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Speaker 1: Hey guys, thanks for listening to Breaking Points with Crystal

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Speaker 1: and Sager. We're going to be totally upfront with you.

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Speaker 1: of dollars doing it. To help support our mission of

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Speaker 1: get to hear our reactions to each other's monologues, participate

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Speaker 1: Crystalandsager dot com to become a Premium member today, which

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Speaker 1: is available in the show notes. We love you guys,

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Speaker 1: enjoy the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have

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Speaker 1: an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Christol? Indeed,

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Speaker 1: we do some great stories to dig in today we've

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Speaker 1: got taxes of the wealthiest Americans have been revealed. Some

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Speaker 1: stunning though ultimately not surprising revelations there, but fascinating. To

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Speaker 1: get dig into that detail, we're going to start with

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Speaker 1: that incredible Reagan brain from Art Laffer, total contempt for

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Speaker 1: the poor. We'll get into that. Virginia governor's race, the

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Speaker 1: Democratic primary was this week. Also some breaking news about

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Speaker 1: breaking points that you don't want to miss we've got, Yes, indeed,

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Speaker 1: we should, actually we should have led with that because

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Speaker 1: it's the most important news. We've got our monologues. Of course,

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Speaker 1: Brianna Joy Gray is going to join us to talk

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Speaker 1: about the dam's latest excuse for inaction. That would be

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Speaker 1: Senator Joe Manchin. But we do, in fact want to

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Speaker 1: start with the revelation of those tax retards. That's right,

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Speaker 1: So we'll go ahead and throw this up there on

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Speaker 1: the screen. This is from Pro Publica. This is actually

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Speaker 1: an amazing story. So the secret IRS files, trove of

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Speaker 1: never before seen records reveal how the wealthiest have avoided

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Speaker 1: income taxes. Okay, so the most important top line story

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Speaker 1: here is that the highest income tax rate is thirty

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Speaker 1: seven percent. Four people who have earnings about six hundred

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Speaker 1: and twenty eight thousand, three hundred dollars. Well, the true

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Speaker 1: effective tax rate for the world's wealthiest, this is according

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Speaker 1: to Pro Publica and their review of twenty five of

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Speaker 1: the wealthiest people in America is three point four percent

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Speaker 1: between twenty fourteen and two thousand and not an eighteen.

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Speaker 1: Here's the kicker, which is that in that same period

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Speaker 1: they raise, they earned a collective extra four hundred and

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Speaker 1: one billion dollars, paid only a total of thirteen point

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Speaker 1: six billion in federal income taxes during those five years.

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Speaker 1: So this is incredible because what it shows, Crystal is yes, okay,

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Speaker 1: they showed and they paid thirteen point six billion dollars. Okay,

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Speaker 1: but during that time period, or middle class, lower class, everybody,

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Speaker 1: basically even you know, there's a famous adage like, oh,

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Speaker 1: poor people don't pay taxes. Well, they have to pay

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Speaker 1: like Social Security and FICA taxes. Guess who's paying even

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Speaker 1: less than them, the wealthiest people in America. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I want to read you a little bit of this piece,

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Speaker 1: which by I mean Pro Publica did, yeah, amazing phenomenal

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Speaker 1: job here, and they say that they receive a massive

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Speaker 1: cash of documents detailing how the rich go about avoiding

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Speaker 1: paying taxes. This appears to be the first story of

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Speaker 1: many as they dive into that data. They've been sorting

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Speaker 1: through it already for months, so make sure you keep

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Speaker 1: your eyes peeled for what more they reveal. But just

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Speaker 1: to read from the beginning here, they say, in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and seven, Jeff Bezos, then a multi billionaire and

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Speaker 1: now the world's richest man, did not pay a penny

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Speaker 1: in federal income taxes. He achieved that feat again in

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Speaker 1: twenty eleven. In twenty eighteen, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the

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Speaker 1: second richest person in the world, also paid no federal

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Speaker 1: income taxes. Nikeel Bloomberg managed to do the same In

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Speaker 1: recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icon did it twice. George Soros,

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Speaker 1: famous liberal, paid no federal income tax three years in

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Speaker 1: a row. They go on to say, many Americans love

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Speaker 1: paycheck to paycheck, amassing little wealth and paying the federal

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Speaker 1: government a percentage of their income that rises if they

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Speaker 1: earn more. In recent years, the median American household earned

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Speaker 1: about seventy k annually and paid fourteen percent in federal taxes.

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Speaker 1: So that's your average American household struggling paycheck to paycheck

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Speaker 1: fourteen percent in federal taxes. Meanwhile the richest paid three percent. Insane,

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Speaker 1: And they dig into the way that they hide their income.

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Speaker 1: And of course there's a lot of different strategies that

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Speaker 1: they use, but one that they go into detail on

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Speaker 1: is basically, you know, they hold these shares that are

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Speaker 1: worth billions of dollars, and rather than cashing out those

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Speaker 1: shares and using that money to live on because that

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Speaker 1: would trigger a tax event, that income would then be taxable,

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Speaker 1: although it would still be taxable at a lower rate

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Speaker 1: than the income tax rate, they borrow against the value

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Speaker 1: of those assets, so they in essence, never have a

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Speaker 1: taxable event. They do this their entire lives, and then

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Speaker 1: when it comes to pass, it onto their errors. You know,

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Speaker 1: in theory we have the estate tax or the death

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Speaker 1: taxes conservatives like to call it. There are a myriad

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Speaker 1: of ways that they avoid paying that as well. So

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Speaker 1: this wealth billions and billions of dollars is effectively never taxed. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: regular wage journers working for a living, your income goes up,

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Speaker 1: your taxes go up. Regular people are paying so much

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Speaker 1: more in taxes than the richest among us, and it

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Speaker 1: is truly discussing. What's depressing about it is it's very

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Speaker 1: hard to know what to do about it. Now, what's

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Speaker 1: actually really stunning here is that Warren Buffett, for example,

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Speaker 1: remember when Warren Buffett did that whole thing with Obama

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Speaker 1: and he's like, we should pay eleven or so. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I get this. So his wealth growth was twenty four

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Speaker 1: point three billion. The total income he reported was one

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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five million, on which he paid taxes

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Speaker 1: of twenty three point seven million, which means what his

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Speaker 1: true tax rate was point one percent. Now take Bezos.

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Speaker 1: This is actually an even better example. In twenty eleven,

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Speaker 1: a year in which Bezos's wealth rose at eighteen billion,

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Speaker 1: he filed a tax return reporting that he lost money.

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Speaker 1: His income that year was offset by investment losses. What's more,

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Speaker 1: because according to the tax law, he made so little,

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Speaker 1: he then claimed and received a four thousand dollars tax

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Speaker 1: credit for his children. So in the same year that

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Speaker 1: his wealth rises by eighteen billion dollars, he not only

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Speaker 1: paid nothing, he took advantage of the earned income tax

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Speaker 1: credit in the child tax credit system in order to

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Speaker 1: claim government money for his family. Now that doesn't sit

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Speaker 1: right with me. Now, if you look even more, tax

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Speaker 1: avoidance is striking between two thousand and six to twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: which Pro Public actually has the data for Bezos's wealth

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Speaker 1: increased by one hundred and twenty seven billion, but he

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Speaker 1: reported only six point five billion dollars in income. The

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Speaker 1: one point four billion that he paid in taxes is

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Speaker 1: sure like it's a lot of money, but that is

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Speaker 1: a true effective tax rate on his fortune of one

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Speaker 1: point one percent. This is what they get away with

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Speaker 1: all throughout the system, and it's actually very useful because

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Speaker 1: a lot of the billionaire class and the multimillionaire class

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Speaker 1: in New York will always use this talking point. If

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Speaker 1: you look at the amount of taxes we pay in

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Speaker 1: absolute terms relative to everybody else, we are like the

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Speaker 1: vast majority of the system. I accept that to be true. However,

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Speaker 1: go ahead and look at their true effective tax rate

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Speaker 1: relative to everybody else. Just because they're paying more in

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Speaker 1: the actual dollar amount, it is not fair necessary early

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Speaker 1: that they are paying so not just a lot less,

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Speaker 1: like not just a little bit less, a lot less

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Speaker 1: relative to the general population, especially the working man and

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Speaker 1: woman who have to pay Social security taxes. Fight at taxes.

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Speaker 1: They can't hide any of that. Well, so yeah, maybe

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Speaker 1: they don't pay income taxes. They actually still have a

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Speaker 1: higher federal effective income tax rate than the wealthiest people

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Speaker 1: in America. It's grotesque just to lay out one I

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Speaker 1: know we're hitting you with a lot of dollar figures,

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Speaker 1: but this stuff really matters, just to lay out one

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Speaker 1: more metric for you. Okay. So the way that the

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Speaker 1: progressive taxation system is supposed to work, as your wealth grows,

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Speaker 1: you pay more in taxes. That's the basic idea underlying this.

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Speaker 1: That's what everybody sort of accepts, except for some like

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Speaker 1: weirdos on the right, some like weirdos of the libertarian

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Speaker 1: gift that that's like the basic idea of fairness. Right,

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Speaker 1: the more you make, the more you're supposed to pay

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Speaker 1: in However, that is the polar opposite of what is

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Speaker 1: going on here. So they crunch the numbers and found

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Speaker 1: that for every one hundred dollars of wealth growth over

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Speaker 1: the period that they studied, typical Americans paid one hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixty dollars in taxes. So for every one hundred

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Speaker 1: dollars of wealth growth, one hundred and sixty in taxes.

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Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos. For every one hundred dollars of growth paid

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Speaker 1: one dollar and nine cents in taxes. That gives you

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Speaker 1: a precise number of how wildly unjust and unfair this

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Speaker 1: current system of taxation is. And I thought they had

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Speaker 1: a line in here that I want to read to

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Speaker 1: you because I think this really, this really sort of

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Speaker 1: nails the core of why this is so incredibly enraging,

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Speaker 1: and not just enraging, but also gets to the heart

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Speaker 1: of like this breakdown of a sense of trust and

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Speaker 1: belief in this society. They say, look, there's a more

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Speaker 1: fundamental issue than which programs get funded or not. Taxes

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Speaker 1: are a kind of collective sacrifice. No one loves giving

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Speaker 1: their hard earned money to the government. But the system

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Speaker 1: works only as long as it's perceived to be fair. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and what you see from these numbers is this is wildly,

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Speaker 1: wildly unfair. And the solutions to it look leftists have offered,

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Speaker 1: you know, wealth tax, which I think is a good idea.

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Speaker 1: It's been shown to be a little bit complicated. Some

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Speaker 1: countries have tried it. It's been hard to implement. The

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Speaker 1: biggest problem is that what the rich do is they

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Speaker 1: just they'll move their income from if it's you know,

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Speaker 1: if the taxation system changes here, they move it are

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Speaker 1: overseas to somewhere where they're going to get more favorable treatment.

