Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
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Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 2: Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 3: What do we have personal indeed, we do. Let's to
Speaker 3: get to you this morning.
Speaker 1: So a big legal decision goes in the direction of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. We will explain what this means, but incredibly
Speaker 1: consequential decision from the Supreme Court. We also have the
Speaker 1: end of an era as Senator Mitch McConnell announces he
Speaker 1: is stepping down from leadership even as he keeps his
Speaker 1: Senate seat for now, so big ramifications there as well.
Speaker 1: Democrats and their media organs are coping and seating over
Speaker 1: the results from the Michigan primary election and the large
Speaker 1: number of uncommitted votes, so we'll talk about that. We're
Speaker 1: also really excited to be joined live this morning by
Speaker 1: the mayor of Dearborn, who is going to react to
Speaker 1: those results and tell us where the uncommitted movement goes
Speaker 1: from here. A former Israeli Prime minister is warning that
Speaker 1: Netna who wants to drag Israel into an all out
Speaker 1: war and cause armageddon, pushing all of the Palestinians out
Speaker 1: of the West Banks, so important to listen to his warnings.
Speaker 3: Quite noteworthy there.
Speaker 1: RFK is saying he's on the ballot into more important states,
Speaker 1: so we'll dig into that.
Speaker 3: Very interesting there as well.
Speaker 1: And Wendy's is under fire for floating surge pricing, and
Speaker 1: we have some other various news about food prices that
Speaker 1: impact your wallet.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, before we get to that, it is
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Speaker 1: Crystal lay as well give us sun find out, find
Speaker 1: out what happens next year.
Speaker 2: You might as well try it, all right.
Speaker 1: So let's get into this big Trump legal news. Let's
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. So the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: has decided to take up this question of whether Trump
Speaker 1: has complete immunity for basically anything that he did while
Speaker 1: he was president of the United States. This is especially
Speaker 1: relevant to the January sixth related Jack Smith case. Trump's
Speaker 1: strategy all along has been to try to push these
Speaker 1: cases out as far as he can, to hopefully push
Speaker 1: them beyond election day. On this immunity claim thing. Most
Speaker 1: of the legal scholars don't believe that he will actually
Speaker 1: win this claim. The whole game is just to delay
Speaker 1: this trial as much as possible. So let me read
Speaker 1: a little bit of what we have here. It says
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether Donald Trump may
Speaker 1: claim immunity in Special counsel Jacksmith's election subversion case, adding
Speaker 1: another explosive appeal from the former president to its docket
Speaker 1: and further delaying his federal trial. The Court agreed to
Speaker 1: expedite the case, and.
Speaker 3: Here arguments the week of April twenty second.
Speaker 1: That's still a ways out though, and then the expectation
Speaker 1: is after that, even after that's resolved, even if they
Speaker 1: resolve that question in a relatively timely fashion, which would
Speaker 1: mean probably by like the end of June, you would
Speaker 1: get that decision. You're flirting with already that trial starting
Speaker 1: near election day or perhaps after election day, depending on
Speaker 1: the decisions that the judge makes. So this is incredibly
Speaker 1: significant for Trump. Again, the expectation is it necessarily that
Speaker 1: he would win this challenge, but the very fact of
Speaker 1: buying some time here.
Speaker 3: Is really really important.
Speaker 1: And Sager, you know, you've got a lot of other
Speaker 1: things going on. The one case that appears to be
Speaker 1: going forward is the weekest one in New York. The
Speaker 1: try there is actually set to start pretty soon, so
Speaker 1: you've got that one. But that case is, like I said,
Speaker 1: it's the weakest case and has the least serious charges
Speaker 1: against him. So you do have that one, the Georgia one,
Speaker 1: you got the whole situation with Fanny Willis, which has
Speaker 1: really thrown that one into disarray. The Florida one, that
Speaker 1: one is taking forever. I don't think there's any expectation
Speaker 1: that one is likely to conclude, certainly before election day.
Speaker 1: And now this one also getting pushed off. I mean,
Speaker 1: these things are really falling in his direction at this point.
Speaker 2: I listen, whatever we said before, he's touched. He's been
Speaker 2: touched by financial man. I'm luckiest man alive because Cristal,
Speaker 2: as you said, and I confirm this, is that the
Speaker 2: trial could now start late September or October. The thing
Speaker 2: is is that there is a scenario where this is
Speaker 2: a possible own goal by Trump. Because you have a
Speaker 2: parallel split screen going into the election. We can imagine
Speaker 2: our own show where we're going to be talking about
Speaker 2: whatever the major electoral news of the day, and then
Speaker 2: the latest news out of the trial, and obviously the
Speaker 2: trial that probably matters the most politically in terms of
Speaker 2: its consequences for Trump. Right before the election. You could
Speaker 2: also imagine I guess, you know, several versions of October
Speaker 2: surprises like new witnesses and a delay tactic that would
Speaker 2: put this is the thing with trials and the legal system,
Speaker 2: it's incredibly slow. The judge's been in charge. One of
Speaker 2: the reasons why it's going to start so late. She
Speaker 2: has guaranteed preparation time of several months, where even if
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court case does rule on an expedited timeline,
Speaker 2: that's what it pushes it back. But all Trump needs
Speaker 2: now at this point is one more legal maneuver to
Speaker 2: go his way, and this thing is not going to
Speaker 2: happen before the election, which you know, validates a couple
Speaker 2: of things. One is, I think the major criticism of
Speaker 2: Jack Smith and of MARYK. Garland was like, Dude, everybody
Speaker 2: told you twenty twenty three is too late because of
Speaker 2: the way our legal system, you waited for so long
Speaker 2: to bring this case. If it does get pushed bast
Speaker 2: election day, I think that's on them, that's their fault.
Speaker 2: You know, the defense is obviously going to do everything
Speaker 2: it can. As you said, it's very unlikely that the
Speaker 2: Supreme In fact, one of the theories that I've seen
Speaker 2: about why the scotis took the case, regardless of whether
Speaker 2: they think they're trying to help Trump or not, is
Speaker 2: actually to definitively rule on presidential immunity for all times,
Speaker 2: so we don't have this question ever. Again, they're like, no,
Speaker 2: the president's not immune ever, period, and the story decided
Speaker 2: by the High Court.
Speaker 1: Well, it is important to emphasize how insane what Trump
Speaker 1: is actually claiming here is because again, most people think
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court is not going to side with him,
Speaker 1: but there's no guarantees there. And basically he's arguing that
Speaker 1: not just him, but any president could commit effectively any
Speaker 1: crime when they are president of the United States, and
Speaker 1: as long as you could sort of loosely connect it
Speaker 1: to their quote unquote presidential duties.
Speaker 3: They get off scot free.
Speaker 1: That is a wild interpretation of the Constitution. It would
Speaker 1: be an un precedent and interpretation of the Constitution and
Speaker 1: the abilities of the president.
Speaker 3: I mean, it really would be giving making.
Speaker 1: Them completely above the law in effectively all instances, which
Speaker 1: is why all of the courts up to here have
Speaker 1: not only ruled against Trump on this but issued pretty
Speaker 1: scathing rulings about this. I mean, you remember last time,
Speaker 1: if people were talking about the judges were questioning his
Speaker 1: attorneys of Okay, so if you use sealed team six
Speaker 1: to execute a political opponent, you're saying, basically, there could
Speaker 1: be no accountability, there could be no criminal charges over that.
Speaker 1: And the answer basically came back, as long as the
Speaker 1: president isn't impeached over it, then yes, they could do
Speaker 1: whatever they want.
Speaker 3: That's an insane standard.
Speaker 1: That's why most people think that the Supreme Court isn't
Speaker 1: going to go along with it. But we should keep
Speaker 1: in mind how wild it is that there's even a
Speaker 1: possibility that the Supreme Court could potentially agree with that.
Speaker 1: But right now, the most important consequence of this is
Speaker 1: just a timeline. I mean, it is important what you
Speaker 1: pointed out sober that there is a possibility that this
Speaker 1: actually lands the trial in the most politically damaging moment
Speaker 1: for Trump, the time when Americans are most tuned into
Speaker 1: the presidential race, when he should be out, you know,
Speaker 1: primarily campaigning, and instead is having to go through these
Speaker 1: trial processes, new information coming out. Everybody you know glued
Speaker 1: to the TV to find out what's going on with
Speaker 1: this election interference case. This is the one that you
Speaker 1: know speaks most directly, I think to the reasons that
Speaker 1: so many Americans dislike Trump and don't want him back
Speaker 1: in office. So listen, it's possible that it works out
Speaker 1: that way. But he also now has a chance chance
Speaker 1: to basically push all of these things off until he's
Speaker 1: potentially president of the United States again, at which time
Speaker 1: it effectively all goes well.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: The other thing to remember is being on trial and
Speaker 2: being convicted are very different things. One of the things
Speaker 2: that you and I had talked about previously is there's
Speaker 2: a lot of pulling out there that shows if he's
Speaker 2: a convicted felon, that would be very likely to change
Speaker 2: people's decision. What I have here in front of me
Speaker 2: shows that if we have and this because of the
Speaker 2: way that the judge has decided the case, Trump is
Speaker 2: owed an additional eighty two days of preparation time after
Speaker 2: the decision by the Supreme Court, depending on whenever that drops.
Speaker 2: That's why the September October date comes into mind. Well,
Speaker 2: we doesn't you know, it doesn't take much genius to
Speaker 2: figure out that if you're the Trump team, even especially
Speaker 2: because they all think they're going to lose in the
Speaker 2: first place, push this thing out and drag it out
Speaker 2: as much as possible, so that even if the trials
Speaker 2: in full swing, you don't get a conviction or a
Speaker 2: jury deliberation until after election day, which is very early
Speaker 2: in November. So there you go. Now you have it
Speaker 2: so that we would have some sort of insane legal
Speaker 2: poly crisis where you have a president elect former president
Speaker 2: on trial, who then has the trial, who then has
Speaker 2: a conviction and appeals process that begins after that. You're
Speaker 2: not even assuming office but preparing to actually swear in
Speaker 2: the oath of office, which is as a whole other
Speaker 2: legal ramifications as to how exactly that might work, but
Speaker 2: that immediately comes to mind as if I'm Trump, I
Speaker 2: don't want to be convicted before what is it, November eighth,
Speaker 2: I think is election day, So that's it. I'd be like,
Speaker 2: I'm My entire legal strategy is not even about defense
Speaker 2: on the charges, although of course we want to do that.
Speaker 2: It's let's make sure that this doesn't happen before that time.
Speaker 2: And this effect, I wouldn't say guarantees it, but it
Speaker 2: makes it very much more likely, and it makes it
Speaker 2: a lot more politically better.
Speaker 1: It makes it possible, makes it possible. One other thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to note. There was one other piece of
Speaker 1: legal news. An Illinois judge also removed Trump from the
Speaker 1: ballot because of the insurrectionist ban. That is the case
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court has already heard arguments in seemed
Speaker 1: very skeptical of the idea that Trump could be banned
Speaker 1: from ballots based on this clause of the Constitution, and so,
Speaker 1: like I said, they seem very skeptical, including some of
Speaker 1: the liberal justices seem skeptical there. I guess you never know,
Speaker 1: but unlikely that that particular challenge is going to go
Speaker 1: against Trump and just take him out of the game altogether.
Speaker 1: But I did want to update on that that, you know,
Speaker 1: I think this is the third state that has decided
Speaker 1: that Trump should be removed from the ballot based on
Speaker 1: that clism.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Another reason why it was very significant is one of
Speaker 2: the legal justifications that they could have used, possibly, you know,
Speaker 2: depending on the ruling, is that if you haven't been
Speaker 2: convicted of you know, anything, insurrection behavior or whatever, they
Speaker 2: can't be removed. Well in this trial, this is the
Speaker 2: trial that would pertain to that from a federal brand,
Speaker 2: from a federal juryist deciding whether he legally had committed
Speaker 2: crimes like this in the first place, which then means
Speaker 2: that you can't have a ruling in many of these
Speaker 2: courts to try and remove him from the ballot based
Speaker 2: on a pretextual kind of interpretation of the Constitution. So
Speaker 2: there are actually a lot of ramifications for this one.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like you said, very in consequential Trump he's
Speaker 2: been touched by an angel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see. I mean, like you said, I do
Speaker 1: want to it is possible that it does blow up
Speaker 1: in their face. And we're having this trial in September October,
Speaker 1: which to just be crazy, who knows. But anyway, right
Speaker 1: now he's got a chance to in spite of the
Speaker 1: fact that there are so many charges against him in
Speaker 1: so many different jurisdictions, so many different cases. You really
Speaker 1: do have to put this on Merrick Garland. It's not
Speaker 1: really Jacksmith's fault, since he was brought in kind of.
Speaker 3: Late in the game. It's really more Merrick Garland's fault.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, January six was a long time ago. We
Speaker 1: all saw what happened. If you were going to put
Speaker 1: together or expect that there could be this election subversion case,
Speaker 1: you could have started that right away, and so the
Speaker 1: fact that he dially dallied for noa parent reason is
Speaker 1: really that it gave Trump an opening to potentially be
Speaker 1: able to get.
