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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.

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Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,

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Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for

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Speaker 2: the future of the show.

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Speaker 3: This is the only place where you can find honest

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Speaker 3: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does

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Speaker 3: not exist anywhere else.

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Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please

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Speaker 2: go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and

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Speaker 2: you'll access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and

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Speaker 2: all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

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Speaker 3: We need your help to build the future of independent

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Speaker 3: news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints

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Speaker 3: dot com.

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Speaker 1: All right, good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints. I was

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Speaker 1: just telling Emily that my new favorite medium is TikTok.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: I just learning Ryan is like a TikTok celebrity.

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Speaker 6: Love and TikTok the last couple week. Thanks, Thanks everybody,

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Speaker 6: it's fun over there.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to stick around now that Trump salvaged that,

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Speaker 1: but if he sells it to Microsoft or Oracle.

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Speaker 4: Or our government, have you seen that's part of that

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Speaker 4: I mean distinction, Yeah, but it's on the table.

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Speaker 1: Microsoft, I don't has never made a consumer product worth using.

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Speaker 6: Oracle is basically a project of the CIA.

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Speaker 1: Uh and Shine and TikTok's a project of the ccpiece

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Speaker 1: and so I guess we don't have any great choices.

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Speaker 4: But drowning in alphabet soup. Yeah, well you didn't like

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Speaker 4: the Zoom. Wasn't that a Microsoft product?

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Speaker 1: The there's I forget all of their products. Microsoft the

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Speaker 1: other day was like, remember how bad the Microsoft phone was?

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Speaker 6: I was like, I literally don't even remember the Microsoft phone.

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Speaker 5: I also don't remember a Microsoft phone.

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Speaker 6: That's how bad it was.

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Speaker 4: Okay, well, we do have a lot of news today, actually,

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Speaker 4: just like an almost impossible amount of news. Like every

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Speaker 4: time you think a Trump era news cycle is crazy,

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Speaker 4: you are not at the peak. We still have not peaked,

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Speaker 4: even though it feels like speaking of drowning that you're

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Speaker 4: just drowning in news by the hour.

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Speaker 6: Heard your man Steve Bannon call it days of Thunder?

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Speaker 5: Is that what he's saying?

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Speaker 6: He was at an event last.

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Speaker 1: Night with bright part the whole butterworst like the you

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Speaker 1: know the like yeah, this is it's this like right

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Speaker 1: wing bar that's like become the like it's it's like

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Speaker 1: the where Jefferson and Franklin and the French revolutionaries. It's

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Speaker 1: like the French cafe version from the revolution. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: they're they're pumped.

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Speaker 5: Oh were you there?

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Speaker 1: No, I didn't go it. Okay, I'm not doing anything.

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Speaker 1: This is about the only thing I leave the house

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Speaker 1: for now with my wife.

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Speaker 5: That's true, that's true. But so let's well, we'll be talking.

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Speaker 6: To get invited though. That's how weird this world is.

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Speaker 4: See, that's I figured that you were on the list.

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Speaker 4: He is a regular warm room listener. You got to

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Speaker 4: tune in to hear what's going on. So the shutdown,

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Speaker 4: obviously the Federal Aide shutdown has been significant throughout the

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Speaker 4: last twenty four or forty eight hours. But there are

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Speaker 4: a ton of updates pertaining to what is, what is not,

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Speaker 4: what was, and what was not covered that we are

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Speaker 4: going to start with. We're excited to have Jeff Stein here,

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Speaker 4: who was chasing down a lot of leads yesterday as

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Speaker 4: a reporter. The Trump administration is saying that Jeff and

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Speaker 4: other reporters are part of a big quote unquote hoax

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Speaker 4: and that's how all of this got started.

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Speaker 6: This is going to be their big thing.

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Speaker 1: Anytime they screw up like see hoax, other hoax, other hooks.

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Speaker 6: From the mainstream media.

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Speaker 5: I'm going to do that too.

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Speaker 1: And meanwhile, people were like, I can't get into my medicaid.

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Speaker 1: Why it was the mainstream media keeping the medicaid portal

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Speaker 1: from working?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So we'll have Jeff here to run

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Speaker 4: down exactly what happened yesterday, what's happening right now.

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Speaker 5: We'll bring you updates on that.

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Speaker 4: We have a great immigration block just going through Stephen

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Speaker 4: Miller's wild interview with Jake Tapper on CNN yesterday evening,

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Speaker 4: but also the raids that happened yesterday. Who's actually being

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Speaker 4: swept up in these raids? Department of Homeland Security Secretary

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Speaker 4: of Christy.

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Speaker 6: Nome was suited up, she put on some gear, shut

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Speaker 6: it up.

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Speaker 4: They had the photog They're ready to go. So we'll

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Speaker 4: be doing a block on that. It looks like Pete

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Speaker 4: Buddha Judge might finally be in a good position to

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Speaker 4: win elected office on again.

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Speaker 6: Remember this is the powerhouse mayor of whatever town.

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Speaker 5: I was just going to say on the federal level, because.

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Speaker 6: There's now a setund our Notre Dame is a.

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Speaker 4: Senate seat open in Obviously Pete Buddha Judge's famous home

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Speaker 4: state of Michigan, which actually a lot of people don't

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Speaker 4: realize he moved to Michigan a couple of years ago,

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Speaker 4: likely with something like this plant.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: People were always saying that he's cursed because he's got

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Speaker 1: such high ambitions. Yet he's from Indiana, where no Democrat

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Speaker 1: is going to be elected to the Senate or the

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Speaker 1: governor's mansion in a very long time. And Bjos was like, wa,

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Speaker 1: do I live in Indiana? No, I do not live

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Speaker 1: in Indiana. In fact, I am a longtime Michigander.

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Speaker 4: Yes, of course, he just bleeds Michigan. But we'll be

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Speaker 4: talking about that. It's a pretty interesting Senate race that's

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Speaker 4: shaping up.

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Speaker 6: So in vivec he's bleeds Ohio.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, k was on Charlemagne and Breakfast Club and

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Speaker 4: we have a great clipt and.

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Speaker 6: He was strongly suggesting he's running for something.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: American hero Jim Acosta signed off of CNN yesterday after

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Speaker 4: they tried to bump him to a later slot. We

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Speaker 4: have a truly hilarious video of Jim Acosta's sign off

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Speaker 4: from CNN.

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Speaker 5: Just great stuff. Excited for that one.

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Speaker 6: Did you see his Substack Live.

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Speaker 1: Oh, he want a sub stack and he said in

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Speaker 1: his first Substack Live he said, I'm going independent for now,

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Speaker 1: which is such a delightful way to use the phrase independent.

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Speaker 1: To qualify it with for now four now, because like, well,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute. It's one thing to say I'm going independent, okay,

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Speaker 1: because that suggests you weren't independent before, even if you

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Speaker 1: did work for somebody.

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Speaker 6: Then to qualify it with four now, yeah.

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Speaker 4: Right, because independent has such a con it has such

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Speaker 4: a positive connotation.

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Speaker 1: Right, But not to people like him, to him, to

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Speaker 1: him and his circle, it reads as a failure.

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Speaker 6: And for him it's four now.

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Speaker 1: Maybe he gets scooped up by the contrarian, which is

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Speaker 1: the new explosive centrist.

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Speaker 6: Norman Eisen.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, maybe he will. He would love that.

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Speaker 4: You know, we should also in that block make sure

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Speaker 4: to mention the hilarious Crystal is a thread where both

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Speaker 4: obviously you know, very close observers of Chrysalis's Twitter feed,

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Speaker 4: where he just with any set, without any self awareness,

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Speaker 4: goes through things that he got significantly wrong over the

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Speaker 4: last decade.

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Speaker 5: It's incredible.

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Speaker 4: So we'll hopefully bring a little bit of that to

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Speaker 4: the table as well. Romania Ryan's publication Drop site had

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Speaker 4: an absolutely fantastic rundown of US intervention in Romanian elections

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Speaker 4: that just have a huge story that just really hasn't been.

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Speaker 6: Covered, really crazy story.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so we're gonna do that.

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Speaker 4: And then your colleague Martazza is saying, is.

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Speaker 1: Here Yeah he so, Martaza going to talk about Steve

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Speaker 1: Whitcoff going to Gaza with Ron Dermer. So this is

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Speaker 1: Trump's Mid East envoy said a week or two ago

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Speaker 1: that he wanted to go visit Gaza, which shook up

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Speaker 1: Israeli politicized, like, what do you mean you're going to

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Speaker 1: go visit Gaza? You talk to Hamas like, it's not

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Speaker 1: it's not how that works. It's he's a deal maker.

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Speaker 1: He's like, am I going to make a deal if

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Speaker 1: I don't like understand both sides here. Ron Dhmer, who

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Speaker 1: is net Yahoo's basically longtime top lieutenant, accompanied him to

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Speaker 1: the Niserne quarter. Martaza just returned from a reporting trip

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Speaker 1: in Syria. He'll also update us about what's going on there.

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Speaker 1: What he has told me about what he saw on

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Speaker 1: the ground there is utterly fascinating. He says, the fighting is,

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Speaker 1: by the way, not complete In fact and that while

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Speaker 1: As'ad has left because Ass'ad's government was so heavily propped

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Speaker 1: up by basically drug trafficking, they make Coptagon, this like disgusting,

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Speaker 1: like low grade speed that they sell mostly to Russia.

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Speaker 1: Because they were making so much money from Captagon. Those

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Speaker 1: commanders are like, we're not quitting. I don't care if

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Speaker 1: you flew to Russia. We control this little bit of land.

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Speaker 1: We got a factory that's making capta gon. We're making

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Speaker 1: money handover fist, we have weapons. What are you gonna

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Speaker 1: do about it? So it's a very send your situation.

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Speaker 4: Well, that'll be a fascinating conversation with Maz. So let's

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Speaker 4: dive into the news today with the federal aid grants,

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Speaker 4: the federal aid, the loans, the grants, and the freeze

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Speaker 4: slash shutdown on those.

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Speaker 5: Let's go to Jeff Stein for some updates.

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Speaker 4: A judge has ordered a freeze on the or has

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Speaker 4: ordered a pause on the Trump funding freeze. We can

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Speaker 4: put this first hairsheet up on the screen from CNBC.

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Speaker 4: A federal judge paused, actually until February third, the implementation

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Speaker 4: of a Trump administration ordered that would have frozen the

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Speaker 4: issuance of federal grants and loans. We are joined by

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Speaker 4: Jeff Stein of the Washington Post, who just over the

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Speaker 4: last couple of days has been working really hard on

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Speaker 4: this story. Busy man running down all kinds of news

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Speaker 4: and reporting.

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Speaker 5: So, Jeff, thank you for being here.

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Speaker 8: My pleasure. Great to be on with crystalin Sager.

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Speaker 6: That's Crystal.

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Speaker 1: It's the only way we can get people on this programs.

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Speaker 6: And then we show up. Now what's going on? I

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Speaker 6: guess I'm here. We'll be the hit.

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Speaker 4: Well, Jeff, let's just start with this news about the pause.

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Speaker 4: Can you just tell us a little bit about what

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Speaker 4: this means. I think that's a good place to start,

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Speaker 4: because it's really confusing. Like at any given point yesterday,

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Speaker 4: what was actually happening was confusing because people were interpreting

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Speaker 4: what the White House scent and the White House was

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Speaker 4: saying that they should be interpreting it differently. But actually,

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Speaker 4: in practice people's interpretations kind of become policy. So as

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Speaker 4: of right now that there's a freeze, let's say you

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Speaker 4: are the veterans charity that you talked to in California,

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Speaker 4: mostly funded by federal grants.

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Speaker 5: What does this mean for you?

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Speaker 7: What it should mean at least is that there's no

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Speaker 7: stoppage of funding, and so whatever was expected to come

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Speaker 7: in you know, in the next few months would and

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Speaker 7: that there would be no interruption. However, you know, in

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Speaker 7: the last twelve hours or so, I've and receiving numerous

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Speaker 7: TEX signal messages, calls, emails from people who say that

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Speaker 7: their funding is being interrupted. And so it's eight thirty

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Speaker 7: or so this morning. As soon as we get off

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Speaker 7: this call, I'm going to figure out what's going on there.

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Speaker 7: Because this federal order seemed pretty clear. There were some exceptions.

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Speaker 7: For instance, things that had been frozen you know, latterly

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Speaker 7: by the Trump administration before this most recent stop order

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Speaker 7: seemed like it would still be stopped by what the

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Speaker 7: Trumpet people had done was massively expand I mean, in

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Speaker 7: an unprecedented way, with pretty unclear legal standing, the extent

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Speaker 7: of the president's hold on federal funds.

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Speaker 8: And you know, the judge really was very clear.

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Speaker 7: That the vast majority of that needs to continue at

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Speaker 7: least until February third. But given all the confusion and

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Speaker 7: given that, you know, I've been asking the Trump.

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Speaker 8: People, are you complying with this order? And they haven't

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Speaker 8: said so.

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Speaker 7: I think there was a huge side of relief from

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Speaker 7: a lot of people yesterday that this crisis would be over.

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Speaker 7: For some it doesn't seem to be yet provisionally, I'll say,

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Speaker 7: because it's still so soon after the order, maybe things

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Speaker 7: will get sorted out today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this entire four years will probably be

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Speaker 1: like the last fifteen minutes of a horror movie where

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Speaker 1: people keep sighing and thinking that it's over, and then boom,

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Speaker 1: like something else comes out of the closet. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would encourage people not to sigh and think that

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Speaker 1: it's over, unless you know they're trying to draw some

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Speaker 1: type of monster from around the corner. Let's roll a

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Speaker 1: little bit of Caroline Levitt yesterday at the first White

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Speaker 1: House press briefing, where she did not really kind of

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Speaker 1: settle people's nerves about where this is going.

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Speaker 8: Well, fire Orfy for a.

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Speaker 9: Sec what you were saying before Medicaid, It wasn't clear

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Speaker 9: to me whether you were saying.

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Speaker 10: That no Medicaid would be cut off. Obviously a lot

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Speaker 10: of this goes to.

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Speaker 11: States before it goes to individuals, and so are you

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Speaker 11: guaranteeing here that no individual now on medicaid would.

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Speaker 8: See you cut off because.

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Speaker 12: Of the pause.

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Speaker 4: I'll check back on that and get back to you.

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Speaker 12: John Marlilan on the freezing federal funding, who advised the

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Speaker 12: president on the legality of telling government agencies that they

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Speaker 12: don't have to spend money it was already appropriated by Congress. Well,

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Speaker 12: as the OMB memo states, this is certainly within the

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Speaker 12: confines of the law. So White House Counsel's office believes

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Speaker 12: that this is within the president's power to do it,

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Speaker 12: and therefore he's doing it.

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Speaker 4: Okay, So they disagree with lawmakers who say that they

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Speaker 4: don't have the power to freeze this fund.

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Speaker 12: Again, I would point you to the language in the

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Speaker 12: memo that clearly states this is within the law.

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Speaker 1: So let's take the first part first, which is which

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Speaker 1: is medicaid. The memo that went out from OMB said

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Speaker 1: that money that's going out to individuals will not be interrupted.

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Speaker 1: It also said none of this should be construed to

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Speaker 1: apply to Social Security or Medicare. They could have added

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Speaker 1: medicaid and did not, And as one of the reporters

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Speaker 1: there pointed out, because medicaid flows first, you know, from

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Speaker 1: the federal government to states, and then from states to individuals.

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Speaker 6: All these portals ended up going down.

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Speaker 1: The memo did specifically say that it excludes money going from.

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Speaker 6: Medicaid to payment providers, but they didn't.

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Speaker 1: But they either they forgot the state part or what

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Speaker 1: now the White House is saying it was a screw

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Speaker 1: up and we're going to fix this. What is the

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Speaker 1: truth here? What can you tell us about how this happened.

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Speaker 8: It's a really good question, Ryan, that we're sold honestly

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Speaker 8: trying to get.

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Speaker 6: To the bottom of.

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Speaker 7: What we don't know precisely is whether you know, we

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Speaker 7: know for sure that at a minimum, they forgot to

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Speaker 7: include in the order this healthcare program that seventy plus

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Speaker 7: million people rely on for their insurance. And at a minimum,

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Speaker 7: it's clear that this stoppage was precipitated by everything going

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Speaker 7: on in the federal government. What we don't know is

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Speaker 7: did someone at the Trump White House tell CMS, which

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Speaker 7: runs Medicare and Medicaid, stop payments for Medicaid. I think

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Speaker 7: that is not what happened. What seems more likely is

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Speaker 7: that there was a rush amid the confusion of the

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Speaker 7: stop order to this portal, which you know typically runs

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Speaker 7: without that much you know, you know, frenzy sort of

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Speaker 7: just running on autopilot, and when this order went out

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Speaker 7: saying hey, everybody, like this is we're you know, ordering

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Speaker 7: a cessation to federal payments and Medicaid is not included,

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Speaker 7: it may have led to sort of an overwhelming response

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Speaker 7: that effectuated the shutdown of this program. But I think

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Speaker 7: the critics would say, and I think maybe someone legitimately

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Speaker 7: it doesn't really matter, like why it was clearly left

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Speaker 7: out of their initial order, and clearly the events of

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Speaker 7: the last two days precipitated this shutdown. So you know,

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Speaker 7: the White House not having an answer to that question.

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Speaker 7: You know, it was something that we saw repeatedly in

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Speaker 7: the first Trump administration. He just don't really cared about

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Speaker 7: the healthcare programs that serve for Americans. I mean, he

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Speaker 7: tried to massively cut it during his first term and

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Speaker 7: characterize it as getting rid of Obamacare, even though it

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Speaker 7: really is not the same thing. So yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 7: at a minimum, maybe it looks like negligence.

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Speaker 4: Well yeah, I was going to say, it's so interesting

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Speaker 4: you said that, Jeff, because it did feel like something

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Speaker 4: Everything is very carefully crafted that we've seen so far.

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Speaker 4: This is the one thing that felt more like twenty seventeen,

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Speaker 4: like they just had the they didn't have their bearings.

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Speaker 4: You know, you can lever hate the policies, but they

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Speaker 4: have you know, been sort of taken from years of

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Speaker 4: planning at this point, and this one just seemed really haphazard.

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Speaker 4: Let's roll another clip of Carolyn Levitt getting questions about

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Speaker 4: the payroll at some of these organizations who felt they

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Speaker 4: may be affected. Again during yesterday's press briefing.

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Speaker 12: Is the Trump administration recommending that organizations that rely on

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Speaker 12: federal funding make payroll pay their rent.

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Speaker 8: In the meantime, it.

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Speaker 12: Is a temporary pause in the Office of Management and

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Speaker 12: Budget is reviewing the federal funding that has been going

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Speaker 12: out the door. Again, not for individual assistance, but for

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Speaker 12: all of these other programs that I mentioned. I also

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Speaker 12: spoke with the incoming director of OMB this morning, and

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Speaker 12: he told me to tell all of you that the

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Speaker 12: line to his office is open for other federal government

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Speaker 12: agencies across the board, and if they feel that programs

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Speaker 12: are necessary and in line with the President's agenda, then

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Speaker 12: the Office of Management and Budget will review those policies.

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Speaker 12: Think this is a very responsible measure. Again, the past

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Speaker 12: four years, we've seen the Biden administration spend money like

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Speaker 12: drunken sailors. It's a big reason we've had an inflation

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Speaker 12: crisis in this country, and it's incumbent upon this administration

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Speaker 12: to make sure again that every penny is being accounted for, honestly.

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Speaker 4: So, Jeff, have the people you talked to do they

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Speaker 4: share that sort of confidence or that they should be

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Speaker 4: able to make payroll and keep the lights on for

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Speaker 4: the next few months. I'm sure the judges order, as

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Speaker 4: we've already talked about, helps, but I'm sure they still

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Speaker 4: sort of feel uncomfortable and in some state of limbo.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, and just quickly I laugh when I heard part

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Speaker 7: of that line yesterday because if you listen close to

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Speaker 7: what she's saying, she's saying I spoke to the budget chair,

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Speaker 7: the budget incoming budget chief for US vote for the

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Speaker 7: White House, whose office is responsible for the federal freeze,

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Speaker 7: and Levitt is saying he told me to say that

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Speaker 7: the federal agencies should contact me if there's anything essential

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Speaker 7: that they want to keep going. And I found that

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Speaker 7: to be kind of an amazing thing because it's like

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Speaker 7: telling us the reporters, like I'm not in charge of

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Speaker 7: a federal agency. You're using, you're telling the Press secretary

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Speaker 7: to tell the world that the heads of federal agencies

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Speaker 7: should contact the White House, like, yeah, those are the

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Speaker 7: President's personnel. And the fact that that communication didn't occur

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Speaker 7: well in advance of this order reflected I think kind

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Speaker 7: of an amazing lack of planning.

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Speaker 8: And I guess, on a.

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Speaker 7: Sort of related note, this stop order seems to have

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Speaker 7: been driven my sourcing and what they've said publicly suggests

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Speaker 7: by a feeling that the Biden people had screwed them

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Speaker 7: by sort of funneling money at the door, and to

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Speaker 7: give the Trump people some credit, like this is not

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Speaker 7: something they made up, Like there was a real effort

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Speaker 7: by the Biden administration in the last few weeks to say,

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Speaker 7: like whatever money like that we think the Trump people

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Speaker 7: don't want.

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Speaker 8: To spend, like let's just get it out there, let's

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Speaker 8: get it out there, let's get it out there.

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Speaker 7: And so they were discovering, as they've said, like I mean,

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Speaker 7: I can't vouch for the accuracy of this, but they said,

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Speaker 7: you know, we discovered like condoms for Gaza, which well

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Speaker 7: we should true squad down at some point, but like.

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Speaker 8: Whatever, that was something that.

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Speaker 7: They didn't like like there was a real ramp up

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Speaker 7: of that spending, and so.

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Speaker 8: They said like.

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Speaker 7: No, no, more, like we don't we can't track what's

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Speaker 7: going on out from every agency, so let's shut it

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Speaker 7: all down.

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Speaker 8: But then obviously, like that created this other huge problem.

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Speaker 1: And I wanted to pick up on another thing that

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Speaker 1: she said in that clip there, which goes to the

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Speaker 1: also the second question that she got from the press

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Speaker 1: that we played there about the legality of this question,

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Speaker 1: and we can put up the next tear sheet A four.

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Speaker 1: This is a piece by Dave Dayan over at the

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Speaker 1: American Prospect, which I suggest everybody read because it kind

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Speaker 1: of makes the case that this stuff is actually not legal.

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Speaker 1: And the line that I wanted to get your response

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Speaker 1: to from what we just heard her say was.

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Speaker 6: That they were they were.

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Speaker 1: She was going to approve or the White House would

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Speaker 1: approve congressionally directed spending that was quote in line with

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Speaker 1: the president's a into unquote.

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Speaker 6: That's the key point there.

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Speaker 1: People might think, like, Okay, we had a presidential election,

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Speaker 1: we elected Donald Trump, he has an agenda. He should

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Speaker 1: get to then direct spending in line with his agenda,

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Speaker 1: and that is certainly a kind of political system that

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Speaker 1: you could design and that people might support and think

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Speaker 1: is a good way to run a country. That's not

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Speaker 1: the country that we have. Like what we have is

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Speaker 1: we have a Congress where you have two senators from

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Speaker 1: every state and then you have you know, forever about

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Speaker 1: seven or eight hundred thousand people in a particular state.

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Speaker 1: They're represented by an individual and they represent that area.

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Speaker 6: They go to Congress, they.

