Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 4: A right, good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. As
Speaker 4: we continue our live stream that began last night thirty pm.
Speaker 1: We took a slight break. We're back. We have some
Speaker 1: results in which we'll get into.
Speaker 5: You might as well actually have just had someone else.
Speaker 5: I should have done a third shift. Yes, we should
Speaker 5: have covered until this morning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then where was Sager.
Speaker 4: Saga do the twelve thirty You could have the red
Speaker 4: light on from twelve thirty to seven thirty and then
Speaker 4: we'll pick up.
Speaker 5: That would be a disaster for his woops. Yes, it
Speaker 5: would so we couldn't. We couldn't have the.
Speaker 1: Ring would be screaming for weeks.
Speaker 5: Would not be good? Would not be good. Crystal is
Speaker 5: with us as well. Ryan is going to run after
Speaker 5: the first couple of blocks, so we're lucky.
Speaker 6: What about my whoop score? Okay?
Speaker 2: Does anyone care? Do you anyone care about what my
Speaker 2: fitbit is telling me this morning?
Speaker 6: That's what I want to.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not quite the same, Crystal. Well, if you
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Speaker 2: So pretty good deal for everybody. If you've been interested
Speaker 2: in trying it out, now is your chance. And we've
Speaker 2: got not only election results, we've got stuff happening in Iran.
Speaker 2: We are now bailing out the Japanese Yen, so that's interesting,
Speaker 2: all because of again the Iran war.
Speaker 6: We've got a major.
Speaker 2: Epstein slash media slash banking scandal that is being broken
Speaker 2: open by Ron Wyden.
Speaker 6: We've got more.
Speaker 2: Developments in the Max Miller saga. Bernie Moreno, his father
Speaker 2: in law coming forward. We had a big Jag Tapper interview,
Speaker 2: a photo of his daughter that was among the dropbox
Speaker 2: files that was released.
Speaker 6: So a lot to get to there.
Speaker 2: And then we haven't actually delved into this, but Trump
Speaker 2: was very very mad at Janine Piro because she had
Speaker 2: the audacity to drop the charges against this guy that
Speaker 2: he claimed had messed up his beautiful reflecting pool. And
Speaker 2: actually she's dropped a number of charges against a number
Speaker 2: of people at this point. So interesting to dig into
Speaker 2: that palace intrigue.
Speaker 6: I suppose, Yeah, that will.
Speaker 5: Be interesting because Trump and Janina Piro that is one
Speaker 5: of the most beautiful, long lasting relationships. So I must
Speaker 5: discuss perhaps tells a little bit of what's happening inside
Speaker 5: of the White House as well. Now, chrysl and Ryan,
Speaker 5: you guys were up late. I was surprised at how
Speaker 5: long the stream went last night, but we didn't have
Speaker 5: a lot of closure. We didn't have a lot of
Speaker 5: clear information coming out actually of the big Michigan race.
Speaker 5: Hailey Stevens and Abdul l sayed, it's still really close,
Speaker 5: with Abdul in first place for now, looking like that's
Speaker 5: going to hold steady. But let's start by going over
Speaker 5: to Michigan here and looking at some of the results
Speaker 5: as you guys were covering it last night, tell us
Speaker 5: how the night was transpiring a little bit closer than
Speaker 5: people expected.
Speaker 2: It looks like, oh yeah, so maybe we should start
Speaker 2: with a one C, which shows you what the holes
Speaker 2: were leading into last night.
Speaker 6: They were across the board.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were getting Abdul plus nineteen plus seventeen
Speaker 2: plus sixteen all in double digits with a lead for him,
Speaker 2: and so it seemed like all the momentum was on
Speaker 2: his side, like he really opened up a gap. And
Speaker 2: again this was every single polster going back.
Speaker 6: You know what do we have there?
Speaker 2: Like ten different poles that all had him with this
Speaker 2: double digit lead. And that's the way the night started off.
Speaker 2: It looked like it was on trend for this kind
Speaker 2: of a blowout win for him. And then a batch
Speaker 2: of results came in from the Detroit area and these
Speaker 2: were the absentee votes where Hayley Stevens was really racking
Speaker 2: up large percentages. And Ryan can talk a little bit
Speaker 2: more about why that is. Those are basically the people
Speaker 2: who had just gotten the ads and hadn't seen any
Speaker 2: of the other pushback against them or been you know,
Speaker 2: had a chance to be contacted by Abdul's campaign, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So she was racking up big margins there, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, it went from Abdul having this gigiantic
Speaker 2: lead to the race being effectively tied. And from there
Speaker 2: on we were just waiting to see what else would
Speaker 2: come in from Wayne County. They were very, very very
Speaker 2: slow in counting, but now we can put a one
Speaker 2: up on the screen. NBC News has called it Abdul
Speaker 2: l Sayad will be the Democratic nominee for the Senate
Speaker 2: in Michigan. He has you know, he is declared victory.
Speaker 2: Mallory McMorrow, who said she would go ahead and endorse
Speaker 2: whoever ended up getting the nomination, she has now endorsed
Speaker 2: Abdul and is backing him.
Speaker 5: So, uh so, can we definitely not on that just
Speaker 5: for a second. That shows Mallary McMorrow got four percent
Speaker 5: of the vote. The NBC News said this, which is
Speaker 5: all this.
Speaker 2: Race kind of significant because it's a larger margin than
Speaker 2: the difference between them.
Speaker 6: Now the confounding factors.
Speaker 2: I don't actually know who that benefits, because it seemed
Speaker 2: like her supporters were fairly evenly split between McMorrow and
Speaker 2: between Steven's and Abdullah Sayad. But in any case, she
Speaker 2: decided to keep her name on the ballot, and that
Speaker 2: may have ended up being a significant factor in the
Speaker 2: outcome of this race.
Speaker 4: Right Yeah, And the absentee ballots, you know, those are
Speaker 4: heavily kind of nursing homes and senior centers, and it's
Speaker 4: a it's a place where the organized Democratic establishment, to
Speaker 4: its credit, still has the capacity to kind of to
Speaker 4: galvanize that that vote and that went overwhelmingly for Stevens,
Speaker 4: where whereas the rest of it, as you said, kind
Speaker 4: of came out kind of a kind of a wash.
Speaker 4: You know, close enough that Abdullahl size is likely. New
Speaker 4: York Times is saying it's still too close to call.
Speaker 4: And I wonder if some of that is the kind
Speaker 4: of wishful thinking on the part of the editors versus
Speaker 4: kind of overruling the data folks who are like, yeah, well,
Speaker 4: it's kind of it's kind of over guys.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the New York Times, if
Speaker 2: you look at their analysis, you know, they have all
Speaker 2: their lego how is so and so doing on their
Speaker 2: benchmarks and what's likely to happen here? And I think
Speaker 2: that their analysis is it is very likely that Abdullah
Speaker 2: side will be the nominee over you know, if you
Speaker 2: look at the bet apps, they all have them at
Speaker 2: ninety nine percent. So I think there's not a whole
Speaker 2: lot of vote left out there, and it's it doesn't
Speaker 2: look like there's enough that would be pro Haley for
Speaker 2: her to make up the gap of roughly one point
Speaker 2: five percentage points here.
Speaker 4: No, it seems like the Polsters need to go back
Speaker 4: to the land lines because it does seem like they
Speaker 4: missed the older vote in.
Speaker 1: A significant way.
Speaker 4: Maybe they've gone, you know, too far into the kind
Speaker 4: of world of texting and online polls. There's still people
Speaker 4: answering those landlines. Although you know, if you have a
Speaker 4: landline at this point, it's it's just ringing constantly with
Speaker 4: spam calls. So, you know, I do sympathize with the polsters,
Speaker 4: but this was this is a you know, this was
Speaker 4: a wild miss. You missed by more than ten points.
Speaker 5: I was just gonna say, the Real Clear Politics average
Speaker 5: had all said a ten point two. That's the average
Speaker 5: of the polls so recent polls. That RCP average had
Speaker 5: them up fourteen, fifteen, ten, sixteen, and thirteen. Now, the
Speaker 5: last couple of polls were from the last week of July.
Speaker 5: I suppose it's possible there was Stephen surge as a
Speaker 5: bunch of money came in in the waiting days of
Speaker 5: the race. Is that possibly explained some of the polling gap.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I mean ten points is a huge miss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's more that the universe. To Ryan's point,
Speaker 2: that they were polling, they just they just underestimated the
Speaker 2: number of older voters who would be in the electorate.
Speaker 2: That's some of the at least early analysis I'm seeing here,
Speaker 2: and look, to be fair to them, it's difficult to know,
Speaker 2: you know, Zorn and New York completely changed that or electorate,
Speaker 2: and there's way more young people than you would expect.
Speaker 2: It's hard to know who's going to turn out in
Speaker 2: a general election, let alone in a primary election. But
Speaker 2: for every single one of them to have had this
Speaker 2: gigantic double digit miss is quite extraordinary, you know, I'm wondering.
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about from Look, a win is a win.