Speaker 3: Away with all of it scott free. So we'll see
Speaker 3: how it all works out.
Speaker 2: We'll see. Mitch McConnell, this is the biggest headline news,
Speaker 2: you know, big big deal here in Washington. One of
Speaker 2: the longest serving Senate leaders in American history, announcing that
Speaker 2: he will be retiring at the end of November. He
Speaker 2: announced sat on the Senate floor yesterday. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: Believe me, I know the politics within my party at
Speaker 5: this particular moment in time. I have many faults, mister,
Speaker 5: understanding politics is not one off that's said. I believe,
Speaker 5: more Sengan than ever that America's global leadership is essential
Speaker 5: to preserving the shining City on a Hill that Ronald
Speaker 5: Reagan discussed. As long as I'm drawing breath on this earth,
Speaker 5: I will defend American exceptionalism. So, as I've been thinking
Speaker 5: about when I would deliver some news to the Senate,
Speaker 5: I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity
Speaker 5: and peace about the sunset of my work.
Speaker 2: Even in that clip, Crystal, he's frail man, and he's
Speaker 2: clearly not even close to what he once was.
Speaker 3: A lot of Joe Biden vibes. They're watching Joe Biden
Speaker 3: trying to get through that.
Speaker 2: It's you know, I'm just putting it together with this
Speaker 2: is a larger global phenomenon. It's kind of interesting to
Speaker 2: think about it in this context, which is that ten
Speaker 2: years ago there was only one the world leader of
Speaker 2: the major I think it was like G twenty countries,
Speaker 2: which was under the age of seventy. Today there's eight,
Speaker 2: eight out of ten. So ten years later, eight out
Speaker 2: of ten now of the global like people like Mody,
Speaker 2: people like Biden, I forget, so many of them are
Speaker 2: much much older than the average president. I mean, we
Speaker 2: have to go back and think, you know that, how
Speaker 2: how much press conversation there was about sixty something year
Speaker 2: old Ronald Reagan running for president and he's a decade
Speaker 2: younger now in this case of the two people who
Speaker 2: are trying to assume that office for another four years.
Speaker 2: And just a reminder, you know that we all probably
Speaker 2: need here about McConnell, like he's still retiring far, far
Speaker 2: too late, And don't forget he still got, you know,
Speaker 2: up until November that he wants to serve out his term.
Speaker 2: We have all of this, we could show you just
Speaker 2: to you know, we can't forget that we had a
Speaker 2: full blown meltdown on a camera. And the craziest thing
Speaker 2: is it happened twice. Not to mention, you know, the
Speaker 2: bruised hands, which is often indication of IV. It's something
Speaker 2: that showed up on the Queen, you know, before she
Speaker 2: died very very very quickly. And when you have people
Speaker 2: who are in this state, who are so clearly frail,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's yeah, in a certain point, great,
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're going for ideological reasons and for health reasons.
Speaker 2: But he's still insisting Crystal on staying up until November.
Speaker 2: I mean, the honesty of it is the same thing
Speaker 2: with Feinstein, same thing with Biden. Where how do the
Speaker 2: people around him tolerate this? Like, how can you allow
Speaker 2: somebody to just to continue in this job after you've
Speaker 2: suffered massive health events on camera? And by the way,
Speaker 2: don't forget the cope from the McConnell team is it's
Speaker 2: only happened twice. They just happened to only happen on camera, okay,
Speaker 2: which is like one percent of his life.
Speaker 1: So we never got an explanation for what they still
Speaker 1: it was nonsense, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: But yeah, what do you do?
Speaker 1: You have a theory of why that is that there
Speaker 1: are so many aging world leaders, and it's not just
Speaker 1: a US phenomenon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, a lot of it is demographic,
Speaker 2: which there was a huge baby boom in the nineteen forties.
Speaker 2: Baby boomers years not necessarily unique phenomenon. It's the same
Speaker 2: all across the world. So I think that they're very likely.
Speaker 2: You know, you still have kind of the median voter theory,
Speaker 2: especially here in the West and a lot of other
Speaker 2: voluntary democracies where people who are younger in general don't
Speaker 2: engage in the political system and people who are old
Speaker 2: like to not only people like people who are their
Speaker 2: own age, but in some cases the people that they
Speaker 2: look up to, which is what will have the older
Speaker 2: boomers or the silent generation, people like Joe Biden. So
Speaker 2: I think that's a possible explanation, and it does actually
Speaker 2: make a lot of sense. Obviously, there's a medical thing
Speaker 2: that comes in here too, you know, life expectancy, I
Speaker 2: mean life expectancy in America if you're in the top
Speaker 2: ten percent of wealth, is something like ninety two years old,
Speaker 2: which is crazy, I mean, because it averages out I
Speaker 2: think at like seventy two. But that's because if you speak,
Speaker 2: when you combine everybody, but when you look at it
Speaker 2: by wealth, like if you have money in this country,
Speaker 2: you're going to live for a long time. So it's
Speaker 2: one of those where the life expectancy, especially among that
Speaker 2: top ten percent, has gone now so high that you know,
Speaker 2: in some cases, you know, many of these people are
Speaker 2: actually able to function much much older than they would
Speaker 2: have been able to twenty thirty years ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing I know you pointed to in a previous
Speaker 1: monologue that was focused on America, But I mean, what
Speaker 1: happens here has reverberations around the world is sort of
Speaker 1: like a democratic decline, Yes, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: like small d democracy and the people actually having choice
Speaker 1: and actually being able to like have some say over
Speaker 1: who their political leadership is, and tying that to this
Speaker 1: increasingly aged political class. And I thought that was very
Speaker 1: insightful and certainly ties into how you end up with
Speaker 1: you know, Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell, Diane Feinstein and
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi and Maxine wat all these people, right, Jim cliber,
Speaker 1: I mean, all of these people are way way, way,
Speaker 1: way way past their prime. You know, there's a few
Speaker 1: things that are noteworthy here. First of all, noteworthy that
Speaker 1: McConnell is stepping down from leadership at a time when
Speaker 1: very possible that Republicans are able to win back the
Speaker 1: majority in the Senate.
Speaker 3: So that's noteworthy.
Speaker 1: It's also noteworthy, you know, he's not saying he's stepping
Speaker 1: down from his Senate seat, so we can give him
Speaker 1: some kudos from stepping down for leadership. But I mean,
Speaker 1: this very old man who's freezing and having all kinds
Speaker 1: of problems on camera, and we don't know what's going on.
Speaker 3: With his health.
Speaker 1: It's still planning to stick around in Washington for years
Speaker 1: to come, so don't worry. I haven't seen the last
Speaker 1: of Mitch McConnell. The other thing is, I understood there's
Speaker 1: been conversation about like, oh, this is the last sort
Speaker 1: of den in of the you know, pre the old
Speaker 1: Republican order, And I understand that conversation in a sense.
Speaker 1: But first of all, a lot of that old Republican
Speaker 1: order still really runs the machinery here in Washington behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. And second of all, you know, when push
Speaker 1: came to che Mitch McConnell and Donald when Donald Trump
Speaker 1: was present, I mean did everything that Trump wanted him
Speaker 1: to on policy, They didn't have a lot of significant divides.
Speaker 1: I know there's this idea that they're like wildly different
Speaker 1: on Ukraine, but it's not even clear to me at
Speaker 1: this point what Trump doesn't really talk about Ukraine a lot.
Speaker 1: It's not even clear to me at this point what
Speaker 1: his Ukraine policy would actually be. So and Trump, of course,
Speaker 1: when he was in office, his signature accomplishment was a
Speaker 1: business friendly and rich people friendly tax cut. That would
Speaker 1: be something that Mitch McConnell absolutely loved and was happy
Speaker 1: to bring to the donor class. So in some ways,
Speaker 1: I think the ideological divide between them is really overstated.
Speaker 1: There's more of like a I don't know, a vibe
Speaker 1: divide between them than I think there is really truly
Speaker 1: like ideological gulf between.
Speaker 2: It depends, because the thing is that in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: it genuinely was impactful to have Paul Ryan and Mitch
Speaker 2: McConnell that were in charge, and the main consequence of
Speaker 2: that really is border policy and specifically the border wall.
Speaker 2: So it was a huge fight in twenty seventeen that
Speaker 2: actually culminated in the TCJA over not only building a
Speaker 2: border wall, but something called border adjustment tax. Now to be,
Speaker 2: I highly support this tax, regardless whether it pays for
Speaker 2: a border wall not, because it's a trade adjustment in
Speaker 2: terms of goods that cross over from Mexico. The number
Speaker 2: one opponent of the BAT as it's known kind of
Speaker 2: here in DC or Walmart and all these other people
Speaker 2: that are shipping all this cheap product across the border.
Speaker 2: It's a major consequence of NAFTA. We tried to clean
Speaker 2: up some of it in the what is it called
Speaker 2: the whatever replaced after I forget the of my head.
Speaker 2: My point is that BAT is at the feet of
Speaker 2: Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. So it's not that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're right, the TCJA and all that definitely did pass.
Speaker 2: But there were certain bananesque type visions, like a major
Speaker 2: infrastructure package, the BAT, border wall, well, probably some immigration reform.
Speaker 2: I can think of repeal and replace Obamacare and all
Speaker 2: of that that where you know, marginal but still important,
Speaker 2: where mcconald certainly did have a difference. Now in terms
Speaker 2: of the leadership, I do want to highlight your point.
Speaker 2: I think you are correct, and we have this up
Speaker 2: here we could put on the screen. We'll just look
Speaker 2: at who the actual Republican leadership is. A lot of
Speaker 2: people forget. You know. Number two is going to be
Speaker 2: John Thune South Dakota. He's his establishment as it gets.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's the guy who thought Tim Scott should
Speaker 2: run for president. He's such a genius politician. John Barrasso
Speaker 2: over at Wyoming is the Senate Republican Conference Chairman, Jony Ernst,
Speaker 2: same thing, Republican Conference Committee Chairman. The Conference vice chairman
Speaker 2: is Sharing more Capito, West Virginia. And then the NRSC
Speaker 2: chairman is Steve Danes at Montana. These are all died
Speaker 2: in the world, very classic Republicans. You know, I'm off
Speaker 2: the top of my head, I can't think of a
Speaker 2: Ukraine dissonant amongst any of those six. Now, something that
Speaker 2: has been flagged to me though by kind of some
Speaker 2: of the observers here in DC, is that a lot
Speaker 2: of this does not depend on the existing sting Senate leadership
Speaker 2: a lot of this rides on November and that map
Speaker 2: which we have here actually up on the screen and
Speaker 2: people can see in front of you. You've got in
Speaker 2: front of you where the actual toss up states from Ohio, Montana,
Speaker 2: and Arizona, where you genuinely have no idea what will
Speaker 2: happen for the republic For the actual Senate, you know,
Speaker 2: the Senate incumbents Democrats specifically in all three of those,
Speaker 2: whether they will be flipped a Republican or Democrat. A
Speaker 2: lot of that is going to ride on the general election,
Speaker 2: on Trump and or Biden and whatever the macro kind
Speaker 2: of determination there is. Let's say there is a Republican
Speaker 2: sweep and you've get fifty three, I could definitely see,
Speaker 2: you know, because in that case I think Trump would
Speaker 2: get elected. Then I think a more MAGA aligned figure
Speaker 2: might become the chairman of the the Senate majority leader.
Speaker 2: In that case, let's say that all three of those
Speaker 2: go d Trump gets defeated at the ballot box, then
Speaker 2: there could actually be kind of a movement against more
Speaker 2: Maga types and John Thun or Tim Scott or somebody
Speaker 2: like that might assume the leadership. And of course in
Speaker 2: that position they would either be the leader or depending
Speaker 2: it could go fifty one like it is currently for
Speaker 2: the Democrats, it would be the minority leader. Then I
Speaker 2: would definitely see them move right back to McConnell's status,
Speaker 2: who was most comfortable blocking things from Obama than actually
Speaker 2: enacting legislation himself. Yeah, that's really his legacy, right.
Speaker 1: I guess what I would say is this, First of all,
Speaker 1: the idea that Trump is some like dissident renegade with
Speaker 1: wildly different views than the traditional Republican conference is overstated.
Speaker 1: And second of all, the fact that the party has
Speaker 1: already completely capitulated to Donald Trump. So I guess the
Speaker 1: only way it matters on the margins is, like you know,
Speaker 1: no one's saying Mitch McConnell was a stupid man. He
Speaker 1: was very intelligent in terms of knowing how to work
Speaker 1: the levers of power behind the scenes. I don't know
Speaker 1: if John Thune, John Barrasso, Doni Ernster, whoever might come
Speaker 1: up after him, has that same level of prowess. Of course, again,
Speaker 1: McConnell's going to be around, so they can be getting
Speaker 1: advice for him if there are as he is where
Speaker 1: they differ from Donald Trump and want to sort of
Speaker 1: like undermine and undercut him. But you know, I just
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's as consequential at this point
Speaker 1: as you might think, because Trump already owns this Republican Party.
Speaker 3: Whether you used to be.
