Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody, Welcome to Breaking Points. Emily, how are
Speaker 2: you this morning?
Speaker 3: I'm good, but when the bottom bar comes up, everyone
Speaker 3: is going to see why. I'm not amazing. Good, but
Speaker 3: not amazing. Yeah, because we missed one critical thing.
Speaker 2: We fumbled the bar the ball here on the A block.
Speaker 2: Otherwise it was a full M show in honor of M.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I didn't do that on purpose, but I spent all
Speaker 3: day yesterday trying to make sure we can have an
Speaker 3: M title for every show because at a certain point
Speaker 3: it just and I was like well we have to
Speaker 3: do this now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but Chris, I screwed it up because I did
Speaker 5: the FED block.
Speaker 4: So sorry, I'm still blaming Jerome Powell.
Speaker 5: It's still his fault.
Speaker 3: He didn't have to speak yesterday. You could have called
Speaker 3: it money. It's your fault too.
Speaker 5: And you know what else, you know what else?
Speaker 2: We added a story to the show and it's a
Speaker 2: story about Maha.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. It's just the level of consistency across
Speaker 3: the board. This was meant to be yesterday.
Speaker 5: The stars were aligned.
Speaker 4: Yes, so everyone enjoyed.
Speaker 2: And there's some stuff going on in Maha that we
Speaker 2: are only beginning to scrite the surface of. Trump's original
Speaker 2: surgeon general pick was pulled after Laura Lumer and others
Speaker 2: I guess criticized her. And the new person who he
Speaker 2: has picked is Casey Means whose brother CALLI means. The
Speaker 2: two of them have become very like prominent on Tucker
Speaker 2: and Joe Rogan whatever. I as an outsider, we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: the Laura Lumer is probably gonna be happy like Nicole Shanhan.
Speaker 2: All these people probably be happy, right right, Yes, No,
Speaker 2: they're going after her. So there's Nicole Shanahan is out
Speaker 2: being like RFK Junior may have lied to me directly
Speaker 2: because he promised me that neither of these siblings would
Speaker 2: be involved in the administration. So anyway, we're going to
Speaker 2: dig into that one. That's a really interesting one.
Speaker 3: It's so messy and we have to try to get
Speaker 3: closer to the truth on this one. There's all kinds
Speaker 3: of rumors flying around. Yeah, so we'll bring you all
Speaker 3: of that, of course after we do the black that
Speaker 3: I'm just going to call money, but Crystal called Fed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Jay Powell spoke yesterday, So lots of updates to talk
Speaker 3: about from the Fed and on the economy more generally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're supposed to get some sort of a UK
Speaker 2: trade deal announcement this morning, so we'll see what that entails.
Speaker 2: Whether it's an actual deal, more likely it's like the
Speaker 2: outlines of a plan to effectuate a deal down line
Speaker 2: something like that. Yeah, it's a plan, it's the what
Speaker 2: a concepts of So yeah, that's right. We also have
Speaker 2: some very significant news with the arts to the lease.
Speaker 2: Trump making some pretty wild comments about the Houthis that
Speaker 2: we had to get into the show. But more significantly,
Speaker 2: they are the US and Israel are talking about now
Speaker 2: a US led administration Gaza, US led administration of Gaza.
Speaker 2: They're modeling it on the Iraq US led government.
Speaker 5: As if that's a model I still follow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, wild, nothing but success.
Speaker 5: Wild, So get into that.
Speaker 2: Also, Republicans are making more clear what sort of cuts
Speaker 2: to medicaid. David Day and actually got the scoop on
Speaker 2: what they're looking at. Specifically with regard to cuts to medicaid,
Speaker 2: they are significant. Any one of the options would entail
Speaker 2: millions of Americans getting kicked off of that program. So
Speaker 2: obviously we're going to dig into the details there. We
Speaker 2: have some updates with regard to migrants and where they're
Speaker 2: being sent. Mark or Rubio had said, Hey, we're looking
Speaker 2: beyond El Salvador. There are other countries that we're going
Speaker 2: to try to deport people into, potentially prison systems and
Speaker 2: other nations. New York Times had that report that we
Speaker 2: talked about yesterday with regard to Hey, it looks like
Speaker 2: they're moving forward with Libya.
Speaker 5: This became quite urgent.
Speaker 2: There was a flight that was scheduled, lawyers got involved,
Speaker 2: they went to a judge. A judge has now blocked
Speaker 2: any migrants from potentially being sent to Libya, but Libya's
Speaker 2: toward is like divide it between two different governments. Both
Speaker 2: of those governments said, hey, we have nothing to do
Speaker 2: with this, We would not accept these migrants. So anyway,
Speaker 2: there's a lot that is sort of mysterious and interesting
Speaker 2: going on there as well. And then we wanted to
Speaker 2: take a look at these several developments with regard to
Speaker 2: Trump and his meme coin. First of all, it appears
Speaker 2: that it is largely foreigners who are pumping big buck
Speaker 2: bucks into Trump's meme coin, raising even graver concerns about
Speaker 2: levels of corruption there. There are some legislation that is
Speaker 2: moving as well. And then also on the topic of corruption,
Speaker 2: apparently one of the things that countries are being pressured
Speaker 2: to do in order to get on the US as
Speaker 2: good side is to adopt starlink, so and that's being
Speaker 2: used in part of the trade negotiations. Jeff Stein's did
Speaker 2: a fantastic report over the Washington Post. Finally, however, Emily's
Speaker 2: got a big scoop you want to break down, give
Speaker 2: us the top line of what you're looking at.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, Breaking Points obtained a document from inside punch
Speaker 3: Bowl News and we have basically we're ready to reveal
Speaker 3: their entire business plan because for partnerships in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: That's the document that we got our hands on and
Speaker 3: got some comments from the White House because you may remember,
Speaker 3: just a couple of months ago there was a big
Speaker 3: controversy over the government getting premium subscriptions to Politico. So
Speaker 3: in light of what we have in this document that
Speaker 3: Breaking Points got its hands on, we heard back from
Speaker 3: the White House about Punchbowl subscriptions. So basically what we're
Speaker 3: going to be looking at here is the Chrysliba called
Speaker 3: soft corruption. It's just so it's just corruption, plain and simple,
Speaker 3: but it's so banal and mundane here that nobody even blinks, yeah,
Speaker 3: thinks twice about it.
Speaker 4: But it is so so gross.
Speaker 3: And we have some great excerpts pictures from this document
Speaker 3: that we obtained that I think as well worth taking
Speaker 3: a look up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the documents are not indicative of punch Bowl being
Speaker 2: particularly unique in terms of the DC ecosystem. They just
Speaker 2: simply expose how banal and how commonplace these relationships are,
Speaker 2: and you know how much money is at stake as well.
Speaker 4: It really is.
Speaker 2: It's a fascinating look inside the beltwet meeting, specifically the
Speaker 2: world of these sort of niche newsletters which are just
Speaker 2: printing money because they're not that expensive to put together.
Speaker 2: But the whole business model is, hey, if you can
Speaker 2: tell advertisers, you know, my my tip sheet is read
Speaker 2: by Mike Johnson, my tip sheets read by John Thune,
Speaker 2: my chip tip sheets read by Chuck Schumer, then advertisers
Speaker 2: will pony up big bucks to get their messages just
Speaker 2: in front of those basically handful of people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in this case, Google gold min Sacks and just
Speaker 3: our last teaser here, So you stick around for the block.
Speaker 4: We have the actual price.
Speaker 3: First of all, we have their email open rates, we
Speaker 3: have their subscriber numbers, at least the ones that they
Speaker 3: send the corporate partners or prospective corporate partners. But then
Speaker 3: we also have the pricing levels that they offer newsletter
Speaker 3: sponsorships for. And that's what you're really going to want
Speaker 3: to stick around for because it will make your eyes
Speaker 3: pop out of your skull. So make sure to stay
Speaker 3: tuned that block.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, with all that being said, let's turn to
Speaker 2: the economic news. This broke yesterday evening and could put
Speaker 2: this up on the screen. So Trump expected to announce
Speaker 2: some sort of trade quote unquote agreement with the UK.