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Speaker 1: Hash out spending bills down to the decimal points. They

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Speaker 1: then pass it, and then the president signs it, and

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Speaker 1: then the president has to then follow the law like

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Speaker 1: these say we do we want thirteen point six five

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Speaker 1: million dollars for this duck estuary in Long Island. It's

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Speaker 1: not up to the president to change that. It's like

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Speaker 1: that's what Congress did. And so for her to say

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Speaker 1: that they would only approve spending that is quote in

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Speaker 1: line with the president's agenda strikes me as flagrantly unconstitutional

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Speaker 1: and illegal, Like it's it's you know, it's not up

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Speaker 1: to her or them to say that this.

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Speaker 6: If they don't like it, they got to veto it.

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Speaker 1: So I'm curious for it because you would also flag

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Speaker 1: this interesting post from a legal scholar.

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Speaker 6: We can put up a nine so people can find it.

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Speaker 1: This is on the well respected Balkanization blog blog where

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Speaker 1: he kind of lays out the points the kind of

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Speaker 1: elements within the Empowerment Control Act that allow you to

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Speaker 1: actually pause funding, and the only ones are quote, to

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Speaker 1: provide for contingencies, or to achieve savings made possible buy

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Speaker 1: or through changes in requirements, or greater efficiency of operations. So,

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Speaker 1: in other words, the only way the only reason the

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Speaker 1: White House can pause funding is because if they think

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Speaker 1: they can do it slightly more efficiently. It's a quote

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Speaker 1: No officer or employee of the United States may defer

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Speaker 1: any budget authority for any other purpose. So how do

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Speaker 1: you how is the White House squaring this?

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Speaker 7: Well, you know, this whole topic, empowerments, appropriations, the White

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Speaker 7: House Budget Act, the Empowerment and Control Act, like is

442
00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:33,159
Speaker 7: so laden with obscure jargon that nobody has ever heard of.

443
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 7: And yet, as you're saying, Ryan, like, this is a

444
00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:43,119
Speaker 7: fundamental question about the balance of power, the rule of law,

445
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:50,959
Speaker 7: the question of whether our president has unchecked authority to

446
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:54,440
Speaker 7: overrule existing law and do what he wants. I mean

447
00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:57,960
Speaker 7: that that is sort of the core of this issue.

448
00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:03,240
Speaker 7: Beyond all of the technical legal jargon that you sort

449
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:05,160
Speaker 7: of do have to understand type apt.

450
00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:06,320
Speaker 8: Your header on what's going on here.

451
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:11,199
Speaker 7: And the White House has been very clear for a

452
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 7: long time. I mean, the Trump people have been saying

453
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 7: this since the end of twenty nineteen when we had

454
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:18,440
Speaker 7: the impeachment hearing over the Ukraine.

455
00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 8: AID holds.

456
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:24,679
Speaker 7: Their view is that the nineteen seventy four budget and

457
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:27,640
Speaker 7: Control Budget and Empowerment Control accthing like that.

458
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:31,160
Speaker 8: Is unconstitutional.

459
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:36,840
Speaker 7: That after Nixon's resignation after the Watergate scandal, Congress enacted

460
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 7: a law that dictates and lays out very clearly the

461
00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 7: blog post that you just referenced sort of lays out

462
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 7: in this specific instance, how the president can pause funding

463
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:54,440
Speaker 7: when he can or she can cancel funding exactly the

464
00:23:54,480 --> 00:24:00,440
Speaker 7: parameters of this relationship, this crucial relationship overspending between Congress

465
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 7: and the White House, and what russ Vote, the Budget chair,

466
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 7: and Trump and his top deputy Mark Paoleta, who is

467
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 7: now the General Counsel at OMB what they have said

468
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:13,720
Speaker 7: is that they do not think that that law adheres

469
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:17,160
Speaker 7: to the Constitution and that therefore they are not bound

470
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:22,000
Speaker 7: to follow it. And I'll just stress here this was

471
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:26,679
Speaker 7: about pausing funding, and in many ways pausing funding is

472
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:30,560
Speaker 7: a small precursor to what the Trump people have said

473
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 7: that they have the prerogative to do, which is not

474
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:35,879
Speaker 7: merely the pause funding, but to cancel it, to say,

475
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 7: Congress told us to spend this money, but we will not.

476
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:41,920
Speaker 8: They have been arguing that the amount of money.

477
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 7: That Congress approves is not a ceiling on the amount

478
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:48,399
Speaker 7: of money they can It is not a floorum on

479
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 7: the amount of money they can spend, but a ceiling.

480
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 7: So as long as they're below what Congress tells them

481
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:57,919
Speaker 7: to spend, they are in compliance with the law. And now, obviously,

482
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 7: like most legal scholars who study this disagree with that,

483
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 7: they have a very distinctive view, and I would note

484
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 7: like not a particularly conservative view. Right, this is about

485
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 7: massively expanding the president's power. So this is not small

486
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:16,400
Speaker 7: c conservatives, and this is an attempt to.

487
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:19,040
Speaker 8: Really exert much more control out of.

488
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 7: The executive branch in a way that you know, defies

489
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:25,360
Speaker 7: a law that's been in effect for four or five decades.

490
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 4: Although so it's a small counterput from the right would

491
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 4: argue that what they would say is that Congress should

492
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 4: take accountability of policies coming out of the executive branch.

493
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:36,679
Speaker 4: I'm sure you hear this all the time, Jeff, when

494
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 4: you're talking to people like That's the argument that Mark

495
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 4: Pelletta and russ Velt would make is that it's expanding

496
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 4: the power of the executive to sort of make Congress

497
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 4: do its job or what they believe its job should be.

498
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 4: A Congress punt law seft to the executive branch. Now,

499
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 4: but anyway, we don't have to get into that, no,

500
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 4: I mean, I.

501
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:53,400
Speaker 8: Think that's exactly right.

502
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 7: And it's also it comes in the context of the

503
00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:01,360
Speaker 7: Biden administration in numerous instances, saying we should have more

504
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 7: authority to do something that, for instance, you know, cancels

505
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 7: to a loan debt that the court said violated the law,

506
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 7: and so and so. The willingness of presidents to defy

507
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:18,439
Speaker 7: congressional statutes seems to be in part a bipartisan trend.

508
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 7: I still think this is this is beyond what we've seen, definitely,

509
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 7: but they are correct. I think that before the nineteen

510
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:28,400
Speaker 7: seventy four budget law, presidents did act with much more

511
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 7: authority to cancel spending without congressional approval. And they are

512
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 7: also right that the federal debt has grown to thirty

513
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 7: six trillion dollars. And even though this the funding they're

514
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 7: targeting is not you know, the fundamental part of that,

515
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 7: there is waste and fraud in the federal government and

516
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 7: it raises I think a somewhat legitimate question of if

517
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 7: the government discovers that money that Congress has approved is wasteful, should.

518
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:55,360
Speaker 8: They have to spend it any way? Essentially on the flip.

519
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:57,400
Speaker 7: Side, like then that takes the power away from Congress

520
00:26:57,440 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 7: to make the decision about what is wasteful.

521
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 4: It's I mean, and yeah, it seems to me like people,

522
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 4: as the people in the russ vote Mark Peletta camp,

523
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:10,199
Speaker 4: understand that this is going to be kicked to the

524
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 4: courts and are kind of eager to see how the

525
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 4: courts decide on these questions. Let's put up some of

526
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 4: the Democratic response here A five. Obviously, the Democratic attorney's

527
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 4: generals have, you know, put together their efforts to, as

528
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:28,439
Speaker 4: political says, quote, urgently resist the freeze. This is a

529
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 4: statement from the Rhode Island Attorney General, Peter Narnha, who

530
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 4: said it is astonishing the President Trump, through an agency

531
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 4: most Americans have never heard of, would take an action

532
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 4: so clearly unlawful that would impact so many Americans in

533
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 4: so many ways. And if we go to the next element,

534
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 4: this is a six. H This is a post from

535
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,959
Speaker 4: Alex Sfeiffer, who's a deputy Assistant to the President and

536
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 4: Principal Deputy Comm's director. He says this was in the

537
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 4: OMB memo or the OMB like memo after the memo

538
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 4: that explained, quote, mandatory programs like Medica STAP will continue

539
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 4: without pause. But again, that is a question Caroline Levitt

540
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:08,919
Speaker 4: didn't seem to have a clear answer to after the

541
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:12,959
Speaker 4: post that Pfeiffer is going for there came out, Jeff right,

542
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 4: and do I have the sequence correct on that? It

543
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 4: was pretty interesting that memo after the memo came out,

544
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:21,360
Speaker 4: then the White House Press briefing happened, and then they

545
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:24,159
Speaker 4: still didn't have a clear answer. And this brings us

546
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 4: to a eight, which is an article that Jeff you

547
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 4: wrote last June about Trump plans to claim sweeping powers

548
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 4: to cancel federal spending.

549
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 5: This is something that has been in the works.

550
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 4: This is like an ideological like crafted in a conservative laboratory.

551
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: Literally, always read Jeff Stein, always.

552
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 4: Read Jeff Steyn, and Dave Dan's piece. I think a

553
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 4: lot of people on the right at the American Prospect

554
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 4: would read that and say, yes, it's you know, they

555
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 4: would disagree that it was unlawful, but they would say, yes,

556
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 4: this is the radical revolutionary measure that we were taking. So, Jeff,

557
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 4: what's your perspective on why a policy that's been thought

558
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 4: about for so long was rolled out?

559
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 5: I think at best slappily.

560
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it's the core thing driving this to me,

561
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 7: seemed to have been you know, Stephen Miller was on

562
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 7: TV yesterday saying, like, we kept on hearing that we'd

563
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:20,360
Speaker 7: spent money that we didn't know was going out the

564
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 7: door on gods and condoms or whatever, and I think

565
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 7: that sort of fueled some of the sloppiness. I mean,

566
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 7: the White House was like, if you read the order

567
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 7: they sent out Monday night that we got that we

568
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 7: reported on Monday night, it is the way it is read.

569
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 7: Like the actual words used specifically state that all federal

570
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 7: grants will be paused, including but not limited to DEI,

571
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 7: clean energy, all this stuff that they don't want.

572
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 8: The next day, their.

573
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 7: Memos said the only thing affected by this pause are

574
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 7: spending programs not.

575
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 8: Compliant with our.

576
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 7: Prior executive orders on DEI, green energy, et cetera, et

577
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 7: CETERA huge difference between one and two, right, Like one

578
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 7: is saying we shut down everything, then we evaluate it,

579
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 7: and whatever is found in compliance with ore eos will

580
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 7: be allowed to go. The second day is we will

581
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 7: shut down only the things that are found that are found.

582
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 8: To be in violations of our eos.

583
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 7: They you know, it was like, how do you guys

584
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:50,719
Speaker 7: not understand like that these are like the same thing.

585
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 8: We haven't changed our messages like blah blah blah.

586
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 7: I's like I don't know what to tell you guys,

587
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 7: Like I don't write these memos, like I am just reading.

588
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 8: They're like very clear, like ay one said that, they

589
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 8: too said that.

590
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 7: So like it's it's confusing, like it's it's not it's

591
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 7: not it's not us, it's not the press, And it's

592
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 7: frustrating because like I don't know, I don't know how

593
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 7: to I don't want to get myself in trouble here,

594
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 7: but I think like for a lot of reporters, myself included,

595
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 7: like we we know that the Trump people think that

596
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 7: we're like unfair, that they think we're biased, that they

597
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 7: think we're like all liberals like out to get them,

598
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 7: and I have been working very hard to be like

599
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 7: I am. I am reporting the facts. I am figuring

600
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 7: out what's happening. I am giving you guys it, you know,

601
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 7: a totally fair hearing in all my stories, like.

602
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 8: I wanna I want to. I don't want to.

603
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 7: Be demagogued as someone who's just out here doing Trump

604
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 7: arrangements in syndrome stuff like. I think that's really important

605
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 7: for the media to like not get stucked out into

606
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 7: every like thing that might not be true. I mean

607
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 7: to just make it a very obvious point. And but

608
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 7: then I'm in this instance where it's just like they're

609
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 7: telling everyone that we're lying, and it's like I've been

610
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 7: reading what you guys are putting out and it's confusing

611
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 7: and it's hurting people, and it's it's not saying what

612
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 7: you said. It says So it's like, what am I

613
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 7: supposed to do with you know.

614
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 9: What I mean?

615
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:18,280
Speaker 8: Does that make sense?

616
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 12: Yeah?

617
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 1: We actually before you get on here, Emily and I

618
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 1: were talking about how or I was saying this, so

619
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna put this in Emily's mouth, but I

620
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: was saying that because the there has been genuine Trump

621
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: derangement syndrome from significant elements of the mainstream media. Now,

622
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 1: whenever the Trump administration screws up and actually does something

623
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: like shut down all the medicaid portals around the country,

624
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,959
Speaker 1: maybe accidentally what they they respond by saying, oh, this

625
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: is another MSM hoax. Don't believe the MSM. This is

626
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: this isn't this isn't happening. This is them lying again.

627
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 1: And so you can't say that all the time, like

628
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 1: something like everybody makes mistakes and that's being generous. I

629
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: think like I'm being generous here and calling this potentially

630
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 1: a mistake.

631
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 6: You know. Meanwhile, so I completely understand what you're saying.

632
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 1: You're trying to give them a fair shake, and they

633
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: are actually doing this very confusing thing and then saying

634
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 1: that they didn't do it, and you're like, well, how

635
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: there's no way to fairly report that and make you

636
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 1: sound good like you messed this up. Meanwhile, I'm totally

637
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: bracing myself for the Supreme Court to come in and

638
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 1: say that it was illegal for the Biden administration to

639
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: underline the point that you were making earlier, illegal for

640
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 1: the Biden administration to restructure loan payments around student debt.

641
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: But it is totally legal for a President Trump to

642
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: just do what he wants with the money that Congress directed.

643
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 1: How confident are your sources in the Trump world that

644
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court is going to meet them somewhere on

645
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: this and give them new powers or are they going

646
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 1: on that theory where well, the worst thing that happens

647
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: is we get our policy for a couple of months

648
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: or couple years and then it gets shut down.

649
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 6: That would just keep doing it.

650
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 8: I'm honestly not sure.

651
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 7: I mean, the the people I was talking to last summer,

652
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:12,839
Speaker 7: you know, they have ties to Clarence Thomas and the

653
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,240
Speaker 7: Conservatives on the Court, and I think they feel pretty

654
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 7: good about a few of them. But yeah, exactly, Mark Yoletta,

655
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 7: who's the lawyer at the Budget Office, he knows Thomas

656
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 7: very well. If there's been pro public or reporting about them,

657
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 7: you know, doing trips together and stuff. So you know,

658
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 7: I'm guessing this is a guess, but I'm guessing that

659
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:38,360
Speaker 7: they have a pretty good feeling of where Thomas is.

660
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 7: But you and Clarence Thomas and so why like you

661
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:42,720
Speaker 7: still need the rest or at least you know, several

662
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 7: other you know, Supreme poor justices that said, I think

663
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 7: the the capacity or possibility that the Trump people just

664
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 7: ignore the court order. You know, I could not get

665
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 7: a straight answer to reiterate last night what they con

666
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,479
Speaker 7: or whether they would bye by what the judge said.

667
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 7: The federal judge had said. And you know, for all

668
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 7: the comparisons we were making with the Bienes Tune loan order,

669
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 7: if the Trump people are just going to straight up

670
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 7: ignore what the federal courts say, I'm not saying they

671
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 7: have yet, but if that's what they're going to do,

672
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 7: we are in really different territory in terms of just

673
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 7: defying a court order. I mean, we haven't seen that

674
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 7: really since I don't know, you know, Lincoln and Habeas

675
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 7: Corpus and ignoring the Supreme Court and Civil War. I

676
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 7: don't I'm not a historian obviously, but but that that

677
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 7: would be a huge change in shock. So the speed

678
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 7: and lase nature in which they did this to me

679
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 7: suggest that they might be willing to try sort of

680
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 7: ignoring the courts.

681
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 4: And I should correct myself. Markedn't clerk for Clarence Thomas.

682
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 4: He was sort of a sharp and the confirmation for

683
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 4: Clarence Thomas, but has been around the circles for a

684
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 4: long Thank you. So, yeah, that's a that's an interesting

685
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 4: that's a really interesting point. Actually, the makeup of the

686
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 4: Supreme Court is like tailor made if you would want

687
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:05,919
Speaker 4: to have a descent, if you're a conservative, who would

688
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 4: want to have something like this litigated right now and

689
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 4: for the Supreme Court. So, Jeff, this is super super interesting.

690
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:13,400
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for joining us and sticking with

691
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 4: us for like a whole half hour to go through

692
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 4: all of this crazy news.

693
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 8: Well my pleasure, guys, thanks for having me appreciate it, all.

694
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:20,319
Speaker 6: Right, good lucking up.

695
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:22,919
Speaker 1: Next, he was talking about that Steven Miller Jake Tapper interview. Well,

696
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 1: they also fought over immigration. We'll talk about that in

697
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 1: a second.

698
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 4: White House Deputy Chief of stafford Policy and also a

699
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 4: Homeland Security advisor, Stephen Miller, was brawling with Jake Tapper

700
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 4: on CNN yesterday evening. They touched on what we talked

701
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 4: about earlier, on the federal aid loans and grants and

702
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 4: all of that, but also really got into an interesting

703
00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 4: exchange over the Trump administration's immigration policy.

704
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:49,240
Speaker 5: Let's take a listen.

705
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 13: How do you how does President Trump make sure that

706
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,319
Speaker 13: the effort to deport people who are not in this

707
00:36:55,400 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 13: country legally doesn't end up hurting America who want safe

708
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 13: borders absolutely but also don't want to see even more

709
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 13: higher prices and groceries.

710
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:10,439
Speaker 11: Well, I mean, I'm sure it's not your position, Jake.

711
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 11: You're just asking the question that we should supply America's

712
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 11: food with exploitative illegal alien labor. I obviously don't think

713
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:22,360
Speaker 11: that's what you're implying. Only one percent of alien workers

714
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 11: in the entire country work in agriculture. The top destination

715
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:29,360
Speaker 11: for illegal aliens are large cities like New York, like

716
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 11: Los Angeles, and small industrial talents of course, all across

717
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:36,800
Speaker 11: the heartland and we as we've seen with the Biden flights,

718
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:40,359
Speaker 11: none of those illegal aliens are doing farm work. Those

719
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 11: thirty thousand legal aliens that Joe Biden dumped into springs.

720
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 13: I'm talking about the ones no no, no, but but no.

721
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:47,319
Speaker 9: But I'm explaining this. It's important to understand.

722
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 6: Now you're kind of changing with I mean no, no, no.

723
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 11: I will, I will go. I will give me thirty minutes.

724
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:52,920
Speaker 11: All goes deep as you want to say, I don't

725
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:54,160
Speaker 11: will your audience.

726
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 13: I don't have a fair I'm talking about the ones

727
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 13: that could that they're work in the agriculture industry.

728
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 9: What I mean explaining back when you're talk.

729
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:01,280
Speaker 6: About the ones in the cities.

730
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 9: I swear I'll do the whole answer.

731
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 11: The illegal aliens that Joe Biden brought into our country

732
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 11: are not full stop doing farm work. They are not

733
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 11: the illegal aliens he brought in from Venezuela, from Haiti,

734
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 11: from Nicarauagua. They are not doing farm work. They are

735
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 11: inner cities collecting welfare.

736
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 9: As for the.

737
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 11: Farmers, there is a guest worker program that President Trump supports.

738
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 11: Over time as well, we will transition into automation so

739
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:28,320
Speaker 11: we'll never have to have this conversation ever again.

740
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 9: But there's no universe in which this nation is.

741
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:35,439
Speaker 11: Going to allow the previous president to flutter our nation

742
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 11: with millions and millions of illegal aliens who just get

743
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 11: to stay here.

744
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 9: And we are especially not going.

745
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:42,719
Speaker 11: To allow a subset of those illegal aliens to rape

746
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 11: and murder our citizens. So we are going to unapologetically

747
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:48,880
Speaker 11: enforce our immigration laws. And as I'm sure you will celebrate,

748
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 11: we are going to unleash the power and might of

749
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:54,400
Speaker 11: the US government to eradicate the presidence of transnational threats.

750
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 9: On our soil.

751
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 5: Now.

752
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 4: Of course, the criminal status or non criminal status of

753
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 4: people who are being deported was a topic at the

754
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 4: first White House Press Briefing yesterday, which was absolutely packed.

755
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:08,839
Speaker 4: Let's take a look at how Carolin Lovett responded to

756
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:12,359
Speaker 4: some questions about that five hundred arrests ICE is made

757
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 4: so far since President.

758
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 10: Trump came back into office.

759
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 4: Can you just tell us the numbers how many have

760
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 4: a criminal record versus those who are just in the

761
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:20,320
Speaker 4: country illegally.

762
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 12: All of them because they illegally broke our nation's laws,

763
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,919
Speaker 12: and therefore they are criminals as far as this administration goes.

764
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:26,879
Speaker 12: I know the last administration didn't see it that way.

765
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 12: So it's a big culture shift in our nation to

766
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 12: view someone who breaks our immigration laws as a criminal.

767
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 12: But that's exactly what they are here. They all have

768
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 12: a criminal records and welcome to the if they broke

769
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 12: our nation's laws.

770
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:41,839
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, so, Brian, there's an interesting debate happening right

771
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 4: now about what constitutes criminal because it is under US code,

772
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 4: a crime, but it's a misdemeanor to cross the border illegally.

773
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 4: It's not a felony if you repeat, which many people have,

774
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 4: it is a felony, but it is still technically a misdemeanor.

775
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 4: So and you know, you're sort of getting into a

776
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 4: semantics game.

777
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 1: And then the extra layer of semantics is that overstaying

778
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 1: of visa is a civil infraction, right, and many, many,

779
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: maybe most of the people who are here illegally are

780
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 1: here because they overstate a visa, which technically, actually like

781
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 1: is just a civil offense, not even a misdemeanor. The

782
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:24,280
Speaker 1: misdemeanor comes from crossing the border without the right papers,

783
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 1: that's right.

784
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 6: So and then I guess the question is.

785
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: If you commit a misdemeanor, are you a criminal? I mean,

786
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:33,840
Speaker 1: how many misdemeanors have you committed?

787
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 6: Probably a lot.

788
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 5: I think a jay walked the.

789
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:38,719
Speaker 10: Right.

790
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 4: So that's it. It gets into this sort of semantic game.

791
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,439
Speaker 4: But Trump did repeatedly say that this would be about

792
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 4: violent criminals, and so right now, what everyone's trying to

793
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 4: do is kind of parse the amount of people who

794
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 4: are violent criminals versus who just committed the misdemeanor of

795
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 4: entering the country illegally. The Washington Post we can put

796
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:58,280
Speaker 4: this next Forbes tear sheet up on the screen Forbes

797
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 4: kind of was running down what numbers we have and

798
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 4: found in the Washington Post that ICE officials have been

799
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 4: directed by Trump officials to aggressively ramp up the number

800
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 4: of people they arrest from a few hundred per day

801
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,319
Speaker 4: to at least twelve hundred to fifteen hundred because the

802
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 4: President has been disappointed with.

803
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 5: The results of his mass deportation.

804
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:20,839
Speaker 4: So these are quotas, and quotas, obviously is how you

805
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 4: end up with a different kind of or you end

806
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 4: up with percentages of you know, criminal, violent criminals versus

807
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:34,319
Speaker 4: kind of regular people who committed the misdemeanor crime of

808
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 4: coming to the country illegally. Then you can't like guarantee

809
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 4: that you're only sweeping up violent criminals.