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Speaker 1: So it's actually a hard problem to really get at

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Speaker 1: and really deal with. But what's really outrageous? Do can

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Speaker 1: throw this next tari sheet from our tweet from CNN

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Speaker 1: up on the screen. The Biden administration's response to this

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Speaker 1: so far, their response is to investigate how the tax

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Speaker 1: information was released, not to investigate the billionaires or the

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Speaker 1: tax code or any of that. They're enraged apparently, and

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Speaker 1: going to investigate aggressive the fact that this information got

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Speaker 1: into your hands to start with. And again I want

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Speaker 1: to say kudos to Pro Publica, yeah, because I mean,

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Speaker 1: come on, guys, right, and they Pro Publica says, look,

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Speaker 1: you know, this is a little bit of a tricky

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Speaker 1: issue because we're talking about people's privacy, et cetera. They

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Speaker 1: got this cash of information, they actually don't know who

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Speaker 1: or where it came. They came in a raw form,

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Speaker 1: came in raw form, which speaks to some of the

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Speaker 1: debates that we've been having over the years about like

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Speaker 1: what journalists should do. I mean, the Hunter Biden emails,

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Speaker 1: Zy case the Russia Gate, the WikiLeaks releases, all that stuff.

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Speaker 1: There are all these questions in handwringing about whether to

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Speaker 1: release information if the sources that it comes from are

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Speaker 1: an afarious Propublican did the right thing here and said, look,

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Speaker 1: we don't actually care or know where this data came from.

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Speaker 1: We were able to validate that it was accurate, and

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Speaker 1: that's why we're releasing it. It's exactly the right call. No,

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Speaker 1: it was absolutely the right call. And I think the

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Speaker 1: part that really comes and strikes to me is this.

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Speaker 1: The personal federal tax bill for the top twenty five

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Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen was one point nine billion dollars. The

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Speaker 1: bill for waygjourners was one hundred and forty three billion,

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Speaker 1: So it's not like they're even paying an absolute dollar

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Speaker 1: figure more than the rest of US. One hundred and

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Speaker 1: forty three billion dollars is what regular working men and

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Speaker 1: women paid into the system in twenty eighteen, while these

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Speaker 1: people are only paying one point nine billion. And here's

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Speaker 1: the thing, given the pandemic, these people are going to

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Speaker 1: pay even less. There are all sorts of employer tax

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Speaker 1: credits and all this stuff which has passed through the

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Speaker 1: American Rescue plan, which I support for small business people.

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Speaker 1: But when I see this grotesque nature in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: and then you see so many of the different programs

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Speaker 1: that we are implementing now in the last year or so,

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Speaker 1: and you see Jeff Bezos's wealth rise by seventy billion dollars,

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Speaker 1: we just know for a fact that they're probably going

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Speaker 1: to pay even less than ever in one of the

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Speaker 1: worst years on record for most Americans and actually one

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Speaker 1: of the best years on records for the billionaire class.

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Speaker 1: Imagine that people like Elon Musk are able to be like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I lost money this year. I mean, I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: just not true. And I like you On, but like

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Speaker 1: it's like, dude, that's not true completely, and it's even

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's these people. You can think whatever

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Speaker 1: you want to think about them and their intentions, good, bad, whatever.

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Speaker 1: This is about an entire system that is disgustingly unfair,

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Speaker 1: and it also ties into the paper we're talking about

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Speaker 1: this week, with Thomas Pahetti asking the question, when you

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Speaker 1: see numbers like this, when you see massive skyrocketing inequality,

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Speaker 1: when you see during a pandemic, while everyone else is

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Speaker 1: getting screwed, these people getting richer and richer than ever

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Speaker 1: at an accelerating pace, and you wonder, like, where's the

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Speaker 1: backlash to that, where's the class conflict to that? And

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Speaker 1: that's where you know the fact of these sort of

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Speaker 1: like shiny object distractions, the hollow like just linguistic signaling

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Speaker 1: culture war type battles that Washington and our political elites

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Speaker 1: tend to be focused on. That's all a distraction from this,

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Speaker 1: Like this story exactly is what they do not want

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Speaker 1: you to focus on. Talk about, organize around, center your

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Speaker 1: politics around. This is the core of it right here.

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Speaker 1: So as Pro Publica continues to release more data here

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Speaker 1: and continues to release more information about these tax returns,

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Speaker 1: we will certainly continue to be on it. That's exactly right.

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Speaker 1: But we wanted to turn to some really I mean

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Speaker 1: these comments from Art Laffer, great friend of the show,

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Speaker 1: just kidding, total enemy of the show, but friend of

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Speaker 1: the show, recent comments on Fox News talking about exactly

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Speaker 1: who he thinks deserves a living wage. Let's take a listen. Okay,

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Speaker 1: Austin wants to talk about the current McDonald CEO Kemzinski.

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Speaker 1: He's noting that artificial intelligence technology has eighty five percent

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Speaker 1: accuracy with filling orders, with workers having to step in

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Speaker 1: for approximately one in five orders. It's going to be

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Speaker 1: a big leap, he says, to go from ten restaurants

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Speaker 1: to fourteen thousand restaurants. But there is no doubt they

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Speaker 1: are working in that direction. Art. Yeah, for those people

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Speaker 1: sandraw who are coming into the labor force brand fresh,

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Speaker 1: not old timers who've been around for a while, the poorer,

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Speaker 1: the minorities, that disenfranchised, those with less education, young people

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Speaker 1: who haven't had the job experience. These people aren't worth

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Speaker 1: fifteen dollars an hour in most cases, and so therefore,

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Speaker 1: when you have a fifteen dollars an hour minimum wage,

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Speaker 1: they don't get that first job. They don't get the

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Speaker 1: requisite skills to earn above the minimum wage, and after

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Speaker 1: a few years they become unemployable, and after becoming the unemployable,

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Speaker 1: they become hostile. And that what you'll find happening is

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Speaker 1: this technology is created an underclass of people who are

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Speaker 1: really just bid out of the labor market and will

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Speaker 1: remain out of the labor market for most of their lives.

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Speaker 1: And this, I think is just a tragedy. I love

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Speaker 1: the technology, but the technology is replacing the jobs for

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Speaker 1: these people and it's a killer. It's a killer for

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Speaker 1: just the people who need to help the most. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's an incredible it's the whole thing is I love

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Speaker 1: how he was like the poorer, the minorities, the young.

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Speaker 1: I was like, dude, right, the less educated, poor, minorities, disenfranchised,

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Speaker 1: thet or disadvantage. I can't remember which word he is.

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Speaker 1: And the young aren't worth fifteen dollars an hour, aren't

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Speaker 1: worth that's the language that he used. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: they're not worth it. This is your brain on Reaganomics.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is what it is. And this here,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I know it may seem gratuitous to dunk On,

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Speaker 1: Larry Cudlow, and on Art Laugher, these are the mainstream

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Speaker 1: brains within the Republican Party. I want people to understand, right,

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Speaker 1: Art Laugher was literally advising the President of the United

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Speaker 1: States during recently as six months ago, seven months ago

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Speaker 1: during COVID for all of the Cares Act, the Rescue packages,

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Speaker 1: opposition to the stimulus bills. Art Laugher, Steven Moore, and

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Speaker 1: Larry Cudlow. The three of them together worked incessantly to

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Speaker 1: make sure that the American people delivered or got less

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Speaker 1: aid while Trump was in the White House. Now, look,

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Speaker 1: I'm not blaming them, only Trump's the idiot who listened

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Speaker 1: to that, right, So like, don't you know, don't think

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Speaker 1: that this is me writing them off. But these guys

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Speaker 1: are very, very powerful. They remain immensely powerful. If you

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Speaker 1: go when you ask let's say the Median Republican senator,

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Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, like who do you turn to

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Speaker 1: for political or economic advice, They'll say Steven Moore in

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Speaker 1: our Laugher, They're like, these are the people that I

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Speaker 1: listen to. And Laugher in particular has just been a

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Speaker 1: ridiculous figure. He was the first person that Larry Kudlow

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Speaker 1: invited on his brand new Fox Business show in order

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Speaker 1: to go after in order to go after stimulus checks

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Speaker 1: for Americans and to say like, oh, it is going

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Speaker 1: to lead to widespread inflation and all this other fear mongering,

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Speaker 1: complete nonsense, like why the economy doesn't need more stimulus?

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Speaker 1: These people have been proven wrong for thirty five years plus,

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Speaker 1: and yet he still gets to go on Fox. But worse,

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Speaker 1: it's not just the Foxing people listen to this man.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people in power and So that's what

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Speaker 1: we're trying to show you. This is what they actually

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Speaker 1: think about you. They think of you. I use this

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Speaker 1: term because this is what they use human capital stock.

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Speaker 1: They usually think of you as lifestyle And that's the

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Speaker 1: perfect example. At best, at best probably less, I mean really,

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Speaker 1: it's it's less than human, less than even a sentient

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Speaker 1: being at all. It's like you're a cog. You're a cog,

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Speaker 1: and we think you're less. Fifteen dollars an hour, just

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Speaker 1: so you understand, is the bare minimum that you can

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Speaker 1: survive on. In only a handful of places. Can you

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Speaker 1: even survive on fifteen dollars an hour, Like in most

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Speaker 1: parts of the country, that's not even a living way,

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Speaker 1: especially especially in metropolitan areas. But yeah, the country, if

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Speaker 1: you look at housing prices, especially at this point, how

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Speaker 1: many places in this country can you even afford a

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Speaker 1: one bedroom apartment on fifteen dollars an hour. That number

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Speaker 1: is diminishing every single day. And so when he's saying

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Speaker 1: he doesn't think the poor, minorities, young people, disadvantaged people

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Speaker 1: are worth fifteen dollars an hour, he's saying you aren't

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Speaker 1: worth enough to even live on, to even attempt to

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Speaker 1: live on. And that's this is like quiet part down loud,

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Speaker 1: because that's what really undergirds the whole philosophy is just

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Speaker 1: this level of dehumanizing contempt where all you are is

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Speaker 1: a cog in the marketplace. All you are is like

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Speaker 1: a dollar value of worth. And if the second that

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Speaker 1: a robot is a penny cheaper, you're out the door.

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Speaker 1: And that's what he's talking about here with automation is

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Speaker 1: like and he's trying to play this, Oh, and I'm

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Speaker 1: so worried about it. And really, you know, I'm a

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Speaker 1: humanitarian for wanting your wage to be like five dollars

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Speaker 1: an hour, when look, it all depends on what your

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Speaker 1: values are. Do you value human beings have a decent,

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Speaker 1: dignified living, or do you value this like absurd radical

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Speaker 1: You want to talk about radical fringe, Like this type

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Speaker 1: of ideology is extremely radical in fringe, but you're right

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Speaker 1: that within Republican Party elites it's incredibly mainstream. Let's not

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Speaker 1: forget Florida this year, right as they voted pretty overwhelmingly

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Speaker 1: for Donald tr also voted even more overwhelmingly for a

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Speaker 1: fifteen dollars minimum wage. It is the bare minimum, honestly,

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Speaker 1: at this point, we should be asking for more than

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Speaker 1: fifteen dollars, because we've been asking for that for ten years.

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Speaker 1: The minimum wage has not moved in the longest period

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Speaker 1: in history that we have ever had in the history

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Speaker 1: of that program. And oh, by the way, you know,

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Speaker 1: for the Biden people who claim this was like the

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Speaker 1: central promise that they made, I mean, this is what

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Speaker 1: I said, Bernie, remember that. Yeah, in that first endorsement

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Speaker 1: video that was so painful to watch. The one thing

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Speaker 1: that he really like emphasized to Bernie was I support

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Speaker 1: fifteen dollars minimum wage. When's the last time you heard

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Speaker 1: them talk about it? It's completely fallen off the radar.