Speaker 2: So the left is looking at that, all right, our
Speaker 2: guys getting through, you know, and against extraordinary odds. Right,
Speaker 2: we have to sort of the bar got reset when
Speaker 2: we started seeing all these polls. It's like, oh, how
Speaker 2: big is the margin going to be? But we have
Speaker 2: to keep in mind he was up against what at
Speaker 2: eleven to one spending deficit, sixty two million dollars came
Speaker 2: in from Hailey Stevens like they really put everything they
Speaker 2: could behind her. She ran all the ads making it
Speaker 2: look like she was endorsed by Obama, which I think,
Speaker 2: you know, was a clever strategy and I think had
Speaker 2: certainly had a significant impact they went with, you know,
Speaker 2: from the the I E. Side, They went with all
Speaker 2: these ads claiming that Abdul hates Michelle Obama and is
Speaker 2: a secret sexist. I think that also damaged to him
Speaker 2: with abortions, the electoral singing your tune there, and then
Speaker 2: the endorsements that came in for her. You know, you
Speaker 2: had Jim Clyburn come up, you had Gretchen Whitmer, who
Speaker 2: had said previously and Gary Peters, who had said previously,
Speaker 2: we're not going to get involved in this race, and
Speaker 2: when they saw what direction it was going is actually,
Speaker 2: we are going to get involved in this race. And
Speaker 2: Whitmer is a very popular figure, especially with Democrats in
Speaker 2: the state of Michigan. So they pulled out all of
Speaker 2: the stops here, from the money, the endorsements, the ads,
Speaker 2: the you know, the sort of cynical direction, the weaponization
Speaker 2: of identity, and the sowing of discord between you know,
Speaker 2: Arabs and Muslims in the Detroit area. Like they did
Speaker 2: it all, and they still came up short. So I
Speaker 2: think it is even though it's much narrower than expected,
Speaker 2: I think it's an extraordinary victory for the left, the
Speaker 2: ascendant left, and now Ryan we get to see if
Speaker 2: our theory of electability in a swing state, if that's correct.
Speaker 2: And I have to tell you after seeing I'm curious
Speaker 2: for you guys. Take Haley outperformed in the sort of
Speaker 2: more white rural parts of the state in spite of
Speaker 2: the fact that she really had no campaign to speak
Speaker 2: of outside of the Detroit area. She just the ads
Speaker 2: spend alone. And you know, I think, frankly some discomfort
Speaker 2: with musclim man named Abdullah's I think that's part of
Speaker 2: what was missed in the polls as well. And so
Speaker 2: it does make me concerned that this general election, even
Speaker 2: as it's a very strong Democratic year, is going to
Speaker 2: be tough for Abdul. It is definitely going to be
Speaker 2: a dog fight and is very uncertain what will ultimately
Speaker 2: happen there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be tough.
Speaker 4: And on the Wayne County vote, we were talking last
Speaker 4: night about how in twenty twenty four, I think there
Speaker 4: were about one hundred and ninety five thousand votes in
Speaker 4: the Democratic primary in twenty twenty four in Wayne County
Speaker 4: and we were kind of gaming out what it would
Speaker 4: look like if you saw a twenty five percent increase
Speaker 4: this time around, and you know what the margins would
Speaker 4: look like, as you Jumping twenty five percent in two
Speaker 4: years is a pretty huge number.
Speaker 1: It's rare to see.
Speaker 4: So far, we're looking at I think two hundred and
Speaker 4: ninety thousand votes already and well there could be you know,
Speaker 4: thousands more, few thousand more still counted. So you're looking
Speaker 4: at a fifty percent increase in turnout in Wayne County
Speaker 4: from twenty twenty four to twenty twenty six. So that's
Speaker 4: going to be key for Abdullah side to go in
Speaker 4: and persuade those people who voted narrowly for Hailey Stevens
Speaker 4: or we're looking at overall five point win for Stevens
Speaker 4: in Wayne County.
Speaker 1: He's going to need all of those Hailey Stevens people
Speaker 1: to come his way.
Speaker 4: And I don't think he can count much on Gretchen Whitmer.
Speaker 4: Maybe Gary Peters because he wants he actually wants to
Speaker 4: see Democrats win the Senate, but the rest of the
Speaker 4: party establishment. I don't think outside and the left should
Speaker 4: rely on that. I think it should be as nice
Speaker 4: as they can be, as conciliatory, like welcome them in
Speaker 4: and like it makes space for them, but absolutely do
Speaker 4: not count on them, because just as you and I
Speaker 4: are talking about this being a test case for the
Speaker 4: entire premise that populism, you know, from the left can
Speaker 4: win in swing seats, whether it's Will Lawrence, or whether
Speaker 4: it's out of California or Maine or here, this being
Speaker 4: the test case, the powers that be recognize that as well,
Speaker 4: and so for them it is it is a real
Speaker 4: question that they won't talk about much, I think publicly,
Speaker 4: but privately are weighing the question of how much do
Speaker 4: we want this Senate seat versus how how much do
Speaker 4: we not want to set the precedent that this populism
Speaker 4: can win, versus the true reward of Wow, look, you
Speaker 4: guys got what you wanted and he lost. So don't
Speaker 4: ever bother us again with any of this.
Speaker 2: And with an I towards twenty twenty eight exactly and
Speaker 2: who you know would be able to to gain the
Speaker 2: Democratic nomination for presidency. So yeah, it's a big prize
Speaker 2: for them ultimately to watch Abdul, you know, quietly, watch
Speaker 2: ab Duel go down.
Speaker 6: That would please them a lot, especially if.
Speaker 5: The if the polling starts to show Rogers running away
Speaker 5: with it before Labor Day, and then maybe a little
Speaker 5: bit into the fall, that'll be I would imagine Ryan
Speaker 5: and Crystal that's going to be a sign to Democrats
Speaker 5: in Washington. So whether they go all in or they're
Speaker 5: kind of tapid, right.
Speaker 4: Although yes, it's going to be very difficult dance for
Speaker 4: them because they have to you know, publicly, they have
Speaker 4: to publicly want it. But also when Washington people have privately,
Speaker 4: Democrats privately have been saying, you know, it's not obvious
Speaker 4: that holding Congress going into the twenty twenty eight election
Speaker 4: is better for Democrats. Like that might sound strange to
Speaker 4: people outside of Washington who were like, wait a minute,
Speaker 4: I thought you're a political party and you want more
Speaker 4: votes and you want more power.
Speaker 1: But no, that's not all. That's not how all Democrats think.
Speaker 4: There's an argument that that's made in Democratic elite circles
Speaker 4: that if you have Congress, then even though you don't
Speaker 4: have much ability to restrain Trump, you then to the
Speaker 4: voters look partly responsible for whatever is happening being in
Speaker 4: the world and they and the best place for Democrats,
Speaker 4: as far as the establishment is concerned, has always been
Speaker 4: completely out of power and blameless and without any responsibility
Speaker 4: for anything, so that they can then kind of just
Speaker 4: run against whatever screw ups uh uh and corruption the
Speaker 4: Republican whoever that may be, is engaged in. So so
Speaker 4: it also fits into that strategy. Just say, we we tried,
Speaker 4: we did everything, we did everything we could for Abdullah's side,
Speaker 4: but he just fell short. So the so my point
Speaker 4: is you rather than cry about that, you have he
Speaker 4: has to lock in, and so does everybody who did
Speaker 4: everything to get him over the hump here. They have
Speaker 4: to lock in from now to November.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 4: The work to be done in Detroit is immense, and
Speaker 4: the work to be done in the royal and suburban
Speaker 4: areas is significant as well. That it's it's there for
Speaker 4: the taking, but you know nobody, nobody's going to hand
Speaker 4: it to you. It's the point like they're like this,
Speaker 4: this campaign and this national movement is going to have
Speaker 4: to do it on its own.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead, actually and take a listen to Abdel
Speaker 2: gave a speech last night before the race had been called,
Speaker 2: when you know by anyone, but already striking that conciliatory
Speaker 2: tone with Democrats saying we all have to come together
Speaker 2: to defeat Mike Rogers. Let's go ahead and take a
Speaker 2: listen to that.
Speaker 8: And however we might feel about the campaign we've just
Speaker 8: come through, I want you to understand that it pales
Speaker 8: in comparison to the cynicism, in comparison to the corporatism,
Speaker 8: in comparison to the lies.
Speaker 7: Like Mike Rogers and Donald Trump are going to tell,
Speaker 7: there is so much more that unites us. However much
Speaker 7: we might disagree with our Democratic opponent, there is so
Speaker 7: much more that unites us than divides us.
Speaker 8: And so to.
Speaker 7: All of our supporters here tonight, watching on TV tomorrow,
Speaker 7: we begin to mend fences.
Speaker 8: Whatever happens tonight, we have.
Speaker 7: A responsibility to assure that we unite, to make sure
Speaker 7: that Mike Rogers never sees the inside of the US Senate.
Speaker 2: And you know, in terms of Mike Rogers, he's got
Speaker 2: a tall hill to climb here too, because he's got
Speaker 2: a man named Donald Trump in the White House and
Speaker 2: he's going to have to answer for every insane, stupid,
Speaker 2: destructive thing that that man does between now and November.