Speaker 2: Most of the experts are sayings probably isn't going to
Speaker 2: be a finalized agreement because it will be more like
Speaker 2: a framework including issues that they intend to resolve, but
Speaker 2: we don't know the specifics at this point. Trump said
Speaker 2: that he is going to make this announcement in the
Speaker 2: White House at ten am. He put out a tweet
Speaker 2: truth social it was big news conference from orow morning
Speaker 2: ten am Oval Office concerning a major trade deal with
Speaker 2: representatives of a big and highly respected country, the first
Speaker 2: of many, Trump wrote, and this is of course the
Speaker 2: first of the many trade deals that they were allegedly negotiating,
Speaker 2: ninety deals in ninety days so far. We're now maybe
Speaker 2: the outlines of one is what we're looking at. There's
Speaker 2: a lots that's interesting about this. Obviously, they've been under
Speaker 2: a lot of pressure Emily to be able to show something,
Speaker 2: and the world has been pretty resistant to what they
Speaker 2: see as you know, US bullying. Even close allies like
Speaker 2: Japan have really taken the side of we are not
Speaker 2: going to be bullied into some sort of a deal.
Speaker 2: You know, much of the world has made some overtures
Speaker 2: to China, and the whole idea here was, oh, we're
Speaker 2: going to try to isolate and encircled China. That has
Speaker 2: not worked out either. The UK is interesting because here Starmer,
Speaker 2: the leader there, is really unpopular. You know, he's just
Speaker 2: elected Prime minister not that long ago. His approval is
Speaker 2: dramatically underwater. People are not happy with him, they're not
Speaker 2: happy with the economic situation there. And whereas a lot
Speaker 2: of liberals and you know, liberals in Canada, liberals in
Speaker 2: Australia have actually really bullyed their standing by opposing Trump,
Speaker 2: Starmer has taken the opposite path. He has really made
Speaker 2: a lot of overtures to Trump and has been you know,
Speaker 2: aggressively courting him and trying to work out the steal,
Speaker 2: thinking that if he can blunt some of the impact
Speaker 2: of tariffs on the UK, that would benefit his country
Speaker 2: and benefit his political standing. So that is the bet
Speaker 2: that he has placed in that sort of the context
Speaker 2: within which this framework agreement, whatever this is, is being negotiated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like you said, we don't know much yet,
Speaker 3: but I think your Starmer is in the now Mark
Speaker 3: Carney category as well, where they're recognizing that the economic
Speaker 3: benefits they can get their own people, because the disadvantages
Speaker 3: the costs of this are going to are likely going
Speaker 3: to be if they don't handle it diplomatically and in
Speaker 3: a way that pleases Donald Trump. Where where they're at
Speaker 3: least able to make a deal with Donald Trump, then
Speaker 3: the costs of their country are going to be way
Speaker 3: greater than the benefits of sort of making a kind
Speaker 3: of stand against Donald Trump. And that's not to say
Speaker 3: Mark Karney actually managed rather cleverly to do both, to
Speaker 3: be really you know, sort of diplomatic to Trump and
Speaker 3: to butter them up while also putting his foot down
Speaker 3: and saying can it will never be for sale? Starmer,
Speaker 3: You've got to carve out for high end British cars
Speaker 3: according to political at least so that you know you
Speaker 3: had Aston Martin Bentley looking at really disastrous consequences of
Speaker 3: the twenty five percent tariffs. So yeah, I think that's
Speaker 3: the right bet if you're a cure Starmer, who again
Speaker 3: is not particularly popular. But maybe this is a way
Speaker 3: for him to turn a new leaf.
Speaker 4: In the UK. I sort of doubt it.
Speaker 3: I don't think he necessarily will be able to do that,
Speaker 3: but it's probably better than him doing nothing. Or making
Speaker 3: some type of like petulant virtue signal stand while people
Speaker 3: end up not getting any benefits.
Speaker 4: To the economy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we'll see how the politics play out.
Speaker 2: Because Donald Trump's not popular in you know, certainly among
Speaker 2: cure Starmer's based in the UK, and as I was
Speaker 2: saying before, you know, Mark Carney, the reason he was
Speaker 2: able to win was by positioning himself as an oppositional
Speaker 2: figure to Trump and someone who would be a steady hand.
Speaker 2: When we talked to David Dole about how, you know,
Speaker 2: how people saw that him. It wasn't that he was
Speaker 2: elected with this you need to aggressively stand out to Trump,
Speaker 2: but it was more we feel you're a steady hand
Speaker 2: who's going to have our interest and not going to
Speaker 2: cowtow to him Starmar. Potentially because of the way that
Speaker 2: he has, uh, you know, tried to maintain diplomatic relations
Speaker 2: with Trump and gone out of his way to do such,
Speaker 2: the UK has avoided some of the criticism that has
Speaker 2: been leveled at other European countries. You know, Vance Jade
Speaker 2: Vance famously you know, went and was really aggressively chiding
Speaker 2: them about their free speech et cetera. And so you know,
Speaker 2: they've sort of avoided and certainly they hadn't been subject
Speaker 2: to like the fifty first state smears that Canada was
Speaker 2: very very upset about and continues to be very upset about.
Speaker 2: So I think maybe some of the the fact that
Speaker 2: Trump has not rhetorically gone after them is also probably
Speaker 2: because of star War's efforts behind the scenes to kind
Speaker 2: of butter him up. But on the other hand, they
Speaker 2: still were hit with the same ten percent tariffs and
Speaker 2: other you know, higher tarfs some things like steel that
Speaker 2: the rest of the world was as well, so those
Speaker 2: efforts were not really rewarded in real time. We'll see
Speaker 2: what comes out, what the specifics are with regard to
Speaker 2: this particular deal.
Speaker 3: Trump needs us for the markets too, because everyone's waiting
Speaker 3: for deals. It's not just about the one deal. It's
Speaker 3: about the one deal showing that there are actual deals coming,
Speaker 3: and that is obviously yet to be seen.
Speaker 4: So we will pay attention to that. But Crystal J.
Speaker 3: Powell, speaking of the markets, Jay Powell popped out yesterday
Speaker 3: and made his announcement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, so holding interest rates steady and sounding
Speaker 2: some very significant warnings about where he thinks the economy
Speaker 2: is and where it is heading.
Speaker 5: Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 6: If the large increases in tariffs that have been announced
Speaker 6: or are sustained, they're likely to generate a rise in inflation,
Speaker 6: a slow down in economic growth, and an increase in unemployment.
Speaker 6: The effects on inflation could be short lived, reflecting a
Speaker 6: one time shift in the price level. Is also possible
Speaker 6: that the inflationary effects could instead be more persistent, avoiding
Speaker 6: that outcome will depend on the size of the terariff effect.
Speaker 5: Tariff effects, on.
Speaker 6: How long it takes for them to pass through fully
Speaker 6: into prices, and ultimately on keeping the longer term inflation
Speaker 6: expectations well anchored.
Speaker 2: So you know, Fed chairs, theyre always try to be
Speaker 2: very neutral and mild mannered in their comments, but he's
Speaker 2: sounding a warning about the tariffs, and the tariff position
Speaker 2: has really put the FED in a tough bind because
Speaker 2: on the one hand, you see slowing economic growth that's
Speaker 2: always saw with the GDP numbers and some other indicators
Speaker 2: that would push you in the direction of let's lower
Speaker 2: interest rates. However, you also see rising inflation that would
Speaker 2: push you in the direction of let's lift interest rates
Speaker 2: to try to keep inflation under control. And so That's
Speaker 2: why stagflation is so difficult to deal with where you
Speaker 2: have low, low or no growth and you have inflation,
Speaker 2: because you have to use some tools outside of the
Speaker 2: fed's toolkit in order to deal with both of those problems,
Speaker 2: because the tools that the FED would use go, you know,
Speaker 2: in opposite directions with regards to those two things.