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Speaker 1: Why they're listening to Larry Summers. They may not be

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Speaker 1: listening to Art Laugher, but they're listening to Larry Summers

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Speaker 1: because Larry this is how elite structures of power work,

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Speaker 1: which is that, Yes, Larry Summers and Art Laugher may

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Speaker 1: be totally discredited in mainstream economic thought, government policymaking, all

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Speaker 1: of that, it doesn't matter because Art Laugher goes on

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Speaker 1: Fox News and Republican senators have to respond to people

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Speaker 1: who are on Fox News. Now, if you're the Biden

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Speaker 1: White House. Who do you have to respond to? It's

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Speaker 1: MSNBC and the op ed pages of the New York Times.

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Speaker 1: And guess who's writing op eds scare mongering about inflation,

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Speaker 1: Larry Summers and so look, he may be on the outs,

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Speaker 1: he may not be in the White House. Guarantee you

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Speaker 1: a lot of people in the White House read that

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Speaker 1: op ed and said, hmm, maybe, And if that influences

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Speaker 1: their decision making, then he has had a tremendous more

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Speaker 1: impact than you or I or any of the people

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Speaker 1: with actual ideas about how the economy should run and

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Speaker 1: more or really about how human beings should be valued

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Speaker 1: in the labor force. They have no say whatsoever. This

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Speaker 1: is a prime example of how elites leverage their networks

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Speaker 1: of power in order to influence the policy making process.

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Speaker 1: And that is exactly how policy making is disconnected from

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Speaker 1: your life, from my life and others, because people don't

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Speaker 1: care what regular people have to say. They only care

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Speaker 1: what these people have to say. And that's the real

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Speaker 1: tragedy of it all. Washington Post, it might have been

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Speaker 1: Jeff Stein broke the story. I'm not one hund percent sure,

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Speaker 1: but we love Jeff, so we'll just go ahead and

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Speaker 1: get the credit here reported that Biden spoke with Larry

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Speaker 1: Summers last week. I mean, it tells you. And this

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Speaker 1: is what we focus on the Trump administration too, Like,

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Speaker 1: forget about what he's saying publicly, who's he talking to?

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Speaker 1: And that's the whole structure of our system, Like who

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Speaker 1: are they spending time on the phone with, who are

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Speaker 1: they surrounding themselves with in meetings, Who's their social circle?

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Speaker 1: That's what dictates the policies by and large. And so

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Speaker 1: while Art Laugher like, we can look at this and

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Speaker 1: it's preposterous and it's laughable, and you can ridicule it.

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Speaker 1: This man has been winning in terms of economic policy

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Speaker 1: forty years, for decades, for decades and decades, and still

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Speaker 1: he's allowed to go on Fox News and say that dribble,

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Speaker 1: not even challenge for a split second. Yeah, I can't

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Speaker 1: believe that. I mean, Sandra knows better. I mean she

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Speaker 1: should at least challenge him a little bit. Hey, guys,

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Speaker 1: So remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was. Well,

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00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:56,119
Speaker 1: here I am again to remind you that becoming a

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00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:58,880
Speaker 1: premium member means you don't have to listen to our

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00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:01,119
Speaker 1: constant please for you to subscribe. So what are you

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Speaker 1: waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to

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00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:06,959
Speaker 1: Crystal Andsager dot com, which you can click on in

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00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:09,119
Speaker 1: the show notes. But at the same time, we had

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Speaker 1: some major primary results in your home stated, so we

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Speaker 1: got Chrystal we do for people who don't know, is

427
00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 1: a resonant expert of Kentucky and Virginia politics. So R

428
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 1: T mac Terry mccalliff. Yeah, it's up there on the screen.

429
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:24,840
Speaker 1: It's gonna go on ahead and won the primary. What

430
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:27,520
Speaker 1: does this mean. I mean it's okay. So it doesn't

431
00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:30,359
Speaker 1: mean that much, to be honest with you, because uh,

432
00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:36,120
Speaker 1: this is widely expected. Terry mccaulliffe. Of course, longtime Clinton knight.

433
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 1: He basically sort of made his political bones by being

434
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton's best friend. Oh and being the greatest bundler

435
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:46,679
Speaker 1: the mass politics has ever known, massive fundraiser. I've been

436
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 1: around Terry a lot, and just you know, from my

437
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,320
Speaker 1: run in Virginia at the same time that he was

438
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:54,479
Speaker 1: running for governor and stuff like that. And I mean

439
00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 1: he does have this like classic politician, larger than life,

440
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 1: personal dominates a room, all that stuff. It was always

441
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:05,879
Speaker 1: when you're at an event in one of these Democratic

442
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:08,880
Speaker 1: Party events, he's always the last person to sit down

443
00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:11,239
Speaker 1: because he's work in the room. Just classic sort of

444
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 1: like glad handling you. I don't know if you remember this.

445
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: When he first ran in the Democratic primary for governor,

446
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: it was back in two thousand and nine, and he

447
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 1: actually lost to Creedeats, who went on to get destroyed

448
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 1: by Bob McDonald. And what pressage than the Tea Party wave.

449
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 1: And that's why these Virginia elections are ultimately important. Virginia

450
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:34,159
Speaker 1: and I think New Jersey are the only states that

451
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:37,679
Speaker 1: have gubernatorial elections this year. New Jersey obviously is like

452
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: solid blue at this point. Virginia is pretty blue too

453
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: at this point, but still it's a little bit more

454
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 1: of a bell weather. So that's why these things tend

455
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 1: to be viewed as a canary in the coal mine.

456
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:49,639
Speaker 1: So Number one, what people were looking at is what

457
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: would his margin be? And his margin was overwhelming vote.

458
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: He won every single city and locality in the entire state.

459
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:00,959
Speaker 1: And look, I mean, the guy's a former god. People

460
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 1: broadly liked him when he was governor. He wasn't amazing,

461
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 1: I mean in terms of progressive values, he certainly wasn't great.

462
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:10,360
Speaker 1: And the area that of course I find particularly enraging

463
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 1: and also important about Virginia politics for the national political

464
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:16,440
Speaker 1: scene is this state. At this point, it's controlled by

465
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:21,119
Speaker 1: Democrats at every level, two Democratic senators, democratic governor, Democratic House,

466
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 1: Democratic Senate, and it is still ranked as the worst

467
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:30,640
Speaker 1: state in the entire nation for workers' rights. Okay, democrats

468
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: control everything. Still ranked as the worst state in the

469
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: nation for workers' rights. So mccauliffe, as part of his

470
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:42,160
Speaker 1: campaign last time around, he did not even support at all.

471
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:44,720
Speaker 1: He said no to the repeal of right to work.

472
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: Now he's moved a little bit and said basically, well,

473
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:48,880
Speaker 1: if it ends up on my desk, I guess I'll

474
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:53,919
Speaker 1: sign it. But mostly he spends his time illustrating how

475
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,879
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a chance of passing even a Democratic

476
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 1: House and Senate. Very revealing comments. Let's take a listen

477
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: to those. Well, but lifting workers up is really important.

478
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:06,880
Speaker 1: I get asked a lot about right to work, and

479
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:09,840
Speaker 1: I'm very honest with everybody, and I have your most

480
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,920
Speaker 1: international union support or with me, and I tell them

481
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: I got to work on the things that I know

482
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: I can get done. Right to work has never seen

483
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 1: the light of day in the Democratic Senate, as you know,

484
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 1: and in the House of Delegates it just went down

485
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 1: to defeat in a Democratic legislature eighty five to thirteen.

486
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:32,919
Speaker 1: So I understand numbers I can count, But what I

487
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: can get done, which the unions and others care about,

488
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 1: they care about collective bargaining. Let's get the collective bargaining

489
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,639
Speaker 1: piece done and all the other issues that I raised.

490
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 1: I work on things I know I can get done,

491
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:47,679
Speaker 1: and I will lean in hard on those issues. If

492
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: it came to my desk, sure I'd sign it. But listen,

493
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: you can't get it to the House and Senate. I mean,

494
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 1: so let's talk about, Chris, what we can actually get.

495
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of work to do over the

496
00:26:55,600 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 1: next four years. So on the one hand, sadly, right then,

497
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,200
Speaker 1: in a Democratic in House and Senate, it has in

498
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: stood a chance of passing, which is pathetic. But also

499
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: as governors, aren't you supposed to push like sleep if

500
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:12,360
Speaker 1: you actually supported it. But clearly he doesn't. I mean,

501
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: clearly he doesn't actually support the law. And this is

502
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,719
Speaker 1: he's the businessman and he builds himself that that way.

503
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: So he just has this fatalistic attitude like, well, it

504
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:23,199
Speaker 1: can't possibly pass, so forget about it. But yeah, I

505
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: got sure, if it's got to my desk in theory,

506
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,439
Speaker 1: i'd sign it. That's pathetic. It is absolutely sad, and

507
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:30,880
Speaker 1: this is the type of politics that I worry about

508
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: within the Democratic Party. What's happened in Virginia is the

509
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 1: state has become more and more suburban. Northern Virginia suburbs

510
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: basically dominate the politics of the state, and that's why

511
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 1: the state has turned blue. And so as working class

512
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: Virginians have come to be less and less central to

513
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:50,640
Speaker 1: its politics, you get progressive progress on some issues, and

514
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: you know, some of them are significant, and some of

515
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: them are more sort of just like signaling issues, but

516
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:59,119
Speaker 1: on core issues regarding working people that would benefit all

517
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:02,679
Speaker 1: working class Virginians, it's just completely disappeared. It's a non starter.

518
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: You did a great Rising monologue, I think where they

519
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 1: passed right the Equality Act or whatever the state version

520
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 1: of the Equality Act is, but then at the same time,

521
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 1: like did not move on right to work, And this

522
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:16,399
Speaker 1: is probably this is I think it's very important. And

523
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 1: the reason we cover Virginia and Kentucky is not just

524
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: because you know them. These are bellweathers of the national

525
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:23,679
Speaker 1: party system, which is that Virginia is the future of

526
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, which is that you have many former Republicans.

527
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 1: Nova was not always blue country. These were fame you know,

528
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: Louden County, many others famously voted Republican, not that long ago,

529
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 1: in the distant past. And yet what does that mean.

530
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 1: It means that with all these rich people basically become Democrats,

531
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 1: this is the type of politics that you're gonna get,

532
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 1: which is Terry mccaulliffe, former Clintonite, he's, you know, buddy

533
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: buddy with the richest people in the whole country. Apparently

534
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: that's literally how he became prominent by bundling money from

535
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: rich people. And then Bill Clinton was like, yeah, you

536
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: should run for governor, even though you've never done anything

537
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: before except raise money. And He's like, I'll throw all

538
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: my support to you. And he was like, oh, and

539
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: he became a dramatically successful politician. I think he signals

540
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 1: exactly in the right way to these more suburban voters.