Speaker 2: In a very dismal climate both politically for Republicans economically
Speaker 2: in terms of the level of pessimism, the Iran war
Speaker 2: obviously no end in sight here gas price is still
Speaker 2: very high, so it's a brutal climate for him and Democrats,
Speaker 2: you know, outside of the elected establishment and the elite
Speaker 2: tastemakers and the party. Outside of that circle, they are highly,
Speaker 2: highly elite energized to take the Senate and send a
Speaker 2: message to Republicans into the country that the Trump administration
Speaker 2: is unacceptable and that there is you know, a wave
Speaker 2: building to shift power in the other direction.
Speaker 5: And let's keep going to the down ballot races because
Speaker 5: Will Lawrence is an example of some of that energy.
Speaker 5: We can put a two on the screen and Crystal
Speaker 5: and Ryan explain to us, you were watching these results
Speaker 5: come in last night as well, explain to us what
Speaker 5: this means in the kind of broader constellation of DSA
Speaker 5: style wins that we've seen. Obviously, we're going to get
Speaker 5: into the Corey Bush lost last night, So kind of
Speaker 5: a mixed bag, but this is a big one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Matt Masden there that you see finishing third, he had
Speaker 4: millions of dollars spent on behalf of him.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 4: He's a candidate of that what's it called the bridge,
Speaker 4: like the Liz Smith operation, the same one that did
Speaker 4: Mallory McMorrow and.
Speaker 1: That kind of politics.
Speaker 4: Both of Will Lawrence's opponents were made in a line
Speaker 4: A Democrats, like one of them Navy seal who carried
Speaker 4: the nuclear football for Obama. That's Matt and then Bridget
Speaker 4: was ambassador of Ukraine, you know, who stood up to Trump.
Speaker 4: It's like you couldn't kind of do better if you're
Speaker 4: trying to recruit house Democratic candidates for the Democratic primary base.
Speaker 4: And yet Will Lawrence, co founder of Sunrise, on the
Speaker 4: back of his opposition to both genocide and data centers
Speaker 4: in the district, is beating both of them fairly, fairly comfortably.
Speaker 4: And this will be another test, and it's probably useful
Speaker 4: for Abdell side to have him here because he is
Speaker 4: going to be doing everything he can to bring Michigan
Speaker 4: State University District, which is in his district, that bring
Speaker 4: those folks out to vote, but in general, to make
Speaker 4: the case that populism is viable in mid Michigan. He's
Speaker 4: going to go up against Tom Barrett and incumbent Republicans.
Speaker 4: So this is not one of these DSA candidates who
Speaker 4: wins and can now go around the rest of the
Speaker 4: country just electing other DSA candidates like he has to
Speaker 4: flip a red seat and trying to run up those
Speaker 4: margins and beat Tom Barrett is going to be I
Speaker 4: think very helpful to Abdulah's sides showing that this is
Speaker 4: this is not a culture war that he's waging. He's
Speaker 4: not trying to bring communism to mid Michigan. He's just
Speaker 4: going to fight against these data centers and kind of
Speaker 4: actually be conservative, like conserve what people love about mid Michigan.
Speaker 4: So that will be that will be fascinating Crystal. Any
Speaker 4: thoughts on Lawrence kind of you know, fairly comfortably beating
Speaker 4: these two.
Speaker 2: Democrats, Well, it's I mean it's also a bit of
Speaker 2: a centrist in disarray kind of a story because I'm
Speaker 2: sure that there is a lot of recriminations looking at
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't get fifty percent of the vote,
Speaker 2: so no guarantees that if it was head to head
Speaker 2: him versus one of these other candidates that he would
Speaker 2: have lost. But I'm sure they're going to think that
Speaker 2: that's the case. So there's a lack of coordination there
Speaker 2: problem that's an issue. There is a similar dynamic happening
Speaker 2: in the Wisconsin governor's race with Francesca Hang, the DSA candidate,
Speaker 2: really benefiting from that dynamic as well. Although she has
Speaker 2: such a lead that although who knows what the poll
Speaker 2: or whether the polls are right at this point or not,
Speaker 2: but she has such a lead that it seems unlikely
Speaker 2: even if it was a had to head battle there
Speaker 2: that she would be defeated.
Speaker 6: But we'll see.
Speaker 2: That primary is next week, So now I think, well,
Speaker 2: Lawrence is a very compelling candidate. I think we were
Speaker 2: all impressed with him when we interviewed him, and the
Speaker 2: data center critique is very natural for him because obviously
Speaker 2: as a founder of the Sunrise movement, and he's deeply
Speaker 2: concerned about environmental issues, and that is one aspect of
Speaker 2: what the whole country is deeply concerned about with data centers,
Speaker 2: and it's only going to become more of an issue.
Speaker 2: I saw, I can't remember which state it is, was
Speaker 2: in there was a ballot initiative to block a data
Speaker 2: center in a certain area that was successful. After the
Speaker 2: local officials had approved it, the public said we want
Speaker 2: to say in this and we're able to get that
Speaker 2: on the ballot in their area, and they fully rejected it.
Speaker 2: Adding to some there's some three hundred data center bands
Speaker 2: or moratoriums in place across the country at this point.
Speaker 2: So he'll be part of that burgeoning movement. And to
Speaker 2: your point, Ryan, having him on the ground, working in
Speaker 2: collaboration with Abdul and his team is going to be
Speaker 2: very important.
Speaker 6: Let's go to a three.
Speaker 2: We can put this was the other big race for
Speaker 2: the left in Michigan. This is Donovan McKinney versus Street Thanadar.
Speaker 2: This is a Detroit area district. Right now, you've got
Speaker 2: Donovan McKinney up here by a few points, by about
Speaker 2: three points in about three thousand votes. That one has
Speaker 2: not been called yet. They say there's about seventy three
Speaker 2: percent of the expected vote in. It definitely looks very
Speaker 2: good for Donovan, but still enough vote out for it
Speaker 2: to be too close to call. But you know this
Speaker 2: is a this is a big one too, because you
Speaker 2: have a lefty taking out here a Democratic incumbent, and
Speaker 2: anytime that happens, you know, it's very difficult to unseat incumbents.
Speaker 2: And you know, this is a district that does have
Speaker 2: a lot of a beloved Democratic incumbent, yes, beloved by all,
Speaker 2: And this is a district with a large black population
Speaker 2: as well, and so in terms of some of the
Speaker 2: challenges that the left has with black voters and older
Speaker 2: black voters in particular, you know, Donovan McKinney appears to
Speaker 2: have been able to overcome some of that trepidation in
Speaker 2: his battle here against Tritanadar.
Speaker 4: Donovan in our interview recently had a kind of a
Speaker 4: funny line about the DSA because he.
Speaker 1: Has had a bit of a rocky relationship with DSA.
Speaker 4: He and ed up getting Metro Detroit dsay's endorsement, and
Speaker 4: I think that, you know, that really helped.
Speaker 3: And he had.
Speaker 4: People from all over the country, all of these different
Speaker 4: campaigns at Adam ham Away, a lot of heros on
Speaker 4: and on and on came in and brought staff and
Speaker 4: volunteers as well, and with the hope of a relentless
Speaker 4: get out the vote effort kind of overcoming what was
Speaker 4: what was a polling gap. So it seems like this,
Speaker 4: you know, this coming together so far as working for McKinney.
Speaker 4: There's thirty eight thousand votes outstanding and he has to
Speaker 4: you know, maintain this this three thousand vote lead. But
Speaker 4: he in our interview he said something funny, but I
Speaker 4: don't know if you remember exactly how he put it
Speaker 4: when we asked him about his relationship with the DSA,
Speaker 4: is like, I love the DSA. I agree with them
Speaker 4: on basically everything, but man, they talk a lot and
Speaker 4: sometimes it's not very helpful. It was some version of that,
Speaker 4: and I think the DA he needs to listen to
Speaker 4: people like Donovan mckinneyse like, what whatever it is he's
Speaker 4: telling you about what's not working on the ground in Detroit, Like,
Speaker 4: listen because he agrees with you. And yes, you can
Speaker 4: complain about what you know, where he's been in the
Speaker 4: past and some things he's with you now. He wants
Speaker 4: to see Abdulla al Saiah when he endorsed you know,
Speaker 4: they cross endorsed each other. Having him running is a
Speaker 4: a is a great bridge. The The thing that outside
Speaker 4: has going for him, uh, is that the older black
Speaker 4: community in Wayne County is still very well organized. The
Speaker 4: younger black community as the churches, you know, the church
Speaker 4: attendance has gone down and like the just the collapse
Speaker 4: of kind of American society generally in the last couple
Speaker 4: of decades has become disaggregated. But the older voters are
Speaker 4: still very well organized. So if you can get the
Speaker 4: word out that we're gonna we're going to overcome these
Speaker 4: differences and we're going to pull together, and this is
Speaker 4: a rainbow coalition.
Speaker 1: You know, it was Michigan that almost.
Speaker 4: Propelled Jesse Jackson back in nineteen eighty eight to the
Speaker 4: Democratic nomination on the back of a rainbow coalition. Then
Speaker 4: this becomes that this becomes possible and McKinney could be
Speaker 4: a key player, you know, keep bridge there.