810
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 5: As soon as.

811
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 4: You're you know, saying we have to have fifteen hundred

812
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:46,280
Speaker 4: daily deportations, it just gets a lot harder, obviously.

813
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: Right, And you can see Trump's mind working where he's like,

814
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: I keep being told there were twelve to fifteen million

815
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 1: illegals who like flooded into the country in the last

816
00:41:56,719 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 1: four years, and we're removing a few hundred a day,

817
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 1: Like Trump can do the math on that, like that

818
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:09,799
Speaker 1: that those are two wildly different sets of scales, and so.

819
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:12,800
Speaker 6: People, if he had people.

820
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 1: Around him who who were honest, they would have told

821
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 1: him like, this is this is basically what we're capable of.

822
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 1: And he has had people around him who have said,

823
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: if you want to do this in the way that

824
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 1: you see it, you're gonna need to basically send the

825
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 1: military into American cities all at once. And you know

826
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 1: there are factions on the right that want to see

827
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: that happen. Yeah, but I think even Trump is like, Okay,

828
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: that's that's pushing it a little bit.

829
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 6: Much like the the.

830
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 1: Like black jackets and the black boots, that's one thing.

831
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: The Green ones going around the city like like maybe

832
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:55,879
Speaker 1: against BLM protesters, but like just rating like the home

833
00:42:55,920 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: depot parking lot like that starts to look ridiculous. And

834
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:05,880
Speaker 1: also the fact that they're being so coy about the

835
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,319
Speaker 1: criminal records of the people that they're rounding up suggests

836
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:13,759
Speaker 1: an inherent acknowledgment among all sides of the debate here

837
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: that there isn't actually an enormous amount of support for

838
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:24,240
Speaker 1: kind of violently deporting, aggressively deporting people who whose only crime,

839
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: if you want to call it, that is coming here illegally,

840
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: like there might be kind of poles say, Poles might say, oh, yeah,

841
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 1: we think people should be here legally. But then it

842
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 1: seems like even the Trump administration knows that, like, you know,

843
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 1: physically dragging people out of them done anything wrong. That's

844
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 1: why they want to find people with these criminal records,

845
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 1: why they're at the very top of we didn't play it,

846
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:49,760
Speaker 1: but at the very top of this White House press briefing.

847
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,399
Speaker 1: She started by saying they'd arrested what a Dominican guy

848
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: who had murdered his his like his mother and her

849
00:43:59,880 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: like child or something like. Those are the ones that

850
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 1: the Trump administration wants to then kind of allude to

851
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 1: all Democrats are okay with that, when really, if Democrats

852
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: had any sense, they would have been going after people

853
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: like that internally, and to some extent they were, but

854
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 1: not not They wouldn't you kind of make a big

855
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:22,000
Speaker 1: deal of it, Well yeah, like Biden wouldn't have bragged

856
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 1: that they had done it, which is crazy, Like you

857
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:27,719
Speaker 1: catch a murderer, actually, like that's that's the number one

858
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:29,360
Speaker 1: thing a politician likes to celebrate.

859
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:30,600
Speaker 6: It's catching a murderer.

860
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: Like entire careers are made off of that, that's what

861
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: you do.

862
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 5: Doesn't get any better than that.

863
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 4: No, Well, so, speaking of the optics, let's take a

864
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 4: look at this next clip of DHS Secretary Christie Nome.

865
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:42,720
Speaker 5: I can't believe I'm even saying.

866
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 4: DHS Secretary Christine Nome on the streets of New York

867
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 4: City yesterday. You can see her. She tweets seven am

868
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 4: in NYC getting the dirt bags off the streets. She's

869
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 4: got I'm gonna get criticized her, she's got a blowout,

870
00:44:56,520 --> 00:45:00,399
Speaker 4: she's got her outfit on, and she's ready to go.

871
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 6: You know, Ryan, is that a still up look?

872
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: Like usually people seven am in New York City with

873
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: their hair looking like that.

874
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 4: It just went out the night before and went straight

875
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:15,359
Speaker 4: to the ice right very late in PR. I don't

876
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:18,360
Speaker 4: know what she was up to, but she she looked great,

877
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:19,040
Speaker 4: I'll give her that.

878
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 1: And she was checking out kitchens at bars until six

879
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:23,839
Speaker 1: am and.

880
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 5: Then checking the restaurant inspection.

881
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 6: Yeah, she's looking for bussers and bar backs.

882
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 4: So seven am in NYC getting the dirt bags off

883
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:32,240
Speaker 4: the streets.

884
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:32,799
Speaker 5: You know.

885
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 4: To your point, I will say, we've all seen the

886
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 4: polling recently. New York Times Episodes had a poll, just

887
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 4: like the day before the inauguration last week about how

888
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 4: Americans support the concept of mass deportations. That isn't the

889
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:47,280
Speaker 4: only pole that's found that if you just ask people

890
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:51,240
Speaker 4: right now about whether they support mass deportations, the answer

891
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 4: to that is yes. And it's possible that dips a

892
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 4: little bit more as the media starts focusing on as

893
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 4: the Trump administration starts focusing on deportations, and then the

894
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 4: media starts focusing on it. Are all entirely possible, but

895
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:03,399
Speaker 4: they're and.

896
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 1: That goes my But I think I don't have any

897
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 1: evidence for this, but I just feel like the people

898
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:10,319
Speaker 1: who are answering that kind of when a snaff of

899
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 1: the finger, like, Okay, we didn't really see those people

900
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:15,240
Speaker 1: come in, except we saw some images at the border,

901
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 1: and we don't really want to see them leave.

902
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 6: But I agree that.

903
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: They should leave, Like that's the kind of right like

904
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:25,359
Speaker 1: support for that. But when it gets ugly, you might

905
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: see that slip.

906
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 4: We'll see Yeah, No, I mean optics wise, you want to,

907
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 4: I mean the Christy Nome thing. You can see exactly

908
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 4: why people who look at what happened, For example, Lake

909
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 4: and Riley would say yeah, like, hell yeah, let's.

910
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:39,879
Speaker 5: Get out of there.

911
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 4: Let's get people out of here if they are prior

912
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 4: criminal convictions and they do so.

913
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 5: This is from the Associated Press.

914
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 4: As of July twenty one, I said six hundred and

915
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 4: sixty two, five hundred and fifty six people under its

916
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 4: supervision were either convicted of crimes or face criminal charges.

917
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 4: Nearly fifteen thousand were in its custody, but the vast

918
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 4: majority were not included in the figures of people not

919
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 4: detained by ICE, where people guilty of very serious crimes

920
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 4: thirteen thousand for homicide, fifteen thousand for sexual assault, thirteen

921
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 4: thousand for weapons offenses, and two thousand, six hundred and

922
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 4: sixty three for stolen vehicle. The single biggest category, though,

923
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 4: was for traffic related defenses seventy seven thousand, followed by

924
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 4: assault at sixty two thousand, and dangerous drugs at fifty

925
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 4: six thousand. But those numbers on that we just went

926
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 4: through here, of homicide, sexual assault, weapons, stolen vehicles, assaults,

927
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 4: those are really really high numbers, right, but.

928
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:34,520
Speaker 6: It gets dip puts you with what one hundred thousand

929
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:34,839
Speaker 6: or so.

930
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:36,879
Speaker 4: Right, I was just going to say, if you want

931
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 4: to do that, on a if you want to do

932
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:41,040
Speaker 4: fifteen hundred on a daily basis of only the most

933
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 4: violent criminals, that quota is going to put you in

934
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:46,919
Speaker 4: a position where there are you know, just people who

935
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 4: aren't the most violent criminals.

936
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 1: Still, and we're being told that there's twenty million people

937
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:53,239
Speaker 1: we need to get out of the country, and that's

938
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand, Like, what about the other nineteen million,

939
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:57,320
Speaker 1: nine hundred thousand.

940
00:47:57,400 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 6: That's the that's the part that's going to get interested.

941
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 5: That is the part that's gonna be interesting.

942
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:04,280
Speaker 4: Yeah's that is the part for sure, because for Donald

943
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 4: Trump right now, some of the toughest questions that he

944
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:09,359
Speaker 4: faced between his election ands inauguration were are you going

945
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 4: to be rounding up like families and kids that came

946
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:14,799
Speaker 4: here were brought here illegally over the course of the

947
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 4: Biden administration.

948
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 1: And this goes back to that Stephen Miller clip that

949
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,920
Speaker 1: we started with a where Miller does this kind of

950
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 1: logical kind of fallacy where he says he's asked about

951
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:30,520
Speaker 1: agricultural workers, and you know, he understands that there's another

952
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: implicit kind of agreement between Tapper and Miller there that

953
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 1: most Americans like don't want ice going into the lettuce

954
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 1: fields and rounding everybody up and hauling them to Mexico.

955
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: And so instead of defending that, what Miller says is, well, actually,

956
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 1: most of the people that are here illegally and that

957
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 1: we're allowed in by Biden, we're jumped in the cities

958
00:48:52,239 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: and they're not out there picking the fields. That's not

959
00:48:55,960 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 1: the point. The question is about the agricultural workers. And Tappers,

960
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: are you're changing the subject? Is like to how dare

961
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,720
Speaker 1: you change the subject? And the right kind of loves

962
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 1: that Miller's given it to Tapper, and Tapper's fans love that.

963
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 6: He's like standing up to Miller.

964
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:13,720
Speaker 1: But what gets lost in the conversations they are talking about,

965
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 1: they're talking about.

966
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:15,439
Speaker 6: Genuinely two different things.

967
00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:19,319
Speaker 1: Yes, and so then Miller says, well, we have a

968
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:21,600
Speaker 1: guest worker program. And this is where I get so

969
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: frustrated in the immigration conversation, because I'm a big supporter

970
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:31,360
Speaker 1: of a of guest worker programs that smoothly allow people

971
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:35,360
Speaker 1: who you know, if you've got a country where you know,

972
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:37,800
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of laborers in Mexico who want

973
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 1: to work these jobs, like in the fields of California.

974
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 1: But don't actually want to live here like they like Mexico.

975
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 1: Their roots are there, their family is there, their community

976
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: is there, but they want to come for four or

977
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 1: five months like that used to be how it was

978
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: done in the seventies and eighties. And then we crack

979
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:58,279
Speaker 1: down and we close the border, and so all the

980
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: people that were doing that told their families and their

981
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:04,760
Speaker 1: communities just come up here because now it's too expensive

982
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 1: to go back and forth across the border. The idea

983
00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 1: that there's a functional guest worker program that can be

984
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:13,279
Speaker 1: used at scale by our our agriculture industry.

985
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:13,760
Speaker 6: Is just not true.

986
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: And if Miller supports that, great pass it into put

987
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:20,799
Speaker 1: it back into law and make and make that the law,

988
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:23,080
Speaker 1: and then it and then then you can raise questions,

989
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 1: are they exploited? Okay, if they are exploited, they're now legal.

990
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:28,880
Speaker 1: They can form they can join a union.

991
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 4: Uh.

992
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:32,360
Speaker 1: They the inspectors can come out and make sure that

993
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:33,919
Speaker 1: things are going well.

994
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:34,799
Speaker 4: Uh.

995
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:37,880
Speaker 1: And the pay that they're going to be getting is

996
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:44,319
Speaker 1: so much is relatively so much better. But that's just

997
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 1: thrown as and then he says, oh, and we're going

998
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:49,239
Speaker 1: to use automation to get rid of that soon anyway. So,

999
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:50,880
Speaker 1: but all of it is actually just a way to

1000
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: avoid the actual conversation.

1001
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 5: I think he.

1002
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:59,560
Speaker 4: Got Tapper pretty good when Tapper was asking him about

1003
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 4: like I forget exactly what Tapper what description Tapper used,

1004
00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:06,560
Speaker 4: but like, let us is that what they were talking about,

1005
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:07,760
Speaker 4: like let us something.

1006
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 5: To that extent.

1007
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:11,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, And Miller came back and was like, so this

1008
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 4: is just about bringing in an underclass of people too,

1009
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:17,200
Speaker 4: Like that was thought. I thought that was pretty excellent. Rebuttal,

1010
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:18,840
Speaker 4: I assume what you're saying that it's on a difference.

1011
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:21,919
Speaker 6: It is and Tapper should be like or Tapper's.

1012
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 1: Well, actually with the other side to say, yes, it

1013
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 1: is actually like we don't have people.

1014
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:28,680
Speaker 6: You can't.

1015
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:32,360
Speaker 1: We've got this economic problem where we need people to

1016
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 1: do these jobs for wages that are less then you

1017
00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:39,800
Speaker 1: can actually live a dignified life in the United States.

1018
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 5: But we don't need that.

1019
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 1: And so the way you can do this, well, they

1020
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:45,440
Speaker 1: don't actually live in the United States. They only live

1021
00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 1: here for four months. They work here, make a good

1022
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:49,760
Speaker 1: amount of money, Like just like H two B people

1023
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:51,560
Speaker 1: come over here, wait tables for four months and then

1024
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:54,400
Speaker 1: go back to Poland or whatever, and they made good

1025
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 1: money for Poland or they made good money for Romania,

1026
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 1: like that, Is that the best system we design in

1027
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: the world. No, but otherwise the price lettuce is going

1028
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 1: to double. And see how people like that.

1029
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:09,440
Speaker 5: Well Miller will have to own that. Yeah, No, I

1030
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:11,919
Speaker 5: mean absolutely don't.

1031
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 4: I don't disagree that it causes price increases, but I

1032
00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:16,400
Speaker 4: don't think we all need.

1033
00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 5: To like get that. I think when people look at them.

1034
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 1: As people like Taver won't say yeah, actually you're right,

1035
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: like yeah, and we need So it's going to be

1036
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:26,719
Speaker 1: two tiers, and the second tier is people that don't

1037
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 1: actually live here. They just come here and then they

1038
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:33,040
Speaker 1: go back, and then over time hopefully you can then

1039
00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 1: develop more equitable economy where you're raising the living standards

1040
00:52:37,480 --> 00:52:38,960
Speaker 1: of everywhere.

1041
00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:41,719
Speaker 4: Well, the disorderly process over the last few years has

1042
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:45,319
Speaker 4: definitely made exploitation a lot easier, which is why they've

1043
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 4: actually just like lost a certain number of even like

1044
00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:51,440
Speaker 4: children who have gone into the labor system here at

1045
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:54,720
Speaker 4: times at a great expose on how many kids were

1046
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:58,600
Speaker 4: being like forcing the exploit of labor and then we

1047
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 4: just lost custody of them. Whose Mayorkas was like DHS

1048
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 4: just lost custody of them. And part of that is

1049
00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 4: because our system was so overwhelmed and disorderly, and so

1050
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 4: I think the Trump administration's best argument probably is not

1051
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 4: just you know, people are here and they shouldn't be here.

1052
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:15,560
Speaker 5: We've lost track of them.

1053
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 4: We need to adjudicate their asylum claims if they made,

1054
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:22,400
Speaker 4: you know, dubious asylum claims, like judicate those, get the

1055
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:23,719
Speaker 4: violent criminals out.

1056
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 5: But then also have some system.

1057
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:30,920
Speaker 4: That makes sense, and that is way harder than actually

1058
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:34,520
Speaker 4: like deporting people. And well we can talk about that

1059
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:36,320
Speaker 4: too with all of the other sort of radical reforms

1060
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 4: of Trump administration is doing. Like it's that first step

1061
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:41,400
Speaker 4: is kind of the easiest, is politically the hardest, but

1062
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:46,400
Speaker 4: then rebuilding a system afterwards is definitely going to be

1063
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:51,959
Speaker 4: really difficult. Let's move on to the Michigan Senate race

1064
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 4: that suddenly opened up yesterday. Nobody really expected Gary Peters

1065
00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:58,919
Speaker 4: to step down. He's a pretty run of the milk

1066
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:02,600
Speaker 4: conventional while like establishment democrat, wouldn't you say, Ryan.

1067
00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:06,359
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's very like the unions are cool with him.

1068
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:10,799
Speaker 1: He's like a rank and file politician who like worked

1069
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:12,240
Speaker 1: his way up.

1070
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:15,120
Speaker 6: Now he's a senator pro ily sit there for life.

1071
00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: But you know you only make what one hundred and

1072
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:19,800
Speaker 1: seventy four thousand dollars a year as a senator Boring,

1073
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:23,879
Speaker 1: you spend all your time with incredibly rich people, doing

1074
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 1: like the coolest rich people things, and at some point

1075
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:28,040
Speaker 1: you're like, wait a minute, if I have power over

1076
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 1: these people, they're asking me for things. Yet I got

1077
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 1: no money and here I am with twenty million dollars

1078
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:39,280
Speaker 1: in my campaign account, but I can't spend it on myself.

1079
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:41,359
Speaker 6: Let me just cash app here.

1080
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:43,839
Speaker 1: You start making a couple of million dollars a year

1081
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 1: for ten years and just really live large. I don't

1082
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 1: know what he's going to do. We'll see. Yeah, I

1083
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:49,759
Speaker 1: wouldn't expect anything.

1084
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:52,719
Speaker 4: Different, right, No, but it did take everybody by surprise

1085
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:55,520
Speaker 4: that he announced. Peter's announced his retirement yesterday. And if

1086
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:58,319
Speaker 4: we skip here to C two, we can put this

1087
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 4: access report up on the screen that former Transportation Secretary

1088
00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:04,480
Speaker 4: Pete Buddha Judge is quote taking a serious look at

1089
00:55:04,520 --> 00:55:07,839
Speaker 4: running for Peter's seat. This is from a person close

1090
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 4: to Buddha Judge.

1091
00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:08,879
Speaker 5: Quote.

1092
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 4: Pete is exploring all of his options on how he

1093
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:13,840
Speaker 4: can be helpful and continue to serve. He's honored to

1094
00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:15,960
Speaker 4: be mentioned for this, and he's taking a serious Look.

1095
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:18,520
Speaker 4: What I love about that quote, Ryan, is I hope

1096
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:21,560
Speaker 4: the person who said he's honored to be mentioned for

1097
00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 4: this is the one who mentioned.

1098
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:23,239
Speaker 5: Him for this.

1099
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:25,000
Speaker 6: Bis Smith.

1100
00:55:25,480 --> 00:55:28,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, probably it was, Yes, probably it was probably like, Hey, Pete,

1101
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:32,360
Speaker 4: let's call up Axios and just say we're honored to

1102
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:36,239
Speaker 4: be mentioned, and there that will create the mention of us.

1103
00:55:36,680 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 1: The thing about Pete is really his consultants probably don't

1104
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 1: even have to tell him that now he's on the ball.

1105
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:45,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, this guy is.

1106
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:48,680
Speaker 1: He's wanted this for a very long time, and so yeah,

1107
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:50,800
Speaker 1: so it'll be mayor Pete.

1108
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:56,600
Speaker 6: How is the Republican field looking over there? I mean,

1109
00:55:57,160 --> 00:55:58,640
Speaker 6: I mean they keep.

1110
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 1: Losing too very Yeah, seemingly beatable Democrats with pretty good candidates. Yeah, well,

1111
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:09,399
Speaker 1: and that they went.

1112
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:12,520
Speaker 6: They've won two out of the last three presidential.

1113
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 1: Cycles, right close races, but on.

1114
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 6: The gubernatorial level and the Senate level, they just get waxed.

1115
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:20,080
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1116
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:23,480
Speaker 4: He It's a really good point because and I actually

1117
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:26,960
Speaker 4: just wrote a piece about Alissa Slotkin yesterday for her

1118
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:30,280
Speaker 4: very close race. It was very close race, very culturally,

1119
00:56:30,560 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 4: that's true.

1120
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 6: She eked it out Yeah.

1121
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:35,320
Speaker 4: And she actually had an interesting campaign on abortion, which

1122
00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 4: is where Mallory McMorrow, who many people remember was sort

1123
00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:41,840
Speaker 4: of conspicuously posting.

1124
00:56:41,920 --> 00:56:42,960
Speaker 5: She went really viral.

1125
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:45,520
Speaker 4: This was a couple of years ago, and it was

1126
00:56:45,600 --> 00:56:47,640
Speaker 4: about correct me ivery mind. I think it was about like

1127
00:56:47,680 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 4: banned books quote unquote banded books.

1128
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:50,120
Speaker 5: Or something like it.

1129
00:56:50,160 --> 00:56:52,520
Speaker 6: Wasn't she like Mike Staffer or something like that.

1130
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 5: Oh was she didn't even know she was like a

1131
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:58,600
Speaker 5: state Yeah she was. Yeah, but she so.

1132
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:02,040
Speaker 6: She's Brooklyn hipster who moved back to Michigan.

1133
00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:02,239
Speaker 5: Moved back home.

1134
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1135
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:03,560
Speaker 5: Many such cases.

1136
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:04,920
Speaker 6: Have a great speech, yes, and viral.

1137
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:06,120
Speaker 5: Yeah, in many such cases.

1138
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:08,279
Speaker 4: She seems to have political ambitions and could be a

1139
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:11,920
Speaker 4: rival to Boodha Judge on in this race. Wiggle was

1140
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 4: Dave Waggel was, you know, quoting her her tweets wishing

1141
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:19,440
Speaker 4: Gary Peters a happy retirement yesterday with interest. Yeah.

1142
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:20,959
Speaker 6: And her problem is.

1143
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:26,040
Speaker 1: She is in the same lane as Buddha Judge, kind

1144
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 1: of the local leaning center left, where you know, you're

1145
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:37,200
Speaker 1: not in the Bernie lane. And the way you differentiate

1146
00:57:37,200 --> 00:57:41,880
Speaker 1: yourself from establishment democrats is you're more aggressive.

1147
00:57:41,400 --> 00:57:42,880
Speaker 6: In how you fight on behalf of.

1148
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:48,120
Speaker 1: Cultural issues and I don't think you can beat Pete

1149
00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:50,640
Speaker 1: on that because he's just the best at that.

1150
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:53,560
Speaker 6: But who knows. We'll see.

1151
00:57:53,960 --> 00:57:57,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe Pete keeps his powder drive for twenty

1152
00:57:57,800 --> 00:57:58,240
Speaker 1: twenty eight.

1153
00:57:58,600 --> 00:58:01,720
Speaker 4: This is this is back to who Republicans possibly have.

1154
00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:05,120
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, maybe he does, although he could still technically,

1155
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:06,920
Speaker 4: I guess he could run in twenty twenty eight.

1156
00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:09,800
Speaker 6: It could, just it would look pretty weird, like you're

1157
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 6: going from your swearing into Iowa.

1158
00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:15,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, well they don't do Iowa anymore, right, that's right.

1159
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:19,880
Speaker 4: But so the Alyssa Slatkin is out here talking to

1160
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:22,680
Speaker 4: for example, the Free Press Barry Wise's publication about how

1161
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 4: Democrats just need to get back to being quote unquote

1162
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:28,080
Speaker 4: normal and how she is the kind of normal person

1163
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 4: whisper because she eked out this Michigan Senate race by

1164
00:58:30,720 --> 00:58:32,960
Speaker 4: talking about the economy and blah blah blah, which by

1165
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:36,000
Speaker 4: the way, really isn't true. She sort of tried to

1166
00:58:36,040 --> 00:58:38,000
Speaker 4: pivot to that, but when she was in the House

1167
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:41,360
Speaker 4: of Representatives was pretty eagerly leading into some of these,

1168
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:43,520
Speaker 4: like she's the co sponsor. I think she may have

1169
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:45,960
Speaker 4: even been the sponsor of the George Floyd.