Speaker 5: So he's in a bind.
Speaker 2: So he's basically saying, hey, we're holding where we are
Speaker 2: until you know, we until we see what's going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this wasn't surprising at all. It's kind
Speaker 3: of exactly what everyone was expecting to see from J.
Speaker 4: Powell, though you never totally know.
Speaker 3: But this muscle is connected to the black we're going
Speaker 3: to do un Medicaid because a lot of the economy
Speaker 3: right now is going to hinge on Donald Trup's ability
Speaker 3: to pass this big tax cut bill, and his ability
Speaker 3: to pass that big tax cut bill is going to
Speaker 3: depend on his ability to actually make enough cuts without
Speaker 3: going into the political weeds of cutting Medicaid in any
Speaker 3: way whatsoever, which, as Steeve Bannon will tell him, a
Speaker 3: lot of magas are on Medicaid. So uncertainty I think
Speaker 3: coming from all of that, as well, because he wants
Speaker 3: that tax cut bill to also have industrial policy for reshoring,
Speaker 3: and if that doesn't get passed, that's a huge, huge
Speaker 3: setback for I mean, they see this as was described
Speaker 3: recently as there are two barrels to the gun, and
Speaker 3: one of.
Speaker 4: The barrels is the trade war, the tariffs.
Speaker 3: The other barrel is the tax cuts, and if you
Speaker 3: can't if you can't have that, that's a big problem.
Speaker 5: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an important note there for sure, Scott Bessant.
Speaker 2: Part of maybe potentially why they're anxious to announce this
Speaker 2: UK trade deal is we talked yesterday about how they said, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to meet with Chinese negotiators with regards to trade,
Speaker 2: and we all just happen to be in what Switzerland,
Speaker 2: We just happened to be there.
Speaker 5: So we're going to get together with them.
Speaker 2: The Chinese, by the way, are saying the US were
Speaker 2: the ones that requested the meeting, which is an interesting
Speaker 2: note as well. Scott Bessant thought yesterday really downplaying expectations
Speaker 2: for what could come out of these talks.
Speaker 5: Markets really took notice of this as well. Let's take
Speaker 5: a listen.
Speaker 7: On Saturday and Sunday, we will agree what we're going
Speaker 7: to talk about. My sense is that this will be
Speaker 7: about de escalation, not about the big trade deal. But
Speaker 7: we've got to de escalate before we can move forward.
Speaker 8: Well, they said that they would not talk unless the
Speaker 8: reciprocal trade tariff of one hundred and forty five percent
Speaker 8: was removed. Would it be likely that you would be
Speaker 8: able to go back to the President and say, to
Speaker 8: show good faith, we could drop this down in the
Speaker 8: interim to fifty percent.
Speaker 7: Could that be in the cards, Laura, I'm not going
Speaker 7: to negotiate. You're on TV, You're one of the most
Speaker 7: popular the anchors in the world, So I'm not going
Speaker 7: to give away our strategy. And look, everything's on the table.
Speaker 7: It's up to the president at the end of the day.
Speaker 7: The President has said that he's happy just to give
Speaker 7: all countries a number if the negotiations don't go well,
Speaker 7: and that's what we're doing with the other seventeen important
Speaker 7: training partners is look, you can negotiate good faith that
Speaker 7: you can come with your a game or President Trump
Speaker 7: is happy to ratchet the number back up to your
Speaker 7: April second number.
Speaker 2: So you know, seems like those talks are very preliminary,
Speaker 2: long way from any sort of a deal actually being
Speaker 2: struck with China, of course, that is the really main
Speaker 2: focus in China. Of course, subject to those one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty five percent taros effectively.
Speaker 5: Cuts off trade with China.
Speaker 2: No, I'm sure there is going to be some because
Speaker 2: the terraffs and other nations are much lower ten percent.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's going to be some of China shipping
Speaker 2: to other places that ship here. They call it trans shipping,
Speaker 2: they call that. Yeah, and that was already being done
Speaker 2: and I'm sure that will only expand to try to
Speaker 2: fill the gap of trade that is just being completely
Speaker 2: blocked from China. But it's still going to have quite
Speaker 2: a significant impact.
Speaker 3: Well, which is why if they're still doing trade deals
Speaker 3: with every country that was hit by the reciprocals, that
Speaker 3: means they're going to have to do deals with places
Speaker 3: like Cambodia, Vietnam and some of those places where things
Speaker 3: are being shipped.
Speaker 4: First from China and then into the United States.
Speaker 3: So the level of unpredictability here, I mean, I know
Speaker 3: things feel like since what was Liberation Day, April second,
Speaker 3: it's been more than a month now, we've sort of
Speaker 3: slipped into some sense of normalcy, and it's we're almost
Speaker 3: numb to what we're in right now because everything changed
Speaker 3: so quickly. But the level of uncertainty in the economy
Speaker 3: is hard to even capture with words.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's or not on the woods, that's
Speaker 4: for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, there have been concerns about looming shortages,
Speaker 2: retailers sounding the alarm about that. You know, we played
Speaker 2: the director of the LA Port or executive director of
Speaker 2: the LA Port, whatever his title is, saying basically, it's
Speaker 2: already way down. You know, the shipments are receiving from China.
Speaker 2: We expect it to be much worse. I saw indications
Speaker 2: yesterday that, you know, there's vastly diminished activity at some
Speaker 2: of the major ports in the country. But you know,
Speaker 2: the White House is saying basically like yeah, they're just
Speaker 2: crying wolf. Everything's fine. There's been no shortages yet. Let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and take a listen to Hassett talking about that.
Speaker 9: Well, the scare mondering is happening now. But I can
Speaker 9: tell you that I get real time data every day
Speaker 9: on whether there are shortages, and I can report that
Speaker 9: there are still plenty of things on the shelves. There
Speaker 9: were a couple of weeks where shipping from China was lower,
Speaker 9: but now shipping from a lot of other countries is
Speaker 9: going way, way up. So people don't have to be
Speaker 9: worried about what the scare mongderers are saying. These policies
Speaker 9: are on shoring jobs, on shoring production. You could see
Speaker 9: it in the job s data. You could see it
Speaker 9: in the explosion of manufacturing jobs already even before the
Speaker 9: tariffs came in. The way to think about it for me, Laura,
Speaker 9: is that President Trump did something last time, looked and
Speaker 9: saw that it really work, and now he's doing more
Speaker 9: of it, a little bit bigger. But that's what you
Speaker 9: should do. You should do something, see if it works
Speaker 9: or not, and then change. And that's what he's doing.
Speaker 9: He's ramping up the ante because he saw that it worked.
Speaker 3: In the past.
Speaker 2: So the question is whether this situation is able to persist.
Speaker 2: It's also funny, I mean what he's saying there, Well,
Speaker 2: trade with China's downshore, but trade with these other countries
Speaker 2: is up. It's because of what we were exactly talking about.
Speaker 2: The goods are being shipped from China to these other
Speaker 2: countries and then here to get around the extreme tariffs
Speaker 2: that are put in place with regard to China, and
Speaker 2: we'll see because you know, it takes roughly a month
Speaker 2: or more to ship goods from China to our ports.
Speaker 2: LA I think is one of the places that goods
Speaker 2: can move most quickly too, And we're right in that
Speaker 2: timeframe of when we'll see what the impact is.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: A lot of companies did stock up in anticipation. That
Speaker 2: was part of what played into the GDP numbers in
Speaker 2: the first quarter. A lot of companies knew that something
Speaker 2: was going to happen, and so they aggressively imported what
Speaker 2: they needed to import so that they could have a
Speaker 2: sort of backlog and storage to be able to weather
Speaker 2: the store. So that will help to buffer especially large
Speaker 2: companies that were able to do that and to get ahead.