Speaker 2: I think, well, yeah, well, one other quick comment about
Speaker 2: DSA is, you know, they are really gaining a reputation
Speaker 2: as important organizing muscle on the ground, and so you
Speaker 2: see more and more candidates reaching out for their endorsement
Speaker 2: because even if it comes with a you know, the
Speaker 2: socialist label that may or may not benefit them in
Speaker 2: the district, just because they actually are a real member
Speaker 2: organization with real ability and know what they are doing
Speaker 2: and have demonstrated demonstrated some prowess in terms of contacting
Speaker 2: voters and organizing and getting out the vote. It is
Speaker 2: candidates are increasingly really seeing it as worthwhile to have
Speaker 2: their backing and being a real difference maker in some
Speaker 2: of these close votes.
Speaker 5: Russell looking at what appears to be a double digit
Speaker 5: loss for Corey Bush in Missouri to Wesley Bell.
Speaker 4: Real quick before we go to Missouri, just just to
Speaker 4: update people and what we talked about last night. There
Speaker 4: were a bunch of other down ballot dsa slash lefty races.
Speaker 4: Senate District one, Aosh lost an effort to Allston incumbent,
Speaker 4: but in Senate District two, A bus Allawi, who has
Speaker 4: I believe he's been on this program, former chief of
Speaker 4: staff to Corey Busch, former stafford of both Andy Levin
Speaker 4: and Rashida Talib, will be one in Dearborn and ousted.
Speaker 4: The incumbent will be the first Arab American to go
Speaker 4: to UH, to go to the state Senate. And then
Speaker 4: it looks like ann Arbor the insurgents one an Arbor
Speaker 4: Mayor race and elsewhere and a bunch of other races
Speaker 4: that we talked about yesterday. It looks like not a
Speaker 4: completely clean suite, but a pretty pretty significant, pretty significant one.
Speaker 1: But not the case in Missouri.
Speaker 5: Now where it stands in Missouri, as Wesley Bell has
Speaker 5: let me pull this back up. Wesley Bell in District
Speaker 5: one has fifty nine point two percent of the vote.
Speaker 5: This is with just about all of the votes, and
Speaker 5: Corey Bush is at thirty six point ninety percent, So
Speaker 5: resounding victory for Wesley Bell. Not exactly a surprise. Are
Speaker 5: we surprised at all by the margin of victory for
Speaker 5: Wesley Bell?
Speaker 1: I mean probably, probably not.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, this was a real long shot for her, and
Speaker 4: I talked about this last night, but the weird internal
Speaker 4: polling just showed that the negatives on Corey Bush really stuck.
Speaker 4: And the main thing that they hit her for was
Speaker 4: missing too many votes. You know, she talked about she
Speaker 4: had two bouts of COVID, which is what led to
Speaker 4: the the votes being missed. But it's not like they
Speaker 4: give context in attack ads. And Jamal Bowman was telling
Speaker 4: us last night on stream when he was going around
Speaker 4: Saint Louis, you guys can take that off by now.
Speaker 4: When he was going around Saint Louis, people were excited
Speaker 4: about her, but would say like, wait, I saw, didn't
Speaker 4: I say that she didn't do her job. She never
Speaker 4: showed up to vote, like those ads were absolutely everywhere,
Speaker 4: and they still hit her with voting against the infrastructure
Speaker 4: bill in order to try to get the build back
Speaker 4: better bill, you know, through and so the negatives on
Speaker 4: Wesley Bell for whatever reason, weren't landing in the same way,
Speaker 4: and she didn't have also didn't have the money this
Speaker 4: time to kind of really drive those home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and didn't have a lot of you know, once
Speaker 2: but you didn't have Bernie, you know, back in coming
Speaker 2: to the district, there were you know, some she didn't
Speaker 2: have all the sort of organizational endorsement pieces there. And
Speaker 2: I also think, you know, just in terms of where
Speaker 2: the left is strongest, I think there was you know,
Speaker 2: this is a demographic area an area demographically that was
Speaker 2: going to be a challenge as well. So it seems
Speaker 2: like all of that was just too much to overcome.
Speaker 2: So APAC did get at least one when there last night,
Speaker 2: which I'm sure they'll be very very happy about. I mean,
Speaker 2: just to remind people, when Corey Bush was originally defeated
Speaker 2: by Wesley Bell, this was the most expensive at that time,
Speaker 2: This was the most expensive primary that had ever happened.
Speaker 2: Because they were bound and determined to get her out
Speaker 2: of there, and they succeeded with her. With Jamal Bowman
Speaker 2: as well, I think if she was an incumbent and
Speaker 2: they were trying to run that same playbook. I don't
Speaker 2: think that it would work, but there's a lot of
Speaker 2: advantages to incumbency. And I think you're right Ryan that
Speaker 2: some of the things, you know, the claims about absentee voting,
Speaker 2: there were also some alleged sort of corruption stories involving
Speaker 2: her and her husband that probably dinged her image in
Speaker 2: the district as well. So all of those efforts paid off.
Speaker 1: For them, right.
Speaker 4: The things that land are you know, people think you're
Speaker 4: if people think you're petty corrupt, like self dealing, and
Speaker 4: if you're not and if you're not voting like that
Speaker 4: like that it hits in these.
Speaker 1: Attack ads, like because like for.
Speaker 4: You know, I think for voters are like, you're getting
Speaker 4: paid six figures, your job is to go vote, Go vote.
Speaker 4: Like if I was there, they're thinking, if I was
Speaker 4: getting paid six figures, I would vote. And like I said,
Speaker 4: in attack ad, you don't get a chance to say, well,
Speaker 4: here's the reason I missed these votes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just she had.
Speaker 4: The worst voting record in Congress, you know, whatever the
Speaker 4: whatever the hit hit was.
Speaker 2: And I mean they tried as similar and the sort
Speaker 2: of petty corruption front. They tried a similar tactic with
Speaker 2: Abdul that I'm sure also dinged his image with all
Speaker 2: of Hailey Stevens really spent a lot of time focusing
Speaker 2: on where's your tax return, where's your financial disclosure, which
Speaker 2: she ends up releasing, but you know, she'd raise these
Speaker 2: questions about, well, where did this money come from? Where
Speaker 2: did that money come from? And so to create this
Speaker 2: similar impression and to mondy the waters as she was
Speaker 2: getting hit hard for a sort of corruption by taking
Speaker 2: all of this corporate and lobby money for her campaign.
Speaker 5: Well, let's finally go to Washington District nine, where Adam
Speaker 5: Smith has according to results right now, we've got fifty
Speaker 5: three percent of votes in. He's not just advancing to
Speaker 5: the general election, but had fifty one percent, So over
Speaker 5: fifty percent of the vote there in Washington nine. The
Speaker 5: Republican candidate Doug Basler at twenty three point eight percent,
Speaker 5: So that's what the general election will look like. Again,
Speaker 5: fifty three percent of the votes in. So we don't
Speaker 5: know if these particular margins stick, but over the fifty
Speaker 5: percent margin for Adam Smith right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this this will be a lock for him
Speaker 2: in the general because it's a very liberal district. You know,
Speaker 2: just sort of like suburban Seattle. Obviously, we had both
Speaker 2: Adam Smith and his socialist challenger Kasha Masawant. In Washington,
Speaker 2: they do top two primary, so everybody runs and what's
Speaker 2: called a jungle primary, and then the top two move
Speaker 2: on to the general election. So that's why you see Socialists, Republican,
Speaker 2: Democrat all mixed together there in the results.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Doug Basler, the Republican, raised less than one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars in the primary, so you know he's
Speaker 4: not a serious candidate. He's not going to be a
Speaker 4: threat to Adam Smith because Shamas the Want is currently
Speaker 4: in battling for third with Melissa Chaudrey. She's current results
Speaker 4: have her with eight thousand little over eight thousand votes.
Speaker 1: She's eight hundred votes ahead of Melissa Chaudry.
Speaker 4: There's still about sixty thousand votes to be counted, so
Speaker 4: it's possible Chaudrey could overtake her, but doesn't matter third
Speaker 4: or fourth. Either way, you don't make it. You don't
Speaker 4: make it into the top two there. Yeah, and Marie
Speaker 4: Glusen Camperez, by the way, did win, and she did
Speaker 4: make the top two. She had a left wing challenger
Speaker 4: who was trying to squeeze her out of the top
Speaker 4: out of the top two, but she made it through.
Speaker 4: So it'll be her against a Republican to defend her seat.
Speaker 8: Yeh.
Speaker 2: So some interesting results there, and you know, I think
Speaker 2: I think perhaps the lack of the DSA endorsement for
Speaker 2: Kashama was significant there to just given again the organizing
Speaker 2: muscle and when you have there were multiple challengers there
Speaker 2: to Adam Smith's left, so there was you know, there
Speaker 2: wasn't an ability to consolidate and be able to get
Speaker 2: past the Republican.
Speaker 6: Partisanship is a hell of a drug.