1170
00:58:46,080 --> 00:58:46,840
Speaker 5: Justice and policing.

1171
00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 6: What everyone is for that?

1172
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:50,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, everyone was for that, right, but she like really

1173
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:53,120
Speaker 4: leaned into it, took the initiative on it. So anyway

1174
00:58:53,280 --> 00:58:58,000
Speaker 4: a CIA right, Oh yeah, So like let's I mean,

1175
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:01,760
Speaker 4: it's a tough race Forublicans because Democrats in Michigan are

1176
00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 4: just smarter than Democrats in different parts of the country.

1177
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:07,080
Speaker 4: They're forced to be because Michigan is a has an

1178
00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:10,240
Speaker 4: interesting demographic profile of the people that Democrats are losing.

1179
00:59:10,560 --> 00:59:13,280
Speaker 4: So they kind of got to that question first. But

1180
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:16,720
Speaker 4: it'll be an interesting rash for sure. Less interesting probably

1181
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:22,800
Speaker 4: than the vake rama Swami. Yeah, less interesting than vike

1182
00:59:22,880 --> 00:59:27,080
Speaker 4: Ramaswami is Ohio run because I mean he has to

1183
00:59:27,120 --> 00:59:29,200
Speaker 4: get out of primary. The primary is where it would

1184
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:31,040
Speaker 4: be interesting. General election would be less interesting.

1185
00:59:31,040 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 1: How oak is he because of his uh Parkle tweet? Well,

1186
00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:35,479
Speaker 1: I'm thrown out of.

1187
00:59:36,160 --> 00:59:38,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's take a look at his interview with Charlamine

1188
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:42,480
Speaker 4: that god on Breakfast Club where Charlamne really laid into him.

1189
00:59:42,800 --> 00:59:44,560
Speaker 14: Do you think you will push out of those because

1190
00:59:44,560 --> 00:59:47,000
Speaker 14: Trump rolled back the DEI initiatives.

1191
00:59:46,520 --> 00:59:49,440
Speaker 15: No, the contrary, and you know, I would say, just

1192
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 15: to be super clear about I I have no problem

1193
00:59:51,960 --> 00:59:54,640
Speaker 15: with you know, framing or whatever. It was really just

1194
00:59:54,880 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 15: an actual mutual decision where you look at here was

1195
00:59:57,720 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 15: one vision on approach. Here's a differ from vision on

1196
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:02,760
Speaker 15: an approach that's great. There's no right or wrong answer

1197
01:00:03,200 --> 01:00:06,320
Speaker 15: with a technology driven approach and a technology first approach,

1198
01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 15: there's no better person.

1199
01:00:07,400 --> 01:00:08,320
Speaker 9: Than Elon to run with that.

1200
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:12,440
Speaker 15: With a constitutional law focus, with the legislation focus some

1201
01:00:12,480 --> 01:00:14,840
Speaker 15: of the areas I was focused on, Probably the right

1202
01:00:14,840 --> 01:00:16,600
Speaker 15: place to do it is elected office. And so we

1203
01:00:16,640 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 15: all agreed on that, and I think that that's actually

1204
01:00:18,920 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 15: a good thing where we're able to where we're actually

1205
01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:23,200
Speaker 15: able to collaborate, divide and conqueror.

1206
01:00:22,920 --> 01:00:26,360
Speaker 14: I behave Yeah, I don't believe you. I think you

1207
01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:30,000
Speaker 14: either got pushed out. You know that it's going to implode.

1208
01:00:30,120 --> 01:00:32,040
Speaker 14: I think that you know Elon is going crash and

1209
01:00:32,040 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 14: burn it. And you're a smart guy, and you said,

1210
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 14: you know what, let me get out of dodge and

1211
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 14: go do my governor Ohio thing.

1212
01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:39,000
Speaker 6: So look, I know.

1213
01:00:40,640 --> 01:00:42,320
Speaker 15: I knew that the right step for me in the

1214
01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:46,120
Speaker 15: long run is elected office and to pursue the vision

1215
01:00:46,160 --> 01:00:48,200
Speaker 15: that we're talking about here, to actually translate that to

1216
01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:50,080
Speaker 15: action of my own terms that's what I've been called

1217
01:00:50,120 --> 01:00:52,480
Speaker 15: to do. It was clear that I could not do

1218
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:55,400
Speaker 15: that and serve on DOGE at the same time, even

1219
01:00:55,400 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 15: for logistical reasons.

1220
01:00:56,440 --> 01:00:58,040
Speaker 8: It came to be in the government rather than.

1221
01:00:57,960 --> 01:00:58,800
Speaker 6: An outside body.

1222
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:01,280
Speaker 15: I was proud to be able to spend the first

1223
01:01:01,280 --> 01:01:03,800
Speaker 15: couple of months offering my contributions and setting it in

1224
01:01:03,840 --> 01:01:07,520
Speaker 15: the right direction with its focus now, with its digital

1225
01:01:07,600 --> 01:01:12,280
Speaker 15: technology focus. No better person to do that than Elon

1226
01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:14,360
Speaker 15: in the way that he's going to lead it. And

1227
01:01:14,400 --> 01:01:16,800
Speaker 15: I am hopeful that there's going to be a lot

1228
01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:19,200
Speaker 15: of streamlining of government bureaucracy that comes out of that.

1229
01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 6: And I'm pursuing my next steps at the State.

1230
01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:27,480
Speaker 15: We're all on very good terms and so I wouldn't

1231
01:01:27,480 --> 01:01:29,240
Speaker 15: want to speak for anybody else, but I will say

1232
01:01:29,240 --> 01:01:32,480
Speaker 15: that they are very supportive of the decision that I

1233
01:01:32,520 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 15: made to pursue his my next step.

1234
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:36,040
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm sure they are very supportive of the decision

1235
01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:38,000
Speaker 4: for that next step. He is going to need a

1236
01:01:38,000 --> 01:01:40,600
Speaker 4: better answer to that question. He's smooth, but way too

1237
01:01:40,600 --> 01:01:43,600
Speaker 4: smooth there, Right, that was some real politician talk.

1238
01:01:44,800 --> 01:01:48,360
Speaker 1: Well, the part that was absurd to me was when

1239
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:50,600
Speaker 1: he said he can't run for office and also serve

1240
01:01:50,680 --> 01:01:53,880
Speaker 1: on this Doge committee. It's like, wait a minute, Elon

1241
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:58,120
Speaker 1: Musk is tweeting twenty four hours a day, faking being

1242
01:01:58,160 --> 01:02:04,760
Speaker 1: a good video game playerrunning SpaceX, running X Tesla, running

1243
01:02:05,040 --> 01:02:09,520
Speaker 1: running Testine, Neuralink, Neuralink, Solar City is still.

1244
01:02:09,360 --> 01:02:11,600
Speaker 5: Part of his AI company.

1245
01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:13,479
Speaker 1: Like, so he can do all this, but you can't,

1246
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:16,880
Speaker 1: you know, run for a senate and also like go

1247
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:17,640
Speaker 1: after seniors.

1248
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:19,680
Speaker 5: Well, it's the digital technology focused.

1249
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:20,840
Speaker 6: So that was the substance of it.

1250
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:24,560
Speaker 1: I'm curious if you have any insight into how serious

1251
01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:27,800
Speaker 1: that that.

1252
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:28,080
Speaker 6: That dispute was between them.

1253
01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:30,360
Speaker 1: What he seems to be suggesting is that Elon Musk

1254
01:02:31,160 --> 01:02:36,959
Speaker 1: is going to focus on technology basically, I guess trying

1255
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:40,880
Speaker 1: to analyze where you know, you know, using algorithms, analyze

1256
01:02:40,880 --> 01:02:44,040
Speaker 1: where money is being spent, and then using a scalpel

1257
01:02:44,160 --> 01:02:46,800
Speaker 1: or a sledgehammer to go after them. Right now, he's

1258
01:02:47,320 --> 01:02:48,360
Speaker 1: going with a sledgehammer.

1259
01:02:48,520 --> 01:02:48,760
Speaker 6: You know.

1260
01:02:49,200 --> 01:02:51,280
Speaker 1: We talked about an a block with you know, asking

1261
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:55,680
Speaker 1: for every federal worker to consider taking this this buyout,

1262
01:02:56,880 --> 01:03:01,160
Speaker 1: whereas Veck was saying that he he would prefer a

1263
01:03:01,160 --> 01:03:05,480
Speaker 1: constitutional law approach and passing legislation. On the one hand,

1264
01:03:05,480 --> 01:03:07,000
Speaker 1: you could read that it's some shade of like I'm

1265
01:03:07,000 --> 01:03:10,160
Speaker 1: actually going to try to do this legally, Like we

1266
01:03:10,200 --> 01:03:13,480
Speaker 1: have a system set up where people vote for representatives

1267
01:03:13,480 --> 01:03:15,680
Speaker 1: who pass laws and then implement them, and I'm going

1268
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:17,160
Speaker 1: to do it within that system.

1269
01:03:17,240 --> 01:03:18,880
Speaker 4: By the way, that's the entire point of what russ

1270
01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:20,040
Speaker 4: Vote is trying to do at OMB.

1271
01:03:20,240 --> 01:03:24,440
Speaker 6: So just get rid of the representative or face.

1272
01:03:25,000 --> 01:03:27,360
Speaker 4: Is to force Congress to actually pass laws or take

1273
01:03:27,360 --> 01:03:29,240
Speaker 4: them away from the executive branch in the way that

1274
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 4: Elon Musk is trying to use executives.

1275
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:35,520
Speaker 6: Right, except already did pass laws. Rustis doesn't like.

1276
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:39,000
Speaker 4: Them that delegated the funding to the executive branch.

1277
01:03:39,000 --> 01:03:42,360
Speaker 6: They did not delegate funding. It directed the funding.

1278
01:03:42,600 --> 01:03:46,600
Speaker 1: The agency sell It's like if you have an Uber driver,

1279
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:50,480
Speaker 1: did you delegate your destination to the Uber driver or

1280
01:03:50,480 --> 01:03:53,400
Speaker 1: did you direct the Uber driver? What if the Uber

1281
01:03:53,480 --> 01:03:58,640
Speaker 1: drivers like yeah, four oh one nine Street, how about

1282
01:03:58,720 --> 01:04:00,600
Speaker 1: nine o one fourth Street. This is going to the

1283
01:04:00,600 --> 01:04:03,240
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, Like, no, there's two different branches here that

1284
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:07,600
Speaker 1: the branches the driver directed, the Uber driver has sent

1285
01:04:07,640 --> 01:04:09,640
Speaker 1: the money. This is exactly your job is to just

1286
01:04:09,720 --> 01:04:10,440
Speaker 1: drive the Uber.

1287
01:04:10,680 --> 01:04:13,280
Speaker 4: This exact argument is being I think one of the reasons.

1288
01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:14,840
Speaker 4: One of the things that vote is doing is this

1289
01:04:14,880 --> 01:04:17,080
Speaker 4: is designed to go to Supreme Court to actually cash out.

1290
01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:17,680
Speaker 5: It's empowerment.

1291
01:04:17,720 --> 01:04:19,560
Speaker 1: We can talk about it, and we did talk about

1292
01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:20,360
Speaker 1: We talked.

1293
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:23,600
Speaker 4: About this with Jeff, but we should add Ramaswami. This is,

1294
01:04:23,640 --> 01:04:27,800
Speaker 4: according to local Cleveland paper, is actually expected to announce

1295
01:04:27,840 --> 01:04:30,720
Speaker 4: his governor bid in mid February. So just in a

1296
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:32,480
Speaker 4: matter of weeks makes sense then why I was going

1297
01:04:32,520 --> 01:04:36,439
Speaker 4: on breakfast club And he's brought on some advisors from

1298
01:04:36,600 --> 01:04:37,439
Speaker 4: the Governor JD.

1299
01:04:37,600 --> 01:04:40,440
Speaker 5: Vince's political team. Yeah, government governor yep.

1300
01:04:41,040 --> 01:04:43,600
Speaker 4: So he will be in that primary with the Attorney

1301
01:04:43,640 --> 01:04:46,640
Speaker 4: General Dave Yost and the Treasurer Robert Sprague. And I

1302
01:04:46,640 --> 01:04:48,640
Speaker 4: actually think getting out of that primary is really going

1303
01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:50,400
Speaker 4: to be the tough one for him.

1304
01:04:50,600 --> 01:04:51,920
Speaker 5: It's not guaranteed at all.

1305
01:04:52,000 --> 01:04:53,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I wonder if he's gonna have to face

1306
01:04:53,680 --> 01:04:56,600
Speaker 1: questions about that Alzheimer's scam he did again, like in

1307
01:04:57,080 --> 01:05:03,040
Speaker 1: any reasonable society, he's in prison right now. Like for

1308
01:05:03,120 --> 01:05:05,160
Speaker 1: people who don't know, And we talked about this now

1309
01:05:05,160 --> 01:05:06,560
Speaker 1: it's cool to talk about on the right.

1310
01:05:06,640 --> 01:05:07,919
Speaker 6: We talked about it years ago.

1311
01:05:08,800 --> 01:05:11,640
Speaker 1: He bought in Alzheimer's drug that had already failed its

1312
01:05:11,760 --> 01:05:16,080
Speaker 1: FDA trials a bunch of times did his Ramaswami hype

1313
01:05:16,200 --> 01:05:20,320
Speaker 1: to it, which pumped the stock up really high. Promised

1314
01:05:20,360 --> 01:05:21,960
Speaker 1: to like, oh man, this is going to be amazing,

1315
01:05:22,120 --> 01:05:26,160
Speaker 1: hired all his family, pulled the rug out, took all

1316
01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:29,680
Speaker 1: his money out, and then the FDA rejects it for

1317
01:05:29,720 --> 01:05:32,120
Speaker 1: like the fourth time, and everybody who put money in

1318
01:05:32,240 --> 01:05:33,480
Speaker 1: based on his hype lost.

1319
01:05:33,680 --> 01:05:33,760
Speaker 5: Right.

1320
01:05:33,800 --> 01:05:36,320
Speaker 4: It's one thing to run in a national political or

1321
01:05:36,440 --> 01:05:38,520
Speaker 4: national presidential prim rate. It's another thing to run in

1322
01:05:38,520 --> 01:05:42,840
Speaker 4: a very localized race where those questions are just it's

1323
01:05:42,880 --> 01:05:45,440
Speaker 4: just sharper because there's less national noise.

1324
01:05:45,720 --> 01:05:48,200
Speaker 5: So I expect that'll be a pretty significant part.

1325
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:52,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, let's move on to Jim Acosta's departure

1326
01:05:52,280 --> 01:05:52,920
Speaker 4: from CNN.

1327
01:05:55,840 --> 01:05:58,600
Speaker 1: CNN anchor Jim Acosta is out.

1328
01:05:59,000 --> 01:06:00,000
Speaker 6: Let's watch his sign off.

1329
01:06:00,400 --> 01:06:02,680
Speaker 16: I just wanted to end today's show by thanking all

1330
01:06:02,720 --> 01:06:05,080
Speaker 16: of the wonderful people who work behind the scenes at

1331
01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:07,480
Speaker 16: this network. You may have seen some reports about me

1332
01:06:07,640 --> 01:06:10,360
Speaker 16: and the show, and after giving all of this some

1333
01:06:10,480 --> 01:06:13,720
Speaker 16: careful consideration and weighing and alternative time slot seeing an

1334
01:06:13,720 --> 01:06:17,400
Speaker 16: offered me, I've decided to move on. I am grateful

1335
01:06:17,400 --> 01:06:20,200
Speaker 16: to CNN for the nearly eighteen years I've spent here

1336
01:06:20,280 --> 01:06:23,520
Speaker 16: doing the news. People often ask me if the highlight

1337
01:06:23,560 --> 01:06:25,400
Speaker 16: of my career at CNN was at the White House

1338
01:06:25,440 --> 01:06:30,680
Speaker 16: covering Donald Trump. Actually, no, that moment came here when

1339
01:06:30,680 --> 01:06:33,600
Speaker 16: I covered four President Barack Obama's trip to Cuba in

1340
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:37,240
Speaker 16: twenty sixteen and had the chance to question the dictator there,

1341
01:06:37,360 --> 01:06:41,680
Speaker 16: Ral Castro about the island's political prisoners. As the son

1342
01:06:41,760 --> 01:06:45,720
Speaker 16: of a Cuban refugee, I took home this lesson. It

1343
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:48,680
Speaker 16: is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant.

1344
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:51,480
Speaker 16: I've always believed it's the job of the press to

1345
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:53,680
Speaker 16: hold power to account. I've always tried to do that

1346
01:06:53,720 --> 01:06:56,760
Speaker 16: here at CNN, and I plan on going doing all

1347
01:06:56,800 --> 01:07:00,720
Speaker 16: of that in the future. One final message, don't give

1348
01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:04,640
Speaker 16: into the lies. Don't give into the fear. Hold on

1349
01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:08,800
Speaker 16: to the truth and a hope. Even if you have

1350
01:07:08,800 --> 01:07:11,479
Speaker 16: to get out your phone, record that message. I will

1351
01:07:11,520 --> 01:07:14,520
Speaker 16: not give into the lies. I will not give into

1352
01:07:14,560 --> 01:07:18,200
Speaker 16: the fear. Post it on your social media so people

1353
01:07:18,200 --> 01:07:18,800
Speaker 16: can hear from you.

1354
01:07:18,840 --> 01:07:21,720
Speaker 1: Two and so, Acosta, as he was alluding to, has

1355
01:07:21,800 --> 01:07:25,760
Speaker 1: new plans. He is over at Substack, and he said

1356
01:07:25,800 --> 01:07:28,760
Speaker 1: he was going to be independent for the time being.

1357
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:32,640
Speaker 6: So I actually have a so I have a thought here.

1358
01:07:32,640 --> 01:07:36,479
Speaker 1: So and for people who were just tuning in, Acosta

1359
01:07:36,520 --> 01:07:39,160
Speaker 1: was known as the CNN guy that was really going

1360
01:07:39,160 --> 01:07:40,840
Speaker 1: after Trump at every single briefing.

1361
01:07:40,880 --> 01:07:42,120
Speaker 6: Trump absolutely loved it.

1362
01:07:42,160 --> 01:07:43,400
Speaker 5: Trump called them the real beauty.

1363
01:07:43,440 --> 01:07:45,800
Speaker 1: He's a you are fake news, like in his first briefing,

1364
01:07:45,880 --> 01:07:47,640
Speaker 1: like really setting the tone that this was going to

1365
01:07:47,680 --> 01:07:51,320
Speaker 1: be combat between CNN and Acosta. A costa later, you know,

1366
01:07:51,440 --> 01:07:53,080
Speaker 1: really cashed in on that with a book called The

1367
01:07:53,200 --> 01:07:56,400
Speaker 1: Enemy of the People, which was echoing a phrase that

1368
01:07:56,440 --> 01:07:59,600
Speaker 1: Trump shamefully used to describe the press that's and still

1369
01:07:59,680 --> 01:08:01,080
Speaker 1: uses this day as the enemy.

1370
01:08:00,920 --> 01:08:03,240
Speaker 4: That to describe the fake news media, fake news media,

1371
01:08:03,280 --> 01:08:03,800
Speaker 4: not all.

1372
01:08:03,920 --> 01:08:05,640
Speaker 5: It wouldn't include you because you're not fake.

1373
01:08:05,560 --> 01:08:06,919
Speaker 6: News and there's real news right here.

1374
01:08:08,120 --> 01:08:12,600
Speaker 1: But the thought I have is that the Democrats problem

1375
01:08:13,640 --> 01:08:19,479
Speaker 1: is that they hitched their wagon to a corporate structure, yes,

1376
01:08:19,560 --> 01:08:25,360
Speaker 1: rather than a people powered structure that is not going

1377
01:08:25,400 --> 01:08:29,519
Speaker 1: to stand with them when there is a rise of

1378
01:08:29,560 --> 01:08:32,479
Speaker 1: a right wing populist, fascist, whatever you want to call it,

1379
01:08:33,120 --> 01:08:37,240
Speaker 1: when there's a rise of that movement corporate America, which

1380
01:08:37,240 --> 01:08:41,080
Speaker 1: you have hitched your wagon to through your corporate donors

1381
01:08:41,080 --> 01:08:44,880
Speaker 1: over at the Democratic Party, and also corporate media through MSNBC,

1382
01:08:45,439 --> 01:08:48,320
Speaker 1: CNN and New York Times and all the others that

1383
01:08:48,360 --> 01:08:50,479
Speaker 1: are funded by corporate advertising. Times now a little bit

1384
01:08:50,520 --> 01:08:53,960
Speaker 1: less so because it has so many subscribers that it's

1385
01:08:54,520 --> 01:08:56,520
Speaker 1: kind of that it's kind of pulled in both directions.

1386
01:08:57,040 --> 01:08:59,880
Speaker 1: But the point is that when the chips are down,

1387
01:09:00,880 --> 01:09:06,200
Speaker 1: these companies are not ideologically hostile to right wing authoritarianism,

1388
01:09:06,360 --> 01:09:09,000
Speaker 1: as they had to say demonstrated during World War Two

1389
01:09:09,000 --> 01:09:11,640
Speaker 1: when they were willing to work with Nazis even like, so,

1390
01:09:11,680 --> 01:09:15,639
Speaker 1: these companies are not with you when the going gets tough.

1391
01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:17,400
Speaker 6: So now the going is getting tough.

1392
01:09:18,200 --> 01:09:21,679
Speaker 1: CNN on Inauguration Day told Jake Tapper and the rest

1393
01:09:21,680 --> 01:09:25,080
Speaker 1: of them covering it, we don't want to hear any

1394
01:09:25,880 --> 01:09:30,679
Speaker 1: pro clutching, no kind of expressions of outrage from Trump,

1395
01:09:30,920 --> 01:09:32,599
Speaker 1: the complete opposite of four years ago.

1396
01:09:32,960 --> 01:09:35,799
Speaker 6: Did their ideology change? No, the power balance changed.

1397
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:40,840
Speaker 1: And so because the power balance changed, Sianna is like, Acosta, you're.

1398
01:09:40,720 --> 01:09:42,040
Speaker 6: Out of here.

1399
01:09:41,880 --> 01:09:44,880
Speaker 1: We're not taking on Trump the way we did last time.

1400
01:09:45,520 --> 01:09:51,360
Speaker 1: And so now the Democrats are left defenseless because they

1401
01:09:51,640 --> 01:09:55,599
Speaker 1: allied with people that were not actually allies of them.

1402
01:09:56,000 --> 01:10:02,040
Speaker 1: So that's so they when you use corporate media as

1403
01:10:02,080 --> 01:10:05,879
Speaker 1: your center left mouth piece, you're going to get screwed

1404
01:10:05,920 --> 01:10:09,000
Speaker 1: and you're going to get wiped out. Whenever corporate the

1405
01:10:09,080 --> 01:10:11,240
Speaker 1: corporate parents profits are threatened.

1406
01:10:11,560 --> 01:10:14,040
Speaker 4: Well, when you say if the when the chips are

1407
01:10:14,080 --> 01:10:18,280
Speaker 4: down as they are now, I then though, think back

1408
01:10:18,320 --> 01:10:24,240
Speaker 4: to like twenty seventeen and the media collaborating with basically

1409
01:10:24,280 --> 01:10:28,160
Speaker 4: the deep state to help take down Donald Trump.

1410
01:10:28,200 --> 01:10:30,559
Speaker 6: They believed it was a winnable fight. Then well the.

1411
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:34,960
Speaker 4: Chips were down to the tips were down, meaning from their.