541
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: And so as the country becomes democratic, or especially the

542
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: Democratic Party, and it becomes more suburban, more affluent, and

543
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 1: those are the people in the driver's seat. This is

544
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: what's going to happen now. To back to your point, though,

545
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: this is the important thing I did that monologue. I

546
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: think it was this. I forget what the data civics

547
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: data which showed that even still one third of working

548
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 1: class whites voted for Joe Biden in the primary, thirty

549
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: one percent of all Democratic voters in twenty twenty were

550
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: working class whites without a college degree. They are increasingly

551
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: just completely left behind in this coalition and they don't

552
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 1: have a lot of representation in the future of the

553
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: Democratic Party of Terry mccauliffe. And Virginia is a key

554
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: state where there's actually a large working class white population

555
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 1: and they're largely left out of these type of politics. Yeah,

556
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: I mean the Appalachian part of Virginia is just like, yeah,

557
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: they don't care about disappeared from relevance. I remember. I

558
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: think as part of that monologue you're talking about, or

559
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: it might have been a different one, there was a

560
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: state rep who like went and did a tour of Appalachia.

561
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, it's the sort of like

562
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 1: anthropological tour of her own state. And I mean, look,

563
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 1: kudos for going at least making the effort, and I

564
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: don't want to like crap on this person who's really

565
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 1: in good faith trying to understand the different like dynamics

566
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: and cultures within the state. But it's just sort of

567
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: pathetic that you have to make that kind of effort,

568
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 1: like make a big show of it. And there was

569
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 1: a whole like travelogue of her journey in this strange land.

570
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: You know, it's it kind of says it all. I

571
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: do want to say, though, on a hopeful note, this

572
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: isn't inevitable, Like it doesn't have to be that this

573
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: is the Democratic Party coalition. In fact, if you look

574
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: at the state of Nevada, you see a very different approach.

575
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah, and it's not an accident. In fact, it

576
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: is essential to that model that you have a very

577
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: very strong Union presence in the state of Nevada. And

578
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 1: so this was also really demonstrated in the Democratic primary, right,

579
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders wins overwhelmingly in the state of Nevada, where

580
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 1: you have this working class coalition that you know is

581
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: focused on these economic populist issues versus Virginia. My god,

582
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: that was the blowout of all blowouts for Joe Biden, right,

583
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:21,959
Speaker 1: where all of these affluent suburbanites just like that flipped

584
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 1: on a dime and were one hundred percent with him.

585
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: I mean, he just blew the doors off in that state.

586
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: So yeah, like I said, I mean, there's nothing there's

587
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: nothing too surprising here, but we can never accept and

588
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: just like take for granted the fact that Democrats in

589
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,280
Speaker 1: control of every lever of power in a blue state

590
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 1: when it comes to rights for working people, they're just like, Noah,

591
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: we can't do it, we won't do it, we don't

592
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 1: want to do it. That's pathetic. That is pathetic and

593
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: is a very bad omen for the future of the

594
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. I think that's right, and we have some

595
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: very triumphal news. This is very self indulgent, so please

596
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: everybody stick with us. Let's put this up there. Ye

597
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: I think you got They're going to just put it

598
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 1: up there. Which is that breaking points with Crystal and

599
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: Sager the show that you're watching or possibly listening to,

600
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: I need to remember to describe things better in order

601
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 1: for our large now listening audience. We are now the

602
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 1: number one political podcast in the country. This is insane.

603
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:18,760
Speaker 1: It literally has blown me away the top of the

604
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: Spotify charts in Apple as well. As Apple blown out

605
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: pod Save America, Sorry Jian Favreau, and uh, there we go,

606
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: and we went ahead and pushed that icon of us

607
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 1: at up one and the daily down one that is

608
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: seared into my brain is one of the best that

609
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: I literally should I mean, it's just so incredible. I

610
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: was looking today apparently with the number three podcasts on

611
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 1: all of Spotify, behind Rogan and then some like why Mom,

612
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: like murder Mystery Things. I'm sure I've heard it. Okay,

613
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: true time thing, it's like historical true crun Anyway, No

614
00:32:55,960 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: hate on the wine Mom, It's just I think what

615
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 1: the success of the show, at least so far has

616
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 1: shown is that people are so sick of the corporate media.

617
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: That really is what it was. Is that our message

618
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 1: of saying like we need to hate each other less

619
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 1: and hate the corrupt ruin class more has resonated in

620
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 1: ways that like I did not even think humanly possible

621
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: in order to manifest itself at the top of the

622
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 1: charts like this, and people are beginning to take notice.

623
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: That's the fascinating part. All of a sudden, people from

624
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: out of the woodwork, people who would hate our politics normally,

625
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 1: who did their best not to acknowledge rising and more

626
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 1: like oh congratulations, Oh like what an amazing thing you

627
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: guys have built. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, like I

628
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 1: know your game suits, Yeah exactly. No new friends, We've

629
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: got our breakers. What do we got you guys? We

630
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 1: got to figure this out. The army is another one

631
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: that I've heard. I don't know, you guys float some ideas.

632
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 1: I kind of like the army personally, but anyway, we've

633
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: got you guys, We've got our fans are the only

634
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,320
Speaker 1: people that we actually need. But looking and saying what

635
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: that is, what this says, I think about the hunger

636
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: for a new type of media, for a new type

637
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 1: of politics that we both really do stand for. I've

638
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 1: just been absolutely blown away, and beating the New York

639
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: Times is one of the most satisfying things that has

640
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 1: ever happened in my entire life. So thank you well.

641
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,800
Speaker 1: We asked you guys to help us beat CNN at this,

642
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: NBC and Fox News. We didn't know that it was

643
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: possible on the list of us to be like, can

644
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: you help us beat the New York Times. We were like,

645
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:23,279
Speaker 1: we're going We're gonna go ahead and make sure you

646
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 1: beat the New York Times, the pod Save Bros. Spanage.

647
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: I know, I knew the guy was big on YouTube,

648
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: like Matt anyway, Step, I guess he's doing well for

649
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 1: himself anyway, But we're beating him so big, you know

650
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: it actually, so to take it a little bit out

651
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: of the just self indulgent, go us, because this really

652
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 1: is like, we asked you guys to help us beat

653
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: some of these mainstream outlets, and you already helped us

654
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:54,839
Speaker 1: to do that. So thank you, number one. And then

655
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: you know, the the Vanguard guys, and I don't know

656
00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:58,799
Speaker 1: if you guys ever watched them on YouTube. I think

657
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:01,319
Speaker 1: they do a really good job. Gather and Zach. They

658
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:03,919
Speaker 1: made this comment that I thought was really interesting, which

659
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,280
Speaker 1: I hadn't even really particularly thought of, but I actually

660
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: think it is really true. They're saying, you know, what

661
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: Crystal and Zager did is they were able to use

662
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 1: these like corporate mainstream organs to build something and then

663
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: we're able to like take that thing independent. So it's

664
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,840
Speaker 1: that very rarely happens. You're starting to see it happen

665
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: more and more. So you might point to like Iglesias

666
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: could be an example where it happens on the individual

667
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: rider level for six stack exactly where a show yet

668
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 1: exactly and a show that can is at least attempting

669
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: to sort of compete in these mainstream spaces as well.

670
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 1: So I do think that that part of it I

671
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: find it exciting. I hope you guys find it exciting too.

672
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: I think you probably do. But I got to tell you, guys,

673
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 1: I mean, neither one of us expected. We were obviously

674
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 1: were hopeful. We're excited, and we kind of had resigned

675
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 1: ourselves to like whether it's really successful or moderately successful

676
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 1: or not that successful. We have to just care about

677
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 1: the content or we're putting out and that we're living

678
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 1: our values and like that's the core thing. So we

679
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,879
Speaker 1: we'd really set our expectations for as long as we're

680
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: putting out into the world the thing that we want

681
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: to that's true to ourselves and that we truly have

682
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: like the artistic and creative and journalistic freedom to go

683
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:26,239
Speaker 1: where we need to go, then the results will be

684
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:28,399
Speaker 1: what they're going to be. Like you can't obsess over

685
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 1: those things. So we are truly blown away to see

686
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: those kind of numbers. Neither one of us, in me

687
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:38,359
Speaker 1: and my wildest dreams did I expect to see those

688
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,880
Speaker 1: kind of numbers in that kind of response. So you

689
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:43,719
Speaker 1: guys blew me away. What can I say? You're right

690
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: and you know it's true. Actually, I was prepared for

691
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:48,399
Speaker 1: a world where this was less successful than rising and

692
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:50,400
Speaker 1: because I was like, Hey, we're going to be talking

693
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 1: a lot more about the deeper issues. We're going to

694
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: be longer. Is not going to be as like in

695
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 1: the news CYCLESITHM is going to screw us on atom,

696
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 1: to screw us on YouTube. I mean, you know, when

697
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 1: you're fully independent, like you know, there's not that much

698
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: separating from you from some dude in the basement. But

699
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 1: all that being said, the hunger, I think, for what

700
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:11,480
Speaker 1: we're trying to do, at least, it gives me a

701
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: lot of hope about some of the future and the

702
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:16,799
Speaker 1: ways we can continue to build, continue to improve here

703
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 1: for all of you, for everybody who showed up and

704
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: became a premium member here, for breaking points like it

705
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:26,120
Speaker 1: allows us the ability to build the best possible product

706
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 1: that we possibly can, true to the two of our values.

707
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 1: That's just the greatest thing ever. I remember leaving here

708
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:34,799
Speaker 1: on Tuesday and I texted you. I was like, I'm exhilarated. Yeah,

709
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:37,880
Speaker 1: we just talked. It flowed like we designed it the

710
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: way that we wanted. The topics were perfect, They were

711
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 1: so true to the things that we care about even today.

712
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: I mean, irs, Virginia politics. I mean that these things

713
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: they flow together and fuse together in a way that

714
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 1: you're not going to hear any of this on any

715
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: corporate news channel, And I think they're so dramatically important

716
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,319
Speaker 1: and at least what I think we both really want

717
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:01,399
Speaker 1: is to try and speak to the things that are

718
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 1: in people's lives. I said this before. People know that

719
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 1: the system is rigged. People know the media is lying

720
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:10,280
Speaker 1: to you, but they can't explain exactly how, exactly why,

721
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: exactly what conditions. I kind of view it as our

722
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 1: responsibility to serve as the actual role of the media

723
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: in order to tell you, like, here's why you're being screwed.

724
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: Here's why Jeff Bezos pays not just less in taxes

725
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:24,720
Speaker 1: than you at an effective rate, but like fifty thousand

726
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 1: times less than you. This is why you can't buy

727
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:29,919
Speaker 1: a house. This is why whenever you go when you vote,

728
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 1: or you're part of a union and you can't get

729
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 1: anybody else. In order to join you. This is why,

730
00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:37,279
Speaker 1: because of these types of politics, this is why the

731
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 1: country and economic policy moves away. It does despite the

732
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 1: fact that eighty percent of people may support some sort

733
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: of policy. So really, it's just been absolutely amazing. And

734
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 1: thank you everybody for bearing with me. As a catastrophic

735
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: dental surgery. You might be able to tell tell you've

736
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,359
Speaker 1: done a good job. I hope so. And actually all

737
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 1: of the success Yesterday, while I was in the surgery

738
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 1: chair for seven hours, I was just sitting there refreshed.