Speaker 1: You know, whether you're part of the establishment or not
Speaker 1: part of the establishment or whatever, has more to do
Speaker 1: with kind of like your attitude and your vibe than
Speaker 1: it does real policy positions, as we've seen a million times,
Speaker 1: you know, and you think about like a Jim Jordan
Speaker 1: being coded as Mago and he has the most standard
Speaker 1: issue Tea Party conservative Republican views of all time. So
Speaker 1: it becomes more about vibe and attitude. And then you know,
Speaker 1: they've already decided that there's no way they can go
Speaker 1: up against Donald Trump on anything that he actually is
Speaker 1: going to care about and actually.
Speaker 3: Like try to fight for.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure in terms of what the next
Speaker 1: term looks like, if Trump ends up being present, that
Speaker 1: it's going to matter all that much.
Speaker 2: I do think Ukraine is the one where, Look, I
Speaker 2: don't know what Trump thinks about Ukraine. I don't think
Speaker 2: he knows what he thinks about Ukraine. Yeah, depending on
Speaker 2: the day, that's McConnell had had such a deep ideological
Speaker 2: commitment at many points, being the only member of his
Speaker 2: caucus willing to try and to go past, you know what,
Speaker 2: willing to try and work with the Democrats that going
Speaker 2: away is actually genuinely impactful, where you've even had John
Speaker 2: Thune and all of them. Now again, I don't know
Speaker 2: how it moves on the margins. Really, A lot of
Speaker 2: this depends on what the hell happens in November. A
Speaker 2: lot of it depends on, you know, what it looks
Speaker 2: like at that point. But there is an ideology, you know,
Speaker 2: on McConnell's part where I think the people who are
Speaker 2: coming up after him again depending on what actually happens
Speaker 2: with the election, where we could see some change, but
Speaker 2: don't overstate it either, you're right, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: some people think there's going to be some grand revolution. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think so. The only thing I think might
Speaker 2: change a little bit is immigration. That's the one where too,
Speaker 2: where McConnell is not as ideological on that issue is
Speaker 2: more of a gett along. He doesn't have you know,
Speaker 2: very strong views, if anything, is more of a big
Speaker 2: business type where if you had somebody's more hardline immigration.
Speaker 2: I think things could change a little bit, but I'm
Speaker 2: not sure.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe, but I think most of the action
Speaker 1: on these things is going to be through the executive
Speaker 1: branch anyway. I mean, I don't because you're still going
Speaker 1: to have a filibuster, You're still going to have, you know,
Speaker 1: opposition in the Senate, even if they're able to narrowly
Speaker 1: take in the majority. So I think, you know, looking
Speaker 1: at Project twenty five and these other efforts to like
Speaker 1: really figure out the limits and bounds of their power
Speaker 1: what they can do through the executive branch without having
Speaker 1: to go through the House or the Senate is probably
Speaker 1: war weary focus in terms of what's actually you have.
Speaker 1: Just one last quick note, throw the Senate map back
Speaker 1: up there, because I just want to make clear for
Speaker 1: people that you know, it's very very close a five Please,
Speaker 1: what's going to have Who's going to have control of
Speaker 1: the Senate next time around? Basically it comes down to
Speaker 1: these three toss up states.
Speaker 3: In order for.
Speaker 1: Democrats to keep the majority, they'd have to win the
Speaker 1: White House and they have to hold on to these
Speaker 1: toss up states Arizona, Montana, Ohio. Now, look at that,
Speaker 1: it's not a great map, because first of all, Ohio
Speaker 1: and Montana are red states at this point, and so
Speaker 1: that is very difficult terrain. However, for whatever reason, they
Speaker 1: seem to really love John Tester up there in Montana.
Speaker 3: He's got like a ten.
Speaker 1: Point lead in consistently in the polls that are coming
Speaker 1: out now. Who knows, it's a long time to election day,
Speaker 1: polls can be off blah blah blah, but he seems
Speaker 1: to be holding pretty strong there. The shared Brown race
Speaker 1: in Ohio is very very close. The polling has it,
Speaker 1: you know, effectively tie. I think Brown usually has like
Speaker 1: a two point margin over his opponent who I think
Speaker 1: the Republican primary is still ongoing, so I'm not sure
Speaker 1: who he's going up against, but that one appears like
Speaker 1: it'll be very very close. And Arizona also appears like
Speaker 1: it will be really close. Arizona of course swing state
Speaker 1: at this point. So you know, you're looking at a
Speaker 1: landscape where you'd really kind of need everything to fall
Speaker 1: in Democrats direction in order for them to hold onto
Speaker 1: the Senate.
Speaker 3: But I mean, they have a shot at doing it.
Speaker 1: It's not like it's preposterous to imagine that they could
Speaker 1: hold onto it.
Speaker 2: In November twenty twenty, I'm sitting at a desk and
Speaker 2: telling you that they're gonna be two Democratic senators from Georgia.
Speaker 2: Like what do we think we've really Oh.
Speaker 1: We were here, we were like, no way, it's not
Speaker 1: going to happen.
Speaker 2: Anything can happen. Yeah, I really have no idea. I
Speaker 2: think we have the mayor on standby. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1: So, as Ryan and Emily covered very able, I should say,
Speaker 1: yesterday those Michigan results for uncommitted, that protests vote very interesting,
Speaker 1: the protest vote dramatically outperforming. Can put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. So one hundred thousand Michigan Democrats went to
Speaker 1: the polls specifically to protest Joe Biden's policy visa the
Speaker 1: Israel and their assault on the Gaza Strip. One of
Speaker 1: the local elected officials who backed this effort is the
Speaker 1: mayor of Dearborn, Abdullahamud, and actually residents of.
Speaker 3: Dearborn, majority of them voted.
Speaker 1: For uncommitted over Joe Biden, and Mayor Hamud joins us.
Speaker 3: Now, great to Seezar, good Caesar having.
Speaker 1: Of course, so just give us your first reaction to
Speaker 1: this outperformance of uncommitted.
Speaker 6: I think as signals, you know, for me as signals,
Speaker 6: it's a sign of hope, the hope that the issue
Speaker 6: of has that the issue of Palestine is not an
Speaker 6: issue that only impacts Arabs or Muslims, but it impacts
Speaker 6: Michiganders and Americans from coast to coast.
Speaker 2: When you have one hundred thousand.
Speaker 6: Democrats coming out to the ballot box and casting their vote,
Speaker 6: casting the vote for a pro peace future or pro
Speaker 6: democracy future, for pro justice future, and that's the message
Speaker 6: that we were trying to send.
Speaker 2: So, mister Mayor, I have seen some attempts by the
Speaker 2: Democratic establishment to say, hey, this is a normal ish
Speaker 2: you know, amount of the percent vote that votes uncommitted.
Speaker 2: This isn't necessarily going to be a problem for Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: regardless of whether he changes course in Israel, because you
Speaker 2: were on the ground and the uncommitted vote, I believe
Speaker 2: has now got two delegates behind you. What's your response
Speaker 2: to some of that?
Speaker 6: You know, this is five times the number of votes
Speaker 6: that have been casted for uncommitted in the last thity
Speaker 6: presidential primaries. You know, on average, typically uncommitted we get
Speaker 6: about twenty thousand votes. This is one hundred thousand votes
Speaker 6: and ten times what we expected. Our goal was ten
Speaker 6: thousand votes and we actually ultimately received one hundred thousand votes.
Speaker 2: You know, what I would say to.
Speaker 6: All the pundance is you can take the calculated risk.
Speaker 6: You can dismiss the one hundred thousand people who came
Speaker 6: out and cast their ballot and wanting a president who
Speaker 6: does not back a genocide. But that is a risk
Speaker 6: that they will take, and the risk that you know,
Speaker 6: and the outcome would be the unraveling of American democracy.
Speaker 6: And so for me, my message would be to President
Speaker 6: Biden to heed the concerns of Michiganders, to distance yourself
Speaker 6: from Benjamin Benjamintan Yahoo, the war criminal, and the tyrannical
Speaker 6: Israeli government and that's currently in place, and choose your
Speaker 6: American constituents who are asking you to withdraw that support,
Speaker 6: to stop backing a genocide, call for permanent cease fire,
Speaker 6: and restrict that military aid.
Speaker 1: One thing I found really noteworthy, Mayor, and really important
Speaker 1: and should be concerning at least for the Biden team
Speaker 1: is that yes, in Dearborn, which is a majority of
Speaker 1: Arab American city, the vote for Uncommitted was overwhelming, but
Speaker 1: you had pretty significant support for uncommitted across all of Michigan. Yes,
Speaker 1: the college towns were the next, but there were a
Speaker 1: lot of rural areas where Uncommitted was getting more than
Speaker 1: ten percent of the vote. You had a vast range
Speaker 1: of demographics that wanted to lodge this protest vote. And
Speaker 1: I think it's almost like a sort of racist assumption
Speaker 1: that only Arab Americans or only Muslim Americans would care
Speaker 1: about a genocide being perpetrated in our names with our
Speaker 1: tax dollars in Gaza. So I wonder if you could
Speaker 1: react to that particular part of the analysis.
Speaker 6: I believe over seventy of the eighty three counties across
Speaker 6: Michigan had over ten percent cash their vote for Uncommitted,
Speaker 6: which really sends the message that this is not just
Speaker 6: an Arab or a Muslim issue. I think again, we
Speaker 6: built a multiracial, multi ethnic, multi faith, multi generational coalition,
Speaker 6: and I think that's what was demonstrated at the ballot box,
Speaker 6: that there are one hundred thousand people who believe in
Speaker 6: a simple value statement that no innocent man, woman, or
Speaker 6: child should be killed, let alone should be killed utilizing
Speaker 6: US tax payer dollars. And I think that's the message
Speaker 6: that we're trying to send.
Speaker 1: Do you have a sense of where this movement goes
Speaker 1: from here? Have organizers or local electeds in other states,
Speaker 1: especially ones who have matches coming up here on Super
Speaker 1: Tuesday next week, have they reached out to you?
Speaker 6: So they have reached out to the organizer of the
Speaker 6: Listening to Michigan campaign. I know the state of Washington
Speaker 6: and the state of Minnesota are trying to follow suit.
Speaker 2: There's only a handful of states.
Speaker 6: They actually permissed the uncommitted box on the presidential primary,
Speaker 6: and so other organizers and other states are looking at alternatives.
Speaker 6: What does that write in campaign look like? You know,
Speaker 6: we saw New Hampshire actually try to lead the way
Speaker 6: early on with a write and ceasefire initiative, which a
Speaker 6: little bit more difficult because some Secretaries of state don't
Speaker 6: actually count what was actually written in as opposed to
Speaker 6: just summing the total writings, and so each state is
Speaker 6: looking at their own unique way of how they can
Speaker 6: organize on the ground and make sure that their voices
Speaker 6: are also heard in a similar passion.
Speaker 2: So, mister Mayer, one of the other major questions here
Speaker 2: we saw on an MSNBC focus group, for example, where
Speaker 2: you had some voters who are like, no, there's nothing
Speaker 2: he could do now at this point, President Biden to
Speaker 2: get my vote back. So I know that's not your position,
Speaker 2: but I'm curious, then, amongst your constituents, what where and
Speaker 2: how high is the bar for going from uncommitted to
Speaker 2: coming out in November affirmatively to vote for Joe Biden
Speaker 2: president of the United States.
Speaker 6: You know, I think that's going to differ with depending
Speaker 6: on each voter that you speak to, you know, for
Speaker 6: the residents who I have, you know, for the many
Speaker 6: residents who I have who have lost loved ones, some
Speaker 6: who have lost a dozen loved ones in Avessa, some
Speaker 6: who have lost over eighty loved.
Speaker 2: Ones in Avessa.
Speaker 6: I don't think the concern for them is how they're
Speaker 6: going to come out and vote in November. I think
Speaker 6: some of those votes are lost and it's expected. You know,
Speaker 6: you can't have eighty of your fave members be killed
Speaker 6: and a president be silent, not even have the audacity
Speaker 6: to call for permanent ceasefire. And yet there's still to
Speaker 6: believe that you should be coming out.
Speaker 2: A voting for them in November.
Speaker 6: Then there's another portion of my constituency who are looking
Speaker 6: for a permanent ceasefire to be called and hopefully to
Speaker 6: be reached.
Speaker 2: But that just opens up the door for further conversation.
Speaker 2: You know, I do not speak to a lot of
Speaker 2: my constituents who.
Speaker 6: Want to see a Trump re elected as president. We
Speaker 6: understand what Trump stands for, we understand the rhetoric that
Speaker 6: he provides. But at the same time, although we've recognized
Speaker 6: a shift in tone, a recognition of Palestinian loss of
Speaker 6: life by our president, we have not seen a symmetry
Speaker 6: and his actions. And that's what the residents really want
Speaker 6: to see. What actions will he demonstrate, And we don't
Speaker 6: have between now and November. Nobody's waiting until October to
Speaker 6: see what the president does. What we're hoping is that
Speaker 6: we sent a clear message at the ballot box just
Speaker 6: this week and that the actions should have been starting
Speaker 6: four months ago.
Speaker 1: Have you heard from the White House or from anyone
Speaker 1: affiliated with the Biden campaign post Tuesday and do you
Speaker 1: think that they did hear that message and may change
Speaker 1: policy based on the uncommitted vote.