1412
01:10:34,840 --> 01:10:36,280
Speaker 5: Perspective, the trips were down.

1413
01:10:36,400 --> 01:10:36,719
Speaker 6: Fluke.

1414
01:10:36,960 --> 01:10:38,360
Speaker 5: They thought Trump was a fluke.

1415
01:10:38,400 --> 01:10:40,960
Speaker 4: They thought that he was in kind of an emergency,

1416
01:10:41,200 --> 01:10:42,000
Speaker 4: and now there's sting to.

1417
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:44,480
Speaker 6: Be a threat to the stability they need for profits.

1418
01:10:44,520 --> 01:10:46,559
Speaker 4: The stability. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put.

1419
01:10:46,360 --> 01:10:48,720
Speaker 1: It's the same that so this cuts both ways. This

1420
01:10:48,800 --> 01:10:51,160
Speaker 1: is not a left or right thing. Right, the right

1421
01:10:51,200 --> 01:10:55,559
Speaker 1: allying itself with corporate power is going to find itself,

1422
01:10:55,680 --> 01:11:02,080
Speaker 1: you know, not not with not with you know, hardcore allies.

1423
01:11:02,680 --> 01:11:06,920
Speaker 1: If those corporate allies think that the right is going

1424
01:11:06,920 --> 01:11:08,360
Speaker 1: down and the right is a threat to them, well

1425
01:11:08,400 --> 01:11:11,080
Speaker 1: this was a little happily ally with corporate Democrats instead

1426
01:11:11,560 --> 01:11:12,120
Speaker 1: the hand.

1427
01:11:12,040 --> 01:11:15,680
Speaker 4: Ringing in like twenty eighteen nineteen, and then definitely in

1428
01:11:15,720 --> 01:11:18,360
Speaker 4: twenty twenty over the Chamber of Commerce was really fascinating

1429
01:11:18,360 --> 01:11:20,559
Speaker 4: to watch from inside of the conservative world because they

1430
01:11:20,600 --> 01:11:24,120
Speaker 4: realized what was called fusionism, the three legged stool Frank Meyer,

1431
01:11:24,280 --> 01:11:25,160
Speaker 4: National Review.

1432
01:11:24,920 --> 01:11:25,360
Speaker 6: William F.

1433
01:11:25,400 --> 01:11:30,080
Speaker 4: Buckley, meaning you combined libertarian economics with strong foreign policy.

1434
01:11:30,160 --> 01:11:33,000
Speaker 4: That's already kind of hilarious and traditional value is also

1435
01:11:33,120 --> 01:11:37,479
Speaker 4: kind of hilarious that the ally with the business community

1436
01:11:37,479 --> 01:11:42,120
Speaker 4: and libertarian economic policy had been undermining what they were

1437
01:11:42,200 --> 01:11:44,760
Speaker 4: pushing on family policy for years and years, like there

1438
01:11:44,840 --> 01:11:48,240
Speaker 4: wasn't harmony on the right. By allying yourself with the

1439
01:11:48,320 --> 01:11:52,840
Speaker 4: Chamber of Commerce, they started going towards ESG DEI and

1440
01:11:52,920 --> 01:11:55,360
Speaker 4: all of these things that they conservatives were like, we

1441
01:11:55,520 --> 01:11:58,240
Speaker 4: have helped you with tax cuts. We just helped you

1442
01:11:58,320 --> 01:12:01,439
Speaker 4: with the massive corporate task tax cut, and what you

1443
01:12:01,479 --> 01:12:05,839
Speaker 4: are doing is undermining the idea of like the nuclear

1444
01:12:05,920 --> 01:12:10,400
Speaker 4: family and men and women, And we've been on your

1445
01:12:10,439 --> 01:12:12,519
Speaker 4: side for years and this is what you're you're now

1446
01:12:12,720 --> 01:12:15,840
Speaker 4: doing here. So those I mean, I don't know, those

1447
01:12:15,840 --> 01:12:17,920
Speaker 4: fissures have been like very real.

1448
01:12:18,200 --> 01:12:20,240
Speaker 6: And they're still losing corporate America.

1449
01:12:20,960 --> 01:12:23,800
Speaker 4: See, this is what's interesting for and this is what's

1450
01:12:23,840 --> 01:12:26,360
Speaker 4: interesting for but also for conservatives. This is what's interesting

1451
01:12:26,439 --> 01:12:28,960
Speaker 4: right now is if you just go crawling back to

1452
01:12:30,400 --> 01:12:34,200
Speaker 4: the corporate world because you know, Mark Zuckerberg is giving

1453
01:12:34,240 --> 01:12:37,280
Speaker 4: you money again, and it's talking nice to you again.

1454
01:12:38,160 --> 01:12:38,960
Speaker 6: Firing Acosta.

1455
01:12:39,200 --> 01:12:41,519
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's it's it's it all goes to your point.

1456
01:12:41,600 --> 01:12:45,080
Speaker 4: And I would recommend people watch our interviews actually with

1457
01:12:45,120 --> 01:12:48,800
Speaker 4: Don Lemon and Brian Stelter, because those were really rare opportunities.

1458
01:12:48,800 --> 01:12:51,840
Speaker 4: Like we literally played the Chomsky clip of him saying,

1459
01:12:52,120 --> 01:12:53,400
Speaker 4: you know, you don't need people to.

1460
01:12:53,360 --> 01:12:55,840
Speaker 5: Pay you to tell you what to say.

1461
01:12:55,960 --> 01:12:58,760
Speaker 4: It's you just the fact that, like you ask the

1462
01:12:58,840 --> 01:13:01,000
Speaker 4: questions you do, you don't need anybody to tell you

1463
01:13:01,000 --> 01:13:02,800
Speaker 4: to do that. You just agree with them. You're in

1464
01:13:02,840 --> 01:13:04,920
Speaker 4: the position you are to ask those questions because you're

1465
01:13:04,960 --> 01:13:06,600
Speaker 4: the kind of person that would ask the questions that

1466
01:13:06,680 --> 01:13:10,000
Speaker 4: you do of people in positions of power. And Don

1467
01:13:10,040 --> 01:13:13,400
Speaker 4: Lemon and Brian Stelter were very very much in the

1468
01:13:13,520 --> 01:13:17,439
Speaker 4: Jim Acosta vein of the sort of media resistance to

1469
01:13:17,680 --> 01:13:21,240
Speaker 4: Donald Trump. This kind of breathless fact fact checking, that

1470
01:13:21,320 --> 01:13:22,920
Speaker 4: would fact check, you know, if he said he had

1471
01:13:22,920 --> 01:13:25,840
Speaker 4: one or two scops of ice cream for dinner, and

1472
01:13:26,080 --> 01:13:29,280
Speaker 4: has put the media in a situation where trust has

1473
01:13:29,320 --> 01:13:32,280
Speaker 4: dipped to the low at hitting twenty seventeen back again.

1474
01:13:32,360 --> 01:13:32,719
Speaker 5: It didn't.

1475
01:13:32,760 --> 01:13:35,639
Speaker 4: It's not going up, it's going back down after having

1476
01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:39,799
Speaker 4: all of these years to learn the Biden lies for years,

1477
01:13:39,840 --> 01:13:42,720
Speaker 4: I think, or probably that's probably the biggest reason that

1478
01:13:42,720 --> 01:13:45,439
Speaker 4: trusted media is dipping again to a record low. And

1479
01:13:46,240 --> 01:13:49,880
Speaker 4: media with people allying with people like Jim Acosta, has

1480
01:13:49,880 --> 01:13:53,160
Speaker 4: put itself in the situation where, to your point, you

1481
01:13:53,280 --> 01:13:57,680
Speaker 4: get Jim Acosta or you get like independent media or

1482
01:13:57,680 --> 01:14:01,280
Speaker 4: conservative media. So like you're forcing corporate media forces peopleho

1483
01:14:01,320 --> 01:14:05,599
Speaker 4: choose between Jim Acosta and Sean Hannity, right, Like, that's right.

1484
01:14:05,680 --> 01:14:09,120
Speaker 1: And the key difference between independent media and corporate media

1485
01:14:09,200 --> 01:14:13,799
Speaker 1: is that you're not actually aliging with Jim Acosta himself

1486
01:14:13,840 --> 01:14:16,960
Speaker 1: as the man. You are aliging with Jim Acosta as

1487
01:14:17,000 --> 01:14:20,200
Speaker 1: the anchor for CNN because that's where he gets his power.

1488
01:14:21,120 --> 01:14:24,240
Speaker 1: And so if the parent company doesn't want him to

1489
01:14:24,240 --> 01:14:27,320
Speaker 1: be Jim Acosta the anchor anymore, now he's Jim Acosta

1490
01:14:27,360 --> 01:14:30,920
Speaker 1: the substacker yep. And so Democrats put themselves in a

1491
01:14:30,960 --> 01:14:33,839
Speaker 1: fox hole with corporate media and fighting back against Trump.

1492
01:14:34,520 --> 01:14:37,360
Speaker 1: And it worked the first time around, but now the

1493
01:14:37,439 --> 01:14:40,000
Speaker 1: second time Trump.

1494
01:14:40,240 --> 01:14:41,120
Speaker 6: Is more powerful.

1495
01:14:41,360 --> 01:14:43,799
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and Democrats are looking over at the foxhole

1496
01:14:43,800 --> 01:14:46,439
Speaker 1: and they're like, all right, you're ready to go over

1497
01:14:46,479 --> 01:14:49,400
Speaker 1: the top, let's charge. And they're like they just put

1498
01:14:49,439 --> 01:14:52,760
Speaker 1: bullet in Acosta's head and they're like, no, we're over

1499
01:14:52,800 --> 01:14:55,599
Speaker 1: here with this guy right now. And Trumps, you know,

1500
01:14:56,320 --> 01:14:59,920
Speaker 1: he's not going to welcome them back automatically. However, since

1501
01:15:00,040 --> 01:15:04,040
Speaker 1: CBS News, for instance, got busted for and we talked

1502
01:15:04,040 --> 01:15:06,120
Speaker 1: about this on the program for this like kind of

1503
01:15:06,120 --> 01:15:09,559
Speaker 1: crappy editing for this Kamala Harris interview where they they

1504
01:15:10,880 --> 01:15:14,599
Speaker 1: made a like airheaded answer less airheaded. They cut off

1505
01:15:14,600 --> 01:15:18,519
Speaker 1: some of the rambling. But that's well within your First

1506
01:15:18,560 --> 01:15:21,320
Speaker 1: Amendment rights. And when you write an article, you don't

1507
01:15:21,360 --> 01:15:22,320
Speaker 1: put the entire quote.

1508
01:15:22,520 --> 01:15:23,000
Speaker 6: You take the.

1509
01:15:23,040 --> 01:15:26,320
Speaker 1: Quote that kind of conveys the message. You can agree

1510
01:15:26,400 --> 01:15:28,960
Speaker 1: or disagree with. It wasn't a crime what they did.

1511
01:15:29,320 --> 01:15:33,720
Speaker 1: Trump sued them and it was a completely laughable lawsuit.

1512
01:15:34,280 --> 01:15:38,320
Speaker 1: No chance this goes anywhere, Like what are you doing?

1513
01:15:38,479 --> 01:15:41,160
Speaker 1: You can't sue over at editing that you don't like

1514
01:15:41,560 --> 01:15:48,080
Speaker 1: sixty minutes. CBS settled with him, which is fascinating. So

1515
01:15:48,439 --> 01:15:52,920
Speaker 1: in other words, this corporate giant cut a big check

1516
01:15:53,800 --> 01:15:55,439
Speaker 1: to the man who's the president of the United States.

1517
01:15:56,240 --> 01:15:59,360
Speaker 6: We used to call that a bribe, like that's very clever.

1518
01:16:00,040 --> 01:16:03,160
Speaker 1: File a frivolous lawsuit, get a big check in response.

1519
01:16:03,960 --> 01:16:06,960
Speaker 1: Because CBS doesn't care about journalism whatever, they don't care

1520
01:16:06,960 --> 01:16:11,840
Speaker 1: either way. They have a merger that Paramount, which is

1521
01:16:11,840 --> 01:16:14,720
Speaker 1: the CBS parent companies, trying to merge with Skydance like

1522
01:16:14,760 --> 01:16:17,040
Speaker 1: it's a huge thing that they believe they.

1523
01:16:16,920 --> 01:16:18,599
Speaker 6: Need for their corporate entity.

1524
01:16:19,439 --> 01:16:23,519
Speaker 1: And so if you thought that CBS as Democrats, if

1525
01:16:23,520 --> 01:16:25,840
Speaker 1: you thought CBS was going to be part of the resistance,

1526
01:16:26,880 --> 01:16:30,960
Speaker 1: CBS has other things. Well forget CBS, Paramount has other

1527
01:16:31,040 --> 01:16:34,719
Speaker 1: things that they care about, and this merger being much

1528
01:16:34,760 --> 01:16:37,400
Speaker 1: more important. So they're like, you know what, Trump takes

1529
01:16:37,400 --> 01:16:41,200
Speaker 1: some money, sorry about our fake news media over at

1530
01:16:41,240 --> 01:16:42,960
Speaker 1: sixty minutes, and that allows you at it.

1531
01:16:43,000 --> 01:16:44,679
Speaker 6: You're right, we won't do it again.

1532
01:16:45,479 --> 01:16:48,120
Speaker 1: By the way, how's that merger looking. You're not going

1533
01:16:48,160 --> 01:16:49,880
Speaker 1: to keep any lean of con fans around.

1534
01:16:49,640 --> 01:16:50,479
Speaker 6: Are you so?

1535
01:16:50,720 --> 01:16:53,759
Speaker 4: The interview that Mark Andreesen did with Rostauf at recently

1536
01:16:53,760 --> 01:16:55,760
Speaker 4: where he talked about how Silicon Valley everyone sort of

1537
01:16:55,800 --> 01:16:58,559
Speaker 4: thought they were good Democrats and actually would put profit

1538
01:16:58,720 --> 01:17:03,000
Speaker 4: would put they're sort of standing as quote unquote good

1539
01:17:03,080 --> 01:17:06,280
Speaker 4: Democrats above tax cuts, right like they would say, we

1540
01:17:06,320 --> 01:17:08,280
Speaker 4: know Obama is going to raise our taxes, but it's

1541
01:17:08,280 --> 01:17:13,360
Speaker 4: important for us because it sort of helps us internally, personally, psychologically,

1542
01:17:14,000 --> 01:17:16,920
Speaker 4: morally whitewash what we're doing. Right because as long as

1543
01:17:16,960 --> 01:17:20,520
Speaker 4: you support the Democrats, which is the party of progress,

1544
01:17:20,600 --> 01:17:23,519
Speaker 4: and this is the era before Oberga fell, then you

1545
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:25,479
Speaker 4: can be on the right side of history and you

1546
01:17:25,560 --> 01:17:27,760
Speaker 4: can keep, you know, doing whatever the hell you're doing

1547
01:17:27,760 --> 01:17:31,320
Speaker 4: to the country, radically changing the country. And so this

1548
01:17:31,360 --> 01:17:33,679
Speaker 4: is a huge conversation that we could do this for hours.

1549
01:17:33,680 --> 01:17:36,360
Speaker 4: But I think that's like to the extent the corporate

1550
01:17:36,360 --> 01:17:42,000
Speaker 4: media was resisting Trump, it was I think along those lines.

1551
01:17:42,479 --> 01:17:45,240
Speaker 4: But when radical reform for the left or the right

1552
01:17:45,439 --> 01:17:49,519
Speaker 4: comes up, that's what you see the resistance too. And

1553
01:17:49,600 --> 01:17:53,360
Speaker 4: it happens with Bernie, It's going to happen with Tulca

1554
01:17:53,400 --> 01:17:54,200
Speaker 4: Gabbard this week.

1555
01:17:54,800 --> 01:17:56,080
Speaker 5: It'll definitely happen with Robert F.

1556
01:17:56,160 --> 01:17:58,479
Speaker 4: Kennedy Jr. There are all kinds of reasons, like legitimate

1557
01:17:58,520 --> 01:18:00,640
Speaker 4: debates to be had about these people, but we know

1558
01:18:00,680 --> 01:18:02,240
Speaker 4: what side the media. We can predict what side of

1559
01:18:02,240 --> 01:18:04,160
Speaker 4: the media is going to be on basically every single time,

1560
01:18:04,960 --> 01:18:07,240
Speaker 4: given the parameters of the conversation if it's about like

1561
01:18:08,000 --> 01:18:11,840
Speaker 4: upending the system that benefits them. So I agree with

1562
01:18:11,880 --> 01:18:14,840
Speaker 4: a lot of that, and I think it's important for

1563
01:18:14,960 --> 01:18:16,840
Speaker 4: the left to think about this right now because of

1564
01:18:16,880 --> 01:18:19,080
Speaker 4: what we talked about with Jeff Stein, that the Trump

1565
01:18:19,080 --> 01:18:22,240
Speaker 4: administration is now calling what is at best a very

1566
01:18:22,280 --> 01:18:26,320
Speaker 4: sloppy rollout that ended up through somebody's fault we don't

1567
01:18:26,320 --> 01:18:31,160
Speaker 4: know who yet, freezing medicaid portals and sent charities into

1568
01:18:31,280 --> 01:18:34,800
Speaker 4: like freak outs. They saw this like personally, and it's

1569
01:18:34,880 --> 01:18:38,720
Speaker 4: just like the hoax lie is going to work. It's

1570
01:18:38,760 --> 01:18:42,200
Speaker 4: going to work because nobody trusts media. And so this

1571
01:18:42,360 --> 01:18:44,479
Speaker 4: is like a situation that ever's found themselves in. And

1572
01:18:44,520 --> 01:18:47,439
Speaker 4: this is a good lesson. Ryan, You've laid out some

1573
01:18:47,720 --> 01:18:50,080
Speaker 4: really interesting stuff for the rest of this segment about

1574
01:18:50,479 --> 01:18:51,960
Speaker 4: where the resistance goes from here.

1575
01:18:52,400 --> 01:18:57,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the consequence of democrats allying themselves with corporate

1576
01:18:57,080 --> 01:19:02,800
Speaker 1: media rather than help helping to produce an actually kind

1577
01:19:02,840 --> 01:19:11,479
Speaker 1: of grassroots democratic media ecosystem, is that now those mainstream

1578
01:19:11,479 --> 01:19:16,160
Speaker 1: media outlets are not broadcasting all of the genuine resistance

1579
01:19:16,160 --> 01:19:17,280
Speaker 1: that is going on.

1580
01:19:17,360 --> 01:19:18,679
Speaker 6: If you get your.

1581
01:19:18,560 --> 01:19:20,519
Speaker 1: News from the news, which is where people get the news,

1582
01:19:21,479 --> 01:19:24,200
Speaker 1: either from mainstream press or from the right wing press,

1583
01:19:24,200 --> 01:19:28,240
Speaker 1: you're not hearing anything about this upsurge in resistance that's

1584
01:19:28,320 --> 01:19:31,880
Speaker 1: going on, whereas in twenty seventeen it's all you heard about.

1585
01:19:32,240 --> 01:19:35,400
Speaker 1: Yet I can tell you it actually is happening. So

1586
01:19:35,520 --> 01:19:38,439
Speaker 1: last night, for instance, you may have seen this, there

1587
01:19:38,479 --> 01:19:41,839
Speaker 1: was a special election in an Iowa state Senate seat.

1588
01:19:42,520 --> 01:19:46,360
Speaker 1: The Republicans had won that seat by like twenty one

1589
01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:50,120
Speaker 1: points last time around, Democrats won it by four. This

1590
01:19:50,240 --> 01:19:53,360
Speaker 1: time was a swing of twenty five points. That's the

1591
01:19:53,400 --> 01:19:56,559
Speaker 1: exact same thing that you saw in twenty seventeen, that

1592
01:19:56,600 --> 01:20:00,280
Speaker 1: these kind of outraged Democrats were shocked and started coming

1593
01:20:00,360 --> 01:20:03,439
Speaker 1: out to the polls in ways that they really had

1594
01:20:03,479 --> 01:20:06,200
Speaker 1: not before, and Republicans, when Trump was not on the

1595
01:20:06,200 --> 01:20:08,800
Speaker 1: ballot kind of just stayed home. And it led to

1596
01:20:08,960 --> 01:20:12,920
Speaker 1: a bunch of you know, Trump district people losing in

1597
01:20:12,960 --> 01:20:17,160
Speaker 1: special elections, and that foreshadowing a twenty eighteen blue Wave.

1598
01:20:17,320 --> 01:20:18,760
Speaker 6: But now you're not hearing about any of that.

1599
01:20:19,840 --> 01:20:23,960
Speaker 1: And the for instance, like throughout throughout the country, people

1600
01:20:24,040 --> 01:20:29,559
Speaker 1: are indivisible immigration groups such are organizing all these meetings.

1601
01:20:29,840 --> 01:20:33,559
Speaker 1: They're getting absolutely overflow crowds, like there is energy out there.

1602
01:20:33,960 --> 01:20:36,519
Speaker 1: So and Democrats are actually fighting back, it's just not

1603
01:20:36,560 --> 01:20:38,040
Speaker 1: getting any coverage.

1604
01:20:38,040 --> 01:20:40,400
Speaker 6: So put up D three here JB.

1605
01:20:40,479 --> 01:20:43,680
Speaker 1: Pritzker in Illinois, and we can roll through these, you know,

1606
01:20:43,720 --> 01:20:48,160
Speaker 1: fairly quickly. You know, he's pushing back against a lot

1607
01:20:48,160 --> 01:20:50,960
Speaker 1: of the immigration push. A bunch of mayors are saying

1608
01:20:50,960 --> 01:20:53,040
Speaker 1: that they're pushing inst that you can put up D four.

1609
01:20:53,320 --> 01:20:57,600
Speaker 1: This is the Pittsburgh mayor saying, you know, they're not

1610
01:20:57,640 --> 01:20:58,400
Speaker 1: working with Ice.

1611
01:20:59,040 --> 01:20:59,760
Speaker 6: We talked about this.

1612
01:21:00,080 --> 01:21:04,000
Speaker 1: Your Democratic Attorney's General sued both over the birthright citizenship

1613
01:21:04,040 --> 01:21:07,200
Speaker 1: and also about the funding freeze, even as kind of

1614
01:21:07,200 --> 01:21:10,640
Speaker 1: congressional Democrats have been flat footed and all over the

1615
01:21:10,640 --> 01:21:14,160
Speaker 1: place and slash. But here's a key point that people

1616
01:21:14,200 --> 01:21:16,880
Speaker 1: need to remember, because I think people who watch this

1617
01:21:17,000 --> 01:21:19,240
Speaker 1: program don't fall into this category, but they need to

1618
01:21:19,280 --> 01:21:21,519
Speaker 1: understand that there's millions of people who do.

1619
01:21:21,880 --> 01:21:23,200
Speaker 6: Put up D six.

1620
01:21:23,280 --> 01:21:28,559
Speaker 1: This is a tweet from David Siegel progressive populist activists.

1621
01:21:28,600 --> 01:21:32,920
Speaker 1: He points out on Twitter, Harris's approval rating among Democrats

1622
01:21:33,040 --> 01:21:35,200
Speaker 1: is seventy nine to twelve.

1623
01:21:36,400 --> 01:21:39,200
Speaker 6: That's now, so let me say that again.