739
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 1: I had nothing else to do, so I was just

740
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: sitting there refreshing our numbers and I was just like,

741
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna be okay. Yeah, no, you've been

742
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 1: You've been hanging tough. I'm very impressed actually, but no,

743
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: we we love you guys so much. Keep sending in

744
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 1: your comments and your feedback. You know, we really want

745
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 1: to continually improve. We're going to continue to sort of

746
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:21,799
Speaker 1: workshop the look and the feel and the flow of it.

747
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: But we both, even in these very early days, have

748
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: found it so liberating. And it's kind of one of

749
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: those things where you know, we had our obviously, we

750
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 1: had our reasons for wanting to leave the hill but

751
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 1: I don't even think you realize some of the things

752
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: that are constraining you until you truly sort of like

753
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: break free of it. And so the format of the

754
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 1: show and the feel of it and the topics and

755
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: the length were able tot the like length of time

756
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 1: we're able to spend on it, and just the freedom

757
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: and flow of the format has already felt just it

758
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 1: feels incredibly liberating. So thank you guys for kind of

759
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 1: catching us when we took that leap of faith. We

760
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:59,399
Speaker 1: couldn't be more grateful, seriously, and we hear you on

761
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 1: some of the other stuff. Ten adp let me just

762
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:04,239
Speaker 1: explain what exactly is going on. Oh yeah, which is

763
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 1: that here's the deal. We promised our premium members and

764
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 1: everybody else that it was going to get up as

765
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: soon as possible. Now we are being smacked. And maybe

766
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:14,840
Speaker 1: if you know, a solution around this with horrible processing

767
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 1: time because our show usually runs around what an hour

768
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 1: and twenty two minutes, yea, so we wrap around like

769
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: ten thirty by the time it is some edits, you know,

770
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: stuff like that. By the time you export in premiere,

771
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 1: which takes a long time, you're looking at maybe twenty

772
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 1: to thirty minutes of processing time for a video. That's

773
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 1: just not enough for an hour twenty two minute video.

774
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,439
Speaker 1: So I was like, Okay, let's just go to seven

775
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:37,320
Speaker 1: to twenty p and make sure it gets up faster.

776
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:39,719
Speaker 1: So I'm going to explore some other options. I'm going

777
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: to do my absolute best. But one of the things

778
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 1: is that we didn't want to compromise on time. People

779
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:46,360
Speaker 1: like the show. I mean, I guess tell me, like,

780
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:48,399
Speaker 1: if you were a premium member and you would rather

781
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 1: wait a half hour, we can do that. Maybe we

782
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:53,719
Speaker 1: could do Vimeo first and then you know, you can

783
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: watch on Vimeo and then maybe you can watch on

784
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:58,959
Speaker 1: unlisted YouTube channel. I'm thinking about it, but like I said,

785
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: absolutely here you that. Yeah, hear you on the audio

786
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: as well. We're working on it. The producer track won't

787
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: be in the show for today. Any other administrative things

788
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: you we're doing, No, I think that's it. I think

789
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: the bottom line is, like we're trying to weigh all

790
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 1: these pieces to give you guys the best experience possible.

791
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:16,240
Speaker 1: So when you provide us feedwick with like, hey, actually

792
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 1: we'd prefer you to if there's a trade off here,

793
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: we prefer this choice versus that choice like we prefer

794
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:23,800
Speaker 1: the ten ADP versus like getting it as fast as possible.

795
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 1: We do weigh into all of this the type of

796
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: feedback that you're giving us, so we go Thank you, guys,

797
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: get you TENADP as fascist. We're gonna work on it

798
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 1: all right, Promise we'll figure out what we can. Wow,

799
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:36,439
Speaker 1: you guys must really like listening to our voices, because

800
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 1: here I am again asking you to become a premium

801
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 1: member at Crystalandsager dot com so you don't have to

802
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: hear these please, And as annoying as I know this is,

803
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: it's not a biagricommercial like you're gonna see on cable news,

804
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: So go ahead and count your lucky stars. As you're

805
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 1: about to notice, the free show does not include the

806
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: discussion after each of our monologues, which is one of

807
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 1: our premium benefits. Help us beat the corporate media today.

808
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:02,800
Speaker 1: Get access to the full show. Take care, guys, All right, Sager,

809
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:04,759
Speaker 1: what are you looking at today for your breaking points? Well,

810
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,240
Speaker 1: one of the most frustrating parts about covering American politics

811
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 1: today is the culture war. People hone in on a position,

812
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 1: then they go immediately into absolutes. They decide that the

813
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:16,760
Speaker 1: other side alone is the only one that is wrong,

814
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 1: and worse, that your own side can do no wrong.

815
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: The culture warification of politics kills nuanced debate, It kills

816
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 1: the ability to understand complete problems, and worse, it allows

817
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: nothing to get done in Washington. And when nothing gets done,

818
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 1: that alone is a massive inkind donation to the oligarchic

819
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 1: elite of America. There is no issue that this more

820
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 1: frustrating to me than China. It's hot on the American

821
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:42,919
Speaker 1: right currently to be anti China, which, hey, I mean,

822
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:45,799
Speaker 1: that's cool with me, but I think that China is

823
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: bad for the world, worse for America, and it's pretty

824
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:52,320
Speaker 1: explicit ambitions to turn our free, open and market capitalist

825
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 1: society against us. But how do things get that way?

826
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 1: If you hear most of the people on the right,

827
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,760
Speaker 1: they blame a lot of Democrats, very fairly in some cases,

828
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: but conveniently they leave out a key part of history,

829
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 1: which is that Republican politicians of the nineteen nineties like

830
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,840
Speaker 1: George HW. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush themselves

831
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: are probably more responsible than any Democrat alive for empowering

832
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: the authoritarian China of today. Worse, shipping millions of middle

833
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:22,840
Speaker 1: class jobs overseas. It was George W. Bush who signed

834
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China into law in two

835
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 1: thousand and one. That was the final nail in the

836
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:31,320
Speaker 1: coffin for many American union jobs. It was George HW.

837
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 1: Bush who pioneered and pushed NAFTA and so called free

838
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 1: trade policies while he was in office, and the guy

839
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 1: in between them, Bill Clinton, was a huge believer in

840
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: free trade with China as well. All three of these

841
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:46,440
Speaker 1: men pushed these policies, possibly in good faith, but beneath

842
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: the surface, there's always been questions. Was it because they

843
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 1: believed in free trade or maybe they were getting something

844
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: out of it personally. I'm bringing this all up again

845
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 1: because an important but undernoticed story popped up across my

846
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 1: social media feed a few days ago. I wanted to

847
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: share it with you. Axios is reporting that a nonprofit

848
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 1: affiliated with former President George HW. Bush agreed to accept

849
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 1: five million dollars from a policy group at the very

850
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 1: center of Chinese US influence operations. The grant to the

851
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: Bush China Foundation is from the China United States Exchange Foundation.

852
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: To quote improved Sino American relations. But what's really interesting

853
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: is this. If you take a look at the books

854
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: for the Bush China Foundation, a quote substantial portion of

855
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 1: its revenue is all coming from a group with direct

856
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: ties to the Chinese Communist Party. This is crazy stuff.

857
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 1: This is the foundation in the name of former President

858
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:43,279
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush to improve relations with China. It's

859
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:47,080
Speaker 1: now majority funded by China. It's crazy, but it's actually

860
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:49,879
Speaker 1: not so insane once you look even deeper under the hood.

861
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 1: The head of the Bush China Foundation is none other

862
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 1: than Neil Bush, the lesser known son of George H. W.

863
00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:58,800
Speaker 1: Bush and the brother of Jeb and George W. Bush.

864
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: Neil has had a long and lucrative business career you

865
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:06,239
Speaker 1: guess it where in China. Lucrative not owing to his expertise,

866
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,879
Speaker 1: but yeah, a long time financial relationship with the very

867
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 1: heart of the CCP. All the way back to two

868
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 1: thousand and three, when his brother was President of the

869
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:19,240
Speaker 1: United States and driving this country into war in Iraq,

870
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: Neil Bush was quietly getting four hundred grand a year

871
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:27,400
Speaker 1: to provide business advice to a Chinese computer manufacturer. This

872
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: is especially crazy in retrospect given that the Chinese who

873
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:33,399
Speaker 1: were obsessed with semiconductors at the time, so they could

874
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:36,719
Speaker 1: be less reliant on the US market. They wanted to

875
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 1: be less reliant because they're not as dumb as us,

876
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:42,440
Speaker 1: and they realized you probably shouldn't make ingredients for all

877
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 1: the modern technology in the home of your primary adversary.

878
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:48,400
Speaker 1: And what better way to learn the ropes than to

879
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,439
Speaker 1: buy off the president of the United States. Brother. Ever

880
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:54,280
Speaker 1: since then, Neil Bush has been a longtime Chinese lackey.

881
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:57,720
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, during the Hong Kong protests, he literally

882
00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:01,720
Speaker 1: appeared on Chinese state TV propaganda to say, quote one country,

883
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: two systems has been working quote very very well so far.

884
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,960
Speaker 1: M Yeah, that's while the government was literally slaughtering democracy

885
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 1: protesters in the streets. And in twenty sixteen he served

886
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: as the chairman of a Chinese real estate company, which

887
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 1: just so happened then to donate one point three million

888
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 1: dollars to the Jeb Bush campaign. I'm sure it was

889
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:23,800
Speaker 1: just all out of coincidence, right, Look, I'm choosing to

890
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:26,239
Speaker 1: highlight the story to take it out of the modern age.

891
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: It's not just Hunter Biden. Hunter is in a long

892
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 1: line of presidential relatives of the last thirty years who

893
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 1: have been bought and paid for by the Chinese government.

894
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:37,239
Speaker 1: The Chinese know us better than we know ourselves. The

895
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: only thing you need to play America is to just

896
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: have money. Our financial, cultural, and political elite have completely

897
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:45,839
Speaker 1: sold out to the highest bidder. I keep coming back

898
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:47,839
Speaker 1: to this clip that I played on Rising many months

899
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,719
Speaker 1: ago from Chinese professor Di dong Seng. He just says

900
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 1: the quiet part out loud, takes my money, Tommy yists

901
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 1: was down to the that isle Kanda bae gen sce

902
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 1: gene a common conquirty that kind of beets a trench.

903
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:32,399
Speaker 1: Who yours? Ma, Yeah to it to me? The best

904
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 1: part of that clip is when they're all just laugh

905
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 1: at how transparent the American political system is Neil Bush,

906
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:41,320
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden, Chelsea Clinton, Jared Kushner. If it all starts

907
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 1: to meld together after a while, the only way to

908
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 1: make things right and to actually make our political system

909
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,720
Speaker 1: work again is to recognize the immutable and fundamental truth

910
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 1: that not only are both parties one hundred percent complicit

911
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:54,879
Speaker 1: and getting things to where they are today, but both

912
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:57,239
Speaker 1: parties do not have credible answers as to how to

913
00:47:57,280 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: get us out of this current morass. Something I passion

914
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:04,280
Speaker 1: believe is that all policies based upon lies eventually fall apart.

915
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 1: The only way to actually correct America's disastrous China policy

916
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 1: is to dispel with the fiction that the entire political

917
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:14,799
Speaker 1: establishment is not directly complicit with getting us to where

918
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 1: we are today. And that's the thing, Cristal, which is

919
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,560
Speaker 1: that it's me again. Guys. We hope that you're loving

920
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 1: the show. If you have any questions, you know where

921
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:26,280
Speaker 1: you can ask them. Go to Crystalinsaga dot com. Become

922
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,840
Speaker 1: a premium member and then you'll get to participate and

923
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 1: weekly ask me anything. The link is in the show notes.