Speaker 6: At this point in time, I have not heard from anybody,
Speaker 6: but what from my understanding based on the network and
Speaker 6: the relationships that we have is that it was a
Speaker 6: resounding victory that was heard across all the halls of
Speaker 6: the White House, and you know, again at this point
Speaker 6: the balls in their court.
Speaker 2: We did what we should do.
Speaker 6: We utilized our primary vote in the process that we
Speaker 6: have here in the Michigan to send a clear message
Speaker 6: that we will not back a president back to the
Speaker 6: genocide and that we want a president who respects and
Speaker 6: dignifies Palacitan lives.
Speaker 1: Mayor, so grateful for your time. I know you've got
Speaker 1: a lot going on, so thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time to explain all of this to our
Speaker 1: audience this morning.
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming back, sir, of course, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for having me again.
Speaker 3: It's our pleasure.
Speaker 1: So as we were just discussing with the mayor, Uncommitted
Speaker 1: really outperforming expectations, sending a message to the Biden White
Speaker 1: House about their unconditional support for Israel, and we have
Speaker 1: some pretty important updates here, so put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. Looks like Uncommitted has actually won a couple
Speaker 1: of delegates to the Democratic Convention. They would be sort
Speaker 1: of unobligated, not obligated to any particular candidate, but you know,
Speaker 1: especially if the uncommit movement continues forward and continues to
Speaker 1: potentially grow, you could have some number in addition to
Speaker 1: these two of additional delegates going to the Democratic National
Speaker 1: Convention who have been sent there from a group of
Speaker 1: Democratic base voters who are disgusted with the Biden policy
Speaker 1: visa the Israel. So this could end up being significant.
Speaker 1: It's certainly a huge win for this movement which just
Speaker 1: started a few weeks ago, shoestring budget, everything going against them,
Speaker 1: and yet was able to get over one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: michigan Ers Michigan Democrats to come out and vote explicitly
Speaker 1: against this presidence policy.
Speaker 3: Saber.
Speaker 1: One thing that's noteworthy that they talk about in that report.
Speaker 1: Super Tuesday is coming up next week on Tuesday, and
Speaker 1: eight of the states that are voting on Super Tuesday
Speaker 1: have something akin to Uncommitted. A lot of the attention,
Speaker 1: as I'll discuss in a little bit, is going to Minnesota,
Speaker 1: both because it is also a swing state and also
Speaker 1: because it has a significant Muslim popular But as the
Speaker 1: mayor was just explaining, I mean, yes, the support for
Speaker 1: Uncommitted was highest among Arab Americans in Michigan, highest among
Speaker 1: Muslim Americans, but really cut across a lot of different
Speaker 1: demographic groups. So I don't even think you need, you know,
Speaker 1: the specific demographics that you had in Michigan for uncommitted
Speaker 1: or it's equivalent to have a significant impact in these
Speaker 1: other states.
Speaker 2: A couple places I'm really going to look out for
Speaker 2: in terms of the ballot. Like you said, there are
Speaker 2: several states, but I really want to see his performance
Speaker 2: in some of the more critical places where you could
Speaker 2: see signs of popular vote, like California or Colorado, where
Speaker 2: you you know, you traditionally will have Democrats that come
Speaker 2: out in force and it drives up the overall popular vote.
Speaker 2: It's very it's a good view sometimes in the primary
Speaker 2: of overall enthusiasm. Same thing. At the same time, you know,
Speaker 2: you want to look in some of the red states
Speaker 2: not only at the Republican Party, but in terms of
Speaker 2: democratic overperformance there in terms of what that might look like.
Speaker 2: In the same thing, it's always a sign of like
Speaker 2: how enthusiastic everybody really is, like Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and
Speaker 2: some of these places so uncommitted, but overall the number two,
Speaker 2: like how much of Biden is able going to rarely
Speaker 2: run the table. Are any of these third party candidates
Speaker 2: on others uncommitted? Some of his primary challenges Dean Phillips,
Speaker 2: Mary and Williams and no believe is now back in
Speaker 2: the race, Like, well, how's that going to fare as well?
Speaker 2: So I don't think we're going to see as strong
Speaker 2: as Biden as a lot of.
Speaker 1: People are thinking, Yeah, No, I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: too that. It was interesting me in that article about
Speaker 1: how they got the couple of delegates and talking about
Speaker 1: what happens going forward. You got a quote from Minnesota
Speaker 1: Governor Tim Wallas, who's a Democrat. He said he expected
Speaker 1: a measure of minnesota Somali population, the largest in the country,
Speaker 1: to vote uncommitted in his state's Democratic primary on Super Tuesday.
Speaker 1: More than eighty six thousand Somalis live in Minnesota. Walls,
Speaker 1: of course, as a major supporter of Biden's re election campaign.
Speaker 1: He said Michigan's uncommitted results were a healthy demonstration of democracy,
Speaker 1: and that sort of echoes the line that Biden took,
Speaker 1: the line that Gretchen Whitmer took. The politicians are very
Speaker 1: much trying to say they don't want to piss these
Speaker 1: people off, even more than they're already pissed off, so
Speaker 1: they're like, this is just great democracy, thanks for coming out. However,
Speaker 1: over on the cable news networks, their apparatics were a
Speaker 1: little more aggressive in dismissing this vote, trying to undercut it,
Speaker 1: and basically coping in whatever ways they possibly could. Case
Speaker 1: in point, you had Claire mccaskell, former senator and now
Speaker 1: just all around democratic hack and corrupt former official. She
Speaker 1: came out to say, you know what, those uncommitted areas
Speaker 1: and I never really liked Joe Biden anyway, so this
Speaker 1: really is no big deal. Let's listen to her cope
Speaker 1: on election night.
Speaker 4: But also, Chris, we have to remember, I mean, let's
Speaker 4: look at the ann Arbor numbers. Joe Biden didn't win
Speaker 4: ann Arbor Bernie Sanders one. So some of these areas
Speaker 4: have never been Biden country. They have been really many
Speaker 4: more people that were further left.
Speaker 2: And didn't like the idea.
Speaker 4: Of a moderate carrying the flag of our party.
Speaker 3: If you're the if.
Speaker 7: You're the Democratic, if you're the elites the Democratic Party,
Speaker 7: if you're the Biden White House, how concerned are you
Speaker 7: really about this faction of uncommitted voters staying home in November.
Speaker 4: Well, I think there's a danger on both sides here
Speaker 4: that people are going to stay home. I think you've
Speaker 4: got traditional Republicans that no way they will vote for
Speaker 4: Joe Biden, in no way they will vote for Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: So there's going to be some people that are going
Speaker 4: to hold their nose and vote, and then there's going
Speaker 4: to be people that just stay home. The question is
Speaker 4: will the Biden campaign be able? And by the way,
Speaker 4: there are no elites in our party? Yes, sorry, no elites.
Speaker 2: I know you didn't mean that.
Speaker 4: But the question is can Biden draw the kind of
Speaker 4: contrast around some issues like guns and abortion and frankly
Speaker 4: autocracy and what what Trump.
Speaker 3: Is saying he's going to do.
Speaker 4: He's going to tear up every day one dictator on
Speaker 4: day one.
Speaker 3: You got a lot going on there.
Speaker 1: So first of all, I just have to comment on, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's no elite within the Democratic Party, says a woman
Speaker 1: who's like multi multi multi millionaire. So is that one?
Speaker 1: But you know, you see some of the typical, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of explanations of how this is really no big
Speaker 1: deal for Biden, exemplified there by Claire mccaskell in particular,
Speaker 1: it's basically like, but Trump, once they remember this will
Speaker 1: be in the past. They'll think about Trump, they'll think
Speaker 1: about abortion, and there's no you know, oh, the policy's
Speaker 1: going to change. It's just we think that people will
Speaker 1: get over it. And by the way, we think we
Speaker 1: could win some of Nicki Haley's Republican supporters more easily
Speaker 1: at this point. Really is what she's saying than these
Speaker 1: protest voters who are upset over our government funding and genocide.
Speaker 1: But I really love how she's so dismissive of these
Speaker 1: parts of Michigan when again, yeah, the highest numbers came
Speaker 1: in college towns and in majority Arab American and Muslim
Speaker 1: American places like Dearborn, but you had a pretty significant
Speaker 1: vote across the entire state that you cannot just handwave
Speaker 1: way and dismiss is like all those crazy Bernie Sanders supporters.
Speaker 1: Not to mention, those crazy Bernie Sanders supporters were a
Speaker 1: vital part of your twenty twenty election victory. They are
Speaker 1: also Democrats that you need to show up in order
Speaker 1: to succeed. So I really enjoyed all of that, and
Speaker 1: I especially love the host like grabbing on.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: That's a great point, grabbing on to whatever straws they
Speaker 1: could to try to dismiss the significance of what was
Speaker 1: incredibly significant.
Speaker 2: There are no elits in the Democratic Party is one
Speaker 2: of the most insane things. But the thing is, though,
Speaker 2: is that the actual elites in the Democratic Party do
Speaker 2: at least see some signs of panic. Here's Morning Joe
Speaker 2: for example. Let's take a.
Speaker 8: Lesson Governor Whitmer. We had her on the show earlier
Speaker 8: this week. Acknowledged that for some in the Muslim American
Speaker 8: Arab American community in Michigan, this issue is so personal
Speaker 8: that even anticipated that in November, because they're so angry,
Speaker 8: they won't want to cast air ballot for Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: They're not going to vote for Trump, but they.
Speaker 8: Might find a third party candidate.
Speaker 2: Or they might just choose to stay home.
Speaker 8: So this is something the election team is going to
Speaker 8: have to deal with and also try to find some
Speaker 8: other paths to victory.
Speaker 7: In the state.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean, they need to be worried about it.
Speaker 9: They obviously need to be concerned about it. They also
Speaker 9: don't need to service these voters and stay in front
Speaker 9: of these voters between now and then it's again it's
Speaker 9: eight nine months, very long time in politics and lifetime
Speaker 9: in politics.
Speaker 2: Wow, lifetime in politics. But you know, at the very least,
Speaker 2: I think it's one of those where Crystal they are
Speaker 2: acknowledging that things aren't necessarily good for the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Where look, because that's Biden's show, he doesn't have to listen. Now,
Speaker 2: at some point we'll not try sure how much has
Speaker 2: gone through. My likely analysis kind of the way they
Speaker 2: look at it is in the way that they do
Speaker 2: almost every step back, is it'll be fine because of Trump.
Speaker 2: They really believe it. I don't think it's going to work,
Speaker 2: but that's what they believe at the White House.
Speaker 1: Well, what was interesting to me watching the election night results,
Speaker 1: and you know, I delightedly watched CNN all night to
Speaker 1: see the way that they would cope and see over
Speaker 1: all of this. But you know, the result would have
Speaker 1: been less significant if you didn't have the mainstream organs
Speaker 1: like MSNBC and CNN really paying attention to it and
Speaker 1: really like covering it, really handing over it.
Speaker 3: Now, there's this phenomenon.
Speaker 1: That happens, and this is like classic sort of timeline
Speaker 1: of the cope where when the initial shock hits they
Speaker 1: can't help but me a little bit honest about this
Speaker 1: is a problem. And that's what was going on on
Speaker 1: CNN that night. But even a few hours into the coverage,
Speaker 1: they already were bringing on analysts to be like, this.
Speaker 3: Is fine, it's no big deal.
Speaker 1: This is barely even more votes than uncommitted even usually gets,
Speaker 1: which is just a complete lie in fabrication, by the way,
Speaker 1: But they had already moved on to trying to dismiss
Speaker 1: it and trying to pretend like this is no big deal.
Speaker 3: But listen, the bottom line is.
Speaker 1: You, whatever you think about what Israel's doing, a majority
Speaker 1: of Democrats think it's a genocide. A majority of Democrats
Speaker 1: think it's a genocide. Thirty more percent are not sure.
Speaker 1: So yes, that is going to have some electoral consequences
Speaker 1: when the Democratic president is shipping the weapons to be
Speaker 1: used in what a majority of the Democratic base thinks
Speaker 1: is a genocide. I mean, that is pretty much as
Speaker 1: basic as it comes. So even if you have come
Speaker 1: up with whatever cope math you've imagined to dismiss the
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand people in Michigan as it's really no
Speaker 1: big deal, and we're going to be fine, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. That basic reality is not going anywhere, and
Speaker 1: you know it.
Speaker 3: Is certainly possible. Listen as possible.
Speaker 1: Michigan is the high water mark for uncommitted because of
Speaker 1: the demographic nature there, because it was you know, going
Speaker 1: alone and so there was a lot of focus and
Speaker 1: they had a little bit of time to prepare. You
Speaker 1: had Rashida to leave there, you had other local electives
Speaker 1: who decided to get behind the movement, and former Congressman
Speaker 1: Levin also getting behind the movement. Could be thus the
Speaker 1: high water mark could be that this thing continues to
Speaker 1: grow and you continue to see some results like this
Speaker 1: in additional Super Tuesday states and beyond. We have one
Speaker 1: more for you, which is just so amazing over on
Speaker 1: CNN talking about the youths and what Biden, all the
Speaker 1: great work Biden has been doing to reach out to
Speaker 1: the youth.