1624
01:21:39,800 --> 01:21:43,799
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris's approval rating among Democrats is seventy nine to twelve,

1625
01:21:44,040 --> 01:21:47,920
Speaker 1: and Bidens is only slightly lower. He writes, we desperately

1626
01:21:47,960 --> 01:21:50,439
Speaker 1: need to reform the party, but strategies that might succeed

1627
01:21:50,520 --> 01:21:53,320
Speaker 1: at doing so require recognizing that most rank and file

1628
01:21:53,400 --> 01:21:57,080
Speaker 1: Democrats still like the people at the top for whatever

1629
01:21:57,160 --> 01:22:02,759
Speaker 1: reasons unquote. So this is not to defend the seventy

1630
01:22:02,880 --> 01:22:05,800
Speaker 1: nine percent were saying that. It is to defend the

1631
01:22:05,840 --> 01:22:08,880
Speaker 1: idea that we need to be objective about what people

1632
01:22:08,920 --> 01:22:15,080
Speaker 1: actually believe. Reforming the Democratic Party is going to be interesting,

1633
01:22:15,560 --> 01:22:19,439
Speaker 1: to say the least, when that is the circumstance that

1634
01:22:19,439 --> 01:22:22,759
Speaker 1: they're in. Yet at the same time, you're not seeing

1635
01:22:22,800 --> 01:22:26,799
Speaker 1: that reflected in the media coverage of it, either because

1636
01:22:27,800 --> 01:22:33,000
Speaker 1: they tied themselves to corporate media and corporate media when

1637
01:22:33,000 --> 01:22:37,400
Speaker 1: it's corporate interests were threatened, or abandoning the Democratic Party.

1638
01:22:37,520 --> 01:22:39,880
Speaker 4: This is basically what Rick sand Torum, in a weird way,

1639
01:22:40,000 --> 01:22:41,880
Speaker 4: was trying to tell Republicans back when he was running

1640
01:22:41,920 --> 01:22:46,519
Speaker 4: the twenty twelve primary, that some of these allies were

1641
01:22:46,560 --> 01:22:50,000
Speaker 4: not really allies. And you know, obviously from a somewhat

1642
01:22:50,040 --> 01:22:53,680
Speaker 4: pro business perspective conservative in the Tea party era, he

1643
01:22:53,720 --> 01:22:56,320
Speaker 4: had to make that argument in a different way. But

1644
01:22:56,680 --> 01:22:59,479
Speaker 4: it took Donald Trump coming as a wrecking ball to

1645
01:22:59,479 --> 01:23:03,000
Speaker 4: totally set the two party system and force Republicans at

1646
01:23:03,080 --> 01:23:05,640
Speaker 4: least on the surface to change for a little bit.

1647
01:23:05,720 --> 01:23:08,680
Speaker 4: And what we're seeing now is a backslide into the

1648
01:23:09,120 --> 01:23:13,240
Speaker 4: warm welcome arms of big tech and people like Jeff Bezos.

1649
01:23:13,680 --> 01:23:16,880
Speaker 4: But I mean, I don't know how Democrats. I mean,

1650
01:23:16,960 --> 01:23:21,080
Speaker 4: it's just it's the problem of entrenched two party power

1651
01:23:21,520 --> 01:23:25,559
Speaker 4: that what incentive do they have really to change? When

1652
01:23:25,600 --> 01:23:28,800
Speaker 4: you can just keep cobbling together coalitions that put you

1653
01:23:28,840 --> 01:23:33,719
Speaker 4: slightly over the edge with like pr outreach, it just sucks.

1654
01:23:33,840 --> 01:23:36,759
Speaker 4: There's no real incentive. And what Trump did was screw

1655
01:23:36,840 --> 01:23:40,000
Speaker 4: with the primary. And Democrats tried to come in with

1656
01:23:40,040 --> 01:23:42,760
Speaker 4: the wrecking ball in the primary through Bernie Sanders, and

1657
01:23:43,800 --> 01:23:46,599
Speaker 4: they were thwarted by the DNC. And for whatever reason,

1658
01:23:46,600 --> 01:23:48,400
Speaker 4: the RNC wasn't able to do that with Donald Trump.

1659
01:23:48,439 --> 01:23:51,920
Speaker 1: Probably, but also we need to internalize this, they were

1660
01:23:51,920 --> 01:23:53,639
Speaker 1: also thwarted by Democratic voters.

1661
01:23:53,840 --> 01:23:56,600
Speaker 5: Yeah, Trump was.

1662
01:23:56,920 --> 01:23:58,680
Speaker 6: It gives me no pleasure to say that, But.

1663
01:23:58,960 --> 01:24:01,240
Speaker 4: But that was a a primary that easily could have

1664
01:24:01,320 --> 01:24:04,240
Speaker 4: gone another way because Trump was one of what like

1665
01:24:04,439 --> 01:24:05,800
Speaker 4: nineteen candidates or whatever.

1666
01:24:05,840 --> 01:24:08,400
Speaker 5: But if that had just been Trump and a couple

1667
01:24:08,479 --> 01:24:10,200
Speaker 5: of other people, it may have gone a different way.

1668
01:24:10,560 --> 01:24:12,639
Speaker 4: If other people had been if there was a coordinated

1669
01:24:12,720 --> 01:24:15,280
Speaker 4: dropout effort, like there was to beat Bernie, could have

1670
01:24:15,320 --> 01:24:20,200
Speaker 4: easily gone the other way. All right, let's talk about

1671
01:24:20,240 --> 01:24:23,679
Speaker 4: this wild story of the Romanian election that's getting virtually

1672
01:24:23,760 --> 01:24:24,760
Speaker 4: no attention here in the US.

1673
01:24:24,840 --> 01:24:27,479
Speaker 1: Told an election because they didn't like the results. That's

1674
01:24:27,479 --> 01:24:29,840
Speaker 1: the short version. The longer version is wild.

1675
01:24:29,640 --> 01:24:31,080
Speaker 5: But it's getting attention at drop site.

1676
01:24:31,120 --> 01:24:31,479
Speaker 6: There you go.

1677
01:24:31,960 --> 01:24:34,519
Speaker 1: So, because news has been flying so fast, you may

1678
01:24:34,560 --> 01:24:37,360
Speaker 1: have missed an event in November that, in retrospect may

1679
01:24:37,400 --> 01:24:41,240
Speaker 1: turn out to be of truly historic importance. A presidential

1680
01:24:41,280 --> 01:24:44,599
Speaker 1: election was held in a European Union country. The two

1681
01:24:44,720 --> 01:24:49,320
Speaker 1: establishment parties lost to two outsider parties, and the Supreme

1682
01:24:49,360 --> 01:24:53,480
Speaker 1: Court simply annulled the election. And there was no allegation

1683
01:24:53,680 --> 01:24:56,320
Speaker 1: that there were any problems with the voting or the

1684
01:24:56,400 --> 01:24:59,040
Speaker 1: vote counting. So we have a new story up at

1685
01:24:59,080 --> 01:25:01,960
Speaker 1: drop site by alt Alexander Zachik that takes a deep

1686
01:25:02,040 --> 01:25:04,559
Speaker 1: dive into what happened. It's a wild story and worth

1687
01:25:04,560 --> 01:25:07,120
Speaker 1: a full read, but the short version is that on

1688
01:25:07,160 --> 01:25:11,840
Speaker 1: November twenty fourth, Romanian voters delivered an unexpected victory to

1689
01:25:11,880 --> 01:25:15,559
Speaker 1: a right wing populist named Callan Gorgescu and in the

1690
01:25:15,600 --> 01:25:16,720
Speaker 1: opening round.

1691
01:25:16,520 --> 01:25:18,000
Speaker 6: Of the country's presidential election.

1692
01:25:18,720 --> 01:25:21,759
Speaker 1: So always considered a long shot, Gregesco had been polling

1693
01:25:21,800 --> 01:25:25,120
Speaker 1: in the single digits just weeks before surgeing to claim

1694
01:25:25,200 --> 01:25:28,040
Speaker 1: first place with twenty three percent of the vote, moving

1695
01:25:28,080 --> 01:25:32,280
Speaker 1: on to the runoff. The result shocked Romania's two dominant parties,

1696
01:25:32,600 --> 01:25:36,200
Speaker 1: who found themselves on the sidelines as Gurgesco campaigned for

1697
01:25:36,240 --> 01:25:39,720
Speaker 1: the runoff against another anti establishment candidate who came in

1698
01:25:39,760 --> 01:25:44,439
Speaker 1: second place, Elena Lasconi of the reformist Save Romania party.

1699
01:25:45,240 --> 01:25:49,760
Speaker 1: Now five days later, a news outlet called Context elevated

1700
01:25:49,800 --> 01:25:53,240
Speaker 1: claims that the election had been swung by the Kremlin

1701
01:25:53,680 --> 01:25:57,720
Speaker 1: through a social media campaign. On November twenty ninth, the

1702
01:25:57,760 --> 01:26:00,800
Speaker 1: outlet reported the outlet published a report that included a

1703
01:26:00,920 --> 01:26:06,320
Speaker 1: summary of an analysis it conducted using software that from

1704
01:26:06,439 --> 01:26:09,680
Speaker 1: a Ukrainian firm that for the last several years had

1705
01:26:09,720 --> 01:26:11,639
Speaker 1: been had had NATO and EU and.

1706
01:26:11,600 --> 01:26:13,400
Speaker 6: Others as clients.

1707
01:26:13,760 --> 01:26:17,519
Speaker 1: Now the past several years, context has participated in a

1708
01:26:17,560 --> 01:26:22,960
Speaker 1: regionwide NGO project to investigate the quote pro Kremlin conspiracy

1709
01:26:22,960 --> 01:26:28,080
Speaker 1: and altright disinformation ecosystem in Central and Eastern Europe unquote.

1710
01:26:28,240 --> 01:26:32,280
Speaker 1: The participating groups often have similar funding streams and various

1711
01:26:32,320 --> 01:26:37,800
Speaker 1: Western institutional connections. In the case of CONTEXTS, its budget

1712
01:26:37,960 --> 01:26:41,960
Speaker 1: is overwhelmingly covered by funding from the State Department funded

1713
01:26:42,000 --> 01:26:45,799
Speaker 1: National Endowment for Democracy and the Organized Crime and Corruption

1714
01:26:46,000 --> 01:26:50,639
Speaker 1: Reporting Project, a global reporting network that we recently reported

1715
01:26:50,680 --> 01:26:54,160
Speaker 1: over at drop site, is heavily funded by the US government.

1716
01:26:54,640 --> 01:26:59,360
Speaker 1: So contexts executive director spent twenty years working in the

1717
01:26:59,400 --> 01:27:02,800
Speaker 1: press office of the US Embassy in Bucharest.

1718
01:27:03,400 --> 01:27:03,719
Speaker 6: Now.

1719
01:27:03,920 --> 01:27:07,640
Speaker 1: On December fourth, four days before the deciding round was

1720
01:27:07,640 --> 01:27:12,479
Speaker 1: supposed to take place, Romania's Supreme Defense Council released a

1721
01:27:12,479 --> 01:27:16,000
Speaker 1: small batch of heavily redacted documents from the country's Foreign

1722
01:27:16,040 --> 01:27:20,479
Speaker 1: Intelligence Service. The documents outlined allegations of a Kremlin backed

1723
01:27:20,479 --> 01:27:24,799
Speaker 1: social media campaign that supported Gorgesco in violation of national

1724
01:27:24,840 --> 01:27:29,320
Speaker 1: election laws. Quote data were obtained the accompanying government. The

1725
01:27:29,439 --> 01:27:33,400
Speaker 1: company government statement read quote revealing an aggressive promotion campaign

1726
01:27:33,479 --> 01:27:36,800
Speaker 1: that exploited the algorithms of some social media platforms to

1727
01:27:36,920 --> 01:27:41,560
Speaker 1: increase the popularity of Callan Gurgesco at an accelerated pace unquote.

1728
01:27:41,680 --> 01:27:46,160
Speaker 1: Within hours, the US State Department expressed its quote concern

1729
01:27:46,320 --> 01:27:50,880
Speaker 1: over the allegations. Two days later, on December sixth, Romania's

1730
01:27:50,920 --> 01:27:56,680
Speaker 1: Constitutional Court unanimously ruled the November twenty fourth vote was invalid.

1731
01:27:56,760 --> 01:27:57,360
Speaker 6: Quote.

1732
01:27:57,479 --> 01:28:01,080
Speaker 1: The entire electoral process for electing the president of Romania

1733
01:28:01,240 --> 01:28:06,120
Speaker 1: is annulled, the court announced, citing government claims of irregularities

1734
01:28:06,160 --> 01:28:09,760
Speaker 1: on social media. Now a week and a half ago,

1735
01:28:09,880 --> 01:28:13,080
Speaker 1: the court finally announced a new date of May fourth

1736
01:28:13,280 --> 01:28:17,720
Speaker 1: for a new election. Radio Free Europe and Radio Free

1737
01:28:17,720 --> 01:28:20,519
Speaker 1: Europe slash Radio Liberty, which is funded by the US,

1738
01:28:20,920 --> 01:28:24,759
Speaker 1: reported Romania had become the latest victim of a quote

1739
01:28:24,760 --> 01:28:29,280
Speaker 1: aggressive hybrid war waged by the Kremlin. Four US senators

1740
01:28:29,560 --> 01:28:34,400
Speaker 1: issued a statement condemning quote Vladimir Putin's manipulation of Chinese

1741
01:28:34,400 --> 01:28:39,880
Speaker 1: Communist Party controlled TikTok to undermine Romania's democratic process. So

1742
01:28:39,880 --> 01:28:42,519
Speaker 1: it wasn't just Russia now, it's Russia and China. The

1743
01:28:42,560 --> 01:28:46,280
Speaker 1: State Department, though seemed fine with the election cancelation, saying

1744
01:28:46,320 --> 01:28:50,559
Speaker 1: in a statement, quote, we note the Romanian Constitutional Court's

1745
01:28:50,560 --> 01:28:54,800
Speaker 1: decision today unquote an expressed quote confidence in Romania's democratic

1746
01:28:54,840 --> 01:29:00,720
Speaker 1: institutions and processes, including investigations into foreign malign influence.

1747
01:29:01,520 --> 01:29:03,280
Speaker 6: Okay, so that's the case.

1748
01:29:03,320 --> 01:29:06,360
Speaker 1: They laid out the who done it is so fun

1749
01:29:06,400 --> 01:29:08,919
Speaker 1: and I don't even want to spoil it for readers,

1750
01:29:09,040 --> 01:29:11,000
Speaker 1: but I'm going to because this is a newscast.

1751
01:29:11,040 --> 01:29:12,360
Speaker 6: I'm going to tell you how this ended.

1752
01:29:13,280 --> 01:29:16,160
Speaker 1: It was not the Kremlin, it was not Chairman she.

1753
01:29:17,080 --> 01:29:19,720
Speaker 1: What happened was the P and L, which is one

1754
01:29:19,720 --> 01:29:24,599
Speaker 1: of the establishment parties, did that thing where you go

1755
01:29:24,640 --> 01:29:27,799
Speaker 1: and support a fringe candidate to try to draw votes

1756
01:29:28,520 --> 01:29:31,880
Speaker 1: away from your opponent. Both major parties in the US

1757
01:29:32,000 --> 01:29:37,280
Speaker 1: do this. The Democrats love to boost Libertarians Senate see

1758
01:29:37,280 --> 01:29:40,840
Speaker 1: it's Reid Hoffman likes to do it, and Republicans are

1759
01:29:41,040 --> 01:29:44,559
Speaker 1: the most aggressive advocates for Green party ballot access all

1760
01:29:44,600 --> 01:29:45,080
Speaker 1: the time.

1761
01:29:45,920 --> 01:29:47,599
Speaker 6: So what happened here?

1762
01:29:48,040 --> 01:29:52,479
Speaker 1: Imagine the scenario is that basically both the Democrats and

1763
01:29:52,520 --> 01:29:55,599
Speaker 1: the Republicans lost, and the Greens and the Libertarians went

1764
01:29:55,640 --> 01:30:00,320
Speaker 1: to the second round accidentally boosted by these more roonic

1765
01:30:00,400 --> 01:30:01,400
Speaker 1: establishment parties.

1766
01:30:02,040 --> 01:30:02,920
Speaker 6: So that's what happened.

1767
01:30:02,920 --> 01:30:08,439
Speaker 1: So the funding for this TikTok campaign came from one

1768
01:30:08,439 --> 01:30:12,519
Speaker 1: of the major establishment parties. And what's wild, and Alex

1769
01:30:12,560 --> 01:30:15,559
Speaker 1: goes into this in the article, is that when they

1770
01:30:15,640 --> 01:30:19,960
Speaker 1: originally put out those batche of documents showing that this

1771
01:30:20,000 --> 01:30:23,680
Speaker 1: whole thing happened, the name of the consulting firm that

1772
01:30:23,840 --> 01:30:28,160
Speaker 1: had run this entire operation was redacted. So, in other words,

1773
01:30:28,240 --> 01:30:31,599
Speaker 1: Romania knew the name, and not only did Romania know it,

1774
01:30:32,080 --> 01:30:35,680
Speaker 1: the US knew it. The name of the consulting firm

1775
01:30:35,720 --> 01:30:39,360
Speaker 1: that ran it was redacted. We now know the identity

1776
01:30:39,400 --> 01:30:42,439
Speaker 1: of that consulting firm, and it is a consulting firm

1777
01:30:42,479 --> 01:30:47,120
Speaker 1: that works almost only with this one establishment Romanian party.

1778
01:30:47,880 --> 01:30:51,519
Speaker 1: So from the very beginning, and also Alex talks about

1779
01:30:51,520 --> 01:30:54,920
Speaker 1: how they'd seen this consulting firm. You know, people had

1780
01:30:54,920 --> 01:30:56,360
Speaker 1: seen them going in and out of the offices like

1781
01:30:56,400 --> 01:30:59,160
Speaker 1: it was everybody knew. Everyone knows that this consulting firm

1782
01:30:59,200 --> 01:31:01,519
Speaker 1: only works with this part like that, It's like that

1783
01:31:01,560 --> 01:31:03,200
Speaker 1: we have the same thing here in the United States.

1784
01:31:03,439 --> 01:31:05,320
Speaker 1: You got firms that worked with Republicans, firms that work

1785
01:31:05,360 --> 01:31:09,280
Speaker 1: with Democrats. So once they identified oh, this social media

1786
01:31:09,320 --> 01:31:12,520
Speaker 1: campaign is being run by this consulting firm.

1787
01:31:12,920 --> 01:31:15,479
Speaker 6: They immediately knew that it was one of.

1788
01:31:15,439 --> 01:31:18,080
Speaker 1: These parties, that it was this particular party that had

1789
01:31:18,080 --> 01:31:23,479
Speaker 1: funded this operation. Yet instead they redacted it and claimed

1790
01:31:24,439 --> 01:31:28,000
Speaker 1: that it was Russia, knowing full well that it was not.

1791
01:31:28,680 --> 01:31:32,599
Speaker 1: This was not a mistake where they're like, oh boy,

1792
01:31:32,720 --> 01:31:38,600
Speaker 1: sure has all the hallmarks as all the hallmarks of

1793
01:31:38,680 --> 01:31:43,320
Speaker 1: a Russian counter intel operation. Wasn't even that they knew

1794
01:31:43,800 --> 01:31:48,160
Speaker 1: with certainty for a fact who ran this thing? And

1795
01:31:48,360 --> 01:31:55,519
Speaker 1: the State Department publicly supported the annulment of this election. Anyway,

1796
01:31:56,120 --> 01:31:58,240
Speaker 1: The key point here why do they care so much

1797
01:31:58,240 --> 01:32:02,280
Speaker 1: about Romania? You used to think that Germany had the

1798
01:32:02,320 --> 01:32:05,519
Speaker 1: most important European American military base.

1799
01:32:06,120 --> 01:32:06,679
Speaker 6: Not anymore.

1800
01:32:07,600 --> 01:32:11,280
Speaker 1: Romania now is host to the most important American military

1801
01:32:11,320 --> 01:32:15,439
Speaker 1: base in Europe, and a right wing populist who has

1802
01:32:15,520 --> 01:32:19,160
Speaker 1: said that the war between Ukraine and Russia ought to

1803
01:32:19,400 --> 01:32:24,040
Speaker 1: end is a direct threat to American military interests visa

1804
01:32:24,160 --> 01:32:25,160
Speaker 1: vi that base.

1805
01:32:25,720 --> 01:32:29,000
Speaker 5: And so here we are the other part of the story.

1806
01:32:29,040 --> 01:32:31,439
Speaker 4: First, as I was reading this reporting, I was like,

1807
01:32:31,520 --> 01:32:34,320
Speaker 4: it needs like a flow chart, because the other one

1808
01:32:34,439 --> 01:32:37,679
Speaker 4: is relying on the assessment that it was Russia from

1809
01:32:38,000 --> 01:32:40,840
Speaker 4: a firm that does most of its work with NATO.

1810
01:32:40,800 --> 01:32:46,680
Speaker 1: Right, right, US Ukrainian AI software company. They claim that,

1811
01:32:46,880 --> 01:32:49,280
Speaker 1: And this is the US funded news outlet relying on

1812
01:32:49,400 --> 01:32:55,280
Speaker 1: a Ukrainian NATO funded analytics firm that's used some AI

1813
01:32:55,400 --> 01:32:58,880
Speaker 1: that says, yep, we have concluded. So think about this

1814
01:32:59,760 --> 01:33:03,200
Speaker 1: back up for a second. Like the US and there's

1815
01:33:03,320 --> 01:33:10,120
Speaker 1: Romanian establishing parties are accusing Russia of interfering in Romanian politics.

1816
01:33:11,160 --> 01:33:15,360
Speaker 1: Who is leading the charge and making that accusation? A

1817
01:33:15,560 --> 01:33:20,080
Speaker 1: US funded news outlet relying on a NATO funded Ukrainian

1818
01:33:20,520 --> 01:33:24,720
Speaker 1: software company claiming that there is foreign interference.

1819
01:33:24,960 --> 01:33:27,639
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like guys blaming.

1820
01:33:28,000 --> 01:33:32,000
Speaker 1: That's kind of foreign interference, Like like you're actually doing

1821
01:33:32,080 --> 01:33:35,320
Speaker 1: the thing that you're accusing Russia of doing.

1822
01:33:35,479 --> 01:33:39,599
Speaker 4: Yes, and it's getting like no coverage in American media

1823
01:33:39,640 --> 01:33:41,320
Speaker 4: because it's like, oh, Romania whatever.

1824
01:33:41,439 --> 01:33:44,440
Speaker 6: I think it's it's the cancelation of an election.

1825
01:33:44,439 --> 01:33:46,439
Speaker 1: A NATO country when you when you don't have any

1826
01:33:46,479 --> 01:33:50,200
Speaker 1: evidence of voter fraud or anything, like, no allegations that

1827
01:33:50,280 --> 01:33:52,640
Speaker 1: the vote was tainted, Like the people went out and

1828
01:33:52,720 --> 01:33:54,960
Speaker 1: voted and voted for these characters.

1829
01:33:55,200 --> 01:33:57,360
Speaker 4: There's zero evidence that votes were tampered with, And.

1830
01:33:57,320 --> 01:33:59,720
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean I like this Gorgesco guy. He's like

1831
01:34:00,439 --> 01:34:05,400
Speaker 1: right wing Creek, but come on, like you guy one, it's.

1832
01:34:06,600 --> 01:34:09,200
Speaker 4: If votes are not tampered with, if you cannot prove

1833
01:34:09,240 --> 01:34:11,920
Speaker 4: that votes are tampered with, and you're just mad that

1834
01:34:12,200 --> 01:34:14,240
Speaker 4: someone came in and put up a bunch of let's

1835
01:34:14,280 --> 01:34:17,920
Speaker 4: just say, billboards, whether they're digital billboards, physical billboards, digital flyers,

1836
01:34:18,120 --> 01:34:22,880
Speaker 4: or literal flyers, and you say that it was foreign interference.

