite being on track to lose,
Speaker 1: he went so the new congressional member orientation in Washington. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he refused to leave the orientation once he officially lost,
Speaker 1: and obviously this all made his own staff start questioning
Speaker 1: his sanity, so already he had developed somewhat of a
Speaker 1: negative reputation. Fast forward to his second attempt at the seat.
Speaker 1: It's twenty twenty one and an aid of Santosi's caught
Speaker 1: impersonating Kevin McCarthy's chief of staff. McCarthy apparently knew about this,
Speaker 1: but this doesn't stop him from getting his first major
Speaker 1: endorsement in August of twenty twenty one for his second campaign.
Speaker 1: A Lease Stephonic, one of her aides, even started assisting
Speaker 1: with Santos's campaign. Multiple Republican operatives in Washington and New
Speaker 1: York told CNN that they found it implausible that Stephonic
Speaker 1: had not been aware of Santos's falsehoods, given rumors about
Speaker 1: Santos had been passed around in GOP circles since at
Speaker 1: least the summer of twenty twenty one, So let's put
Speaker 1: her and her team in the probably heard some rumors category. Now.
Speaker 1: It's around this time that allegedly the first big bells
Speaker 1: were right ung and ignored. A former advisor to Santos
Speaker 1: learned about a business he was involved with in Florida,
Speaker 1: an alleged Ponzi scheme among other suspicious businesses, so taking
Speaker 1: with the rumors he was most likely aware of, the
Speaker 1: advisor said he took the findings to a state party
Speaker 1: official later that fall and tried to pitch the story
Speaker 1: to a newspaper, which he said did not pursue it.
Speaker 1: A newspaper not pursuing something. Let's remember that. Okay, So
Speaker 1: we're making our way through twenty twenty one, and as
Speaker 1: is common for a campaign to do, they commission a
Speaker 1: vulnerability report. So Affirm Capital Research Group else put together
Speaker 1: a report that apparently revealed quite a bit of information.
Speaker 1: It's not out in the public, but it was bad
Speaker 1: enough that on December one, twenty twenty one, people working
Speaker 1: with him called a meeting and their message to him
Speaker 1: was basically gameover. Either quietly drop out, or wait until
Speaker 1: all of this information comes out and destroys you. Can
Speaker 1: you guess what happened because he came back a few
Speaker 1: days later and expressed that he wasn't worried, it was
Speaker 1: going to be fine, and members of his campaign must
Speaker 1: have been shocked at his inability to understand what was happening,
Speaker 1: because these aren't just rumors now. People close to him
Speaker 1: know things, and according to the people the time spoke with,
Speaker 1: most of his team just quit after that. That's not
Speaker 1: a fun way to enter Christmas. Going into the new
Speaker 1: year twenty twenty two, rumors are circulating, people are warning
Speaker 1: other people, but none of this makes it to the
Speaker 1: press in a meaningful enough way. Dan Constant, a close
Speaker 1: ally of Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, who leads the Congressional Leadership Fund,
Speaker 1: the main House Republican super pac, also confided in lawmakers, donors,
Speaker 1: and other associates that he was worried information would come
Speaker 1: out exposing mister Santos as a fraud. According to two
Speaker 1: people with knowledge of the conversations, that Leadership Fund did
Speaker 1: not support Santos's race. But it doesn't sound like Dan
Speaker 1: Conston was calling his friends at the Washington Post either,
Speaker 1: So maybe he was waiting for the Democrats to do
Speaker 1: the dirty work or someone else, or Santos would just
Speaker 1: implode on his own. Who knows. But in the summer
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, the d Triple C puts together
Speaker 1: an eighty seven page book of opposition research. This should
Speaker 1: have uncovered everything. The Republicans will confirm all their suspicions
Speaker 1: without having to throw their own under the bus, and
Speaker 1: the Democrats will win the seat as was expected. This
Speaker 1: report was not that it missed a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: It's written at various places in the D Triple C
Speaker 1: report that more research needs to be done. So taken
Speaker 1: all together, you have politicians who are suspicious, you have
Speaker 1: donors who are skeptical. You have campaign staff who were
Speaker 1: willing to completely break off from the campaign, and yet
Speaker 1: somehow this didn't really come out until after he won
Speaker 1: the general election. Now, there were other articles that reported
Speaker 1: on Santos. The Daily Beast did some really good work,
Speaker 1: but it was really just one paper, The North Shore Leader,
Speaker 1: that came out before the general to say unequivocally, this
Speaker 1: guy is a fake. This person Grant Lally called it
Speaker 1: years ago. So the question becomes, why did a small
Speaker 1: local paper get it and pretty much everyone else missed
Speaker 1: it well. Santos's opponent, Robert Zimmerman, told The Times his
Speaker 1: campaign tried to prod reporters at local and national news
Speaker 1: outlets with leeds about mister Santos, but had little luck.