Speaker 2: I think the first place we're going to really see
Speaker 2: impact and fallout is among those small and medium businesses
Speaker 2: that just do not have the size, scale or cushion
Speaker 2: in order to maneuver around these terraffs or in order
Speaker 2: to really prepare fully prepare and soften the blow from
Speaker 2: the impact.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, Chris. So also this tear sheet, this Ford
Speaker 4: tear sheet. If we put this on the screen. A three.
Speaker 3: This is import because we had that clip yesterday of
Speaker 3: Mark Pocan going after Scott Bestn't asking who pays tariffs? Yeah,
Speaker 3: and Scott Bestnant was really insistent about not answering that question.
Speaker 4: He was trying all kinds of clever ways to get
Speaker 4: around that question.
Speaker 3: The CNN headline is Ford will raise the sticker price
Speaker 3: on cars imported from Mexico. It just said it didn't
Speaker 3: expect significant US price hikes. There you go, that's evidence
Speaker 3: right there to the point Kevin Hassett was just making
Speaker 3: let you see something, you try it, you see what happens,
Speaker 3: and then maybe you pivot.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, Ford says they're going to hike the sticker price
Speaker 2: for three US models that they import from Mexico by
Speaker 2: about two thousand dollars each. So I would say that's significant.
Speaker 2: That was only days after executives were like, I think
Speaker 2: it'll be fine, and they had, you know, I think,
Speaker 2: in an attempt to curry favor with Trump, had said
Speaker 2: they were going to hold the line with regard to
Speaker 2: sticker prices on vehicles, and now here we are a
Speaker 2: short time later of them being like, oh, actually we
Speaker 2: can't hold the line at least on these three models,
Speaker 2: we're going to up.
Speaker 5: The price by two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: And that is another question too, is we saw this
Speaker 2: during the post COVID inflationary period. Is there were genuine
Speaker 2: inflation pressures, and they were also companies that were like, oh,
Speaker 2: people think there's inflation, I can raise my prices.
Speaker 5: I'm going to raise my prices.
Speaker 2: And by the way, when the put costs for those
Speaker 2: companies went down, did they bring the prices back down?
Speaker 5: Of course not, of course not.
Speaker 2: And I actually saw that there's industry jargon for these
Speaker 2: types of practices.
Speaker 5: It's called taking price.
Speaker 2: So it's such a common practice that they actually have
Speaker 2: like industry jargon for what it means. It makes sense,
Speaker 2: of course, if you're a capitalist and you see you
Speaker 2: can get away with raising your prices, You're going to
Speaker 2: raise your price. So that's how you can also feed
Speaker 2: an inflationary spiral, even above and beyond the direct impact
Speaker 2: of the terraffs, which is also quite significant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, this is where it obviously should
Speaker 3: factor into the Trump administration's decision making process.
Speaker 4: I think it's unfair to let some of these corporations
Speaker 4: off the hook.
Speaker 3: Not that we do, but it's such a small part
Speaker 3: of the media conversation here is like they take the
Speaker 3: economic procarity that everybody is living in and just squeeze
Speaker 3: every little drop out they can, and disproportionately end up
Speaker 3: sending that money continually to executives away from workers. They
Speaker 3: increase prices for customers, they pay themselves more and more,
Speaker 3: they do buybacks, and that's why. Actually, an interesting industrial
Speaker 3: policy in the tax bill would have been something like
Speaker 3: the millionaire a tax that Trump was talking about to
Speaker 3: pay for some of the cuts. That seems like it's
Speaker 3: off the table now, but there are all kinds of
Speaker 3: other things.
Speaker 4: That you could do.
Speaker 3: It's not really I guess I shouldn't call it industrial possible.
Speaker 3: There are all kinds of things that you could do
Speaker 3: to make this trade war actually help workers and customers
Speaker 3: and pass those costs off in different ways, And there's
Speaker 3: not a ton of conversation happening about what could be
Speaker 3: done creatively in that big, beautiful reconciliation package Trump is
Speaker 3: hotly anticipating. But it seems to me like that would
Speaker 3: be a missed opportunity.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, there's no doubt about it, And I mean
Speaker 2: with regard to the corporations doing what corporations do. I mean,
Speaker 2: I obviously we're going to call them out here, but
Speaker 2: also you know, it would be like expecting to a
Speaker 2: snake not.
Speaker 5: To buy you liked And so that's why you need.
Speaker 2: Government policybers to protect workers, to protect consumers, and to
Speaker 2: understand the dynamics and incentives that you're creating and so
Speaker 2: what you're likely to have. Also as a situation where
Speaker 2: if you are a large player in particular, and your
Speaker 2: competitor is suffering more from the terrorists and the import
Speaker 2: taxes for whatever they import more from China, etc.
Speaker 5: You have two choices.
Speaker 2: You could hold your prices steady and then you undercut
Speaker 2: them and then you steal their business.
Speaker 5: That's going to work out well for you.
Speaker 2: Or you could take price and also up your prices
Speaker 2: to match them, knowing that you can get away with
Speaker 2: it because they had to increase their prices. So there
Speaker 2: are a lot of dynamics here, and we have actually
Speaker 2: a lot of David Dan's reporting in the show, but
Speaker 2: he's been pointing out the way that this policy also
Speaker 2: really benefits the large players, and there's a lot of
Speaker 2: reasons for that, and one of them is also just
Speaker 2: the fact that if you are Apple, if you are Forward,
Speaker 2: if you are Walmart, you are Costco, you can get
Speaker 2: those meetings with the Trump administration, you can argue your case,
Speaker 2: you can maybe get your car dound, you can get
Speaker 2: what you need to be able to survive. And if
Speaker 2: you are one of the smaller players, you are not
Speaker 2: going to be able to have that opportunity.
Speaker 5: Whatsoever.
Speaker 2: There's one more piece of market news we wanted to
Speaker 2: bring you that is kind of unrelated to the terrorists,
Speaker 2: but also really significant to put this up on the
Speaker 2: screen while I was keeping our eye on what the
Speaker 2: impacts of AI are going to be. Wild story yesterday
Speaker 2: about the rampant use of chat epute whatever cheating in
Speaker 2: college we could have.
Speaker 5: We'll do that conversation another day.
Speaker 2: But in any case, Apple stock price significantly fell after
Speaker 2: they are a top executive there said that it is
Speaker 2: considering injecting Safari with AI, and the big news here
Speaker 2: injecting I know, I'm going to.
Speaker 4: Vaccimate it with a vaccinate in the ai Jab.
Speaker 2: In any case, one of the big notable comments that
Speaker 2: was made here is that for the first time ever,
Speaker 2: Google searches are going down. These people are using, they're
Speaker 2: asking CROC, chat GPT, They're not going to Google, And
Speaker 2: I mean I can attest to that it is like
Speaker 2: better at Google effectively that.
Speaker 4: When you're using AI, you and Sager obsessed with AI.
Speaker 4: With the I feel like Kyle uses a lot too,
Speaker 4: but like chat GPT.
Speaker 2: Kyle loves making images with Groc, loves who among us
Speaker 2: sends hours over there, just like what if I did this? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's really up to some young thumbnail game.
Speaker 4: I have to say, I mean, what can't Groc do?
Speaker 4: But seriously, this story is incredible.
Speaker 3: And Stoller was monitoring Google stock price yesterday and he
Speaker 3: had a great post on big his substock, which is
Speaker 3: a great subscribe about how basically the markets were saying
Speaker 3: this is his headline, Wall Street tells Google to break
Speaker 3: itself up because the markets were reacting to this information
Speaker 3: as it was being And he had an interesting point too,
Speaker 3: which is that as the day went on, you could
Speaker 3: see people kind of grappling, investors grappling with what it
Speaker 3: meant because it was a stiff plummet at first and
Speaker 3: then went up a little bit, but it stayed really low. Huge,
Speaker 3: huge problem obviously for Google, and they're about to be
Speaker 3: broken up. And it looks like they're about to be
Speaker 3: broken up in a couple of different directions. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: huge news for like our tech stocks in general. And
Speaker 3: it came out as this came out as part of
Speaker 3: the testimony in the Google antitrust trial.