1837
01:34:22,320 --> 01:34:23,520
Speaker 6: It was actually Romanians.

1838
01:34:23,640 --> 01:34:25,680
Speaker 4: But it's like saying that we have to cancel out,

1839
01:34:25,840 --> 01:34:28,680
Speaker 4: like yeah, so, but let's say hypothetically that it was

1840
01:34:28,800 --> 01:34:32,400
Speaker 4: Russia and it was like Russia's little Facebook campaign and

1841
01:34:32,520 --> 01:34:35,720
Speaker 4: the closing days of twenty sixteen election to divide Americans

1842
01:34:35,800 --> 01:34:38,599
Speaker 4: along the BLM lines and the LGBT lines. So those

1843
01:34:38,680 --> 01:34:40,519
Speaker 4: ads are still like very funny. If you go read

1844
01:34:40,560 --> 01:34:44,280
Speaker 4: the Senate report from twenty eighteen when they found the

1845
01:34:44,560 --> 01:34:46,559
Speaker 4: memes that Russia was posting, let's just say that that's

1846
01:34:46,560 --> 01:34:49,840
Speaker 4: what happened hypothetically. It's like, do I think that we

1847
01:34:49,920 --> 01:34:53,200
Speaker 4: should be transparent about if foreign powers are funding propaganda?

1848
01:34:53,280 --> 01:34:53,759
Speaker 5: Absolutely?

1849
01:34:53,840 --> 01:34:55,760
Speaker 4: Do I think there should be rules about what money

1850
01:34:55,800 --> 01:34:58,920
Speaker 4: you're allowed to take in elections from foreign powers. Absolutely,

1851
01:34:59,360 --> 01:35:01,920
Speaker 4: but people are making up their minds like you're getting

1852
01:35:01,960 --> 01:35:04,200
Speaker 4: you're still fundamentally getting mad with voters.

1853
01:35:04,800 --> 01:35:06,719
Speaker 5: It's fundamentally about voters.

1854
01:35:06,800 --> 01:35:08,920
Speaker 1: It does does raise a thorny question because there are

1855
01:35:08,920 --> 01:35:12,679
Speaker 1: also sovereignty questions. So I think there's a threshold issue,

1856
01:35:12,760 --> 01:35:15,640
Speaker 1: like if Russian TikTok thing, Let's say it was Russia

1857
01:35:15,640 --> 01:35:17,240
Speaker 1: and it's a little TikTok thing, It's like, get out

1858
01:35:17,240 --> 01:35:20,519
Speaker 1: of here, Like that's not it's not persuasive enough that

1859
01:35:20,880 --> 01:35:23,880
Speaker 1: you've swung the entire election. But let's say Russia came

1860
01:35:23,920 --> 01:35:31,000
Speaker 1: in and like ostentatiously spent a billion dollars supporting the

1861
01:35:31,320 --> 01:35:34,960
Speaker 1: candidate that they liked, in complete contravention of Romanian law.

1862
01:35:36,200 --> 01:35:39,080
Speaker 1: I can see a case where you're like, no, you

1863
01:35:39,160 --> 01:35:41,880
Speaker 1: can't do that, like we we are Like what does

1864
01:35:41,920 --> 01:35:44,320
Speaker 1: Trump say, like we got we have borders? You know,

1865
01:35:44,360 --> 01:35:46,439
Speaker 1: you're not a country right on borders, and you're not

1866
01:35:46,479 --> 01:35:48,920
Speaker 1: a country if you can't pass some laws and have

1867
01:35:49,040 --> 01:35:53,200
Speaker 1: them respected totally. So but I understand how that can

1868
01:35:53,240 --> 01:35:56,439
Speaker 1: be a slippery slope to exactly what just happened. Yes,

1869
01:35:57,760 --> 01:36:00,799
Speaker 1: but you know this is tricky stuff to think through. However,

1870
01:36:01,360 --> 01:36:03,919
Speaker 1: none of that even happened here. This was a Romanian

1871
01:36:04,000 --> 01:36:08,680
Speaker 1: establishment party. It's this that screwed itself accidentally and then

1872
01:36:08,840 --> 01:36:12,679
Speaker 1: used its own screwing to annull the election.

1873
01:36:13,120 --> 01:36:14,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it feels like we're in the vibe

1874
01:36:14,920 --> 01:36:17,200
Speaker 4: shift moment now. But this is what you're going to

1875
01:36:17,240 --> 01:36:20,320
Speaker 4: see attacking the populist left and populist right long term

1876
01:36:20,479 --> 01:36:23,840
Speaker 4: as a major theme. It's going to be technocratic elites

1877
01:36:24,520 --> 01:36:29,840
Speaker 4: using the powers of or abusing exploiting the powers of technology,

1878
01:36:29,880 --> 01:36:33,679
Speaker 4: which completely shrinks the globe to undermine people. So saying

1879
01:36:33,800 --> 01:36:37,879
Speaker 4: that we couldn't control TikTok, we couldn't control the messaging

1880
01:36:38,040 --> 01:36:42,880
Speaker 4: on TikTok, so elections canceled like sorry, because everything is

1881
01:36:42,920 --> 01:36:45,640
Speaker 4: now so consolidated and centralized that you can look at

1882
01:36:46,080 --> 01:36:49,680
Speaker 4: a campaign, an alleged campaign on social media and say

1883
01:36:49,720 --> 01:36:52,280
Speaker 4: that it totally up ended the election and validated the election,

1884
01:36:52,439 --> 01:36:55,400
Speaker 4: and you can do that from your perch in the technocracy.

1885
01:36:55,600 --> 01:36:57,840
Speaker 4: So this is I mean, this is a taste of

1886
01:36:58,040 --> 01:37:00,200
Speaker 4: what's to come, but it's a significant taste of what's

1887
01:37:00,240 --> 01:37:03,479
Speaker 4: to come, because it screwed up the Romanian election, NATO country,

1888
01:37:03,640 --> 01:37:07,559
Speaker 4: EU country, and we were involved, shamefully involved.

1889
01:37:07,640 --> 01:37:10,439
Speaker 6: Yeah, great story, fascinating.

1890
01:37:10,160 --> 01:37:11,479
Speaker 5: The reason to subscribe to Drop.

1891
01:37:11,760 --> 01:37:12,240
Speaker 6: That's right, go.

1892
01:37:12,280 --> 01:37:15,000
Speaker 1: Subscribe to Drop some cool stuff like that. And this

1893
01:37:15,120 --> 01:37:19,719
Speaker 1: was published with in collaboration with truth dig. Alexander Zechik

1894
01:37:19,800 --> 01:37:21,040
Speaker 1: is an editor over at truth Dig.

1895
01:37:22,720 --> 01:37:22,840
Speaker 4: Up.

1896
01:37:22,920 --> 01:37:28,240
Speaker 1: Next, We've got Trump's real estate buddy, Steve Whitcough went

1897
01:37:28,320 --> 01:37:28,840
Speaker 1: to Gaza.

1898
01:37:29,600 --> 01:37:31,559
Speaker 5: You made it sound like we were having Steve Witcoff

1899
01:37:31,600 --> 01:37:31,920
Speaker 5: on this show.

1900
01:37:31,920 --> 01:37:34,479
Speaker 6: That would be cool. But even better we have Whocoff

1901
01:37:34,560 --> 01:37:35,920
Speaker 6: is welcome on the show anytime he wants.

1902
01:37:36,040 --> 01:37:36,360
Speaker 16: That's right.

1903
01:37:36,600 --> 01:37:38,880
Speaker 1: Even better, we have my drops, like colleague Martaza Hussein,

1904
01:37:38,920 --> 01:37:41,760
Speaker 1: who just returned from a reporting trip in series. Going

1905
01:37:41,840 --> 01:37:44,479
Speaker 1: to talk about that and also about this Witcough visit

1906
01:37:44,520 --> 01:37:48,759
Speaker 1: to Gaza. Mid East Envoy Steve Whitcoff visited Gaza today

1907
01:37:48,920 --> 01:37:52,200
Speaker 1: along with Netanya who Lieutenant Ron Darmer visiting the net

1908
01:37:52,280 --> 01:37:52,840
Speaker 1: Serene Quarter.

1909
01:37:52,880 --> 01:37:54,439
Speaker 6: If we can put up this first.

1910
01:37:54,240 --> 01:37:58,200
Speaker 1: Element here scooped by Barack revied as all things net

1911
01:37:58,320 --> 01:38:02,200
Speaker 1: Yahoo seemed to be scooped, he writes, White House. Envoy

1912
01:38:02,200 --> 01:38:04,560
Speaker 1: Whitcoff visited on Wednesday the nets Ring Quarter inside the

1913
01:38:04,560 --> 01:38:07,759
Speaker 1: Gaza Strip together with the Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs

1914
01:38:07,840 --> 01:38:11,200
Speaker 1: Ron Dhermer, this is the first visit by a US government.

1915
01:38:10,960 --> 01:38:14,080
Speaker 6: Official in Gaza for at least fifteen years.

1916
01:38:14,720 --> 01:38:17,920
Speaker 1: So joining us now to discuss this and also a

1917
01:38:18,000 --> 01:38:21,120
Speaker 1: recent reporting trip that he took to Syria is my

1918
01:38:21,560 --> 01:38:26,720
Speaker 1: dropsite colleague, Maz Hussein Maz, thanks so much for joining us,

1919
01:38:28,240 --> 01:38:31,439
Speaker 1: thanks for having me and so Witkoff had actually floated

1920
01:38:31,479 --> 01:38:34,000
Speaker 1: this and I believe it was in a Fox News

1921
01:38:34,439 --> 01:38:42,160
Speaker 1: interview recently. Causing complete pandemonium is really political observers and

1922
01:38:42,240 --> 01:38:48,160
Speaker 1: political participants saying what this like. They're already panicked about

1923
01:38:48,160 --> 01:38:51,880
Speaker 1: this guy because he forced net Yahoo to work on

1924
01:38:51,960 --> 01:38:56,560
Speaker 1: Shabbat and then forced him into this deal that is

1925
01:38:56,640 --> 01:39:01,759
Speaker 1: now unfolding. They accused him of being, you know, basically

1926
01:39:02,080 --> 01:39:04,200
Speaker 1: a puppet of Cutter when he said he was going

1927
01:39:04,280 --> 01:39:07,880
Speaker 1: to go visit Gaza, they completely lost their minds Oftentimes

1928
01:39:08,479 --> 01:39:12,240
Speaker 1: that kind of meltdown would would yield a backing off,

1929
01:39:12,520 --> 01:39:17,920
Speaker 1: a retreating from the position. Instead he ends up going

1930
01:39:18,000 --> 01:39:20,400
Speaker 1: to a nets ering cort or. I think importantly with

1931
01:39:20,640 --> 01:39:25,479
Speaker 1: Ron Dermer, who is this guy that you know, very

1932
01:39:25,520 --> 01:39:28,759
Speaker 1: well known around Washington, used to be Israel's ambassador to Washington.

1933
01:39:28,800 --> 01:39:34,000
Speaker 1: He's this guy from from Miami was probably closest confidant,

1934
01:39:34,640 --> 01:39:38,599
Speaker 1: very smooth operator. Uh so they wanted, you know, they

1935
01:39:38,640 --> 01:39:40,400
Speaker 1: wanted a babysitter with him as he's.

1936
01:39:40,280 --> 01:39:40,800
Speaker 6: Going in there.

1937
01:39:41,360 --> 01:39:44,800
Speaker 1: Uh what what do you make of Witkoff's willingness to

1938
01:39:44,840 --> 01:39:46,800
Speaker 1: go through with this kind of in the face of

1939
01:39:47,360 --> 01:39:48,240
Speaker 1: Israeli opposition.

1940
01:39:49,600 --> 01:39:50,679
Speaker 9: Well, you know, I've been.

1941
01:39:50,600 --> 01:39:53,960
Speaker 10: Watching very closely the Trump administration's nascent sort of approach

1942
01:39:54,080 --> 01:39:57,360
Speaker 10: to Israel, Palestine and the Middle East more generally because

1943
01:39:57,360 --> 01:40:00,240
Speaker 10: of the fact that obviously the Trump coalition continu it's

1944
01:40:00,360 --> 01:40:03,439
Speaker 10: very different streams of people with different views of foreign policy.

1945
01:40:03,479 --> 01:40:06,000
Speaker 10: And some people are the more neo con type people

1946
01:40:06,080 --> 01:40:08,599
Speaker 10: you could say, who dominated the first term. But there's

1947
01:40:08,640 --> 01:40:13,160
Speaker 10: this very strong, you could say America First nationalist type

1948
01:40:13,200 --> 01:40:15,120
Speaker 10: of contingent as well too, and they're very skeptical of

1949
01:40:15,240 --> 01:40:19,080
Speaker 10: further deep US military involvements in the Middle East and

1950
01:40:19,240 --> 01:40:21,519
Speaker 10: even Europe to an extent too, So they would like

1951
01:40:21,600 --> 01:40:24,680
Speaker 10: to extricate themselves from the situation. And you know, I

1952
01:40:24,760 --> 01:40:27,760
Speaker 10: don't know exactly yet, and obviously the first Trump term,

1953
01:40:27,880 --> 01:40:31,639
Speaker 10: I'm cautious and wary of the approach is going to take.

1954
01:40:32,080 --> 01:40:34,080
Speaker 10: But I do think there's some hints that maybe the

1955
01:40:34,200 --> 01:40:38,360
Speaker 10: latter category is seeing its views represented more strongly. And

1956
01:40:38,439 --> 01:40:40,760
Speaker 10: we saw some of the personnel decisions too, or some

1957
01:40:40,880 --> 01:40:43,400
Speaker 10: of the nine personnel visions, some decisions Trump made to

1958
01:40:44,320 --> 01:40:47,559
Speaker 10: kind of stideline the Iran Hawk people from his first

1959
01:40:47,680 --> 01:40:50,439
Speaker 10: term in the last few weeks. So wick Cooff, you know,

1960
01:40:50,520 --> 01:40:52,960
Speaker 10: he's taking these steps, pushing to the ceasefire kind of

1961
01:40:53,040 --> 01:40:54,920
Speaker 10: as he's mentioned, forcing that now to work on ship.

1962
01:40:54,920 --> 01:40:56,080
Speaker 10: But I think then now is very secular.

1963
01:40:56,120 --> 01:40:56,720
Speaker 8: A name was I think that.

1964
01:40:59,120 --> 01:41:01,240
Speaker 10: May have made him do that. And now you know

1965
01:41:01,320 --> 01:41:04,000
Speaker 10: the ceasefire, we see people returning north to north of Gaza,

1966
01:41:04,080 --> 01:41:08,240
Speaker 10: We see Witcof actually visiting. These are all tentatively good

1967
01:41:08,320 --> 01:41:11,840
Speaker 10: signs potentially that Trump will be taking a different path

1968
01:41:11,960 --> 01:41:14,040
Speaker 10: they did in the first term, at least to some

1969
01:41:14,280 --> 01:41:18,280
Speaker 10: degree a relative degree visa vi Israel Palson. But also

1970
01:41:18,320 --> 01:41:20,559
Speaker 10: it seems like a repudiation of what Biden was doing.

1971
01:41:20,680 --> 01:41:23,439
Speaker 10: Biden was giving how every single thing he wants. And

1972
01:41:23,600 --> 01:41:26,639
Speaker 10: one very consistent theme with Trump, maybe even more than

1973
01:41:27,560 --> 01:41:30,000
Speaker 10: you know, any particular views he has about foreign policy

1974
01:41:30,160 --> 01:41:31,680
Speaker 10: or the US rule in the world, is that he

1975
01:41:31,840 --> 01:41:33,519
Speaker 10: likes to stick it to the Democrats and stick it

1976
01:41:33,560 --> 01:41:37,360
Speaker 10: to his predecessor. So if Biden was giving everything BB wants, well,

1977
01:41:37,439 --> 01:41:39,880
Speaker 10: let's make BVB work in Shabbai and then maybe we'll

1978
01:41:39,960 --> 01:41:42,160
Speaker 10: force him to end the war. And Trump, if he

1979
01:41:42,240 --> 01:41:44,040
Speaker 10: did have one consistent message, he said he would end

1980
01:41:44,080 --> 01:41:46,519
Speaker 10: the wars. He wasn't very specific always how we do that,

1981
01:41:46,920 --> 01:41:48,519
Speaker 10: but he did say that ends. So I think he

1982
01:41:48,560 --> 01:41:50,760
Speaker 10: does have a lot of political capital invested. So I

1983
01:41:50,800 --> 01:41:54,920
Speaker 10: would say I'm cautiously monitoring. And there's some glimmers of

1984
01:41:55,000 --> 01:41:57,160
Speaker 10: hope there. And Widcos's visit to Gaza that seems to

1985
01:41:57,200 --> 01:41:58,759
Speaker 10: be another data point.

1986
01:41:59,439 --> 01:42:05,280
Speaker 1: And in that and uh, speaking of Syria, uh, and

1987
01:42:06,080 --> 01:42:10,080
Speaker 1: the net Yahoo administration's kind of pressure here. Uh Israel

1988
01:42:10,160 --> 01:42:13,200
Speaker 1: cats you may have seen this visited uh you know

1989
01:42:13,479 --> 01:42:15,759
Speaker 1: what they call Mount Herman recently in the Golan Heights

1990
01:42:16,280 --> 01:42:19,160
Speaker 1: and said that basically they're they're not leaving and they're

1991
01:42:19,200 --> 01:42:22,479
Speaker 1: just fortifying, fortifying it more aggressively. Do we have do

1992
01:42:22,560 --> 01:42:24,280
Speaker 1: we have this in English or should we just roll

1993
01:42:24,320 --> 01:42:26,720
Speaker 1: this as a vo? All right, so so people can

1994
01:42:26,800 --> 01:42:28,920
Speaker 1: if you're watching, you can read this. So he's went

1995
01:42:29,040 --> 01:42:33,479
Speaker 1: up to this basically ski resort that is in the

1996
01:42:33,520 --> 01:42:37,920
Speaker 1: Golan Heights, that is now illegal, illegally occupied by Israel,

1997
01:42:38,360 --> 01:42:40,880
Speaker 1: and they're claiming that they're going to you know, keep

1998
01:42:40,960 --> 01:42:44,920
Speaker 1: this keep this territory that they've claimed indefinitely. And so

1999
01:42:45,120 --> 01:42:48,400
Speaker 1: mys you were you just got back from uh Syria.

2000
01:42:48,880 --> 01:42:50,000
Speaker 6: I guess that the.

2001
01:42:50,040 --> 01:42:52,240
Speaker 1: First first question is kind of like what were your

2002
01:42:52,720 --> 01:42:55,760
Speaker 1: what were your impressions after having not been there for

2003
01:42:55,920 --> 01:42:58,080
Speaker 1: so long? What is you know, what is the place

2004
01:42:58,280 --> 01:42:59,519
Speaker 1: like on the ground.

2005
01:43:00,840 --> 01:43:03,559
Speaker 10: You know, Syria was a very nice country. My family's

2006
01:43:03,600 --> 01:43:05,519
Speaker 10: to go with a vacation in Syria because it was

2007
01:43:05,560 --> 01:43:07,640
Speaker 10: just like a nice place to go. Today, if you

2008
01:43:07,720 --> 01:43:11,040
Speaker 10: go to Syria, it's like the apocalypse happened there beyond.

2009
01:43:11,880 --> 01:43:15,000
Speaker 10: You know, you see pictures of Gaza. Half the country

2010
01:43:15,040 --> 01:43:19,479
Speaker 10: looks at Gaza. It's just completely flattened buildings, rubble destruction.

2011
01:43:19,800 --> 01:43:23,280
Speaker 10: Even in the quote unquote normal areas, it's you know,

2012
01:43:23,360 --> 01:43:26,080
Speaker 10: people don't have food, they don't have you know, their

2013
01:43:26,760 --> 01:43:29,640
Speaker 10: fancy areas. People are selling you know, Fifth Avenue. If

2014
01:43:29,640 --> 01:43:32,680
Speaker 10: it could be turned into people selling us shoes and

2015
01:43:32,760 --> 01:43:34,639
Speaker 10: things like that, that's kind of the level of economic

2016
01:43:35,160 --> 01:43:38,439
Speaker 10: the devastation has taking place there. You know, even the

2017
01:43:38,479 --> 01:43:41,240
Speaker 10: supply chains for food and things like that, they've broken down,

2018
01:43:41,360 --> 01:43:43,679
Speaker 10: so people are just doing whatever they can. The level

2019
01:43:43,680 --> 01:43:47,120
Speaker 10: of suffering is just unbelievable. It's a post apocalyptic, i

2020
01:43:47,160 --> 01:43:50,760
Speaker 10: would say, sort of environment inside Syria. And you know,

2021
01:43:50,840 --> 01:43:53,240
Speaker 10: I mentioned a lot of areas are destroyed, their whole

2022
01:43:53,280 --> 01:43:55,360
Speaker 10: cities which are destroyed. There are people living in the

2023
01:43:55,400 --> 01:43:57,400
Speaker 10: rubble who have been living there for a very long

2024
01:43:57,479 --> 01:44:02,200
Speaker 10: time with no electricity, no water. Somehow they're still managing

2025
01:44:02,240 --> 01:44:04,800
Speaker 10: to get their kids educated, doing everything they can, you know,

2026
01:44:04,920 --> 01:44:06,920
Speaker 10: even you know, trying to make the best of cant situation.

2027
01:44:07,000 --> 01:44:10,560
Speaker 10: But it's just an unbelievably devastating situation. And you know,

2028
01:44:11,040 --> 01:44:12,720
Speaker 10: as long as it's can take Gaza to rebuild, it

2029
01:44:12,760 --> 01:44:14,360
Speaker 10: can take a very very long time. You have to

2030
01:44:14,439 --> 01:44:16,880
Speaker 10: extrapolate that to a whole country, you know, maybe ten

2031
01:44:16,920 --> 01:44:20,120
Speaker 10: times the population of Gaza, that same level of destruction

2032
01:44:20,840 --> 01:44:23,599
Speaker 10: is very very evident there. And secondly, you know, I'll

2033
01:44:23,600 --> 01:44:25,479
Speaker 10: tell you from the beginning, it was a very strange

2034
01:44:25,640 --> 01:44:28,400
Speaker 10: environment because when I've crossed the border from Jordan, i

2035
01:44:28,479 --> 01:44:31,839
Speaker 10: drove over, I was expecting to see the former government

2036
01:44:32,200 --> 01:44:35,320
Speaker 10: people working at the border, maybe with different bosses. Because

2037
01:44:35,320 --> 01:44:38,000
Speaker 10: my understanding, as you're reading the news, others people with

2038
01:44:38,120 --> 01:44:41,000
Speaker 10: that the government was not dissolved entirely. They kept personnel there.

2039
01:44:41,479 --> 01:44:44,120
Speaker 10: What I found actually was that the new guys are

2040
01:44:44,160 --> 01:44:46,280
Speaker 10: completely in control. The old government guys are not there,

2041
01:44:46,479 --> 01:44:48,120
Speaker 10: And it was everything is very informal. They were just

2042
01:44:48,240 --> 01:44:51,519
Speaker 10: guys with assault rifles and noone was wearing uniforms, and

2043
01:44:51,560 --> 01:44:53,759
Speaker 10: they just kind of waved me through. They're like, you know, welcome.