Speaker 2: You know, if you have an R or D next
Speaker 2: year name, there's a certain block of voters that's just
Speaker 2: going to be there for you. So you're not starting
Speaker 2: from vote number one and you know it can provide
Speaker 2: an advantage and then real.
Speaker 4: Quick before we finish and put up a four, APEC
Speaker 4: did have another win here. This is this is Haley
Speaker 4: Stevens's district to replace her. The pro Israel candidate ended
Speaker 4: up with nearly fifty percent of the vote, Ayisha Faruki
Speaker 4: with thirty two percent, so fairly comfortable win, an expensive
Speaker 4: win for the for the pro Israel crowd. Here in
Speaker 4: Steven's district. But this will be I think probably a
Speaker 4: prime target in the next cycle if if the opposition
Speaker 4: can kind of consolidate around a single single candidate. They
Speaker 4: had a bunch of different challengers and they could never
Speaker 4: really kind of organize the energy behind us a single
Speaker 4: one Kyle Blumcoast.
Speaker 5: They're at thirty six percent. Oh yes, yes, in the
Speaker 5: Upper Peninsula one yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had Kyle.
Speaker 4: We had Kyle on He ended up also spent about
Speaker 4: one hundred grand, ended up losing twenty points to in
Speaker 4: his Democratic primary.
Speaker 5: Interesting, interesting candidacy that we talked to him about data
Speaker 5: centers as well, and we'll have honestly some similar things
Speaker 5: to discuss next week after the Wisconsin results. So should
Speaker 5: we move on to a run and updates everyone?
Speaker 2: Just one last question for Ryan on the election, which
Speaker 2: is just you know, what's kind of your overall takeaway
Speaker 2: for the strength of the left within the Democratic primary
Speaker 2: base and you know how people should be thinking about
Speaker 2: these things overall.
Speaker 4: You know, we did a survey with drop sit Ins,
Speaker 4: the TAO sponsorous survey back and I think April it was,
Speaker 4: and it basically found that Abdulla al Saiah did not
Speaker 4: have a path to victory in a one on one
Speaker 4: race against either Haley Stevens or Mallory McMorrow, and that
Speaker 4: his only his only chance was if all three of
Speaker 4: them stayed in. And it was right around that time
Speaker 4: that we did our survey, we put our survey into
Speaker 4: the field justice the kind of Hassan Piker thing was
Speaker 4: was blowing up that where McMorrow and Third Way were
Speaker 4: demanding that he be denounced, and that ended up polarizing
Speaker 4: the race around him and around Israel, Israel Palestine, and
Speaker 4: you know, sinking mcmorroll's candidacy. So if you would have
Speaker 4: told me at the time that mcmore was going to
Speaker 4: drop out and that Elside was still going to beat
Speaker 4: Haley Stevens, I would have been very surprised because that
Speaker 4: was a very tough path for him for him to win.
Speaker 2: And if we had told you she'd also get the
Speaker 2: Whitmer endorsement, she'd get on top of it.
Speaker 4: Gary Peters would come in, Whitmer would come in, She'd
Speaker 4: have sixty plus million dollars of ads telling people that
Speaker 4: Obama was supporting her, and that you'd have almost three
Speaker 4: hundred thousand people vote in Wayne County, and that he
Speaker 4: would still win. I would have been I would have
Speaker 4: been very surprised, and I would never have expected that
Speaker 4: anybody would have been suggesting that there was going to
Speaker 4: be a fifteen point victory. So I don't know where
Speaker 4: on earth that that kind of came from out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Plus you if he also tell.
Speaker 4: Me, oh, by the way, Donovan McKinney's going to come
Speaker 4: from behind and win.
Speaker 1: Let's see if he does.
Speaker 4: But he's up now, and Will Lawrence is going to
Speaker 4: win in mid Michigan. That's a pretty dominant performance for
Speaker 4: the populace wing of the party, kind of across across
Speaker 4: the but ideological and racial spectrum in a party that
Speaker 4: is very obsessed with with identity. And it also came
Speaker 4: as the party establishment, after having destroyed Graham Plattner, was
Speaker 4: able to focus all of its energy on trying to
Speaker 4: take down Will Lawrence, who they threw the entire kitchen
Speaker 4: sink at. You know, Oppa was just coming relentlessly, and
Speaker 4: Abdullah said they were going after him, him and Will
Speaker 4: Lawrence with with really everything they had. And so that's
Speaker 4: that's kind of how I take take it away, rather
Speaker 4: than the squeaker, but it's it's going to be a
Speaker 4: very tough race, and and they're gonna, like I said,
Speaker 4: they're gonna have to really lock in. I don't know
Speaker 4: what's what's your thirty thousand foot look this morning?
Speaker 2: You know, what I was thinking about is like, you know,
Speaker 2: in the past, the populous left, there have been lots
Speaker 2: of sort of like moral victories where I was like, well,
Speaker 2: we didn't win, but Bernie came really close. You know,
Speaker 2: if only X and Y and Z had gone different,
Speaker 2: really gave them a scare. I feel like now the
Speaker 2: shoes on the other foot, where it's like the Centrists
Speaker 2: are kind of taking like a moral victory, and you know,
Speaker 2: I'm personally glad to be moving into the realm of
Speaker 2: actual victories, not a moral victories. So I think you're
Speaker 2: right that the bar has been raised so extraordinarily high
Speaker 2: now that in another cycle, just taking out one incumbent Shritannadar,
Speaker 2: if that holds, you know, with Donovan McKinney, that would
Speaker 2: be seen as a really sort of landmark event in
Speaker 2: the way AOC taking out you know, Crowley was this
Speaker 2: kind of watershed moment, et cetera. So I think it
Speaker 2: shows you how much the party has shifted, how much
Speaker 2: the landscape has shifted. But also obviously you can see
Speaker 2: the perils of the way they are able to fight back,
Speaker 2: the amount of resource that they're able to bring to bear,
Speaker 2: the frankly, you know, deeply cynical tactics that they're willing
Speaker 2: to use. You know, the constant weaponization of identity is
Speaker 2: a theme that goes back, you know, certainly to the
Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton versus Burning campaigns as well. So, you know,
Speaker 2: I think it's a I think it's a reminder that
Speaker 2: there are still very very strong forces that will do
Speaker 2: everything they can to oppose a true populist movement that
Speaker 2: will oppose money and politics, will oppose oligarchy, and that
Speaker 2: is to be taken seriously, both inside of the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party and in the you know, the general election.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nothing's going to be handed to anybody. If you
Speaker 4: want it, you got to take it, that's for sure.
Speaker 5: Well, we have some breaking news now. Actually in the
Speaker 5: Red Sea. We could toss this tear shape up on
Speaker 5: the screen. This is from the New York Times right now,
Speaker 5: reporting this morning Huthy threatened to expand Red Sea attacks
Speaker 5: and claim strike on Saudi tanker The who the these
Speaker 5: they report said Wednesday they had struck a Saudi oil
Speaker 5: tanker in the Northern Red Sea, and they threaten to
Speaker 5: intensify attacks. They're in an effort to close quote unquote
Speaker 5: all access routes to Saudi oil shipments. This obviously comes
Speaker 5: as the Trump administration is struggling to get itself out
Speaker 5: of the Iran conflict. More broadly, we can put b
Speaker 5: one up on the screen. Now, this just yesterday. This
Speaker 5: is going to be a st just one moment. I'll
Speaker 5: set it up for US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant is
Speaker 5: saying on CNBC at least says of yesterday that a
Speaker 5: deal was really, really close, and we also have some
Speaker 5: details to come on a potential deal between between Iran
Speaker 5: and Oman about opening the Strait of Hormuz. But for now,
Speaker 5: let's start here just listening to twenty four hours ago
Speaker 5: Scott Bessant talking about how very very close we were.
Speaker 9: We've seen President Trump last week threatened what would have
Speaker 9: been one of the largest military campaigns, or the largest
Speaker 9: military campaigns since World War Two against the Iranians, and
Speaker 9: now we are because of that, we are in talks
Speaker 9: with the Irais, and I think there is a chance
Speaker 9: we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open
Speaker 9: the straight and move towards a more normalized position in
Speaker 9: this conflict. And that's because if their air forces wiped out,
Speaker 9: their navy is wiped out substantial portion, or their missiles
Speaker 9: are wiped out. More importantly, their missile production capability is
Speaker 9: wiped out. So anything that happens in the golf will
Speaker 9: benefit Japan and indeed the rest of the world.
Speaker 5: Joe, if we put the next element up on the screen,
Speaker 5: the talks of how close this deal were sent the
Speaker 5: stock market surging yesterday and now obviously there's also this
Speaker 5: conversation from reading here from Joyce Karam at a monitor.
Speaker 5: The next element shows reporting Hormuz deal seen close around
Speaker 5: controls entry along exits around has the ability to intervene
Speaker 5: in the waterway, potential service fee revenue split. That's according
Speaker 5: to the New York Times. And bestment was of course
Speaker 5: saying that this could happen any day. Crystal. Now that
Speaker 5: there's additional conflict in the Red Sea and the huthis
Speaker 5: seem to be escalating, what do you think this does
Speaker 5: to the bigger picture in the Middle East right now?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the funny thing is Scott Bessont talking
Speaker 2: about We're going to have a deal, but the deal
Speaker 2: isn't with US. It's between Iran and Oman and so
Speaker 2: and when you say a revenue split that is going
Speaker 2: to also not involve US. That is between Iran and Oman,
Speaker 2: and I was.