Speaker 4: Is that crazy? I mean just.
Speaker 3: This is like the wildest way for Google to have
Speaker 3: their stock prices crater, as a stolar put it. And
Speaker 3: last though, Crystal, Apple and Ford remind me of something
Speaker 3: we covered this about a month ago when the Ford
Speaker 3: CEO around Liberation Day did an interview talking about how
Speaker 3: they suddenly realized none of their parts for any of
Speaker 3: their cars were like made in the United States at all,
Speaker 3: Like they had to get from so many different places.
Speaker 3: They made assemble them in the United States, but they're
Speaker 3: sourced from everywhere. And it would be hard to use
Speaker 3: a similar problem with Apple, and these guys now find
Speaker 3: themselves in these companies. It might not be his fault,
Speaker 3: it might not be Tim Cook's fault, but this we
Speaker 3: rely on iPhones and we rely on forward cars.
Speaker 4: At least I do.
Speaker 3: It's like, it's not just I'm not saying that Trump
Speaker 3: administration solution has been executed well, because it hasn't been.
Speaker 3: But they also hold the economy hostage to their shitty business.
Speaker 4: Models, and it's like the same thing.
Speaker 3: Actually, I think it's the same thing with Google here too,
Speaker 3: and we're all held hostage to their complete monopoly that
Speaker 3: you know, you see their stock tanking when something obvious
Speaker 3: happens and it's like, are they prepared for that?
Speaker 4: What does that mean for Google? I don't know, but
Speaker 4: Stolar makes a good point.
Speaker 3: He compares it to Standard Oil, compares Google potentially standard Oil,
Speaker 3: which created when it was broken up, all of these
Speaker 3: more efficient, broken up companies in its place, And so
Speaker 3: this actually might a really positive piece of news, although
Speaker 3: it would be quite a transition period for the US
Speaker 3: economy and certainly for Google.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean with regard to AI, there's there's a
Speaker 2: lot to say there. But I feel like if we
Speaker 2: had a functioning society, we would have a really aggressive
Speaker 2: national debate about how far we want to go with
Speaker 2: this and how much we want to limit it. And
Speaker 2: I was thinking about I'm old enough so that I
Speaker 2: when I first started driving, you could print ount the
Speaker 2: map quest oh directions, right, but I still had to
Speaker 2: occasionally you screw up the map quest directions.
Speaker 4: It was bad to go to the map. Oh, it
Speaker 4: was bad.
Speaker 2: You got to open up the map, You got to
Speaker 2: figure out where the hell am I. You got to
Speaker 2: stop at the gas station ask the guy like how
Speaker 2: do I get to this place?
Speaker 5: At that place? And yeah, it was it was rough.
Speaker 2: I much prefer being able to navigate and to just
Speaker 2: have the phone and be like, Okay, you screwed up,
Speaker 2: here's another route whatever. But I will tell you I
Speaker 2: was a lot better at knowing how to get places.
Speaker 4: Oh, this is a thing.
Speaker 2: Everybody who has had both excret knows. Is the thing
Speaker 2: like I have to use GPS to get to places
Speaker 2: that I've been, you know a lot of times, Whereas
Speaker 2: at that time when you had to actually think and
Speaker 2: use your brain and engage, you were able to navigate places.
Speaker 2: And I feel like with AI you can kind of
Speaker 2: extrapolate that to your entire brain.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, there's research on this, and Nicholas car started
Speaker 3: writing on this when was the Shallows was like twenty eleven.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And actually there's a decent bit of research about
Speaker 3: how your brain atrophies in different ways when you start
Speaker 3: outsourcing critical parts of it to computers. It's not to
Speaker 3: say that we should never allow anyone to touch a calculator.
Speaker 4: Obviously I don't agree with that.
Speaker 3: But there's so much that we're going to lose so
Speaker 3: quickly and not even have a baseline. You know, there
Speaker 3: are people who don't remember map quests, don't know map
Speaker 3: quests that are very much alive, like your kids.
Speaker 4: Probably you have no idea what it is, like, what
Speaker 4: what the hell is not what you printed something out?
Speaker 5: Like what he's talking about.
Speaker 3: It just gives me so much PTSD about like coming
Speaker 3: late to soccer games because the map quest was hard
Speaker 3: to get to the But in all seriousness, like this
Speaker 3: is a real problem. But thankfully we have a surgeon
Speaker 3: general who will be on top of it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, we thinking all these things through very deeply.
Speaker 2: With her lack of a medical license, all right, we'll get.
Speaker 5: To that later. That's a deep teas they're coming to.
Speaker 4: You know what on the road, Biden certain general was
Speaker 4: excellent on that. It was really good on this.
Speaker 2: You know what, You're right about that, and you're right
Speaker 2: about that. He was very thoughtful. You put out a warning.
Speaker 2: He basically said that social media uses should be treated
Speaker 2: like tobacco, alcohol, like that kind of seriousness, and we're like, okay, anyway.
Speaker 4: Thanks Ivbolt, kiddo, mail it in for a little while.
Speaker 5: I would be quiet, good luck, You'll be fine.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's go ahead and get to some very
Speaker 2: serious topics. But starting with you know, we were talking
Speaker 2: yesterday about how Trump has basically taken the Houthis up
Speaker 2: on their deal to they to back up for a second. Okay,
Speaker 2: Houthis have been doing their their operations in response to
Speaker 2: the Israeli genocide in Gasa. During the ceasefire, the brief
Speaker 2: Gaza ceasefire, they stopped all that. When the ceasefire ended,
Speaker 2: they resumed activities, but just visa v Israel, they were
Speaker 2: not bombing or bothering US ships. We started bombing them
Speaker 2: aggressively and killing a lot of civilians and signal gate
Speaker 2: and all of that sort of stuff they have long said,
Speaker 2: And a drop side interview to Ryan and Jeremy's credit
Speaker 2: actually interviewed who if you leadership who said, listen, we've
Speaker 2: always said, if you don't.
Speaker 5: Bomb us, we won't bomb you.
Speaker 2: So apparently Trump decided to take them up on that
Speaker 2: deal and decided to stop bombing them, and in response,
Speaker 2: they are not supposed to bomb us either, even as
Speaker 2: they continue their hostilities visa the Israel. So Trump gets
Speaker 2: asked about this yesterday and has just about the most
Speaker 2: Trumpian answer of old time.
Speaker 5: So let's go ahead and take a list of that.
Speaker 10: But so we do we take their word for it.
Speaker 10: It was, you know, we hit them very hard. They
Speaker 10: had a great capacity to withstand punishment. They took tremendous punishment,
Speaker 10: and you know, you could say there's a lot of
Speaker 10: bravery there that it was amazing what they took. But
Speaker 10: we honor their commitment, and they were they gave us
Speaker 10: their word that they wouldn't be shooting ships anymore, and
Speaker 10: we honor that.
Speaker 4: We honored the brave, very brave.
Speaker 5: We honor their commitment.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just like it reminds me of some
Speaker 2: of the things that Trump would say in his first term,
Speaker 2: Like when he was talking about Putin, He's like, what
Speaker 2: you think we're so you think we don't have by killers?
Speaker 5: Yeah, they were so innocent here or yeah, or the
Speaker 5: way he would you know, talk.
Speaker 2: About meeting with North Korea or meeting with the Taliban,
Speaker 2: Like I feel like we got a little more of
Speaker 2: this Trump the first administry. This was a bit of
Speaker 2: a throwback, but it's also funny just in the context of,
Speaker 2: you know, a bunch of lefties, Hassan in particular, have
Speaker 2: gotten a lot of shit for talking about the Houthis
Speaker 2: and being like, you know, it's brave what they're doing.
Speaker 2: And here you have Trump and being like, they're very brave.
Speaker 2: What can I say, I honor their commitment.
Speaker 4: Imagine Barack Obama calling the Houthies brave.
Speaker 3: Imagine how Republicans, thank God, honoring the bravery of the
Speaker 3: Hoho thies.