2044
01:44:53,880 --> 01:44:56,280
Speaker 10: They didn't really ask the many questions things like that.

2045
01:44:56,800 --> 01:45:00,600
Speaker 10: It was a completely, you know, a barren situation. And

2046
01:45:00,680 --> 01:45:02,840
Speaker 10: maybe it'll change sometime in a couple of weeks and months,

2047
01:45:02,920 --> 01:45:05,760
Speaker 10: but it's very much a flux and they have a

2048
01:45:05,800 --> 01:45:08,559
Speaker 10: tremendous task ahead of them to hold the country together

2049
01:45:08,640 --> 01:45:10,200
Speaker 10: if they can, and if they can, rebuild the country

2050
01:45:10,240 --> 01:45:12,080
Speaker 10: even better, but it's not going to be easy.

2051
01:45:12,680 --> 01:45:15,920
Speaker 4: Well, and this is another immediate test of Donald Trump's

2052
01:45:15,920 --> 01:45:18,640
Speaker 4: foreign policy. And I'm curious, Miles, what you might have

2053
01:45:18,840 --> 01:45:23,559
Speaker 4: picked up on what people there are expecting to see

2054
01:45:23,960 --> 01:45:26,920
Speaker 4: or maybe aren't sure what to expect to see from

2055
01:45:27,040 --> 01:45:28,000
Speaker 4: the Trump administration.

2056
01:45:28,160 --> 01:45:31,599
Speaker 5: Obviously his policy both towards Israel and Syria. We're kind

2057
01:45:31,600 --> 01:45:31,760
Speaker 5: of like.

2058
01:45:31,800 --> 01:45:33,880
Speaker 4: Reading the tea leaves trying to figure out what might

2059
01:45:34,040 --> 01:45:37,200
Speaker 4: extrapolate from the first administration and you know, public statements

2060
01:45:37,280 --> 01:45:40,920
Speaker 4: and personnel to what might happen in the near term future.

2061
01:45:41,000 --> 01:45:43,920
Speaker 4: Did you get a sense of what people are hearing

2062
01:45:44,200 --> 01:45:46,240
Speaker 4: or expecting, or maybe what they're not hearing or not

2063
01:45:46,360 --> 01:45:48,920
Speaker 4: expecting when you were over there. Yeah.

2064
01:45:49,000 --> 01:45:51,200
Speaker 10: You know, first of all, it's very interesting because it

2065
01:45:51,280 --> 01:45:53,240
Speaker 10: was never the case you could ask people their opinion before.

2066
01:45:53,520 --> 01:45:56,280
Speaker 10: So I'm having the idea of having casual conversation what

2067
01:45:56,439 --> 01:45:59,960
Speaker 10: you think about what's going to happen politically, domestically abroad.

2068
01:46:00,120 --> 01:46:02,840
Speaker 10: That was a completely new thing for people there because

2069
01:46:02,880 --> 01:46:05,960
Speaker 10: of a much fear before, and people just didn't weren't

2070
01:46:06,000 --> 01:46:08,400
Speaker 10: comfortable doing it. So now you can have those conversations,

2071
01:46:08,479 --> 01:46:11,320
Speaker 10: and I would say generally speaking, people you know, they're

2072
01:46:11,400 --> 01:46:14,360
Speaker 10: relieved in the short term that okay, something is changing,

2073
01:46:14,520 --> 01:46:15,719
Speaker 10: and you know we're a bit freer.

2074
01:46:15,840 --> 01:46:18,519
Speaker 8: We have to pay bribes all time, just day to

2075
01:46:18,640 --> 01:46:19,040
Speaker 8: day life.

2076
01:46:19,080 --> 01:46:20,680
Speaker 10: But you know, to your point, like, what's going to

2077
01:46:20,720 --> 01:46:24,439
Speaker 10: happen now domestically internationally is great unknown. People are very

2078
01:46:24,520 --> 01:46:27,280
Speaker 10: very concerned. Many people I spoke to a concern that well,

2079
01:46:27,320 --> 01:46:29,479
Speaker 10: this could just be a breather before new war, could

2080
01:46:29,520 --> 01:46:33,120
Speaker 10: be a breather before you know, foreign powers potentially the

2081
01:46:33,280 --> 01:46:36,640
Speaker 10: US among them may seek to divide the country, They

2082
01:46:36,680 --> 01:46:39,880
Speaker 10: may seek to partition it on ethnic grounds, or you know,

2083
01:46:39,960 --> 01:46:41,880
Speaker 10: there's a lot concerned about that. So I think Trump,

2084
01:46:42,000 --> 01:46:44,360
Speaker 10: the conservative Trump, is one of many concerns people have.

2085
01:46:44,560 --> 01:46:48,719
Speaker 10: And obviously the US role in the region is often

2086
01:46:48,840 --> 01:46:52,160
Speaker 10: mediated through Israel. So what Israel does is kind of

2087
01:46:52,200 --> 01:46:54,120
Speaker 10: seeing an accession what the US is doing because of

2088
01:46:54,120 --> 01:46:56,639
Speaker 10: the fact that obviously Israel's heavily armed by the US

2089
01:46:56,760 --> 01:46:59,760
Speaker 10: and gives political and diplomatic cover. And there's concern this

2090
01:46:59,840 --> 01:47:01,800
Speaker 10: can certain that maybe they may try to carve off

2091
01:47:01,920 --> 01:47:04,559
Speaker 10: more parts of the country, they may try to arm

2092
01:47:04,600 --> 01:47:08,080
Speaker 10: people inside the country, the format more chaos. People are very,

2093
01:47:08,240 --> 01:47:11,280
Speaker 10: very very concerned about this. And you know, for Trump's

2094
01:47:11,600 --> 01:47:13,519
Speaker 10: from what I've seen, if Trump so far, it doesn't

2095
01:47:13,520 --> 01:47:15,519
Speaker 10: seem like he wants to dig deeply involved in nation

2096
01:47:15,640 --> 01:47:19,160
Speaker 10: building or quote unquote nation building or having the US

2097
01:47:19,240 --> 01:47:21,800
Speaker 10: deeply invested in Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East.

2098
01:47:21,800 --> 01:47:23,800
Speaker 10: For the most part, I think believe he announced or

2099
01:47:23,840 --> 01:47:27,080
Speaker 10: there was a leak that TI maybe planning to withdraw

2100
01:47:27,240 --> 01:47:30,040
Speaker 10: US troops from Syria, and US troops in Syria they

2101
01:47:30,120 --> 01:47:32,680
Speaker 10: play a very particular role they were there to fight

2102
01:47:32,720 --> 01:47:35,360
Speaker 10: ISIS when ISIS was very very active, and they're defending

2103
01:47:36,040 --> 01:47:38,040
Speaker 10: some of the Kurdish groups that were helping to fight

2104
01:47:38,120 --> 01:47:40,760
Speaker 10: ISIS at that time. And they also keep this very

2105
01:47:40,880 --> 01:47:43,839
Speaker 10: large prison complex called a Whole where tens of thousands

2106
01:47:43,880 --> 01:47:47,120
Speaker 10: of ices, former artist members and their families and also

2107
01:47:47,320 --> 01:47:51,200
Speaker 10: some innocent civilians are incarcerated. So the US may withdraw

2108
01:47:51,280 --> 01:47:54,760
Speaker 10: that presence, and if they do, it'll inevitably create a

2109
01:47:54,880 --> 01:47:57,479
Speaker 10: vacuum where something else happens in there. So either there

2110
01:47:57,479 --> 01:48:00,560
Speaker 10: will be a resumption of fighting between central government and

2111
01:48:00,560 --> 01:48:03,720
Speaker 10: the Kurdish groups, or maybe ISIS people will revive. These

2112
01:48:03,760 --> 01:48:05,760
Speaker 10: are all open questions right now, but there are things

2113
01:48:05,800 --> 01:48:08,559
Speaker 10: that people are thinking about and concerned about. And I said,

2114
01:48:08,600 --> 01:48:11,200
Speaker 10: the situation is still very much developing, but the what

2115
01:48:11,320 --> 01:48:13,479
Speaker 10: the US does is very much top of mind.

2116
01:48:13,360 --> 01:48:14,679
Speaker 8: For many people.

2117
01:48:14,920 --> 01:48:17,200
Speaker 1: And something you had mentioned to me I found really

2118
01:48:17,240 --> 01:48:19,920
Speaker 1: interesting where you've said that Asade of course has fallen

2119
01:48:19,960 --> 01:48:25,120
Speaker 1: and fled, but elements of regime are still holding some

2120
01:48:25,320 --> 01:48:27,479
Speaker 1: territory and still fighting. That the war is over in

2121
01:48:27,520 --> 01:48:31,280
Speaker 1: the sense that it's been won by HTS, but yet

2122
01:48:31,360 --> 01:48:34,639
Speaker 1: the war is not actually over yet. Can you talk

2123
01:48:34,680 --> 01:48:36,880
Speaker 1: a little bit about who these elements are that are

2124
01:48:36,920 --> 01:48:39,680
Speaker 1: still fighting and could you imagine them. Let's say the

2125
01:48:39,800 --> 01:48:43,720
Speaker 1: US withdraws now the Curds are more vulnerable. Could you

2126
01:48:43,840 --> 01:48:47,280
Speaker 1: see the Kurds, you know, allying with some of these

2127
01:48:47,479 --> 01:48:50,479
Speaker 1: kind of gang elements to try to weaken the central

2128
01:48:50,479 --> 01:48:53,519
Speaker 1: government to maintain their own position, Like is what's going

2129
01:48:53,560 --> 01:48:54,240
Speaker 1: on with the fighting.

2130
01:48:55,520 --> 01:48:58,840
Speaker 10: So by the time the government collapsed, the degradation of

2131
01:48:58,920 --> 01:49:01,880
Speaker 10: the state had been so extensive that you effectively had

2132
01:49:02,160 --> 01:49:04,160
Speaker 10: you know, gangs. It was basically a gang with no

2133
01:49:04,280 --> 01:49:07,479
Speaker 10: ideology which was controlling the country and they were involved

2134
01:49:07,520 --> 01:49:11,360
Speaker 10: in drug trafficking, particularly captigan, you know, other force smuggling.

2135
01:49:11,640 --> 01:49:14,240
Speaker 10: They're making a lot of money for themselves. And so

2136
01:49:14,680 --> 01:49:17,080
Speaker 10: the regime left, it was decapitated. You could say that

2137
01:49:17,160 --> 01:49:19,639
Speaker 10: the head of the regime fled to Russia and many

2138
01:49:19,720 --> 01:49:22,680
Speaker 10: other leaders scattered. We don't know exactly where, but there

2139
01:49:22,720 --> 01:49:26,960
Speaker 10: are all these military units. We're controlled by officers, and

2140
01:49:27,200 --> 01:49:30,160
Speaker 10: they'd be turned into gangs basically their mafias, and when

2141
01:49:30,240 --> 01:49:33,320
Speaker 10: the government fell, they disappeared like you don't see them

2142
01:49:33,360 --> 01:49:35,840
Speaker 10: in damaskets anymore. And interestingly, in damaskets they used to

2143
01:49:35,880 --> 01:49:39,200
Speaker 10: Behad's photo every single every single corner. There's not a

2144
01:49:39,240 --> 01:49:41,559
Speaker 10: single trace of him anymore. So they kind of disputed

2145
01:49:41,600 --> 01:49:44,200
Speaker 10: from earth, at least from the major cities. But they've

2146
01:49:44,240 --> 01:49:46,800
Speaker 10: gone to the countryside, they've gone to the coast, and

2147
01:49:47,120 --> 01:49:48,920
Speaker 10: you know, they still maintain they have their money, they

2148
01:49:49,000 --> 01:49:52,000
Speaker 10: have their cliques around them and so forth. And the

2149
01:49:52,120 --> 01:49:57,320
Speaker 10: government has offered that people can you know, demobilize certain cases,

2150
01:49:57,520 --> 01:49:59,760
Speaker 10: you know, former soldiers and so forth, they can turn

2151
01:49:59,800 --> 01:50:02,120
Speaker 10: in the weapons and go home. But you know a

2152
01:50:02,160 --> 01:50:04,960
Speaker 10: lot of people who are more senior or who were

2153
01:50:05,040 --> 01:50:08,400
Speaker 10: allegedly implicated in crimes during the government, they don't have

2154
01:50:08,479 --> 01:50:10,320
Speaker 10: that option, and some of them don't want to do

2155
01:50:10,360 --> 01:50:14,200
Speaker 10: that either. They have financial interest, they have their power

2156
01:50:14,280 --> 01:50:16,840
Speaker 10: independently in their own right. So you know, it's kind

2157
01:50:16,880 --> 01:50:19,360
Speaker 10: of like it's a very hobsy in situation, you could say,

2158
01:50:19,479 --> 01:50:21,519
Speaker 10: because there is a state now which is trying to

2159
01:50:21,560 --> 01:50:24,840
Speaker 10: assert a monopoly in violence, but the previous they didn't

2160
01:50:24,840 --> 01:50:27,720
Speaker 10: have monopoly in violence. So you're trying to reimpose order

2161
01:50:28,200 --> 01:50:30,040
Speaker 10: on this very very big country with lots of guns

2162
01:50:30,080 --> 01:50:32,000
Speaker 10: and lots of money and lots of drugs floating around.

2163
01:50:32,120 --> 01:50:34,559
Speaker 10: Is a pretty significant a lot of territory and I'll

2164
01:50:34,560 --> 01:50:37,479
Speaker 10: tell you that the level of traveling around the country,

2165
01:50:37,560 --> 01:50:40,080
Speaker 10: the level of control that the government has doesn't seem

2166
01:50:40,120 --> 01:50:42,320
Speaker 10: totally clear because they're not that many of them. There

2167
01:50:42,360 --> 01:50:44,559
Speaker 10: are only maybe a couple tens of thousands of people

2168
01:50:44,640 --> 01:50:47,479
Speaker 10: that controlled one province, and now they're controlled suddenly the

2169
01:50:47,479 --> 01:50:49,040
Speaker 10: whole country, which I think they were not expecting.

2170
01:50:49,600 --> 01:50:52,680
Speaker 8: What I saw of HTS is mostly sixteen.

2171
01:50:52,400 --> 01:50:54,760
Speaker 10: Seventeen year olds with AK forty seven's who were just

2172
01:50:54,840 --> 01:50:57,880
Speaker 10: kind of standing around and you know, guarding stuff or

2173
01:50:57,920 --> 01:51:01,240
Speaker 10: taking pictures and things like that, that not seeming ready

2174
01:51:01,320 --> 01:51:02,880
Speaker 10: to con cert control of the entire countries.

2175
01:51:02,880 --> 01:51:04,080
Speaker 6: So it can take a very long time.

2176
01:51:04,600 --> 01:51:07,320
Speaker 10: And to your point, this creates a very fertile environment

2177
01:51:07,479 --> 01:51:12,360
Speaker 10: for potential subversion or infiltration of the country. Obviously, these

2178
01:51:12,400 --> 01:51:15,080
Speaker 10: former regime elements they kind of don't have many options

2179
01:51:15,160 --> 01:51:17,680
Speaker 10: left if they were implicated in crimes and things like that,

2180
01:51:18,680 --> 01:51:21,920
Speaker 10: so they may seek to outside patronage. So a country

2181
01:51:21,960 --> 01:51:24,360
Speaker 10: that you can think of is the UAE potentially can

2182
01:51:24,400 --> 01:51:26,679
Speaker 10: get involved. If you've done in other countries like Sudan

2183
01:51:26,760 --> 01:51:29,680
Speaker 10: and Libya and so forth, Israel and the US, they

2184
01:51:29,720 --> 01:51:32,479
Speaker 10: could seek to arm certain elements to cause trouble for

2185
01:51:32,560 --> 01:51:36,719
Speaker 10: the governments to carve off pieces of Syrian territory for themselves.

2186
01:51:37,320 --> 01:51:40,200
Speaker 10: It's a very very febrile environment. And you know, I

2187
01:51:40,200 --> 01:51:42,760
Speaker 10: would say everyone wants a piece of Syria, fortunately, and

2188
01:51:43,000 --> 01:51:45,160
Speaker 10: the people suffered so much against so much destruction, and

2189
01:51:45,479 --> 01:51:47,120
Speaker 10: I would say the vast majority of people of all

2190
01:51:47,160 --> 01:51:50,160
Speaker 10: backgrounds simply just want no more wars, and they want

2191
01:51:50,200 --> 01:51:52,320
Speaker 10: the economy to recover and sanctions to be lifted and

2192
01:51:52,600 --> 01:51:55,519
Speaker 10: to go back to somewhat assemblance of normality. But I

2193
01:51:55,560 --> 01:51:57,680
Speaker 10: think that the geopolitical interests of other countries are so

2194
01:51:57,760 --> 01:51:59,600
Speaker 10: strong that there will be a lot of resistance to that,

2195
01:52:00,240 --> 01:52:02,240
Speaker 10: and you can only hope that whoever's in charge is

2196
01:52:02,240 --> 01:52:04,880
Speaker 10: able to reassert control. But it's gonna be, like I said,

2197
01:52:04,920 --> 01:52:08,320
Speaker 10: a very very difficult path. And you know, reasserting just

2198
01:52:08,400 --> 01:52:10,280
Speaker 10: physical control is the first step towards that.

2199
01:52:10,720 --> 01:52:13,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be incredibly difficult to do it if

2200
01:52:13,920 --> 01:52:17,360
Speaker 1: Syria had real borders and was just fighting, you know,

2201
01:52:17,439 --> 01:52:20,240
Speaker 1: among the factions that were within the Syrian borders. But

2202
01:52:20,360 --> 01:52:26,000
Speaker 1: to your point, the instability can be kind of generated

2203
01:52:26,520 --> 01:52:29,679
Speaker 1: and furthered by elements that have a lot of interest

2204
01:52:29,760 --> 01:52:32,240
Speaker 1: in making sure that you know, Syria isn't able to

2205
01:52:32,320 --> 01:52:35,160
Speaker 1: kind of reconstitute itself as a as a real state.

2206
01:52:35,240 --> 01:52:37,519
Speaker 1: And I get somewhat related to this, I'll point out that.

2207
01:52:37,720 --> 01:52:40,840
Speaker 1: So today's Wednesday, Tomorrow night, Thursday, at eight pm at

2208
01:52:40,880 --> 01:52:45,320
Speaker 1: drop site, we're screening a documentary about Syria and which

2209
01:52:45,360 --> 01:52:48,280
Speaker 1: focuses on American leftists like we had. We had one

2210
01:52:48,320 --> 01:52:50,840
Speaker 1: of the Brooklyn hipsters on this program talking about how

2211
01:52:50,920 --> 01:52:52,640
Speaker 1: he kind of went over and fought with the.

2212
01:52:52,720 --> 01:52:54,719
Speaker 6: YPG against ISIS.

2213
01:52:55,000 --> 01:52:57,360
Speaker 1: Will be screening that documentary at drops that I can

2214
01:52:57,400 --> 01:52:59,040
Speaker 1: put a link in there and Mozzle be leading the

2215
01:52:59,439 --> 01:53:04,280
Speaker 1: Q and A with a director afterwards. But so I

2216
01:53:04,280 --> 01:53:07,960
Speaker 1: hope everybody checks that Out's opportunity to catch catch that

2217
01:53:08,080 --> 01:53:08,400
Speaker 1: for free.

2218
01:53:09,040 --> 01:53:11,720
Speaker 6: OZ, welcome back to the States, and thanks so much

2219
01:53:11,720 --> 01:53:12,280
Speaker 6: for joining us.

2220
01:53:13,280 --> 01:53:14,240
Speaker 8: Yeah, thanks for having you guys.

2221
01:53:14,479 --> 01:53:18,479
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, so these these rebels might have bitten

2222
01:53:18,479 --> 01:53:22,600
Speaker 1: off more than they can chew. It's it's almost impossible

2223
01:53:22,680 --> 01:53:25,719
Speaker 1: to see how they're going to be able to build

2224
01:53:26,600 --> 01:53:29,760
Speaker 1: an effective state under these conditions. And what he was saying,

2225
01:53:29,760 --> 01:53:32,800
Speaker 1: he was telling me before they have electricity even in

2226
01:53:32,840 --> 01:53:35,479
Speaker 1: the best areas, like two hours a day, which means

2227
01:53:35,520 --> 01:53:38,120
Speaker 1: that the food is all like an edible.

2228
01:53:39,080 --> 01:53:39,920
Speaker 6: The meat is gray.

2229
01:53:40,240 --> 01:53:43,880
Speaker 1: Like imagine trying to run a restaurant or a grocery

2230
01:53:43,880 --> 01:53:46,760
Speaker 1: store or anything when you have two hours of refrigeration.

2231
01:53:47,760 --> 01:53:49,280
Speaker 1: So you know, he was eating like a lot of

2232
01:53:49,360 --> 01:53:52,599
Speaker 1: nuts and berries and stuff or dried berries because it's

2233
01:53:52,640 --> 01:53:54,600
Speaker 1: not like you can not like you have access to

2234
01:53:54,680 --> 01:53:57,240
Speaker 1: like fresh fruit and people as he was poring out,

2235
01:53:57,240 --> 01:53:58,800
Speaker 1: I've been living like that for more than ten years,

2236
01:53:59,040 --> 01:53:59,920
Speaker 1: right right.

2237
01:54:00,640 --> 01:54:03,479
Speaker 4: I Mean the other thing I just wanted to say

2238
01:54:03,520 --> 01:54:05,880
Speaker 4: as a takeaway from that is I'm really glad you

2239
01:54:05,960 --> 01:54:09,760
Speaker 4: guys are sending people at drop site into places like

2240
01:54:09,840 --> 01:54:13,320
Speaker 4: this where typically only corporate press can afford to go.

2241
01:54:13,600 --> 01:54:15,800
Speaker 4: I mean, it costs a ton of money. You need

2242
01:54:16,120 --> 01:54:18,800
Speaker 4: to have a reasonable assumption your reporters will be safe.

2243
01:54:19,240 --> 01:54:21,840
Speaker 4: It's really hard to do and to have independent eyes

2244
01:54:21,880 --> 01:54:24,439
Speaker 4: on the ground. I just think that's a really good

2245
01:54:24,479 --> 01:54:25,000
Speaker 4: sign of what you.

2246
01:54:24,960 --> 01:54:25,479
Speaker 5: Guys are up to.

2247
01:54:25,640 --> 01:54:27,160
Speaker 6: Yeah, really really interesting stuff.

2248
01:54:27,439 --> 01:54:29,400
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely, this was a packed show.

2249
01:54:29,479 --> 01:54:34,560
Speaker 4: We fit in all the debates about the constitutionality of executives.

2250
01:54:35,560 --> 01:54:36,200
Speaker 6: Yeah we did.

2251
01:54:36,320 --> 01:54:40,520
Speaker 4: We solve the problem and we even got to have

2252
01:54:40,640 --> 01:54:43,920
Speaker 4: some fun with Jim Acostafer. But I consider that a win. Definitely,

2253
01:54:45,920 --> 01:54:47,480
Speaker 4: breaking points that got was where you could go to

2254
01:54:47,480 --> 01:54:49,440
Speaker 4: get a premium subscription support the show.

2255
01:54:49,880 --> 01:54:52,640
Speaker 5: We always appreciate that. Thanks to everybody for tuning in.

2256
01:54:52,760 --> 01:54:56,320
Speaker 4: We'll be back here, of course, next Wednesday with more counterpoints.

2257
01:54:56,680 --> 01:55:02,320
Speaker 6: See you then, m