Speaker 5: Saying it has nothing to do with the bigger, the broader.
Speaker 2: War, Yes, exactly right, and Iran is saying, no, we
Speaker 2: are not negotiating with the United States right now. And
Speaker 2: I think the HOOI you know, action this morning really
Speaker 2: shows that for their view, the war is very much
Speaker 2: still on and they're still going to enforce their red lines,
Speaker 2: both you know, in the Red Sea and with the
Speaker 2: Straight of Horn moves.
Speaker 6: So nothing has really shifted.
Speaker 2: If anything, the acceptance from the US of this Iran
Speaker 2: Oman negotiation is another acknowledgment of the weakness of our
Speaker 2: position because you know, just to back up what happened
Speaker 2: here is we had this mu memo of understanding. There
Speaker 2: was some ambiguity in the language around what would happen
Speaker 2: with the Strait of Hormuz, but the Iranians certainly understood
Speaker 2: it as we are going to retain control because we
Speaker 2: secured that on the battlefield and we have no intention
Speaker 2: of giving that up. The US trying to undermine that
Speaker 2: deal and see what they could get away with by
Speaker 2: establishing these separate corridor through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran
Speaker 2: was not having that, and so that's why we ended it,
Speaker 2: and then we ended up in this, you know, tit
Speaker 2: for tat situation, which is basically where we are today.
Speaker 2: So you know, it continues to be one of the
Speaker 2: primary issues in terms of the conflict, and the Iranians
Speaker 2: have no intention of ever giving up control over the
Speaker 2: Strait of Hormuz. So for besant to you know, tout
Speaker 2: this quote unquote deal as something that's positive for the
Speaker 2: US's kind of extraordinary spin to this because again it's
Speaker 2: it's sort of de facto and admission of how little
Speaker 2: control and leverage we have in all of this. I
Speaker 2: want to put up I think this is B six
Speaker 2: up on the screen. Every day we learned something new
Speaker 2: about how little we have left in our stockpiles. So
Speaker 2: yesterday we learned that we are virtually out of long
Speaker 2: range missiles. Now we get some reporting from CNN that
Speaker 2: the US military is used up nearly eighty percent of
Speaker 2: key missile interceptors as commanders worn once again that stockpiles
Speaker 2: are dangerously low. So that's the other thing that is
Speaker 2: I guess amusing about beston talking about, Oh, we destroyed
Speaker 2: their navy, we destroyed their air force. You know, we've
Speaker 2: kind of destroyed ourselves here. There's a reason why Trump
Speaker 2: issues these threats and then backs off because not only
Speaker 2: does he, I guess realize that even if he acted
Speaker 2: on these alleged threats, it would be unlikely to change
Speaker 2: the dynamics of the negotiating table, but we also just
Speaker 2: literally don't have what we would need to do to
Speaker 2: go forward with the sort of mass bombing campaign that
Speaker 2: we launched this war with.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Reading from the CNN report here, Trump decided to back
Speaker 5: off after talking with Middle East allies on Saturday, who
Speaker 5: told him they were afraid of Iranian retaliation, specifically retaliatory
Speaker 5: attacks on their energy infrastructure. According to an official a
Speaker 5: senior Trump official, Trump aregried to hear them and around out.
Speaker 5: He subsequently told Hexath to stand down for now, but
Speaker 5: is not taking the planned strikes off the table for
Speaker 5: a future date. And again in the CNN report, it
Speaker 5: says golf allies have also raised fresh concerns about how
Speaker 5: a shortage of air defense systems could impact their ability
Speaker 5: to warn off potential Iranian retaliation. If Trump decides to
Speaker 5: escalate the ongoing conflict. It is just a stunning embarrassment.
Speaker 5: I mean not stunning because it's surprising, but stunning because
Speaker 5: the administration slept walked into exactly what would have been predicted.
Speaker 5: Was predicted in several months ago. This is what we
Speaker 5: were leading up to Crystal, So it's not surprised to
Speaker 5: I guess people who were always skeptical of this. We
Speaker 5: would be here in August if the conflict was still
Speaker 5: going on. I think Trump said at the beginning it
Speaker 5: was going to be three to four weeks at one point.
Speaker 5: I mean, his timeline was obviously all over the map.
Speaker 5: But we're now it's August fifth, and now our golf
Speaker 5: allies are worried because our interceptor supply has been so
Speaker 5: depleted that they wouldn't be able to fight off an
Speaker 5: Iranian attack. It is such a dramatic contrast with how
Speaker 5: our power was being described by our leaders in early March.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it really underscores why you had top military
Speaker 2: official saying we have to choose at this point, given
Speaker 2: how low our stockpiles are between defending Israel and defending
Speaker 2: the homeland. Forget about the Gulf Arab allies or our
Speaker 2: bases in the region. I mean, most of those, I
Speaker 2: think have been basically abandoned at this point. There's been
Speaker 2: as or trenchman in Jordan than you had, you know,
Speaker 2: that deadly attack in Jordan as well, with the Iranian
Speaker 2: showing that they could they could hit us there as well.
Speaker 2: So you know, the whole situation in every respect is
Speaker 2: a complete disaster. And yet I don't think that Trump
Speaker 2: and the US have felt enough pain for him to
Speaker 2: accept what would be required, which is, you know, to
Speaker 2: effectively acknowledge defeat at the negotiating table.
Speaker 6: He keeps trying to.
Speaker 2: Find a way out of that impossible predicament, which is why,
Speaker 2: you know, I continue to be fearful of him doing
Speaker 2: something truly insane, you know, whether it's an invasion, whether
Speaker 2: it's a tactical nuke, something of that nature, to try
Speaker 2: to get himself out of the absolute bind that he
Speaker 2: has placed himself into.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And meanwhile, Brett Stevens, this is interesting, very pro Israel
Speaker 5: columnist at the New York Times is warning about this
Speaker 5: public letter that Matan Vilnai, is, a retired deput chief
Speaker 5: of staff to the IDF, sent Trump just a few
Speaker 5: days days ago. And this is actually Brett Stevens worrying
Speaker 5: about a potential third into Fada. So in the New
Speaker 5: York Times, Stevens is writing, there's an immediate danger in
Speaker 5: that the spiraling West Bank violence, which is what vill
Speaker 5: and I warned Trump about, could easily produce a third
Speaker 5: into Fada that an exhausted Israel can ill afford militarily
Speaker 5: or diplomatically, to say nothing of the human cost in
Speaker 5: both Israeli im Palestinian lives. There's still a greater long
Speaker 5: term rist that the NISA Yahoo government's excuse making for
Speaker 5: Jewish lawlessness and terrorism leads to what the scholar and
Speaker 5: diplomat Michael Or in an oppression commentary from two thousand
Speaker 5: and nine called the hemorrhaging of sovereignty. So, Crystal, we
Speaker 5: are now again in August, after we heard all of
Speaker 5: the rosy outlooks in March that were being in those
Speaker 5: same people that were promagating those rosie outlooks. We're telling
Speaker 5: everybody who predicted what's coming to pass right now, where
Speaker 5: you have chaos in Israel. You have chaos in the
Speaker 5: US military and no end in sight in this conflict.
Speaker 5: Potentially looking at is is really supporters saying a quote
Speaker 5: third into Fada because of spiraling violence in the West Bank.
Speaker 5: It is a complete and total disaster. And it is
Speaker 5: a complete and total vindication for people who were predicting
Speaker 5: it and being dunked on constantly in March and April
Speaker 5: about what was to come.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and obviously I have a million issues with the
Speaker 2: way Brett Stevens frames this thing and always putting, you know,
Speaker 2: Israel's interest above anything else, including international law or basic
Speaker 2: human rights, et cetera. But to see him use the
Speaker 2: words Jewish terrorism, I think is you know, very significant
Speaker 2: in the New York Times as a conservative calmness in
Speaker 2: someone who is a die, diehard supporter of the Zionist cause.
Speaker 2: And you know, in terms of the West Bank, obviously
Speaker 2: we've been covering the programs there the extraordinary and it's
Speaker 2: not just you know, the settlers who are committing that violence.
Speaker 2: They're very much backed up by the IDF. Those attacks,
Speaker 2: how are state sanctioned. They have been, they have escalated
Speaker 2: dramatically over the past several years, but specifically in the
Speaker 2: past several weeks. And in addition to that, Israel has
Speaker 2: really been trying to economically squeeze the West Bank and
Speaker 2: you know, sort of starve them in that way as well. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're going to get people who are very angry about that.
Speaker 2: Anyone would be very angry about that. You're going to
Speaker 2: get a lot of people who are very desperate in
Speaker 2: an existential way. And no, that's not good for the
Speaker 2: people who are being you know, who are having their
Speaker 2: land stolen and who are being abused and assaulted and imprisoned.