Speaker 3: What do they even want from him? Anyway?
Speaker 1: This guy's is the sixth element in the block.
Speaker 3: Let's take a look.
Speaker 10: But it was also the college counties like around ann
Speaker 10: Arbor that you had high numbers of people voting uncommitted.
Speaker 10: What can President Biden do in terms of outreach to
Speaker 10: younger voters.
Speaker 2: That he hasn't done already.
Speaker 10: I mean, he's already forgiven all the student debt that
Speaker 10: he can. He's already showing up on Seth Meyers in TikTok.
Speaker 10: How does he reach the younger crowd?
Speaker 2: I'm already on TikTok.
Speaker 1: He's already done a single TikTok and he went on
Speaker 1: Seth Myers. Don't think young people love Seth Myers. The
Speaker 1: student debt thing is also bullshit because obviously they could do.
Speaker 3: A lot more on student debt. But he's doing this,
Speaker 3: you know, a.
Speaker 1: Little pitoy efforts, which I do appreciates better than nothing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love how they're just so exactly what
Speaker 1: do these young people want.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, maybe they want.
Speaker 1: Our taxpayer dollars to not go to fund bombing babies
Speaker 1: in Gaza as a start. Perhaps that is even more
Speaker 1: important to them then the theoretical possibility that maybe some
Speaker 1: of their student debt will be slightly alleviated.
Speaker 2: The other funny thing about the Seth Myers interview we
Speaker 2: have this we can put up there on the screen,
Speaker 2: is that actually from media? I please? Is that the
Speaker 2: Monday night and Interview with the President actually brought in
Speaker 2: eight hundred and fifty thousand average total viewers, but only
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty one thousand in the twenty five
Speaker 2: to fifty four age demographic, which is a thirty two
Speaker 2: percent drop compared to the exact same day in the
Speaker 2: last year. Now, maybe that's just because the show has
Speaker 2: a completely declining viewership, and you know, again just to
Speaker 2: think regardless for network television, but then to think even
Speaker 2: lower for one hundred and eighty thousand the key demo,
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't have to say it, but like
Speaker 2: very very basic YouTube people can surpass that dramatically with
Speaker 2: a median video, I would say, as opposed to whatever
Speaker 2: the hell they're throwing out. But even amongst you know,
Speaker 2: going on Seth Myers, it's like, clearly, if you think
Speaker 2: that's the way to reach young people, then you are
Speaker 2: living in the year like nineteen ninety two, which hey,
Speaker 2: maybe Biden actually is you know, yeah he is.
Speaker 1: I mean Cethlier's himself is fifty years old. God, I
Speaker 1: would loved and I would love to it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure the average age of his audience is probably like.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, you could see the map yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean eight hundred fifty thousand people are watching. One hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty thousand of them are in that down twenty
Speaker 2: five to fifty four. Let's assume that the vast majority
Speaker 2: are not going to be below the K demo, and
Speaker 2: they're going to be above it than the vast majority
Speaker 2: people are watching. You are old. It makes sense. I'm
Speaker 2: actually reading a book right now about the history of
Speaker 2: Late Night. It's very interesting. I mean, so much of
Speaker 2: this happened before, Like I was in Boorn, but the
Speaker 2: wars between Jay Leno and David Letterman and Letterman. At
Speaker 2: one time, Letterman and Arsenio Hall were considered like peep
Speaker 2: for our age. People were like, they're young and they're hip,
Speaker 2: and we're staying up late to smoke pot and watch
Speaker 2: David Letterman at twelve thirty. And I was like, is
Speaker 2: this really my age lived at that time? Because that
Speaker 2: is lame as hell? But hey, I mean in a
Speaker 2: you know, in a note cable world news.
Speaker 3: No, what else are you gonna do?
Speaker 2: What else are you going to do?
Speaker 3: It's like pre John Stewart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I mean pre everything. He didn't
Speaker 2: even have cable television in some cases, this was the
Speaker 2: very very early days of all of that. But he
Speaker 2: seems to think like it's like I said, literally nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety two, that was the case for Letterman. He brings
Speaker 2: in the youths. They really love David Letterman in his
Speaker 2: impish style.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: For me, I'm like Lutman's such a boomer. I can't
Speaker 2: imagine watching it some people.
Speaker 1: Listen, it was a different moment, you know, there was
Speaker 1: fewer options.
Speaker 3: He had to be there, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just I mean, I also want John Bourbon
Speaker 1: is a nice guy.
Speaker 3: But this is just hilarious. Now, what more do they
Speaker 3: want from Joe Biden? Anyway?
Speaker 1: He even went on seth Meyers and put out a TikTok?
Speaker 1: Isn't that enough for these young people? Don't think so, guys,
Speaker 1: Let's go and move on to some breaking news, very
Speaker 1: disturbing coming out of Israel this morning. Let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and put this first element up on the screen, guys. So,
Speaker 1: the reports are that at least one hundred and four
Speaker 1: Palestinians who were waiting for food aid were killed and
Speaker 1: seven hundred and sixty wounded after being shot at by
Speaker 1: Israeli forces in Gaza. This is obviously horrifying news. We
Speaker 1: know the levels of starvation and desperation that have become
Speaker 1: completely endemic in the Gaza Strip. There is not a
Speaker 1: person there who is not undergoing severe food shortages.
Speaker 3: And having to go without meals. Nutrition.
Speaker 1: Malnutrition is now extraordinarily widespread and pervasive among young people.
Speaker 1: So you have a huge number of people waiting for
Speaker 1: and attempting to get food off of these aid trucks
Speaker 1: and Israeli forces, according to Al Jazeera and other reports,
Speaker 1: shooting dead at least one hundred and four Palestinians waiting
Speaker 1: for food aid and wounding at least seven hundred and sixty.
Speaker 1: Now the IDF has responded, we can go ahead and
Speaker 1: show this video that they put out, and I will
Speaker 1: go ahead and tell you what they are claiming happened,
Speaker 1: which is at odds with other evidence and reports from
Speaker 1: on the ground. They say early this morning, during the
Speaker 1: entry of humanitarian aid trucks into the Northern Gaza Strip,
Speaker 1: Gozen residents surrounded the trucks and looted the supplies being delivered.
Speaker 1: During the incident, dozens of Gozen's were injured as a
Speaker 1: result of pushing and trampling the incident is under review.
Speaker 1: As I said, this accounting by the IDF of claiming
Speaker 1: that the injuries were sustained by desperate Palestinians looting and
Speaker 1: trampling over one another is undercut by additional video from
Speaker 1: the scene. This is courtesy of Al Jazeera, where you
Speaker 1: can actually hear the IDF gunfire surrounding this food truck
Speaker 1: and resulting in the deaths of many Palestinians.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen go wrong.
Speaker 1: So Soger, obviously, you know you have an incredibly desperate
Speaker 1: people literally starving to death in certain instances, trying to
Speaker 1: get whatever food they can. Food truck deliveries have been
Speaker 1: further curtailed and limited, especially as the Israeli government has
Speaker 1: allowed those protests to continue which have been blocking aid
Speaker 1: going into the strip. The ic J ruling they actually
Speaker 1: demanded that Israel increased humanitarian supplies, they have gone in
Speaker 1: the opposite direction. And so now, especially in northern Gaza,
Speaker 1: you have just an absolute desperation. And you also have
Speaker 1: prior reports too of the IDF firing on these aid convoys.
Speaker 1: So this is not even the first time that it's happened,
Speaker 1: but it appears to be the time that has had
Speaker 1: the mooth, terrific and deadly results.
Speaker 2: I mean, regardless of whether they were fired on or
Speaker 2: whether they died in the trampling incident, as Israel's claimed,
Speaker 2: it's obviously a result of the same net effect situation.
Speaker 2: Although we should say CNN, Al Jazeer and others are
Speaker 2: all reporting that they weren't fired upon now. But one
Speaker 2: of the things that's noteworthy to me is I'm actually
Speaker 2: for the first time seeing bubbling up criticism in the
Speaker 2: Israeli Pressed, and they're specifically actually pointing to a major
Speaker 2: warning that came from the Biden administration just earlier this week,
Speaker 2: which told them that quote, Gaza is turning into Mogadishu.
Speaker 2: And that's really all I could think about watching that
Speaker 2: video is you literally look at a swarm of people
Speaker 2: who are going to the food because several things, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the first and foremost is that demonstrates the
Speaker 2: massive security vacuum inside of the strip. So if we
Speaker 2: have no hamas or at the very diminished mas and
Speaker 2: we have basically complete chaos and then highly highly you know,
Speaker 2: constricted amounts of food, it's going to be doggy dog
Speaker 2: I mean, I've seen reports of what is it, you know,
Speaker 2: hundreds of dollars to be able to eye a single
Speaker 2: plate of food. Is we have malnutrition conditions that are
Speaker 2: sweeping the entire place. This is a preview of the
Speaker 2: full on future. And this actually the death toll remaining
Speaker 2: so high natural causes of people starving to death, malnutrition
Speaker 2: and others. This is why you know, the thirty thousand
Speaker 2: some people who have been confirmed now dead after the war.
Speaker 2: It's only likely to go way higher and exponential in
Speaker 2: the coming months if these conditions don't change at all,
Speaker 2: specifically with the food aid. And I also think that
Speaker 2: this is the humanitarian disaster where everyone kept saying, They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: why isn't it come yet, and it's like, well, it
Speaker 2: takes a long time to starve to death actually, And
Speaker 2: one of the things that you could see is that
Speaker 2: what it's only been one hundred and fifty days or so,
Speaker 2: we are now full onto that phase of the Iraq
Speaker 2: you know style thing where now you've got looting, now
Speaker 2: you've got full on security back. Arguably, they had more
Speaker 2: of a security force in Baghdad post US invasion than
Speaker 2: Gaza does right now. So just imagine, you know, where
Speaker 2: things can get worse. And I think this actually could
Speaker 2: have a significant impact in terms of just visibility for
Speaker 2: US policymakers and others to try and to change their
Speaker 2: direction because it's undeniable. You can look at that video.
Speaker 2: Regardless the idea of sitting there trampling each other to
Speaker 2: death or whether they were fired on, obviously there's a
Speaker 2: substante difference. It's like, well, you're the ones creating the condition,
Speaker 2: so they got to change.
Speaker 3: They're on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, either way, yeah, literally on either way.
Speaker 1: What Haratz is reporting is that soldiers shot towards the
Speaker 1: legs of those in the crowd who began advancing towards them.
Speaker 1: That's what they're saying. As I you know, we played
Speaker 1: that video. You can hear the shots. Clearly the idea
Speaker 1: was firing on all most people. So there was, you know,
Speaker 1: possibly a stampede to start with, because you have this
Speaker 1: mass caged in, desperate, absolutely desperate population, starving to death,
Speaker 1: and then you add into that the idea firing upon
Speaker 1: them and the result is over one hundred Palestinians now dead.
Speaker 1: And yeah, regardless of how many were stampeded, whether it
Speaker 1: was because of the desperate whether it was directly shots
Speaker 1: fired or some mix of all of that. Ultimately, fully
Speaker 1: the responsibility of these rallies who have created these desperate
Speaker 1: conditions in Gaza, and speaking to that, we're learning more
Speaker 1: this week about how horrifying those conditions are. You do
Speaker 1: have people, specifically babies, who are beginning to die of starvation.
Speaker 1: We can put this up on the screen. We talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about this before, but you had two
Speaker 1: children who just passed away in Al Shifa Hospital as
Speaker 1: a result of malnutrition. This is per the Ministry of Health.
Speaker 1: They say the number of victims of starvation among children
Speaker 1: and this has been primarily infants, I believe has risen
Speaker 1: to six. We know that you have a huge proportion
Speaker 1: of children who are facing acute malnutrition. You have a
Speaker 1: significant percentage that are suffering from severe wasting. I mean,
Speaker 1: their lives are literally in danger simply because of the
Speaker 1: lack of food, the lack of water. We can put
Speaker 1: some of these images up on the screen of one
Speaker 1: of the infants that sadly passed because of acute malnutrition.
Speaker 1: We showed you one another one earlier this week. So
Speaker 1: this is where we are. We are already past that
Speaker 1: tipping point where now we have people and babies specifically
Speaker 1: literally dying of starvation. And you understand the desperate circumstances
Speaker 1: that Palestines are facing, particularly in Northern Gaza, where there
Speaker 1: has been you know, almost no very limited food deliveries.
Speaker 1: There's very little that gets past Rafa, where you know,
Speaker 1: you have one point three million Palestinines were clustered also
Speaker 1: in abhorrent humanitarian conditions, you know, also with a lot
Speaker 1: of social breakdown that we've showed you before, but very
Speaker 1: little gets beyond Rafa, and so Northern Gaza is in
Speaker 1: the most critical condition in terms of malnutrition, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's just horrifying. I mean, it's just absolutely tragic
Speaker 1: all the way around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love, like I said, I think it's only
Speaker 2: unfortunately very likely to increase Mugadishu like conditions or you know,
Speaker 2: that's exactly what created that full on civil war. I mean,
Speaker 2: Somalia still has not recovered from them. It has been over
Speaker 2: thirty some years since black Hawk down. So there you go.