924
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 1: All right, Crystal, what are your breaking points today? Well,

925
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: if climate change is an existential threat, Biden is letting

926
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,320
Speaker 1: us drown. That was essentially the message of Democratic Senator

927
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:43,839
Speaker 1: Sheldon white House as he laid out the silence and

928
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:46,799
Speaker 1: lack of action from the Biden administration on what Democrats

929
00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:50,359
Speaker 1: claim is the existential threat of climate change. So here's

930
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:53,880
Speaker 1: center white House's Twitter thread calling out the Biden administration.

931
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 1: He says, in part, Okay, I'm now officially very anxious

932
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: about climate legislation. A'll admit I'm sensitive from the Obama

933
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 1: climate abandonment. But I send trouble number one. Climate has

934
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 1: fallen out of the infrastructure discussion as it took its

935
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 1: by partisanship detour. It may not return. So then what

936
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:16,279
Speaker 1: CENTA white House continues too. I don't see the preparatory

937
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:18,360
Speaker 1: work for a close senit climate vote taking place in

938
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,839
Speaker 1: the administration. Why not marshall business support? In the very

939
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 1: next tweet, he answers his own question, however, about business support, writing,

940
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:29,400
Speaker 1: corporate America is still completely a wall, if not worse

941
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 1: on climate in Congress. All the major corporate trade associations suck,

942
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: all of them. CENTA white House concludes by saying, we

943
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:40,000
Speaker 1: need planning, organizing, and momentum. It's not going to be

944
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:42,840
Speaker 1: easy and it has to work. We are running out

945
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 1: of time now. The climate crisis, you'll recall, was one

946
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: of the top reasons given by the Bernie Sanders left

947
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:51,920
Speaker 1: for sucking it up and voting Biden in spite of

948
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 1: his horrific record on war, on mass incarceration, on Wall Street,

949
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 1: on trade, and well pretty much everything else. As Glenn

950
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 1: Greenwald was quick point out, this was the primary reason,

951
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:05,799
Speaker 1: for example, given by Noam Chomsky for passionately making the

952
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 1: case that Biden must be elected over Trump. Remember these ads.

953
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: Another four years of Trump may literally lead us to

954
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 1: the stage where the survival of organized human society is

955
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:35,080
Speaker 1: deeply imperiled. The most important issue that humans have faced

956
00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:43,760
Speaker 1: in their history is the impending catastrophic climate dissessed. According

957
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 1: to a new report, experts say that we have until

958
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:51,120
Speaker 1: twenty thirty to avoid catastrophe. Trump is the worst person

959
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:56,280
Speaker 1: in the world on this issue. Now, look, I voted

960
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: for Joe Biden, and I think Chomsky was more or

961
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:01,240
Speaker 1: less correct in all that he's saying. Wasn't arguing Biden

962
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 1: would be amazing, just that maybe with Biden there could

963
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:07,719
Speaker 1: be a shot, and with Trump there was definitely no chance. Well,

964
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:10,840
Speaker 1: whatever shot there was under Biden to shift course on

965
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 1: climate is rapidly slipping away. By handing his agenda to

966
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin, the Senate parliamentarian, and the gauzy lure of

967
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:21,719
Speaker 1: never to be bipartisanship, Biden has made it plain that

968
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 1: whatever he or other Democrats might say about the existential

969
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 1: threat of climate change, they don't actually mean it. I

970
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:31,360
Speaker 1: Center white House points out here endless and likely fruitless

971
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:34,759
Speaker 1: negotiations with Republicans have already stripped climate change from the

972
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:39,799
Speaker 1: infrastructure package. That infrastructure package is itself no guarantee, but

973
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: if it does pass, it will surely be the last

974
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:45,960
Speaker 1: piece of significant legislation in the first four years of

975
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:49,880
Speaker 1: the Biden presidency. Now Progressives are actually dipping their dough

976
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:53,240
Speaker 1: in the water of playing some hardball politics. Martin Heinrich

977
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:56,440
Speaker 1: tweeted that an infrastructure package that goes light on climate

978
00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 1: and clean energy should not count on every Democratic vota sentiment,

979
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:02,960
Speaker 1: which AOC agreed with there in that tweet. It's not

980
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:05,640
Speaker 1: quite the hard line that the right wing Democrats draw

981
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:08,600
Speaker 1: like Mansion or the no Salt, No Dice crew, but

982
00:52:08,640 --> 00:52:11,439
Speaker 1: at least they did a hint that maybe possibly going

983
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:14,160
Speaker 1: light on climate could risk losing their votes. I don't

984
00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 1: want to be cynical a year, but I'm also not

985
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 1: going to get my hopes up that any sort of

986
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 1: red line is actually going to be drawn in a

987
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 1: hard and definitive way. New data those should bolster the

988
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 1: progressive case that the threat is at least as significant

989
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 1: as Biden previously claimed to believe. Carbon dioxide levels are

990
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 1: now at an all time high that in spite of

991
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:35,920
Speaker 1: a million pandemic era EARTHUS healing memes. Scientists at UC

992
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:39,840
Speaker 1: San Diego's SCRIPTS Institute of Oceanography they recorded carbon dioxide

993
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,879
Speaker 1: levels at four hundred and nineteen parts per million in May.

994
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:46,800
Speaker 1: That is a new record, and it's fifty percent higher

995
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:50,720
Speaker 1: than in pre industrial times. Ralph Keeling, a geochemist at SCRIPTS,

996
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:53,399
Speaker 1: told La Times that it's rising as fast as ever.

997
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:56,279
Speaker 1: Fossil fuel burning is the center of the problem. It's

998
00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:59,280
Speaker 1: what's driving CO two up and is the major cause

999
00:52:59,320 --> 00:53:02,840
Speaker 1: of climate chain. The truth is this, Democrats are planning

1000
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:06,839
Speaker 1: you for fools. They love to use existential rhetoric, sometimes justifiably,

1001
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 1: sometimes not justifiably, but they never ever act in a

1002
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:14,440
Speaker 1: way that matches the words. Just ask yourself this. If

1003
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:17,439
Speaker 1: Trump was an existential threat and a fascist leader, why

1004
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 1: did they willingly hand him huge military budgets and surveillance powers.

1005
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:25,280
Speaker 1: If our democracy is truly in danger of existential collapse,

1006
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 1: why are you just allowing Joe Mansion to casually torpedo

1007
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:32,000
Speaker 1: the reforms upon which we were told our democracy depended.

1008
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 1: If we're in a battle for the soul of America,

1009
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 1: why is Biden engaging in all the same standard issue

1010
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:41,680
Speaker 1: Washington corruption that is so damaged Americans trust in our

1011
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:45,919
Speaker 1: government now. On climate, the data speaks for itself. Establishment,

1012
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 1: corporate democratic rhetoric claimed an existential threat, and on this

1013
00:53:49,239 --> 00:53:52,320
Speaker 1: particular threat they were correct. But they trade it like

1014
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:54,919
Speaker 1: any other issue to be trotted out on the campaign trail,

1015
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 1: used to shame and guilt reticent, principled voters into voting

1016
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:01,359
Speaker 1: Balloe no matter who, and then edison as soon as

1017
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 1: it's inconvenient. Don't worry, it'll be dragged back out the

1018
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:07,399
Speaker 1: next time. They need young lefties to begrudgingly give them

1019
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 1: their vote. But by that time it may well be

1020
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 1: too late. And this is a real test setting up

1021
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 1: here for the squad. Soger, because I think we have

1022
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: a great guest. I think we have f now guess

1023
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:19,960
Speaker 1: that we can bring in the one and only Brianna

1024
00:54:20,040 --> 00:54:22,520
Speaker 1: Joy Gray can join us on this conversation. Picking right

1025
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,520
Speaker 1: up on our conversation on Mansion, of course, Brianna former

1026
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 1: national press secretary for Bernie Sanders, co host of the

1027
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 1: Bad Faith podcast, contributing editor of Current Affairs and all

1028
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:33,439
Speaker 1: of that good stuff. It's great to see a Brie.

1029
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on with us to see Brianna and

1030
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: we missed you. I missed you guys too. It's such

1031
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:42,600
Speaker 1: a pleasure. Congratulations, this is huge, Thank you all Right,

1032
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:44,960
Speaker 1: before we get into serious stuff, I think I have

1033
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:47,239
Speaker 1: a lot of respect for your design, I I know,

1034
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:51,879
Speaker 1: so give us your like unvarnished feedback on the set,

1035
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 1: look and all of that, because you're I haven't asked

1036
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 1: anyone else but your view. I actually respect on this.

1037
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 1: Will you two get top Your girl loves a brick wall.

1038
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:06,479
Speaker 1: You guys always look very dapper personally, you look well

1039
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,920
Speaker 1: put together. You look gorgeous. And the set, the deck, Sagar,

1040
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:13,360
Speaker 1: I want to get credit for the desk right the

1041
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:15,720
Speaker 1: way to my hurt you know right, you know exactly

1042
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:23,359
Speaker 1: the way through this desk. Best manufacture serious serious, Sorry,

1043
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: go ahead, No, I was saying, like, like jokes aside.

1044
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:28,360
Speaker 1: This is something I've been curious. We were just talking about.

1045
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:31,799
Speaker 1: Crystal was about how some house progressives had come out

1046
00:55:31,840 --> 00:55:34,920
Speaker 1: and been like, well, we maybe Ish may not vote

1047
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:38,319
Speaker 1: for this thing if it doesn't have climate infrastructure and more.