Speaker 1: The response we got back, pretty universally was they just
Speaker 1: didn't have the personnel, the time, or the money to
Speaker 1: do it. One person said to me, there are sixty
Speaker 1: to eighty crazy people running. We can't investigate them all. Okay,
Speaker 1: But why why aren't there more reporters allocated to second
Speaker 1: tier races. Why was most of Santos's staff able to
Speaker 1: quit without being noticed. The answer to all of this
Speaker 1: is very simple. For profit news sucks. And actually the
Speaker 1: massive coverage of George Sands now that all of his
Speaker 1: secrets are out perfectly explains why there was such scant
Speaker 1: coverage of him before. He was not a proven news
Speaker 1: item before. If you are relying on AD dollars, and
Speaker 1: viewership equals AD dollars, you and your network are deeply
Speaker 1: concerned with what is captivating and entertaining and who has
Speaker 1: proven themselves as more of an entertaining news item than
Speaker 1: George Santos. Some acknowledge to me that the end of
Speaker 1: our team that factly, it's only a news story if
Speaker 1: he gets elected. He's an epic fraud and we've all
Speaker 1: been given permission to hate him. Consider how much money,
Speaker 1: how many salary dollars have been spent on coverage of
Speaker 1: Santos recently? Now, how much of that if you click
Speaker 1: on CNN or MSNBC, how much of it has been
Speaker 1: completely needless and redundant and you've learned nothing from it. Now,
Speaker 1: that's cable news's thing. Most of the time, they just
Speaker 1: senselessly cover a handful of big ticket items. You can
Speaker 1: really only rely on them to amplify a story. Maybe
Speaker 1: as far as national print goes, The Times obviously did
Speaker 1: some great work after the fact on this story, but
Speaker 1: they too have similar ad pressures, and they have a
Speaker 1: profit directive. And on top of that, it's true they
Speaker 1: don't have infinite reporters to throw at every single lead.
Speaker 1: But for what we're talking about, there's a bigger issue.
Speaker 1: This is a map that shows all the counties in
Speaker 1: the US and how many newspapers they have. The areas
Speaker 1: in yellow have one newspaper and the areas in red
Speaker 1: have none. And keep in mind this doesn't indicate the
Speaker 1: budgets of the papers. The reason The North Shore Leader
Speaker 1: was special in its reporting on Santos is because they're
Speaker 1: plugged into the community and the political scene. Of course
Speaker 1: they beat the national outlets. That's their function. This is
Speaker 1: why local papers are important, but they do have limited resources.
Speaker 1: But we're a small weekly newspaper. We have a dozen
Speaker 1: part time reporters, some who do investigative work. Some are
Speaker 1: actually high school kids, so part of their staff are
Speaker 1: high schoolers who probably can't do investigative work past eight
Speaker 1: thirty on a school night. Now you look at these
Speaker 1: areas and read they don't even have that. So there's
Speaker 1: this thing called coverage density and it's basically the ratio
Speaker 1: of people in a given area to reporters in that area,
Speaker 1: and in the last twenty years, coverage density is way down.
Speaker 1: On average, For every hundred million dollars spent by state
Speaker 1: and local governments one hundred million dollars, there's only one
Speaker 1: reporter scrutinizing it. And there are a few factors you
Speaker 1: can look to for why. One is that papers have
Speaker 1: been really hurting by the sharp drop off in advertising
Speaker 1: and classified but another is that hedge funds own half
Speaker 1: the newspapers in this country, the most notorious of which
Speaker 1: is probably all in Global Capital. Basically, if they buy
Speaker 1: your newspaper, it's time to get your resume together, because
Speaker 1: they are known for gutting newspapers. In another video on
Speaker 1: my channel, I touched on a particular story of a
Speaker 1: paper that had about a dozen people on staff when
Speaker 1: they were acquired by Alden. Their newsroom was destroyed and
Speaker 1: ended up being cut down to just one reporter who
Speaker 1: was responsible for covering every aspect of their community. So
Speaker 1: when a George Santos emerges in one of these red areas,
Speaker 1: what happens after every politician who encounters him says that
Speaker 1: they knew something was crooked, but ultimately thought someone else
Speaker 1: would take care of the taxing work of exposing him,
Speaker 1: or they go to their local paper and there's only
Speaker 1: one reporter working there. Well, unfortunately, one possibility is that
Speaker 1: that crooked person goes to Congress. So for me, that's
Speaker 1: the big picture takeaway, because yes, George Santos is a
Speaker 1: fraud and a liar, and everything surrounding a story is
Speaker 1: crazy and worth examining. For sure. However, he will ultimately
Speaker 1: leave Congress. He might not even make it to the
Speaker 1: end of this term. But he was allowed to rise
Speaker 1: because everyone either thought that someone else would take care
Speaker 1: of the dirty work, or they went to the press
Speaker 1: only to learn that there wasn't actually enough press to
Speaker 1: go around. Eventually there was, but it was too late.
Speaker 1: He's already in Washington making decisions, so the only thing
Speaker 1: that's left is whether or not the next George Santos
Speaker 1: also benefits from a journalistic landscape that doesn't have the time,
Speaker 1: or the resources or the interest, And unfortunately that's entirely possible.
Speaker 1: But that will do it for me. I'm Spencer Snyder.
Speaker 1: If you found this video interesting, you can check out
Speaker 1: my YouTube channel where I talk about the media and
Speaker 1: politics and other interesting things. Linking the description obviously make
Speaker 1: sure you are subscribed to Breaking Points. Liking and sharing
Speaker 1: always helps. Thanks so much for watching, and I will
Speaker 1: see in the next one.