Speaker 2: You can see where if there's a vacuum that's created
Speaker 2: and there's a full blown crisis, it also will lead
Speaker 2: to a lot of different downstream very scary conditions. It's funny,
Speaker 2: you know. I was reading in the axios about some
Speaker 2: of the ways that Israel has claimed that they can
Speaker 2: establish security on the strip without Hamas, like, oh, we'll
Speaker 2: partner with the clans who were like opposed to them,
Speaker 2: and the US is like, well, they don't have any
Speaker 2: power and a lot of them hate you just as much,
Speaker 2: so why would they partner with you. It's one of
Speaker 2: those where the population too Now at this point, they
Speaker 2: will follow if you can get food in there, they
Speaker 2: will follow anybody. That's the exact same scenario that we
Speaker 2: saw play out during the Iraq war. Oh you're Isis,
Speaker 2: but as long as you can feed me, cool, okay,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's one of those where this is
Speaker 2: a this is gonna be a real problem, I think,
Speaker 2: And this is a real validator, you know, of a
Speaker 2: lot of the critiques of the way that they have
Speaker 2: run the war, and it's one of those where you know,
Speaker 2: they incidents like this, this is exactly what sets the
Speaker 2: world on fire.
Speaker 1: How do you argue at this point that this is
Speaker 1: not collective punishment? I mean, how do you even argue
Speaker 1: that at this point, Remember we showed you the images
Speaker 1: these protesters who are blocking food aid coming in being
Speaker 1: allowed to continue for weeks and weeks at this point,
Speaker 1: right inside Israel, right with bouncy castles and festive rave
Speaker 1: like out dancing with flags and you know, setting up
Speaker 1: cotton candy stands and whatever for the kids, bouncy castles
Speaker 1: to block food aid, to starve these people to death,
Speaker 1: and the IDF and the Israeli police force just sitting.
Speaker 3: Back and letting it happen.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, protesters in Tel Aviv who are trying to get
Speaker 1: hostages to release and are in favor of a ceasefire,
Speaker 1: they're getting their heads cracked and sprayed with water cannons. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you tell me what the explicit policy of the
Speaker 1: Israeli government is. There has been a dramatic decline in
Speaker 1: food trucks and humanitarian aid allowed into the Strip, even
Speaker 1: after the ICJ said you're plausibly committing a genocide. This
Speaker 1: is I mean, there's just no words for what is
Speaker 1: being done to all of these people, whether they loved
Speaker 1: Hamas or hated Hamas or were indifferent to Hamas, just
Speaker 1: ordinary Palestinians who are trying to live their lives, babies
Speaker 1: who barely even had a chance to live who are
Speaker 1: now dying of starvation in the hospitals for lack of
Speaker 1: milk or food, or because their stomachs can't handle the
Speaker 1: donkey feed that they've had to resort to feeding their children,
Speaker 1: or the leafy weeds basically that they're scrounging for around
Speaker 1: the Gaza strip. And you've got protesters with bouncy castles
Speaker 1: that are making sure that food aid doesn't get in,
Speaker 1: and then when it does, of course it's swarmed, and
Speaker 1: it appears the IDF fires on these people, and now
Speaker 1: more than hundred Palestinians are dead, and close to a thousand.
Speaker 3: It appears in There's no words. There's no words.
Speaker 1: Part of how this has been allowed to persist for
Speaker 1: this long is because they have partners in propaganda among
Speaker 1: many media outlets. We brought you earlier this week the
Speaker 1: story of Not Schwartz and The New York Times and
Speaker 1: the story they put out about alleged systematic rapes by
Speaker 1: Hamas on October seventh. That story had already fallen apart
Speaker 1: even by their own fact checkers. They could not put
Speaker 1: out an episode of The Daily based on this bombshell
Speaker 1: supposedly investigation that they put together that was bylined by
Speaker 1: three different individuals, so even their own fact checkers were
Speaker 1: not willing to stand by this report sufficiently to put
Speaker 1: it in their premiere podcast. Then we learned, as I
Speaker 1: detailed earlier this week, that A. Not Schwartz, one of
Speaker 1: the co authors of this piece, literally had never worked
Speaker 1: in journalism, had not a single byline prior to joining
Speaker 1: The New York Times in November gets put on this
Speaker 1: incredibly fraught, sensitive investigation. We also learned that prior to
Speaker 1: her time, on October seventh, just before she joined The Times,
Speaker 1: she was liking on social media overtly genocidal posts calling
Speaker 1: for Gaza to be turned into a quote slaughter house. Okay,
Speaker 1: that post that she liked was so genocidal actually showed
Speaker 1: up in the South Africa ICJ filing alleging that Israel
Speaker 1: is in fact committing genocide. Well, now we have a
Speaker 1: report from Ryan Grimm and some of his colleagues there
Speaker 1: at the intercept that looks into how Not ended up
Speaker 1: in this piece, how this investigation unfolded, and it is
Speaker 1: really quite something. Let's go and put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. So the headline here from Jeremy Skhill, Ryan
Speaker 1: Grimm and Daniel Boguslaw quite a powerhouse of byline there
Speaker 1: between the hammer and the anvil, the story behind the
Speaker 1: New York Times.
Speaker 3: October seventh expose.
Speaker 1: So a lot of this comes from both talking to
Speaker 1: people inside the Times. A lot of other reporters at
Speaker 1: the Times are utterly disgusted with the way that this
Speaker 1: all went down.
Speaker 3: And then part of it was Sager.
Speaker 1: They got their hands on a Hebrew language interview that
Speaker 1: a knot was able to do, and so they have
Speaker 1: in her own words, the way that she conducted this
Speaker 1: quote unquote investigation.
Speaker 3: So here's a quote from her.
Speaker 1: She apparently she herself was a little wary of being
Speaker 1: put on this and felt herself to be unqualified, but
Speaker 1: nevertheless persisted, She says, quote victims of sexual assault are
Speaker 1: women who have experienced something and then to come and
Speaker 1: sit in front of such a woman, who am I anyway?
Speaker 1: I have no qualifications in terms of reporting about the
Speaker 1: internal turmoil at the New York Times, Ryan says the
Speaker 1: fear among Times staffers who've been critical of the paper's
Speaker 1: Gaza coverage is that Schwartz will become a scapegoat for
Speaker 1: what is a much deeper failure. She may harbor animosity
Speaker 1: toward Palestinians, lacked the experience with investigative journalism, and feel
Speaker 1: conflicting pressures between being a supporter of Israel's war effort
Speaker 1: and a Times reporter. But Schwartz did not commission herself
Speaker 1: and her nephew. By the way, that's the other piece
Speaker 1: of this is the third author of this piece was
Speaker 1: a relative of hers who was almost similarly dis unqualified
Speaker 1: for any sort of reporting of this level. So she
Speaker 1: did not commission herself and her nephew. Senior leadership at
Speaker 1: the New York Times did. Schwartz said as much in
Speaker 1: an interview with Israeli Army Radio on December thirty. First quote,
Speaker 1: the New York Times said let's do an investigation into
Speaker 1: sexual violence. It was more a case of them having
Speaker 1: a convinced means, she said, her host cutter off. It
Speaker 1: was a proposal of the New York Times, the entire thing,
Speaker 1: And she goes on to insist that.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was.
Speaker 1: If you read through this piece, Ryan tracks again through
Speaker 1: the narration of a not about how she conducted this investigation,
Speaker 1: how it was very much a hunt for justifying a
Speaker 1: conclusion they had already come to. They wanted to find
Speaker 1: the evidence that systematic rape was used as a weapon
Speaker 1: of war on October seventh, and so she went out
Speaker 1: and effectively scoured the country, talking to you know, people
Speaker 1: at hospitals, at crisis centers, anyone she could try to
Speaker 1: find to justify the conclusion she had already come to. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: and this is why the fact check fell apart, and
Speaker 1: why the peace itself came under such scrutiny. Ultimately, she
Speaker 1: ends up relying on the testimony of some of these
Speaker 1: ZAKA volunteers who were that was the group that invented
Speaker 1: the forty beheaded babies hoax, and a number of others,
Speaker 1: and the testimony of another individual who similarly has been
Speaker 1: proven to have invented falsehoods to justify the barberism of
Speaker 1: the Israeli assault on Gaza, and so and even you know,
Speaker 1: the one witness that she gets, he changed his stories
Speaker 1: multiple times. She ended up violating what was the one
Speaker 1: thing that Jeffrey Gettlman, the lead author on this report,
Speaker 1: had told her that you have to have multiple sources
Speaker 1: to go with the word of this one eye witness.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, the whole thing is just an
Speaker 1: absolute mess. And her lack of qualifications here are still
Speaker 1: the most head scratching thing I can imagine. The last
Speaker 1: thing that I'll mention here put this next piece up
Speaker 1: on the screen from set Squirrel, who really, by the way,
Speaker 1: total credit to this account, who did all of the
Speaker 1: initial digging to uncover her lack of experience, her previous
Speaker 1: social media history, etc. Really set off a firestorm. So
Speaker 1: her nephew. Annat's nephew was the third author of this piece,
Speaker 1: Adam Sella, who also had apparently only written a couple
Speaker 1: of prior articles on the subject of food and cooking,
Speaker 1: to be their lead on the ground reporter on this
Speaker 1: extraordinarily sensitive piece. The first name on the byline Gettleman.
Speaker 1: He's the one that I played you the other day
Speaker 1: who said that I'm not really evidence. Isn't really what
Speaker 1: I'm doing here, I'm just looking to tell the tell
Speaker 1: the stories. Apparently he was very little involved in the
Speaker 1: actual investigation on the ground. It was mostly Adam and
Speaker 1: a not who are wildly inexperienced. And then you end
Speaker 1: up with what is it, absolute scandal and melt down
Speaker 1: happening at the Times right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, well, I read the report and it's
Speaker 2: like you know, you know, usually when there's this is
Speaker 2: why it's so difficult when there's what you sound like
Speaker 2: a monster when you're like questioning claims of widespread rape
Speaker 2: or whatever. But yeah, look been questioning it since Rolling
Speaker 2: Stone article came out, so it might as well continue
Speaker 2: to do it. But I read this and it's like, well,
Speaker 2: I called all eleven hospitals and they said that they
Speaker 2: didn't exist. I mean, in my head, it's like, do
Speaker 2: you even need to keep hunting? Then if we're talking
Speaker 2: about the claim of widespread and again, I mean, why
Speaker 2: does this any of it matter? Because these are indelible stories.
Speaker 2: They get lodged in the mind in which if you
Speaker 2: ask people on the street, they say it's probably true.
Speaker 2: And it's one of those where it gets used as
Speaker 2: justification then for some of the actions by or disproportionate
Speaker 2: use of force or whatever, you know, by Israeli forces.
Speaker 2: If we were ask people inside Israeli, probably the too.
Speaker 2: And it also traces back really to this. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is the other thing where I almost you know,
Speaker 2: you again you want to scoff a little bit when
Speaker 2: you want to look back at every time where rape
Speaker 2: was actually widespread, you don't have to go looking for it. Okay,
Speaker 2: go ask anybody in the Congo or go you know,
Speaker 2: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where rape genuinely was
Speaker 2: used as a weapon of war. Go look at the
Speaker 2: Soviet invasion of Berlin. Like, you don't have to look
Speaker 2: for it, they will tell you. And the evidence of
Speaker 2: it all shows up nine months later, and it's horrific.
Speaker 2: And it's in terms of the things that happened at
Speaker 2: that time. It's like, if it really was that widespread,
Speaker 2: then you wouldn't have to even go coax, like what
Speaker 2: was it? A single individuals and anonymous and then claim
Speaker 2: doesn't work out. It's like the entire thing, it's just
Speaker 2: it's just look, you know, October seven was bad enough.
Speaker 2: Why don't we have to go looking for bogeymen that
Speaker 2: don't exist? You know, a bunch of people were killed,
Speaker 2: including kids. Enough, that's it, Like what why? But I
Speaker 2: mean I think we know why for media purposes and others,
Speaker 2: And I think that's kind of what I think. That
Speaker 2: is really what is disturbing about this entire thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were horrific atrocities that were committed by Hamas
Speaker 1: against innocent Israelis on October seventh.
Speaker 3: There is no doubt about that.
Speaker 1: That is crystal clure on video, crystal clear, right. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying there was no rape on that day,
Speaker 1: but that's not the claim that has been made. The
Speaker 1: claim is that it was used systematically as a weapon
Speaker 1: of war, and they just were not able to find
Speaker 1: the evidence that came anywhere close to backing up that assertion.
Speaker 1: And at every turn when they run into a roadblock,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, all the hospitals say that they didn't
Speaker 1: find it. It's well, well, they probably killed all the
Speaker 1: women that they raped. Well, okay, what about forensic evidence
Speaker 1: from you know, the bodies of the women who were
Speaker 1: slaughdered on that day. Well, you know, there's because of
Speaker 1: Jewish custom, they were buried quickly, so we didn't collect
Speaker 1: any of that forensic evidence.
Speaker 3: Well what about you know, we went to.