Speaker 2: It's certainly first and foremost not good for them. But
Speaker 2: it's not good for anyone's safety to have this level
Speaker 2: of endemic violence, you know. Turning back to the economic
Speaker 2: piece here, we had some interesting comments again from Scott
Speaker 2: Bessett talking about the state of the economy. And you know,
Speaker 2: the thing is that if this was another region of
Speaker 2: the world, perhaps you could put this thing on the
Speaker 2: back burner and just have this sort of low grade
Speaker 2: tip for Tad or the US could even just up
Speaker 2: and leave and sort of like we'll figure it out later.
Speaker 2: Because of how crucial this region of the world is
Speaker 2: for everything in terms of the global economy with the
Speaker 2: fossil fuels backing basically our entire economic structure, we don't
Speaker 2: really have the luxury of that, so the economic piece
Speaker 2: continues to really be at the center of this entire war.
Speaker 2: So in any case, Bessett was asked about the current
Speaker 2: state of the economy and means some interesting comments.
Speaker 5: This is B five.
Speaker 6: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 9: So we are starting to see I got sick of
Speaker 9: hearing about this K shaped economy. I can say here definitively,
Speaker 9: the K shaped economy is over.
Speaker 5: K shaped.
Speaker 2: His economy is over. Just for people who aren't in
Speaker 2: the know of what that means. It means that the
Speaker 2: riches start doing really well and then everybody else is screwed,
Speaker 2: and the K shape economy emily is certainly not over.
Speaker 2: Especially gas prices are going to be one of the
Speaker 2: things that hit working class people the hardest. Inflation is
Speaker 2: one of the things that are going to is going
Speaker 2: to hurt working class people the hardest, because you know,
Speaker 2: budgets are already stretched, wages are not going up to
Speaker 2: keep pace with the level of inflation, and just the
Speaker 2: increase in gas prices alone. So the K shaped economy
Speaker 2: is only further diverging at this point.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, we just mentioned earlier in the block, but
Speaker 5: the stock markets were surging yesterday on this apparent news
Speaker 5: that we were close to a deal. What that actually
Speaker 5: means different question, as we talked about earlier. So when
Speaker 5: you have markets stop being attached, Well, this has been
Speaker 5: going on for a long time. It's actually where the
Speaker 5: entire K shaped economy formula comes from, being detached from
Speaker 5: the reality of the middle class on the ground. That's
Speaker 5: not an end to the K shaped economy. It's like
Speaker 5: exactly when you're seeing the mag seven take up what
Speaker 5: is it like thirty percent of the S and P
Speaker 5: five hundred somewhere around there. The stocks keep going up
Speaker 5: and up and up. Meanwhile, well, in Michigan, which we
Speaker 5: covered earlier in the show because it had so many
Speaker 5: elections yesterday where populist candidates found success, gas is at
Speaker 5: four to twenty eight according to Triple A's daily average
Speaker 5: four dollars and twenty eight cents a gallon in Michigan.
Speaker 5: So that's just a crazy thing to say. It's obviously
Speaker 5: a political problem for Republicans going into the election, but
Speaker 5: a genuine problem for Americans right now as well, Crystal obviously, yeah,
Speaker 5: the K shaped economy is unfortunately alive, and.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, and we talked.
Speaker 2: Ryan talked about how Democratic establishment maybe doesn't really care
Speaker 2: all that much about taking back the Senate, and as
Speaker 2: at I guess at the very least cross pressured on
Speaker 2: whether or not they would want Abdula Sayah to win
Speaker 2: in Michigan. But I don't think Trump really cares that
Speaker 2: much about whether Republicans when in the Senate. He's certainly
Speaker 2: not really acting like it outside of some shady behind
Speaker 2: the scenes election brigging maneuvers that he's making.
Speaker 6: But you know, I don't think that.
Speaker 2: He is particularly committed to whether or not Republicans hold
Speaker 2: onto the House or the Senate.
Speaker 6: So you got a weird dynamic.
Speaker 2: Of both I guess party leaderships being like, yeah, whatever.
Speaker 5: Gas is over four dollars in Maine and in Ohio
Speaker 5: as well, so major swing states. Saying the K shaped
Speaker 5: economy is over on CNBC might be a good clever
Speaker 5: way to spin and frame what he thinks is happening,
Speaker 5: but it's obviously not accurate, and it's just completely the
Speaker 5: more that they try to do exactly what we saw
Speaker 5: the Biden administration do by saying it's fine inflation and
Speaker 5: don't worry about it. We've got it under control, or
Speaker 5: blaming the other person, or blaming like you cannot do
Speaker 5: that when you're in charge. And I guess maybe that's
Speaker 5: why Scott Beston is trying to come up with some
Speaker 5: new spin. I don't know, that's my best guess at
Speaker 5: what's going on there.
Speaker 6: Good luck with that, buddy, Yeah, seriously.
Speaker 5: All right, well, speaking of Scott best Boy, do we
Speaker 5: have a story out of Japan. Let's get to it.
Speaker 2: So, in a sign of the massive impact that the
Speaker 2: Iran War is having on the global economy, certain things
Speaker 2: are starting to break, in particular the Japanese yen, the
Speaker 2: Japanese currency, which has taken a massive hit. And I'll
Speaker 2: get into some of the mechanics. So though it's a
Speaker 2: little bit complicated of what exactly is going on there,
Speaker 2: but extraordinary scene here. We've got this Scott Besson almost
Speaker 2: like he's right now on a grocery list. Put c
Speaker 2: one up on the screen. We've got a notepad and
Speaker 2: an ego eyed photographer was able to capture the note
Speaker 2: that was written here. It says to do by Japanese
Speaker 2: yen five to ten billion dollars. So the LDR here
Speaker 2: is that because of the Iran who are causing all
Speaker 2: kinds of problems for Japan, including surging inflation in a
Speaker 2: place that has not had inflation famously for decades up
Speaker 2: until COVID. Then they got a little bit of inflation,
Speaker 2: but now you know, with gas prices going up in
Speaker 2: Japan being an island, it has to import most of
Speaker 2: what they consume. It's causing massive issues for them, and
Speaker 2: so we're jumping in to bail them out and to
Speaker 2: help prop up their currency. The reason we care about that,
Speaker 2: and the reason we're doing that is not out of
Speaker 2: the kindness of our hearts, Emily and or because we,
Speaker 2: you know, love the Japanese and their great allies or
Speaker 2: anything like that, although I'm sure the fact that their
Speaker 2: allies certainly helps to make the case. But the reason
Speaker 2: we're doing that is because in order for them to
Speaker 2: be able to prop up their own currency, they were
Speaker 2: going to have to sell off a lot of US treasuries,
Speaker 2: and they are one of the largest holders of US treasuries.
Speaker 6: In the entire globe.
Speaker 2: So if they begin to sell off the holdings of
Speaker 2: treasury bonds, that they have, that would in turn mean
Speaker 2: that we would have to pay a higher interest rate
Speaker 2: in order to get more people to buy our debt.
Speaker 2: So that means our debt, which is quite high. Japan
Speaker 2: actually has an even larger debt, which is part of
Speaker 2: their problem because they've had de facto zero percent interest
Speaker 2: rates for years and years and years. Our debt is
Speaker 2: also quite high. If you have to pay a higher
Speaker 2: interest rate on that, that puts a lot of financial strain.
Speaker 2: And judging by the way Trump has you know, the
Speaker 2: cycle of the Trump Taco in this war, and also
Speaker 2: with regard to his tariff scheme, he is very closely
Speaker 2: attuned and very paying very close attention to what that
Speaker 2: interest rate is on the treasury bond yield. So that
Speaker 2: is what's going on here. But again, you know, if
Speaker 2: you want to gloss over some of the more technical mechanics,
Speaker 2: the tld R here is that the Japanese are getting
Speaker 2: screwed because of our war in Iran, and it has
Speaker 2: reverberating impacts on us and our budget and the stability
Speaker 2: is of our treasury market. So we are jumping in
Speaker 2: to bail them out to the tune of five to
Speaker 2: ten billion dollars.
Speaker 5: Yep, I don't even know what to say, Crystal. It
Speaker 5: kind of reminds me a bit. It's not it's obviously
Speaker 5: apples and oranges, but it reminds me a bit of
Speaker 5: Best and Argentina, which you and I covered I think
Speaker 5: at the time. Yeah, he's just wheeling and dealing like
Speaker 5: he still works at a hedge fund. That's what it
Speaker 5: looks like from the outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this is you know, part of how he
Speaker 2: I mean, it really is. The way that he made
Speaker 2: his fortune was working with George Soros on these currency trades,
Speaker 2: and so that you know, this is his bread and butter.
Speaker 2: This is this is where he shines. Propping up foreign
Speaker 2: currencies and manipulating currency markets is kind of where he
Speaker 2: does his thing. We can put see two up on
Speaker 2: the screen just to see, you know, how much the
Speaker 2: yen has fallen. This has the worries that drove Uncle
Speaker 2: Sam to buy the yen. The weakness of the Japanese
Speaker 2: currency was a problem not just for Tokyo but also Washington.