1048
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 1: And then you obviously have Mansion who's out there who

1049
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:43,800
Speaker 1: will basically just declare whatever he wants and it's pretty

1050
00:55:43,880 --> 00:55:46,520
Speaker 1: much accepted as a gospel by the White House. What

1051
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 1: do you think that? I mean, what does it tell

1052
00:55:48,120 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 1: you as somebody who worked for a campaign where the

1053
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 1: central promised to you by Biden in them was We're

1054
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:54,120
Speaker 1: going to listen to you and you know, even on

1055
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 1: some of these promises which they've renegged on and more

1056
00:55:56,520 --> 00:55:58,560
Speaker 1: like politically, what does that say about the state of

1057
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:01,279
Speaker 1: the left movement right now? Oh? I think it was

1058
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:03,480
Speaker 1: a little foolish to believe any of those promises to

1059
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:06,400
Speaker 1: be honest, especially without any genuine commitments. I mean, Joe

1060
00:56:06,440 --> 00:56:09,400
Speaker 1: Biden barely went on the record outside of saying simply

1061
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:11,480
Speaker 1: that you know, Bernie Sanders and the progressive wing are

1062
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:13,239
Speaker 1: going to be a part of the administration. Those kind

1063
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:16,239
Speaker 1: of a platitudes. Look, I am both heartened by the

1064
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:19,120
Speaker 1: fact that so many progresses are going on the mainstream

1065
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 1: news right now and corpusies should have been calling out

1066
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:25,239
Speaker 1: the whole time in which Bernie Sanders really made his

1067
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:29,120
Speaker 1: bones with back in twenty sixteen. But I will confess,

1068
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:31,880
Speaker 1: and maybe this is my brain being overly cynical, that

1069
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:35,319
Speaker 1: there's something a little bizarre about the coordinated ensure with

1070
00:56:35,520 --> 00:56:39,640
Speaker 1: every Williams has got that Joe Manchin's incentives driven by

1071
00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 1: his cock donors as opposed to the people who live

1072
00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:45,879
Speaker 1: in West Virginia. Your point before, Crystal. Obviously, it's true

1073
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:48,399
Speaker 1: that West Virginia is one of the most economically disenfranchised

1074
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:50,719
Speaker 1: states in the Union, and that a whole panoply of

1075
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:53,120
Speaker 1: what are called progressive program which are in fact just

1076
00:56:53,200 --> 00:56:56,319
Speaker 1: regular programs, would inordinately inert to their benefit. So the

1077
00:56:56,400 --> 00:57:00,040
Speaker 1: question has always been why isn't Joe Manchin willing to

1078
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 1: act on their behalf? Why is he opposing all of

1079
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:06,600
Speaker 1: these policies that would help his constituents. And the fact

1080
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:09,160
Speaker 1: that just now people seem to have been given permission

1081
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:12,239
Speaker 1: to go on doing and read and say what was

1082
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:15,880
Speaker 1: always obvious. It's heartening, but it also begs the question

1083
00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:18,880
Speaker 1: why haven't they taken these stands before? Why haven't they

1084
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:21,680
Speaker 1: forced this issue in any number of important issues, including

1085
00:57:21,680 --> 00:57:24,520
Speaker 1: the Fight for fifteen a few months ago? Yeah? Well,

1086
00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:26,640
Speaker 1: and are they serious? Right? Like, it's one thing to

1087
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:28,680
Speaker 1: go on and to send out a tweet, to do

1088
00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 1: a cable news pyramid, you know, appearance, et cetera, et cetera.

1089
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:35,080
Speaker 1: But okay, are you going to actually draw a hard line?

1090
00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:37,480
Speaker 1: Are you actually going to make your vote contention on anything.

1091
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: To me, that's very much still an open question. And

1092
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:44,560
Speaker 1: I do think this dynamic with Mansion is incredibly important

1093
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:48,160
Speaker 1: to understand because elite media, because they have no understanding

1094
00:57:48,240 --> 00:57:51,120
Speaker 1: of the state of West Virginia, they just assume whatever

1095
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:54,440
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin says, because he's the only Democrat who can

1096
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:56,000
Speaker 1: really get elected in the state at this point, that

1097
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:58,919
Speaker 1: whatever he says about what people in West Virginia want,

1098
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:01,919
Speaker 1: they take that as gospel, when in fact, what he's

1099
00:58:01,960 --> 00:58:06,120
Speaker 1: really doing is sort of like carrying water for Coke

1100
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:10,120
Speaker 1: and other corporate lobbyists and interest cloaking that in the

1101
00:58:10,160 --> 00:58:12,800
Speaker 1: mantle of like, oh, this is really what West Virginians want,

1102
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:15,840
Speaker 1: and since media doesn't know any better, they just kind

1103
00:58:15,840 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 1: of take his word for it. Yeah, if Joe Manchin

1104
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 1: and any politician this is true of if Joe Manchin

1105
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:25,800
Speaker 1: doesn't feel more of a threat about from losing his

1106
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:30,400
Speaker 1: constituency because the narrative, true narrative is out there about

1107
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:33,120
Speaker 1: him not actually respecting the interest, if that's not a

1108
00:58:33,160 --> 00:58:37,600
Speaker 1: bigger threat to his political as his ability to earn money,

1109
00:58:37,640 --> 00:58:41,960
Speaker 1: his ability to maintain power, then the withdrawal of the

1110
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 1: corporate backing that he has, then he's always going to

1111
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:47,200
Speaker 1: choose the corporate backing. And this is what you know,

1112
00:58:47,240 --> 00:58:49,520
Speaker 1: people like Ryan Graham, who've been writing about these things,

1113
00:58:49,600 --> 00:58:51,640
Speaker 1: let these things for a really long time, always say

1114
00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:54,760
Speaker 1: they've got power, We've got people. We're never going to

1115
00:58:54,800 --> 00:58:57,640
Speaker 1: be able to outspend Joe Manchin. You're never going to

1116
00:58:57,680 --> 00:58:59,680
Speaker 1: be able to out maneuver him from the inside the

1117
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 1: way that these progressives seem to be arguably in good faith,

1118
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:06,320
Speaker 1: trying to do at that point. But what we can

1119
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:07,960
Speaker 1: do is start to try to make it so the

1120
00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:12,280
Speaker 1: consequences of him doing the wrong thing are felt because

1121
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:14,439
Speaker 1: he's not able to maintain power, because he's no longer

1122
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:16,840
Speaker 1: able to spin this web where he deludes even his

1123
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 1: constituents into thinking that he's doing the right thing and

1124
00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:22,640
Speaker 1: talking about some of these liberal touchstones, these cultural issues

1125
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:26,439
Speaker 1: that'll keep folks in his back pocket, but talking about

1126
00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:28,720
Speaker 1: where the money goes and how the money that it's

1127
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:31,480
Speaker 1: coming to him is causing him to not represent the

1128
00:59:31,560 --> 00:59:34,480
Speaker 1: economic interest of people in his home state. I do

1129
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:39,440
Speaker 1: think that's a much more effective narrative for people to

1130
00:59:39,560 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 1: start to hit again. Though, to your point, contrast, what

1131
00:59:44,280 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 1: these progressives are saying to what Joe Mangin is saying,

1132
00:59:46,720 --> 00:59:49,320
Speaker 1: He's been pretty steadfast and certain. I'm not voting for X,

1133
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:52,000
Speaker 1: Y and Z. I'm not doing this if it's not bipartisan,

1134
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:53,680
Speaker 1: knowing full well that they're never going to be ten

1135
00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:56,439
Speaker 1: Republicans that get on board. The progressors are still using

1136
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:59,200
Speaker 1: this kind of flim flam language. I might not get

1137
00:59:59,240 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 1: on board, might see me not voting for this, which

1138
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:03,960
Speaker 1: makes me feel like it's a bluff that's gonna get called.

1139
01:00:04,600 --> 01:00:06,680
Speaker 1: So that's actually my I mean, I've asked you this

1140
01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:08,720
Speaker 1: a million times, but like I see it happen over

1141
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:10,640
Speaker 1: and over and over again, and say what you will.

1142
01:00:10,680 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 1: But like, you know, I know a lot of people

1143
01:00:12,360 --> 01:00:14,680
Speaker 1: were involved in the Tea Party movement and they're laughing

1144
01:00:14,720 --> 01:00:18,120
Speaker 1: at AOC and others. I even have friends who are like,

1145
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:20,560
Speaker 1: do these people know anything about politics? Because they worked

1146
01:00:20,720 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 1: in the Freedom Caucus and others, and they're like aware

1147
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:26,480
Speaker 1: of you know that A host show with you and

1148
01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:28,680
Speaker 1: of some of these left debates. They're like, I can't

1149
01:00:28,760 --> 01:00:31,280
Speaker 1: believe that they just sit there and go along with Pelosi.

1150
01:00:31,640 --> 01:00:34,960
Speaker 1: They said, we would have been crucified by our base

1151
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 1: and by our other members of Congress if we acted

1152
01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:42,040
Speaker 1: this way, what do you make of that? Yeah, I

1153
01:00:42,600 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 1: hate to reopen old wounds, but it's difficult to ignore

1154
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:51,160
Speaker 1: the gravity of a political moment in which the six

1155
01:00:51,280 --> 01:00:53,720
Speaker 1: to ten progresses, however many you want to call like

1156
01:00:53,840 --> 01:00:58,240
Speaker 1: real progressives in the House, literally could have kept Nancy Pelosi,

1157
01:00:58,600 --> 01:01:03,000
Speaker 1: one of the least popular politicians in office, including among Democrats,

1158
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:06,520
Speaker 1: from being Speaker of the House, some one who some

1159
01:01:06,560 --> 01:01:10,000
Speaker 1: polls indicate have as much or more of axic effect

1160
01:01:10,360 --> 01:01:13,280
Speaker 1: on down ballot races then the progresses that people are

1161
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:17,480
Speaker 1: always hand ringing the hand ringing about Nancy Pelosi was

1162
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:20,920
Speaker 1: up for the speakership on January third, and if a

1163
01:01:20,960 --> 01:01:23,280
Speaker 1: handful of progresses that decided not to go for her,

1164
01:01:23,520 --> 01:01:25,680
Speaker 1: she would not be Speaker of the House, or in

1165
01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:28,040
Speaker 1: the alternative, she could be Speaker of the House, but

1166
01:01:28,080 --> 01:01:31,760
Speaker 1: with actual concrete concessions having been made to the left,

1167
01:01:31,840 --> 01:01:35,040
Speaker 1: including those that could really implicate the power dynamic that

1168
01:01:35,040 --> 01:01:38,440
Speaker 1: exists right now as they're trying to pass these major bills.

1169
01:01:38,720 --> 01:01:41,479
Speaker 1: So the question becomes, if you weren't able to fight

1170
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:44,400
Speaker 1: willing to fight? Rather back then, when the stakes were

1171
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:49,160
Speaker 1: ultimately so low, there was no COVID relief bill or

1172
01:01:49,240 --> 01:01:52,760
Speaker 1: unemployment checks or vaccine roll out heading in the balance

1173
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 1: where you could argue, Okay, we need to just do

1174
01:01:54,960 --> 01:01:57,439
Speaker 1: this that America can survive, so the world can keep

1175
01:01:57,440 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: on ticking. No, the only thing that hung in the

1176
01:01:59,640 --> 01:02:02,400
Speaker 1: balance was voting for a woman who's largely reviled by

1177
01:02:02,400 --> 01:02:05,960
Speaker 1: both political parties, and you still wouldn't do it. That's

1178
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:08,040
Speaker 1: what gives me some pause about their willingness to follow

1179
01:02:08,040 --> 01:02:10,360
Speaker 1: through in this moment. Of course, I hope I'm wrong.

1180
01:02:10,360 --> 01:02:12,920
Speaker 1: I'm always happy to be proven wrong on these things. Yeah.