Speaker 1: Talk to these crisis workers, you know, and they won't
Speaker 1: tell us anything either. Well, it's probably just because they
Speaker 1: want to protect their patients.
Speaker 3: Et cetera.
Speaker 1: There was like they set off with, we have come
Speaker 1: to this conclusion that this happened, and now we're going
Speaker 1: to try to backfill in the evidence. And they have
Speaker 1: this line in Ryan's piece at the intercept, he says,
Speaker 1: at every turn, when the New York Times reporters ran
Speaker 1: an obstacle obstacles confirming tips, they turned to anonymous Israeli officials,
Speaker 1: not the most credible sources or witnesses who had already
Speaker 1: been interviewed repeatedly in the press. By the way, those
Speaker 1: witnesses again were caught shifting their stories depending on what
Speaker 1: outlet they were talking to and what day it was.
Speaker 1: Months after setting off on their assignment, the reporters found
Speaker 1: themselves exactly where they had begun, relying overwhelmingly on the
Speaker 1: word of Israeli officials, soldiers and Zoka workers. Again, that's
Speaker 1: the group that fabricated forty beheaded babies and a bunch
Speaker 1: of the other things that have been completely disproven to
Speaker 1: substantiate their claim that more than thirty bodies of women
Speaker 1: and girls were discovered with signs of sexual abuse. On
Speaker 1: the Channel twelve podcast, Sports said, the last remaining piece
Speaker 1: you need for the story was a solid number from
Speaker 1: these really authorities about any possible survivors of sexual violence.
Speaker 1: We have four, and we can stand behind that number.
Speaker 1: She said she was told by the Ministry of Welfare
Speaker 1: and social affairs.
Speaker 3: No details were provided.
Speaker 1: The Time story ultimately reported there were at least three
Speaker 1: women and one man who were sexually assaulted and survived,
Speaker 1: apparently again just based on the word of Israeli officials.
Speaker 1: There was one particularly revealing anecdote here that I just
Speaker 1: think really gives away the game. So in that Times
Speaker 1: piece they sent her a lot of their storytelling around
Speaker 1: the family of a woman who was murdered on October
Speaker 1: seventh named gal Abdush, and they claimed in the piece
Speaker 1: that she had been raped, that her body wore the
Speaker 1: signs of having been raped. There had been some video
Speaker 1: that circulated of her that where she had, you know,
Speaker 1: after she'd been slaughtered, she didn't have pants on, and
Speaker 1: so that's basically what they were basing all of this on.
Speaker 3: And a third of the Time.
Speaker 1: Story details this story of what they're calling the quote
Speaker 1: woman in the black dress. Well, after the report comes out,
Speaker 1: the family is furious because the Times reporters they're saying,
Speaker 1: you never.
Speaker 3: Told us this was about rape.
Speaker 1: You just said this was about October seventh, and remembering golf,
Speaker 1: they actually have phone messages that they believe, you know,
Speaker 1: undercut the idea that there was time for her to
Speaker 1: have been raped. Her family came out aggressively and said
Speaker 1: this is a lie. You know, the media needs to
Speaker 1: stop spreading this, etc. So that really fell apart. But
Speaker 1: Gal comes up in Ryan's piece here as well, where
Speaker 1: that video of her that they needed to make central
Speaker 1: to the piece. The person who was the owner of
Speaker 1: that video didn't really want to cooperate with them, and
Speaker 1: the owner says that they called me. That would be Adam,
Speaker 1: and Anon called me again and again and explained how
Speaker 1: important getting that video is for Israeli hasbara, which is
Speaker 1: their term for propaganda. So a New York Times suppose
Speaker 1: a journalist telling this person, you have to cooperate with us,
Speaker 1: not because it's in the interest of journalism and exposing
Speaker 1: the truth and the story that we'll know, because this
Speaker 1: will serve the interest of Israeli government propaganda. That is
Speaker 1: as much of a clear cut admission of what was
Speaker 1: going on here as you could possibly get.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The Times is in their comment to Ryan here standing
Speaker 1: by the story and not put out a statement this morning.
Speaker 1: She says, I'm thankful to the New York Times for
Speaker 1: standing behind the important stories we have published. The Times
Speaker 1: and just stand behind me, but also behind many women
Speaker 1: whose stories need to be told. The recent attacks against
Speaker 1: me will not deter me from continuing my work. And
Speaker 1: she's got in there. A screenshot of Times International editor
Speaker 1: Phil Pan saying in a statement to Ryan and the
Speaker 1: Interstep that he stands by.
Speaker 3: The work quote. Ms.
Speaker 1: Schwartz was part of a rigorous reporting and editing process.
Speaker 1: She made valuable contributions. We saw no evidence of bias
Speaker 1: in her work. We remain confident in the accuracy of
Speaker 1: our reporting and stand by the team's investigation. But as
Speaker 1: we have said, her likes of official of a defensive
Speaker 1: and opinionated social media posts predating her work with US
Speaker 1: are unacceptable as a reminder and not liked genocidal posts
Speaker 1: and one's calling for propaganda to be used to conflate
Speaker 1: Hamas with isis. She also backed the Beheaded Babies hoax
Speaker 1: in her social media posts. She had never worked as
Speaker 1: a journalist before, she was like a small time film
Speaker 1: maker and previously had served in the IDF in an
Speaker 1: intelligence unit.
Speaker 3: So there you go. Extraordinary, extraordinary situation.
Speaker 2: All right, we got two quick stories that we want
Speaker 2: to touch on. Let's move on. This is very political
Speaker 2: consequences kind of bringing it back here, let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. Some major
Speaker 2: news from the American Values twenty twenty four pack, which
Speaker 2: is supporting RFK Junior. The number of signatures collected in
Speaker 2: the state of Georgia and in the state of Arizona
Speaker 2: now passed the threshold that will be putting RFK Junior's
Speaker 2: name on the ballot as an independent. That is very
Speaker 2: significant because obviously those are two of the most important
Speaker 2: states for the Biden electoral College victory back in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: where a matter of only twenty thousand votes literally combined
Speaker 2: in both states would have swung everything combined some of
Speaker 2: the chaos that we're seeing right now with uncommitted and
Speaker 2: all of that, and he is in very very serious trouble.
Speaker 2: Not to mention though, that RFK Junior proven to draw
Speaker 2: some votes away from Trump as well. Same time, look
Speaker 2: at Michigan where we just had that primary. He's about
Speaker 2: seventy six percent of the way there, likely probably even
Speaker 2: more after the chaos that's been happening twenty two, six
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy one. In the state of South Carolina,
Speaker 2: he looks to be about sixty percent the other updates
Speaker 2: that they have are Maryland and Massachusetts coming soon. I
Speaker 2: believe in the state of Virginia that is being launched
Speaker 2: soon as well. So RFK Junior did make a commitment
Speaker 2: on the show. He said he's going to be on
Speaker 2: all fifty states. We'll see. I think that's incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2: But Crystal, if his goal is at the least make
Speaker 2: a statement in battleground states Georgia and Arizona, is enough.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's enough already to be able to draw
Speaker 2: enough enough votes in order to significantly change things. Let's
Speaker 2: put the next one, please up on the screen just
Speaker 2: soever you can see. They have a New York Times
Speaker 2: Ciena poll that they flashed that shows Biden at thirty
Speaker 2: three percent, Trump at thirty three percent, Kennedy at twenty
Speaker 2: six percent. So right up there, you know, shouting distance
Speaker 2: of these candidates.
Speaker 3: Not as specifically in Arizona.
Speaker 2: Exactly specifically in Arizona. I mean, that is an extraordinary amount.
Speaker 2: Doesn't necessarily fit with what we've seen in some others.
Speaker 2: Let's go to the next one that actually shows every
Speaker 2: major battleground state and it includes not only Trump, but
Speaker 2: it includes Biden. RFK Junior Cornell West and Jill Stein,
Speaker 2: so like a five way matchup some of them. Noteworthy
Speaker 2: ones that I see is that the Trump name is
Speaker 2: winning in all of them, so that kind of matters
Speaker 2: between Nevada and North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Nevada or sorry, Michigan,
Speaker 2: Arizona and Wisconsin, and the margin of victory very much.
Speaker 2: There includes some problems for Biden that we can see
Speaker 2: directly amongst Kennedy pulling anywhere between five to eight percent
Speaker 2: between all of these. So if we think about the
Speaker 2: variable results, it obviously kind of makes sense. People is
Speaker 2: probably still getting to know you know, RFK Junior and others.
Speaker 2: But Crystal, if he's able to get ballot access, especially
Speaker 2: in some of these battle rounds, we already know he's
Speaker 2: going to be a very consequential player. That's it, no
Speaker 2: question about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if the results do look more like that.
Speaker 1: A second group of polls, which I think is probably
Speaker 1: more realistic, just because we know third party support usually
Speaker 1: declines as you get towards election day and people sort
Speaker 1: of sit with, Okay, well it's going to be one
Speaker 1: of these dud dudes. So you know, I don't want
Speaker 1: to quote unquote throw my vote away is how a
Speaker 1: lot of people think of it come to election day.
Speaker 1: But even if we're talking about six percentage points, who
Speaker 1: that six percentage points comes from predominantly could be the
Speaker 1: difference maker.
Speaker 3: In these key states.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you are going to be on the ballot,
Speaker 1: even in Georgia and Arizona, that could be a significant problem. Now,
Speaker 1: I do think if he only able to achieve ballot
Speaker 1: access in a handful of states, that is going to
Speaker 1: significantly diminish his support because people will be able to
Speaker 1: see like, oh, well, you know, this guy's not even
Speaker 1: the ballot most places.
Speaker 3: I don't really want to you know, I don't see he.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have a shot to win, Like it's basically impossible
Speaker 1: for him to be able to win.
Speaker 3: So I'm not sure if I'm gonna stick with him.
Speaker 1: But there's enough people who are so upset with these
Speaker 1: other two choices that I think they'll be willing to
Speaker 1: vote for him, regardless of whether they really believe that
Speaker 1: he's got a path to victory, just as a protest
Speaker 1: more than anything. Same with Cornell West and Jill Stein,
Speaker 1: I think there are significantly more questions about whether Cornell
Speaker 1: West will be on the ballot in these states versus
Speaker 1: Jill Stein, who with the Green Party should have pretty
Speaker 1: significant ballot access. So you know, there's it's very, very
Speaker 1: significant that even if it's only a handful of swing states,
Speaker 1: that he could be on the ballot in some of
Speaker 1: these places.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to me too, you know. And every time
Speaker 2: he sticks to this just basic like some of the
Speaker 2: basics of politics, things that people all think I find that,
Speaker 2: you know, I A'll see it organically everywhere. So for example,
Speaker 2: after mccone'll stepped down, he just says, Mitch McConnell's serve
Speaker 2: forty years. Part of public service is knowing when to
Speaker 2: usher in a new generation. It's time to promote leaders
Speaker 2: in DC who don't contract a count out of military
Speaker 2: contractors or pushes deeper into foreign policy contract you know,
Speaker 2: it's like we need representation to will prioritize American wellness
Speaker 2: over everyone else. Yeah, it definitely does sound a little
Speaker 2: bit like a politician. But that's a very popular sentiment, right.
Speaker 2: It's one of those where people hate, you know, especially
Speaker 2: Trump and Biden. They hate the agism, yeah, RFGU or sorry,
Speaker 2: they hate their age and with RFK, yeah, he's only
Speaker 2: seventy something years he's seventy years old, but he just
Speaker 2: looks a hell of a lot younger compared to these
Speaker 2: other two geriatrics who are in the chair, So I
Speaker 2: could see it being potent. So anyway, we're going to
Speaker 2: continue to cover the ballot access just because eighty is
Speaker 2: going to be so consequential in the election. And if
Speaker 2: he continues to be able to get on the ground
Speaker 2: in the ballots in these battleground stay specifically, then you know,
Speaker 2: regardless you know, of whether he is on the ballot
Speaker 2: now nationally or not, it's going to have some impact,
Speaker 2: as you said, even if it's three, six, eight or
Speaker 2: whatever percent, so very very impactful. Finally, let's put this
Speaker 2: up there for our fund segment. This is this is well.
Speaker 2: I guess it could be fun, particularly which way that
Speaker 2: you want to construe it. Wendy's under major fire for
Speaker 2: floating then retracting, but also still kind of sticking to
Speaker 2: what they are calling their dynamic pricing strategy aka surge pricing.