Speaker 2: The yen had slid to a forty year low, indirectly
Speaker 2: threatening to bump up US interest rates, and was throwing
Speaker 2: a wrench in plans to pull billions of dollars of
Speaker 2: Japanese investment into the US.
Speaker 6: Let me explain that part of it.
Speaker 2: So as part of our trade deal with Japan, you know,
Speaker 2: they made one of these promises, We're going to invest
Speaker 2: billions of billions of dollars, et cetera. Well, if you
Speaker 2: have a very weak yen, that means it's going to
Speaker 2: in their currency terms, cost much more to be able
Speaker 2: to make those investments, and they wouldn't be able to
Speaker 2: afford to invest as much in the US. So that's
Speaker 2: the other way in which this was posing a problem
Speaker 2: for Trump and for the US because they were unlikely
Speaker 2: to make good on some of their commitments. Here, there
Speaker 2: was a great video explaining some of the sort of
Speaker 2: longer backstory.
Speaker 6: Japan is a really.
Speaker 2: Fascinating economy because they have, unlike most of the world,
Speaker 2: they have had this long period of a either zero
Speaker 2: percent inflation or even deflation.
Speaker 6: So whereas we're very used.
Speaker 2: To, you know, okay, things are going up in price
Speaker 2: a little bit year over year, and obviously that's spiral
Speaker 2: and escalated in the past few years, they've had this
Speaker 2: in this long stretch, which was a problem for them economically.
Speaker 2: Of price stability. So because of that, they have kept
Speaker 2: their interest rates at zero percent. That means that if
Speaker 2: you are a global financier, you can borrow money at
Speaker 2: basically zero percent, you know in Japan, then you can
Speaker 2: convert it and invest in anything, you know, any sort
Speaker 2: of US tech stock or anything that's going to create
Speaker 2: some sort of a return. So this Japanese carry trade
Speaker 2: has been a very important part of investments, not only
Speaker 2: in treasuries, which we've discussed about discuss but in our
Speaker 2: entire stock market, you know, the tech build out.
Speaker 6: All of that stuff.
Speaker 2: So that's the other issue is maintaining that carry trade
Speaker 2: and up being very important for Japan, for source stability,
Speaker 2: for the US treasury market, et cetera. A YouTuber named
Speaker 2: andre Jeek explained the dynamics here in a way that
Speaker 2: I think was very understandable and got into the background
Speaker 2: of what is going on overall in the Japanese economy.
Speaker 2: It's worth listening to if you're curious about these sorts
Speaker 2: of things. Let's go ahead and take a listen to
Speaker 2: him explaining this carry trade.
Speaker 10: Now, the Enkerry trade meant if you were a hedge fund,
Speaker 10: or a bank or an investor. You could borrow yen
Speaker 10: a zero percent interest converted to dollars. You could buy
Speaker 10: basically anything in the world that paid you more than zero,
Speaker 10: meaning you could buy US treasuries paying four five percent.
Speaker 10: You could buy tech stocks, bitcoin, anything you wanted, and
Speaker 10: you made free money. That's estimated to be worth trillions
Speaker 10: of dollars of investments all around the world, funded by
Speaker 10: borrowed Japanese money. So Japan was like, we want to
Speaker 10: get in on this too. So Japan took its savings
Speaker 10: over because for thirty years there was nothing worth buying
Speaker 10: in Japan. Japanese pension funds, insurers, banks, households, they all
Speaker 10: shipped their money overseas to get some of that interest,
Speaker 10: and in the process, Japan became the world's biggest foreign
Speaker 10: holder of US government debt, holding something like over a
Speaker 10: trillion dollars of US treasuries. Japan's pension fund, for example,
Speaker 10: the GPIF, which is the biggest pension fund in the world,
Speaker 10: holds hundreds of billions of dollars in US bonds and stocks.
Speaker 10: Just think about it like this, When the US borrows money,
Speaker 10: when tech stocks go up, when bitcoin goes up, there
Speaker 10: is a strong chance that somewhere in that process it
Speaker 10: was partially funded by Japanese money. But remember this only
Speaker 10: works because interest rates were zero. They are no longer zero.
Speaker 10: Japan's interest rates are going up.
Speaker 2: So as we know from our own you know, the
Speaker 2: way our central bank operates. Okay, what do you do
Speaker 2: you start to have inflation, which Japan in COVID and
Speaker 2: now exacerbated by the Iran War, has begin to have
Speaker 2: some inflation.
Speaker 6: You raise rates.
Speaker 2: So if you raise the rates, now this carry trade
Speaker 2: no longer makes sense because you can no longer just
Speaker 2: borrow you know, zero percent in Japan and then use
Speaker 2: it to fund all these you know, tech stocks and
Speaker 2: buying US treasuries, et cetera. And so that is creating
Speaker 2: a lot of challenges for them. If they raise the rates,
Speaker 2: then they're going to have you know, bond prices they're
Speaker 2: very high. It is going to be a problem for
Speaker 2: us in terms of our investment. They have this massive
Speaker 2: amount of debt that they accumulated because they could borrow
Speaker 2: at zero percent, so it didn't cause major economic issues
Speaker 2: for them in the past. So when their interest rates
Speaker 2: go up on their debt, it's a major problem. However,
Speaker 2: then if you don't raise interest rates. That's when you
Speaker 2: see these massive problems with the yen and the depreciation there,
Speaker 2: and obviously inflation continues to climb. This is a major
Speaker 2: problem for you know, a country of savers, so all
Speaker 2: of their savings are being eaten away by inflation.
Speaker 6: So they've really.
Speaker 2: Been in this bind, which is why you know, they're
Speaker 2: kind of damned if they do, damned if they don't,
Speaker 2: which is why now the Treasury Secretary is deciding to
Speaker 2: jump in and bail them out, because this problem is
Speaker 2: creating issues for us as well, with our treageries and
Speaker 2: with our stock market.
Speaker 6: So I think it's just Emily.
Speaker 2: The bottom line here is I mean, first of all,
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people are going, wait, why
Speaker 2: are we bailing out Japan? Like, isn't there aren't there
Speaker 2: a lot of other things we could do with that
Speaker 2: five to ten billion dollars in Japanese yen?
Speaker 6: What is going on here?
Speaker 5: We told that euros for the end, right.
Speaker 6: I believe, so yeah.
Speaker 2: But the other I think the broader point to make
Speaker 2: here is just the global economy is very complicated, and
Speaker 2: it's very interconnected, and we are really straining it with
Speaker 2: what we've decided to do in Iran. So, you know,
Speaker 2: I would not have been thinking about as we got
Speaker 2: into this. You know, I'm thinking about oil markets, I'm
Speaker 2: thinking about the obvious things. I wouldn't have been thinking about. Oh,
Speaker 2: this is going to cause currency crisis in Japan that
Speaker 2: we're going to have to intervene in or else. Our
Speaker 2: stock market is going to fall apart, and our debt
Speaker 2: is going to skyrocket in costs. That is a second
Speaker 2: order of effect that myself, as a layperson, would not
Speaker 2: have imagined. And they're even going to be third and
Speaker 2: fourth order effects that even people who do this for
Speaker 2: a living are not going to be able to foresee
Speaker 2: because we saw that all unfold with regard to COVID.
Speaker 2: So to me, it's just a sign of the level
Speaker 2: of fragility in the global economy and how much it
Speaker 2: is being stressed by you know what we've decided to
Speaker 2: do with this warn Iran.
Speaker 5: Well, not even just the economy. I'm reading from an
Speaker 5: NBC news report. Actually I'm sorry, it's a Reuter's report.
Speaker 5: This morning. With Korea is Kim yojung, the powerful sister
Speaker 5: of leader Kim Jong un, warned on Wednesday that Pyongyang
Speaker 5: would adopt quote unquote additional military options in response to
Speaker 5: what she called Japan's transformation into a military power after
Speaker 5: Tokyo test fired a US made Tomahawk cruise missile and crystal,
Speaker 5: all of these pieces come together and emphasize just the
Speaker 5: fragility of geopolitics right now. To your point about the economy,
Speaker 5: to your point about the economy and being tied up
Speaker 5: with Iran, this is this, This situation is obviously very fragile,
Speaker 5: to say the least. I want to read from this
Speaker 5: Financial Times piece that we can put up on the
Speaker 5: screen as well. The headline is Japan vows further yen
Speaker 5: intervention with US if needed. Japan has confirmed the historic
Speaker 5: joint intervention the Finance Ministry intervened on Friday, and then
Speaker 5: further they said, we will not hesitate to conduct further
Speaker 5: joint intervention. That's such a weird way to put it.
Speaker 5: We will not hesitate to conduct further joint intervention. It's
Speaker 5: like a threat crystal at this point from Japan. Really odd.
Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed, a very dicey situation here. So in any case,
Speaker 2: one aspect of the war that is creating massive issues
Speaker 2: for Japan, but also for the global economy and even
Speaker 2: for our own debt and stuff market, so definitely want
Speaker 2: to keep an eye on.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely new updates in the Epstein investigation from Capitol Hill.
Speaker 5: Let's get to that.