Speaker 5: You can't, you just can't.
Speaker 2: Cannot only Trump, only Trump, We would still be talking
Speaker 2: about the scandal of it to this day. I'm not
Speaker 2: even kidding it is.
Speaker 4: It's kind of a crazy thing to say.
Speaker 3: But sorry, Hassan, but like, it is kind of crazy
Speaker 3: from the president who's in charge of the United States
Speaker 3: foreign policy.
Speaker 4: And yet and yet here we are.
Speaker 3: So but I guess a little bit of good news
Speaker 3: on that front too, and cannot be divorced from the
Speaker 3: broader context of the administration heading to Oman this weekend
Speaker 3: for negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal.
Speaker 4: We have some updates on that front as well. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we do.
Speaker 2: But before we get to that, I want to talk
Speaker 2: about this report from Reuters, which is deeply troubling and
Speaker 2: really significant. Let's put this up on the screen so
Speaker 2: they were able to get this exclusive report that the
Speaker 2: US and Israel are discussing a possible US led administration Gaza.
Speaker 2: Let me repeat that, a US led indefinite administration occupation,
Speaker 2: you could say, of Gaza. Let me read you a
Speaker 2: little bit of this report, because just the utter insanity
Speaker 2: of this I cannot possibly be overstated. The US and
Speaker 2: History have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary
Speaker 2: postwar administration of Gaza. According five people familiar with the matter,
Speaker 2: the high level consultations have centered around a transitional government
Speaker 2: headed by a US official that would oversee Gaza until
Speaker 2: it had been demilitarized and stabilized and a viable Palestinian
Speaker 2: administration had emerged.
Speaker 5: I'm sure that'll be easy, no problems there.
Speaker 2: According to the discussions, which remain preliminary, there'd be no
Speaker 2: fixed timeline for how long such a US led administration
Speaker 2: would last, so we're talking about literally good last forever,
Speaker 2: which would depend on the situation. On the grounds of
Speaker 2: hive sources said. Those sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
Speaker 2: compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in that
Speaker 2: Washington established in two thousand and three, shortly after the
Speaker 2: US led.
Speaker 5: Invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein Emily. How did that go?
Speaker 5: Can we check back in on that? How? How did
Speaker 5: that work out for us? A great idea? Did we
Speaker 5: execute it well? Did it? You know, foment tons of
Speaker 5: terrorism and horror for years to come.
Speaker 4: I think we were able to successfully win the love
Speaker 4: and affection of the people and establish.
Speaker 5: A demonstians accomplished is what I heard.
Speaker 3: What we did was spread democracy, and democracy is contagious,
Speaker 3: as you know.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, oh yeah, especially in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: I just.
Speaker 5: These words, they.
Speaker 2: Truly, I mean, a few things are shocking to me
Speaker 2: with Trump at this point, but he ran in opposition
Speaker 2: to the Iraq War.
Speaker 5: This was one of his.
Speaker 2: Campaign innovations, calling Jeff I mean, we all loved watching
Speaker 2: him call out Jeb Bush to his face on stage
Speaker 2: or his brother going into Iraq, And that was one
Speaker 2: of the ways he really did separate himself from the
Speaker 2: pack and really did seem to represent some sort of
Speaker 2: a break from the traditional Republican establishment, and now here
Speaker 2: you are talking about perhaps the most disputed land on
Speaker 2: the entire planet, and we are going to administer it indefinitely.
Speaker 2: And the model is the coalition provisional authority in a rock.
Speaker 2: I mean, the human horror of it, the stupidity of it,
Speaker 2: the insanity of it.
Speaker 5: I just I literally cannot get over it.
Speaker 3: And of course we fund one side of the dispute
Speaker 3: in that conflicted territory to the tune of billions of
Speaker 3: dollars a year. So trying to pitch that to the
Speaker 3: Palestinian people, you're already.
Speaker 4: Going to be I mean, like, well, what are you
Speaker 4: talking about?
Speaker 3: This is just basically the same thing as giving Israel
Speaker 3: the land percent And I can't tell if this Reuter
Speaker 3: story is a leak from people who think it's a
Speaker 3: really good idea or people who think it's a really
Speaker 3: bad idea.
Speaker 4: I couldn't tell genuinely in the.
Speaker 3: Story if this is a trial balloon to try to
Speaker 3: acclimate people to this idea, or it is to try
Speaker 3: to blow the whistle and say someone needs to stop this.
Speaker 3: My instinct is that this is people saying this is
Speaker 3: a really great idea, let's slowly try to acclimate the
Speaker 3: media and the public to This is a quote from
Speaker 3: the article. The quote, high level consultations have centered around
Speaker 3: a transitional government. As you read, how did buy a
Speaker 3: US official that would oversee Gaza until it had been
Speaker 3: demilitarized and stabilized and a viable Palestinian administration had emerged.
Speaker 3: So just zeroing in on that, we have no idea
Speaker 3: what a timeline would look like in that case, until
Speaker 3: a viable Palestinian administration had emerged.
Speaker 4: The word viable is incredibly vague. That could mean a
Speaker 4: million different things, and it could mean a million years
Speaker 4: for as long as for as far as we're concerned,
Speaker 4: because viable is going to be in the eyes of
Speaker 4: the US beholder and Israeli beholder in this case. And
Speaker 4: it's very hard to believe that Benjamin Netanyah, who's coalition
Speaker 4: won't always be in power, but believes you know, he
Speaker 4: was totally at odds with Joe Biden about the question
Speaker 4: of a two state solution, doesn't believe in a two
Speaker 4: state solution. So what does viable mean?
Speaker 2: That's right, How did our viable government in Afghanistan workout?
Speaker 2: How did that one go as well. I mean, I
Speaker 2: just I had the same question about who was leaking
Speaker 2: this and why? And then the other question I have
Speaker 2: is Trump te's this big Middle East announcement?
Speaker 5: Is this it?
Speaker 4: I think?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 4: I think that's I think that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2: You do, Yeah, I mean, I don't even know what
Speaker 2: to say. I don't even know what to say. But
Speaker 2: it's consistent with what he's been saying all along about
Speaker 2: we're going to we are going to own Gaza.
Speaker 4: So this is this is the roadmap to the Gaza Rouvierra. Basically, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's right.
Speaker 2: And you know, again, I think you have to take
Speaker 2: him seriously. I think he got this idea in his
Speaker 2: head and his eyes lit up at the idea of
Speaker 2: like the beachfront property or whatever. And now here we
Speaker 2: are planning some indefinite, endless occupation of Gaza.
Speaker 5: It's just it's just an absolute horror.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, the israelis now the mask
Speaker 2: is totally off.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 2: In the beginning days, Emily, I'm sure remember we had
Speaker 2: all these conversations about like, well, what's the day after
Speaker 2: the war.
Speaker 5: And what's the plan.
Speaker 2: And of course Phoebe would never say you know, he
Speaker 2: would always oh, well, it's just we're just focused on
Speaker 2: the hostages.
Speaker 5: Also, by the way, update on that in a moment.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned for how much they care about the hostages
Speaker 2: and what a priority that is for them in this
Speaker 2: new expanded Gaza operation that they just authorize. In any case,
Speaker 2: they have now made it plain the goal is we
Speaker 2: want to we want to permanently occupy Gaza, we want
Speaker 2: to flatten Gaza. You and Ryan covered this earlier this week,
Speaker 2: and some Democrats are starting to be a little bit
Speaker 2: more vocal. Senator Chris van Holland, who have to say,
Speaker 2: has been compared to other Democrats. He actually had traveled
Speaker 2: to the region previously under the Biden administration and was
Speaker 2: blowing the whistle right, was blowing the whistle on the
Speaker 2: you know, all of the ways that they were blocking
Speaker 2: aid and how insufficient the aid was at least some
Speaker 2: aid was getting in at that point, but how insufficient
Speaker 2: it was, and that it was the Israeli's fault that
Speaker 2: more aid wasn't getting into the strip.