1181
01:02:12,960 --> 01:02:15,400
Speaker 1: So I think your point about Nancy Pelosi is actually

1182
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:19,720
Speaker 1: really important though, because there was just this new third

1183
01:02:19,760 --> 01:02:24,360
Speaker 1: way autopsy of Democratic underperformance in twenty twenty, some of

1184
01:02:24,400 --> 01:02:27,080
Speaker 1: which I thought was correct, but of course they had

1185
01:02:27,080 --> 01:02:29,000
Speaker 1: to go on like and it's by the way, it's

1186
01:02:29,000 --> 01:02:33,320
Speaker 1: also the last fault never mentioning right that Nancy Pelosi

1187
01:02:33,480 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: is so unpopular. I mean, she has been like a

1188
01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:40,439
Speaker 1: weight around the neck of every Democratic candidate for more

1189
01:02:40,480 --> 01:02:42,320
Speaker 1: than a decade. Now. I can tell you when I

1190
01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:46,720
Speaker 1: was running back in twenty ten, right, Nancy Pelosi was

1191
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:50,520
Speaker 1: the boogeyman, and she still is today because she embodies

1192
01:02:50,600 --> 01:02:54,400
Speaker 1: this sense of like elite condescension. I don't even think

1193
01:02:54,400 --> 01:02:57,320
Speaker 1: it's about a particular policy or anything like that. It's

1194
01:02:57,360 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 1: this sense of like this person is looking down her

1195
01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 1: note that you no one ever wants to talk about that,

1196
01:03:03,040 --> 01:03:06,120
Speaker 1: and how she may be she honestly is, I'm thinking

1197
01:03:06,120 --> 01:03:10,200
Speaker 1: about it. The Democratic brand is such trash in most

1198
01:03:10,240 --> 01:03:12,560
Speaker 1: of the country, like you have to run as far

1199
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:16,200
Speaker 1: away from the Democratic brand as you possibly can. Nancy

1200
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:20,280
Speaker 1: Pelosi is as much a part of creating this incredibly

1201
01:03:20,400 --> 01:03:24,240
Speaker 1: toxic brand that has caused the decimation of the Democratic

1202
01:03:24,280 --> 01:03:28,760
Speaker 1: Party in rural America as anyone else. There were literally

1203
01:03:28,880 --> 01:03:31,160
Speaker 1: studies at the same time that the main dream media

1204
01:03:31,280 --> 01:03:35,280
Speaker 1: was crowing about how Medicare for all, which is overwhelmingly popular,

1205
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:38,640
Speaker 1: even forty nine percent of Republicans support it. You know,

1206
01:03:38,960 --> 01:03:42,160
Speaker 1: a minimum wage which again one with sixty percent of

1207
01:03:42,160 --> 01:03:44,040
Speaker 1: the vote at fifty elem minum wage, one with sixty

1208
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:47,280
Speaker 1: percent of the vote in Florida, even where Donald Trump won.

1209
01:03:47,560 --> 01:03:49,760
Speaker 1: They crow and crow about how all these so called

1210
01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:54,640
Speaker 1: progressive policies are downballot poison, But there were actual polls

1211
01:03:54,640 --> 01:03:57,480
Speaker 1: that demonstrated that Republicans ran just as many or more

1212
01:03:57,800 --> 01:04:02,360
Speaker 1: ads dreamy election season find the Democratic Party to Nanty

1213
01:04:02,400 --> 01:04:05,280
Speaker 1: Pelosi and her ill as they did the Acs of

1214
01:04:05,320 --> 01:04:08,680
Speaker 1: the world. But there's never any introspection about the harm

1215
01:04:08,720 --> 01:04:11,520
Speaker 1: that is done by those kind of figures, especially since

1216
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:14,880
Speaker 1: there's no there's no upside for Nancy Pelosi. She's not

1217
01:04:15,040 --> 01:04:19,080
Speaker 1: inspiring anybody. She can fretly raise money, but as we've

1218
01:04:19,080 --> 01:04:22,320
Speaker 1: seen now in this new small dollar donation world, so

1219
01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:26,360
Speaker 1: can AOC. That is why she was able to withstand

1220
01:04:26,480 --> 01:04:29,400
Speaker 1: more money being spent on her race to unseat her

1221
01:04:29,400 --> 01:04:32,240
Speaker 1: in this cycle by orders of magnitude and anybody else

1222
01:04:32,320 --> 01:04:35,000
Speaker 1: and still be safe. And despite having that kind of

1223
01:04:35,080 --> 01:04:38,360
Speaker 1: protection that despite being insulated by the vagaries of the

1224
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:41,280
Speaker 1: corporate Democratic Party, it is frustrating not to see her

1225
01:04:41,360 --> 01:04:44,320
Speaker 1: have a more full throated respond to the party that

1226
01:04:44,400 --> 01:04:47,400
Speaker 1: she said she was running to be oppositional to. I

1227
01:04:47,440 --> 01:04:49,440
Speaker 1: hope this is the start of us seeing something different,

1228
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:51,880
Speaker 1: but I got to say, after the last five months

1229
01:04:52,000 --> 01:04:55,200
Speaker 1: or so, I'm not overly sanguine about that possibility. Yeah,

1230
01:04:55,200 --> 01:04:57,840
Speaker 1: we need to see some stronger language to start with.

1231
01:04:57,960 --> 01:04:59,920
Speaker 1: Right now, it's all as you said, it's very so

1232
01:05:00,120 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 1: of squishy and like maybe maybe maybe not Hey, and

1233
01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:07,240
Speaker 1: no clear like, this is what we require, very different

1234
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 1: from the no salt, no dice type of line that

1235
01:05:09,880 --> 01:05:12,880
Speaker 1: you hear from the right wing Democrats. Brianna, so great

1236
01:05:12,920 --> 01:05:14,200
Speaker 1: to have you, Thank you so much, so great to

1237
01:05:14,200 --> 01:05:19,360
Speaker 1: see you. Thanks Brianna, my pleasure, good luck, and thank

1238
01:05:19,400 --> 01:05:22,520
Speaker 1: you guys so much for watching Tager. What's the pitch?

1239
01:05:22,520 --> 01:05:24,280
Speaker 1: Where can they find us? All the good stuff? Okay,

1240
01:05:24,280 --> 01:05:26,200
Speaker 1: everything down in the description notes. If you want to

1241
01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:28,120
Speaker 1: become a Premium member and you want to continue to

1242
01:05:28,200 --> 01:05:30,479
Speaker 1: you want to watch the show full uncut, and listen

1243
01:05:30,520 --> 01:05:32,600
Speaker 1: to the show full uncut right down there in the

1244
01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 1: description links. We're one hundred percent powered by super Cast,

1245
01:05:35,520 --> 01:05:38,560
Speaker 1: awesome company, awesome technology, which if you're a podcast or

1246
01:05:38,560 --> 01:05:41,400
Speaker 1: I actually recommend that you check out. Also, you can

1247
01:05:41,440 --> 01:05:43,280
Speaker 1: listen to the show if you like it for free.

1248
01:05:43,360 --> 01:05:46,000
Speaker 1: It's always going to be available here as clips, and

1249
01:05:46,160 --> 01:05:48,920
Speaker 1: it's available as audio with breaks wherever you get your podcasts.

1250
01:05:49,240 --> 01:05:51,760
Speaker 1: I highly recommend for the free people that you check

1251
01:05:51,800 --> 01:05:53,919
Speaker 1: that one out, because we're beating the New York Times.

1252
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:56,920
Speaker 1: Maybe we haven't mentioned that already. No no worries, Yeah,

1253
01:05:56,960 --> 01:06:00,600
Speaker 1: no deal, Where the captain now suits Hill? I actually

1254
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:03,680
Speaker 1: wanted to say something really quick about why we chose

1255
01:06:03,680 --> 01:06:07,320
Speaker 1: Supercast as our sort of like technology platform because I'm

1256
01:06:07,360 --> 01:06:09,120
Speaker 1: not a big like soccer knows more about the tech

1257
01:06:09,120 --> 01:06:11,040
Speaker 1: stuff than I do, but I thought this was really cool.

1258
01:06:11,360 --> 01:06:15,040
Speaker 1: They enable you to have personalized RSS. That's right for

1259
01:06:15,120 --> 01:06:18,200
Speaker 1: every use every cool, Yeah, for every single user. So

1260
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:23,600
Speaker 1: every single premium subscriber gets their own personalized RSS feed,

1261
01:06:23,600 --> 01:06:25,360
Speaker 1: which we may play with a little bit as we

1262
01:06:25,400 --> 01:06:27,480
Speaker 1: go on some of the capability. Actually it's kind of awesome.

1263
01:06:27,520 --> 01:06:30,040
Speaker 1: So like you know, we could say like hey, so

1264
01:06:30,120 --> 01:06:32,640
Speaker 1: and so if you're in Texas, like we're coming to Texas,

1265
01:06:32,840 --> 01:06:34,640
Speaker 1: or like hey, if you're in New York and that

1266
01:06:34,640 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 1: wey you don't have to bother like everybody. There's just

1267
01:06:36,800 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 1: some really cool ways that you can use it. And

1268
01:06:38,920 --> 01:06:40,760
Speaker 1: also it's a lot like substack, like we have the

1269
01:06:40,800 --> 01:06:44,200
Speaker 1: relationship between your like the payment relationship in terms of

1270
01:06:44,520 --> 01:06:47,280
Speaker 1: our account and more, whereas Patreon does not give you that.

1271
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:49,240
Speaker 1: They just give you the emails. There's a lot of

1272
01:06:49,280 --> 01:06:51,480
Speaker 1: other different stuff. It's like it just allows us to

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Speaker 1: sort of like be more directly connected to you versus

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01:06:55,400 --> 01:06:58,120
Speaker 1: like this platform having the connect it's more in our

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01:06:58,160 --> 01:07:01,240
Speaker 1: ethos of like the direct relationship with our users like

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01:07:01,320 --> 01:07:04,200
Speaker 1: we own you know, our relationship with our audience, and

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01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:07,640
Speaker 1: we always just want to be one like true to

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Speaker 1: all of you. So anyway, if you guys could do

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01:07:09,240 --> 01:07:11,040
Speaker 1: us a favor, go ahead and hit subscribe here on

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01:07:11,040 --> 01:07:14,400
Speaker 1: the YouTube channel, podcast all that stuff as well, But honestly,

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01:07:14,680 --> 01:07:17,240
Speaker 1: here's the main ask. If you like our show, just

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01:07:17,280 --> 01:07:19,160
Speaker 1: share it with somebody. That's how I was talking with

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01:07:19,200 --> 01:07:22,120
Speaker 1: somebody and they were like an expert in the podcast world,

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01:07:22,360 --> 01:07:23,720
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know, when you have one

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01:07:23,760 --> 01:07:25,720
Speaker 1: call to action, like what should it be? He's like, dude,

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01:07:26,080 --> 01:07:29,760
Speaker 1: organic share. So if you guys like the show, share

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01:07:29,760 --> 01:07:31,680
Speaker 1: it with someone and just tell him to check it out.

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Speaker 1: It means the world so many of you. We love

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01:07:34,120 --> 01:07:35,880
Speaker 1: you guys so much, so thank you. You guys are

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Speaker 1: so awesome. I think over the weekend we're going to

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01:07:38,320 --> 01:07:41,800
Speaker 1: be posting a few things post from a clip from

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Speaker 1: the interview we have this week Pete Davis on Crystal

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01:07:44,680 --> 01:07:48,320
Speaker 1: Kylin Friends. We also are going to be back with

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Speaker 1: you for a full show on Monday. Hey, so guys,

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01:07:52,000 --> 01:07:53,400
Speaker 1: have a great weekend and we will see you then.

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Speaker 1: Stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the show. Guys. We

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Speaker 1: really appreciate it. To help other people find the show,

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01:08:12,480 --> 01:08:14,440
Speaker 1: go ahead and leave us a five star rating on

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01:08:14,520 --> 01:08:18,000
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Really helps

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01:08:18,040 --> 01:08:21,280
Speaker 1: other people find the show as always special thank you

1301
01:08:21,360 --> 01:08:24,920
Speaker 1: to Supercast for powering our premium membership. If you want

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Speaker 1: to find out more, go to Crystalansager dot com