Speaker 2: This all goes back to two weeks ago. The CEO
Speaker 2: of Wendy's Who's New, Kirk Tanner, said that Wendy's quote
Speaker 2: would begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing as
Speaker 2: early as next year. To do so, Wendy's has already
Speaker 2: invested twenty million dollars to roll out AI enabled digital
Speaker 2: menu boards in their restaurants and add ten million dollars
Speaker 2: through the effort globally. What this will entail basically after
Speaker 2: they showed is akin to the Uber surge pricing strategy Crystal,
Speaker 2: where dynamic pricing is code for when there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people in the restaurant, you drive the price up,
Speaker 2: and when there's not a lot of people in the restaurant,
Speaker 2: you drive the price down. Now, it's one of those
Speaker 2: I think it makes sense for Uber drivers. But whenever
Speaker 2: we're talking about food, really what that means is just
Speaker 2: because of the constraints of a lot of people's lives,
Speaker 2: that whenever is most convenient or after work or for dinner,
Speaker 2: whenever people are going out to eat fast food, that
Speaker 2: is when it's actually going to cost the most, whenever
Speaker 2: you're trying to go to Wendy's. And it's pretty dystopian
Speaker 2: because AI, it's not even a human based model, it's
Speaker 2: an AI based model to figure out whenever the most
Speaker 2: people are in the restaurant to try and squeeze as
Speaker 2: many dollars out of what is already the most successible
Speaker 2: dining option for the vast majority of Americans. Okay, if
Speaker 2: a Michelin Star restaurant does this whatever, right, mostly people
Speaker 2: can't afford it. But Wendy's Burger King, you know, McDonald's,
Speaker 2: this is where most people actually do we go out
Speaker 2: to eat you for a restaurant or to take a break,
Speaker 2: and they don't want to cook any food. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: recommend it from a health perspective, but hey, Wendy is
Speaker 2: actually pretty good, and it's one of those where you
Speaker 2: can just see how this is the latest strategy squeeze
Speaker 2: every single dime there is of disposable income out of
Speaker 2: American's pockets.
Speaker 1: It's just amazing how these people will say these things
Speaker 1: in public and not even think.
Speaker 3: About the fact that, like, we can hear you.
Speaker 1: On these earnings calls, and you know, you have no
Speaker 1: perception of how people are going to take your idea
Speaker 1: of like we're going to use AI to gouge you
Speaker 1: as much as we possibly can. And it fits not
Speaker 1: just with like the uber serge pricing, which even at
Speaker 1: times I mean they've got in trouble for that at
Speaker 1: times too, when there's been like well, and also there
Speaker 1: have been times when they have been like a mass
Speaker 1: shooting or a natural disaster or something, people trying to
Speaker 1: flee the scene and they're charging two hundred dollars or
Speaker 1: whatever to be able.
Speaker 3: To escape to safety. So they've even.
Speaker 1: Come under fire for surge pricing, even though that's been
Speaker 1: sort of like accepted in their there have been other
Speaker 1: instances too of airlines trying to do this where they've
Speaker 1: come under fire as well. So you know, this doesn't
Speaker 1: go over well oftentimes with consumers when you try to
Speaker 1: do this. But yeah, they'll just admit, like we're going
Speaker 1: to use technology to price gouge you as much as possible.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the Kellogg's CEO oh yeah, that
Speaker 1: we had on the other day that was like, we're
Speaker 1: going to push cereal for dinner and even CNBC hosts
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not sure that that's really appropriate, and
Speaker 1: he just leaned into it and he was like, no,
Speaker 1: I think it's a great idea and we're seeing this
Speaker 1: market share and blah blah blah. They're so disconnected that
Speaker 1: they have no idea, the way that their words are
Speaker 1: ultimately going to land. We saw this also with all
Speaker 1: of the there are a bunch of CEOs that, you know,
Speaker 1: especially at the peak of inflation, we're just out and
Speaker 1: out talking about greedflation and how they could use the
Speaker 1: excuse of inflation to continue to hike up prices. So
Speaker 1: this whole inflation situation was no big deal for them,
Speaker 1: and they could still have maximum profit margins. So they'll
Speaker 1: just admit it out in the open what.
Speaker 3: They're up to.
Speaker 1: Now, their backlash to this was so significant that they
Speaker 1: had to completely disavow it. First, they came out with
Speaker 1: a sort of like, you know, statement justifying it, saying, oh,
Speaker 1: this is being misconstrued, et cetera, et cetera. But they
Speaker 1: finally were first forced to specifically disavow surge pricing, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: we didn't use that phrase, nor do we plan to
Speaker 1: implement that practice.
Speaker 3: So apparently the public backlash at least in the short
Speaker 3: term worked here for it.
Speaker 2: Yes see, right, because even if they're offering let's say,
Speaker 2: like deals at certain times that don't exist at other times,
Speaker 2: there's still some other sketchest and I would not put
Speaker 2: it past them in terms of what they're actually trying
Speaker 2: to do. We also wanted to highlight insane corruption story
Speaker 2: out of the state of California, and let's put this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen, which has they said, like
Speaker 2: pay hire a minimum wage unless you're friends with Gavin Newsom,
Speaker 2: which is a great headline. Basically, California has a minimum
Speaker 2: wage for fast food restaurants. It's about to go into effect,
Speaker 2: twenty dollars per hour. We're like, oh, okay, interesting, well,
Speaker 2: except that the law has quote an exception for chains
Speaker 2: that bake bread and sell it as a standalone item. Interesting.
Speaker 2: So it turns out there's only one franchise in the
Speaker 2: state that qualifies, and it's Panera Bread, who has a
Speaker 2: franchisee in California who is one of the closest friends
Speaker 2: to California Governor Gavin Newsom. His name is Greg Flynn. Quote,
Speaker 2: the largest restaurant franchise franchisee in the US, if not
Speaker 2: the world, gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the
Speaker 2: Newsom election. Not only that has a business connection with
Speaker 2: Gavinusom going back to twenty fourteen when he personally bought
Speaker 2: a piece of property that was managed by Gavin Newsom's
Speaker 2: hospitality company. And it says that the bread exemption is
Speaker 2: so narrowly tailored that it doesn't even include crystal bagels
Speaker 2: or croissants, meaning Panera is the only chain by the
Speaker 2: largest number in California that will benefit from this exemption.
Speaker 2: So he basically raised prices, minimum wage prices for McDonald's,
Speaker 2: for all these other places. Yeah, and had a specific
Speaker 2: carve out written just for freaking Panera bread.
Speaker 1: Okay, incredible, that's nuts now, of course they Oh no,
Speaker 1: we had nothing to do.
Speaker 3: With this is a corruption.
Speaker 1: Come on, give me another explanation. Explain how this makes
Speaker 1: any sense outside of just out and out direct corruption.
Speaker 3: And it's far from.
Speaker 1: The first time that Gavin Newsom has caved to his
Speaker 1: big donors in the state, whether it is you know,
Speaker 1: the Hollywood donors and siding with them on a variety
Speaker 1: of things, or the tech donors. He sided with them
Speaker 1: specifically over some labor pushes, in particular with regard to
Speaker 1: automated driving in the truck industry as one example. He's
Speaker 1: the one who really was behind the scenes making sure
Speaker 1: that single payer health care never came up. He's got
Speaker 1: a bunch of like health insurance donors, he's got to
Speaker 1: worry about their So ultimately, when it comes down to it,
Speaker 1: when you ask, like what is Gavin Newsom's ideology, this
Speaker 1: is it. He will do enough to like pain himself
Speaker 1: in the progressive of banner or wave that flag or whatever.
Speaker 1: But if those values come in conflict with the donor class,
Speaker 1: he's with the donor class every single time, every day
Speaker 1: of the week. So it's an amazing example just to
Speaker 1: give people back to I think we cover this here
Speaker 1: at the time. It's actually quite incredible what they've done
Speaker 1: in California. It's not an out and out minimum wage law.
Speaker 1: This was the result of a sectoral bargaining process, which
Speaker 1: is something that is done in a lot of other
Speaker 1: countries and done in a limited extent here, sort of
Speaker 1: like in the auto industry with the Big three. But
Speaker 1: the idea is that you have the s board that
Speaker 1: represents the fast food chains and only applies to large
Speaker 1: fast food chains. We're not talking about little mom and
Speaker 1: pop whatever, large fast food chains. Workers, labor unions like
Speaker 1: all the stakeholders, and they negotiate this deal, and the
Speaker 1: benefit of sectual bargaining is then you have uniform standards
Speaker 1: across the industry, you have a mechanism by which workers
Speaker 1: interests can be represented so that you have a genuine
Speaker 1: given take here, which you know is a really good
Speaker 1: thing and very beneficial I think for everybody involved, because
Speaker 1: also if you're those restaurants, then that means there's an
Speaker 1: even playing field, right, you know, your competitors are also
Speaker 1: having to pay those additional labor costs, and so it
Speaker 1: sort of makes things even across the board unless you
Speaker 1: have a gigantic carve out.
Speaker 3: And that's why it's so wildly unfair.
Speaker 1: Is now Panera alone gets this huge competitive advantage because
Speaker 1: they can like undercut and pay their workers less and
Speaker 1: not have to abide by the other safety standards. It's
Speaker 1: not just the labor costs. There's all, you know, additional
Speaker 1: safety standards and requirements here and probably scheduling requirements, et
Speaker 1: cetera that they also get to not have to participate in.
Speaker 3: So just wild wild corruption out in the open.
Speaker 2: Year mickisiders sol guess what Panera average salary for an
Speaker 2: associate is in state of California right now? Eleven bucks
Speaker 2: an hour eleven seventy an hour, So everybody else has
Speaker 2: got to almost double what Panera gets to pay. You're
Speaker 2: not gonna tell me. That's a huge advantage, a multi
Speaker 2: billion dollar advantage at scale. Also specifically for this one dude,
Speaker 2: apparently actually President Biden planning on bringing some of this
Speaker 2: up in the State of the Union. Let's put it
Speaker 2: up there. Biden targeting a new economic villain, which is
Speaker 2: shrink flation. You actually saw some of that, and they
Speaker 2: didn't do an interview, but they've sent out to surrogate
Speaker 2: before the Super Bowl to talk about how the snacks
Speaker 2: were getting more expensive.
Speaker 1: This is the thing you do, like a TikTok on
Speaker 1: it too or something. Yeah, apparently this is why the
Speaker 1: young people love Joe bioens White Peo.
Speaker 3: He goes on Seth.
Speaker 2: Myers, He's like, my scoops of ice cream are big enough.
Speaker 2: More's that's his version of it. But this is something
Speaker 2: that an actually intelligent politician would look, you know, and
Speaker 2: be focusing and hammering on because grocery prices are up
Speaker 2: some nineteen or so percent over the last five years.
Speaker 2: One of the segments that we did Crystal and actually
Speaker 2: I was talking to someone at the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2: One of the biggest stories that they have done in
Speaker 2: months is that food story that we covered here on
Speaker 2: our show about how food is now taking up more
Speaker 2: percentage of your income. Apparently that went viral amongst people
Speaker 2: in a way that they very rarely see you over
Speaker 2: like a trade business publication. It makes sense to me
Speaker 2: because it's something that really affects people. But this is
Speaker 2: one where everybody can personally feel it. It is so
Speaker 2: deeply you know, it's so deeply felt when every single
Speaker 2: time they have to go to the grocery store or
Speaker 2: whenever you open up piece of package, you remember exactly
Speaker 2: what it used to look like and what it looks
Speaker 2: like more. But all of it just fits with, you know,
Speaker 2: more hyper optimization, more just in time, and more squeezing
Speaker 2: money out of every single one of us as much
Speaker 2: as these people can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, And I also can't help but note
Speaker 1: that you know a lot of people on the left
Speaker 1: and economists on the left, and by the way, I
Speaker 1: mean CEOs, as I mentioned before, we're out and out
Speaker 1: admitting this have been pointing to gre inflation as a
Speaker 1: significant component of inflation, not saying that was the only
Speaker 1: thing going on, but as a significant component. And we're
Speaker 1: basically completely laughed at and dismissed early on, and now
Speaker 1: you have even administration economists who are like, wait a second,
Speaker 1: food production costs have gone down by way more than actual.
Speaker 3: Costs for you at the grocery store.
Speaker 1: And all of these companies are continuing to make massive,
Speaker 1: in some instances, record breaking profit margins. So what is
Speaker 1: that they are just gouging you because they have the
Speaker 1: excuse to do it and they think they can get
Speaker 1: away with it. And shrinkflation is part of one of
Speaker 1: those strategies where it's like, we're not going to jack
Speaker 1: up the price. We're going to keep the price where
Speaker 1: it is. You're just going to get less for your dollar.
Speaker 1: You're going to get fewer oreos in the package, fewer
Speaker 1: wheat thins in the package, whatever, and we're just going
Speaker 1: to hope that you don't notice. Those are the sort
Speaker 1: of tricks that they've been engaged in which go way
Speaker 1: beyond so their costs have gone down, but they're not
Speaker 1: passing that on to you, and these are some of
Speaker 1: the mechanisms that they've used to do it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's pathetic that has taken him this long to pay
Speaker 1: attention to this and really embrace it. And you know,
Speaker 1: reportedly that's going to be in the state of the
Speaker 1: union or whatever. But it really is utterly pathetic that
Speaker 1: has taken this long for him to realize that corporate
Speaker 1: greed is a thing and that this is a significant
Speaker 1: part of what is going on for consumers.
Speaker 2: Absolutely all right, we had a great show for everybody today.
Speaker 2: I hope you guys enjoyed it. If there's anything breaking
Speaker 2: over the weekend, we will bring it to you. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: thank you to everybody who's been signing up breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 2: As we said, who knows what will happen on the
Speaker 2: leap here. Maybe if you sign up you won't get
Speaker 2: charged again for another four years. I have no idea,
Speaker 2: I can't make any promises. We'll see you guys later