Speaker 5: So he has been a vocal critic here for a while.
Speaker 2: He's now going one step further and saying that the
Speaker 2: Israeli plan is brazen ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 5: Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 11: I want to talk about the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
Speaker 11: It's now been well over sixty days since the net
Speaker 11: Yahoo government imposed a total blockade of humanitarian assistance to
Speaker 11: the people of Gaza, not allowing any food or any
Speaker 11: other humanitarian assistance to reach the over two million civilians there.
Speaker 11: With holding food and humanitarian assistance as a weapon of
Speaker 11: war is flat out illegal under international law. It is
Speaker 11: collective punishment, pure and simple. And now we're told that
Speaker 11: the net Yahoo government plans to seize and reoccupy huge
Speaker 11: parts of Gaza. And recently Ben Gavier, one of the
Speaker 11: most ultra extreme members of the extremist net Yahoo government,
Speaker 11: was in Washington calling for the implementation of the Donald
Speaker 11: Trump plan to essentially force two million Palestinian civilians to
Speaker 11: leave Gosa. That is simply ethnic cleansing by another name.
Speaker 2: And Ben Gavier, of course, very influential in this administration,
Speaker 2: and you know, very much in line with what many
Speaker 2: members of the net Yahoo government and frankly much of
Speaker 2: the Israeli public also won at this point. And you know,
Speaker 2: we are more than two months since any food, water,
Speaker 2: medicine has been allowed to enter the strip more than
Speaker 2: two months, and you've got roughly two million people there.
Speaker 2: We really don't know how many people there are are
Speaker 2: still alive at this point. President Trump had suggested the
Speaker 2: number was lower at this point. But in any case,
Speaker 2: you have millions of people there, and they will all
Speaker 2: die if food does not come in. We already have
Speaker 2: dozens who have died of starvation. You know, children in
Speaker 2: particular suffering gravely from malnutrition. And that's that's where we
Speaker 2: are at this state.
Speaker 3: Let's put the next element up on screen. This is
Speaker 3: a tweet from drop site, which looked at times of
Speaker 3: Israel report from yesterday May seventh, and crystal this just
Speaker 3: makes your stomach sink. The headline here is leaked Israeli
Speaker 3: document rescuing captives ranked last in Gaza war goals. A
Speaker 3: leaked military is really military document shows that rescuing captives
Speaker 3: in Gaza is listed last amongst six official objectives for
Speaker 3: a planned ground offensive in Gaza.
Speaker 4: And let's just go through these six.
Speaker 3: Because if you're reading these as steps, and I think
Speaker 3: that's a correct way to read them, by the time
Speaker 3: you get to six, it just again it makes your
Speaker 3: stomach sink. One defeating Hamas, two achieving operational control over Gaza,
Speaker 3: three demilitarizing the territory, four striking Hamas government targets. Five
Speaker 3: concentrating and relowating the population. Six rescuing the captives. And
Speaker 3: Netna who is already facing regular protests from the hostage
Speaker 3: families because many of them want him to make a
Speaker 3: deal to rescue any living hostages, obviously, and to return
Speaker 3: the bodies of any deceased hostages. But this has always
Speaker 3: been the fundamental early criticism I mean, going back to
Speaker 3: middle late October of the net Nyahu administration from hostage families,
Speaker 3: not all of them, but some of them who felt
Speaker 3: that actually rescuing the hostages was taking secondary, taking a backseat,
Speaker 3: basically to this broader goal of taking over goss of obliterate.
Speaker 3: I mean to put it in the words oft Yahu,
Speaker 3: obliterating hamas, eliminating hamas. But in the process of eliminating hamas,
Speaker 3: do you eliminate the lives of hostages? In some cases
Speaker 3: we know that is likely what happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And secondly, I mean, because this tweet says, despite repeated
Speaker 3: public claims by Israeli leaders that freeing them is the
Speaker 3: war's top priority.
Speaker 4: But you know what, there's been mixed messages on that.
Speaker 3: They've kind of tried to have it both ways, saying
Speaker 3: that the hostages are their priority, but also that the
Speaker 3: top aim of the wars to eliminate Hamas, and those
Speaker 3: goals are not necessarily categorically compatible.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and that is what many hostage families
Speaker 2: and many Israelis recognize, and that really has been the
Speaker 2: focal point from what I can tell of a lot
Speaker 2: of the protests. You know, if you ask Israeli Is
Speaker 2: according to the polls, it has the war been too
Speaker 2: brutal on Palestinians. The number that say that is like
Speaker 2: four percent. I mean, it's shockingly low. But there's been
Speaker 2: a lot of descent around the issue of what the
Speaker 2: impact is on the hostages of this all out assault,
Speaker 2: genocidal assault on Gaza. And it has long been clear
Speaker 2: that BB and Co. Did not care about the hostages.
Speaker 2: They were happy to use them for propaganda value, and
Speaker 2: they aggressively. I mean, you remember in the early stages
Speaker 2: that the pictures of the hostages were everywhere, and if
Speaker 2: you weren't fully behind the Israeli war effort. Well, you
Speaker 2: don't care about the hostages and you just want them
Speaker 2: to die. And for a long time from the beginning,
Speaker 2: what hostage families and others have been saying is, yeah,
Speaker 2: but you don't know where our family members are. So
Speaker 2: if you are bombing starving this population, our family members
Speaker 2: are there too. So if you actually want to prioritize
Speaker 2: the hostages, what you would prioritize is remember there was
Speaker 2: that brief deal early in the war that there was
Speaker 2: a brief cease fire and there was an exchange of
Speaker 2: hostages from both the Israeli and the Palestinian side. That's
Speaker 2: when most of the hostages who were released were released during.
Speaker 5: That time period.
Speaker 2: That is how you actually get the hostages back is
Speaker 2: through diplomatic negotiations and a ceasefire. Hamasas said from the beginning,
Speaker 2: we'll do an all for all exchange. You release all
Speaker 2: of the Palestinian hostages prisoners that you're holding, we will
Speaker 2: release all of the israel High hostages that we are
Speaker 2: holding as well. So it has always been clear, and
Speaker 2: the military effort to rescue any of the hostages have
Speaker 2: been I think there was one that was successful and
Speaker 2: it also included mass civilian death and a lot of
Speaker 2: chaos and cartage as a result of that operation to
Speaker 2: rescue hostages. So it's always been very clear if you
Speaker 2: actually want to secure hostages, then you need to negotiate.
Speaker 2: The diplomatic resolution is the way that you're going to
Speaker 2: save hostage lives. And we were told that, you know,
Speaker 2: the no, no, no, the hostages are the number one priority.
Speaker 2: And now again, as I said before, the mask is
Speaker 2: coming off of Israel, they no longer feel the need
Speaker 2: to lie and pretend like hostage lives are the number
Speaker 2: one priority. And you know, this leak document just confirms
Speaker 2: actually it's the last on the list of war aims,
Speaker 2: the least important war aim is to secure the release
Speaker 2: of the hostages at this point, well, and it.
Speaker 3: Was always for the sake of this goal that again
Speaker 3: was unattainable without complete and utter civilian destruction, because we knew,
Speaker 3: I mean, we could tell in the early stages of
Speaker 3: the war that Hamas was not going to be defeated
Speaker 3: without that that they were already reconstituting within what would
Speaker 3: like six months was about six months, they were already
Speaker 3: reconstituting control and like government authority in particular areas of Gaza,
Speaker 3: like in Rafa. So it was all I think if
Speaker 3: I were, you know, a hostage family, that is what
Speaker 3: would weigh most heavily on me, is that they're not like,
Speaker 3: what is the end here? I don't think anybody ever
Speaker 3: really knew, because well, I mean, the end for many people,
Speaker 3: let's say, was just this goal of quote unquote eliminitating Hamas.
Speaker 3: But what that would actually look like, when that would end,
Speaker 3: if it was attainable.
Speaker 4: Those were the questions.
Speaker 3: I think that we were haunting a lot of the
Speaker 3: families of the hostages.
Speaker 2: All right, let's go and get to this update with
Speaker 2: regard to run negotiations. Jd Vance. This was in Munich yesterday.
Speaker 2: Correct that he was speaking, getting asked about it, returned,
Speaker 2: he returned to un By the way, the tone the
Speaker 2: time much so.
Speaker 4: Different, much softer. Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 5: Little chastened was kind of yeah, what did you make
Speaker 5: of that?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it was interesting because he started off by acknowledging,
Speaker 3: you know, the elephant in the room and breaking the ice,
Speaker 3: cutting through any tension, and so I wasn't sure if
Speaker 3: I was going to be invited back, and his tone
Speaker 3: overall it was a conversation or not a speech, So
Speaker 3: I think that helped it. The tone be more a
Speaker 3: little bit more that's the right word, maybe chastened or
Speaker 3: just like buttoned down.
Speaker 2: It was a bit more relaydance that was on stage
Speaker 2: with Tim Walls. Yes, it was very much like a
Speaker 2: very nice, moderate dude, like, you know, we're trying to
Speaker 2: get along here, whereas the first speech was very aggressive.
Speaker 4: Yes, it was very prickly and abrasive.
Speaker 3: And this was him I think, realizing that you can
Speaker 3: catch more flies with honey.
Speaker 2: And I think also the trade war has changed the dynamics.
Speaker 2: We're also they feel like they need Europe to side
Speaker 2: with the US against China, and so there's there have
Speaker 2: been some shifts there.
Speaker 4: In any case, he.
Speaker 3: Did have a really good quote where he said, basically
Speaker 3: like the point is not US versus Europe, and I
Speaker 3: don't want things to seem that way though you can
Speaker 3: understand why the Europeans, by the way, interpreted that earlier
Speaker 3: Munich speech as in US versus Europe. But he's saying
Speaker 3: that's not the point. The point is that we actually
Speaker 3: need each other. It was a much it was actually
Speaker 3: I think a much more mature version of the argument,
Speaker 3: and obviously he's had a couple of months to get
Speaker 3: feedback and hear from people about how that first argument landed.
Speaker 2: Don't forget too that the signal Gate chats that leak
Speaker 2: down where Jade Vance is trying to make the case
Speaker 2: against the strikes in Yemen by being like, oh, we're
Speaker 2: just bailing out those chromy Europeans again, and Hegseath I
Speaker 2: think was the one that chimed in, right, Yeah, who
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, we you know, we can't stand them.
Speaker 2: I mean there was a lot of euro bashing going
Speaker 2: on in that chat. Yeah, and they read those as well,
Speaker 2: so I'm sure they were were also not super happy
Speaker 2: about the contents that messages.
Speaker 3: Super quickly I pulled up the quotes because I think
Speaker 3: it gives a good flavor of his tone. Yesterday he said, quote,
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure if after February I'd get the invitation back.
Speaker 3: Everything that I said there applied as much to the
Speaker 3: previous American administration as it did in any government as
Speaker 3: it did any government in Europe. So he was saying
Speaker 3: sort of humbling himself and saying, well, not himself, but
Speaker 3: humbling his country and saying the Biden administration was just
Speaker 3: as bad as I.
Speaker 4: Think you guys are. It's like Biden's a Armer's same thing.
Speaker 2: Biden administration wasn't kidnapping students off the street for writing
Speaker 2: up its.
Speaker 5: But then that part always goes on set.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Then he then he goes on to say it's not
Speaker 4: Europe bad, America good.
Speaker 3: Both Europe and the US. We got a little off track.
Speaker 3: So that's a night and day Tonal difference. But he
Speaker 3: was in conversation this.
Speaker 4: Time, so I guess it's not like a scripted speech attack.
Speaker 4: He was talking to some guy up on stage.
Speaker 5: Gotcha, Okay.
Speaker 2: So in part of that talking to some guy up
Speaker 2: on stage, he gets asked about the status of the
Speaker 2: Iran nuclear negotiations.
Speaker 5: Interesting comments here. Let's take a lism.
Speaker 12: So there are a couple issues with the earlier agreement,
Speaker 12: the jcpoas as it's called here in the United States
Speaker 12: and I assume in Europe. But here here are the
Speaker 12: two big issues with that agreement are. Number one, the
Speaker 12: enforcement or the inspections regime was incredibly weak, and I
Speaker 12: don't think that it actually served the function of preventing
Speaker 12: the Iranians from getting on the pathway to a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 12: That's one thing that must be different. And then second, yes,
Speaker 12: we believe that there were some elements of their nuclear
Speaker 12: program that were preserved under JCPOA that yes, they weren't
Speaker 12: nuclear weapons. Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon, but allowed
Speaker 12: Iran to sort of stay on this glide path towards
Speaker 12: a nuclear weapon if they flipped the switch and press go.
Speaker 12: And we have to think about this not just in
Speaker 12: terms of Iran, which again the President has said this.
Speaker 12: We think that there is a deal here that would
Speaker 12: reintegrate Iran into the global economy, that would be really
Speaker 12: good for the Iranian people, but would result in the
Speaker 12: complete cessation of any chance that they can get a
Speaker 12: nuclear weapon.
Speaker 5: And that's what we're negotiating towards. So what did you
Speaker 5: think of his comments there? Emi language? What was now worthy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean really interesting because they need the buy
Speaker 3: in of Senate Republicans who have been hearing these leaks
Speaker 3: the broad contours of a potential Trump are on negotiation
Speaker 3: and saying that sounds exactly like the JCPOA.
Speaker 4: The Foundation for Defensive Democracy is very hawkish on this.
Speaker 3: Some of their folks have been making that criticism and
Speaker 3: I think the Trump administration knows that they need the
Speaker 3: buy in of a significant part of the Republican coalition,
Speaker 3: and they're not going to get that for the JCPOA,
Speaker 3: even if it's Donald Trump. You know, you saw we
Speaker 3: didn't talk about this yesterday, but Tom tellis under Tom
Speaker 3: tellis coming out against Trump's DC attorney pick Ed Martin
Speaker 3: and tariffs had Rand Paul, for example, bringing together this
Speaker 3: byport partisan coalition to try and get a vote to
Speaker 3: take back at least symbolically Congress's power over trade. So
Speaker 3: I think think they realized that on the highest priority issues,
Speaker 3: and I cannot think of a higher priority issue for
Speaker 3: the Hawks in the Republican Party, the like remaining neo
Speaker 3: conservatives a Tom Cotton, a Lindsay Graham, whenever it is.
Speaker 3: You cannot just copy and paste JCPOA, even if you're
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, which is one of the reasons actually people
Speaker 3: ended up getting on the Trump bandwagon back in twenty
Speaker 3: fifteen and twenty sixteen because he was such an opponent
Speaker 3: of JCPOA. So I think what Jade Vance was doing
Speaker 3: yesterday was making a substantive and fair criticism of jcpoa's oversight.
Speaker 3: The oversight let's say regime that was in JCPOA like
Speaker 3: you have to be able to verify what Iran is
Speaker 3: actually doing. Otherwise the whole thing kind of falls apart
Speaker 3: and it's kind of useless. So I think it's it's
Speaker 3: a reasonable criticism.
Speaker 4: I also think it was a way to distance the Trump.
Speaker 5: Plan, say this is this is totally like, this is
Speaker 5: way better than that, So it's not as well.
Speaker 3: It's not impossible that they land on especially if we're
Speaker 3: grading on the curve of like conservative Republican Party lawmakers,
Speaker 3: it's not impossible that they land on a solution here
Speaker 3: that is much better than your typical Republican or maybe
Speaker 3: even your typical Democrat would have negotiated.
Speaker 4: But that's obviously it mays to be seen. They're negotiating
Speaker 4: in Oman.
Speaker 3: It's the weird thing of the Trump eras that because
Speaker 3: of the oddities and the coalition, and because of Trump's
Speaker 3: very eccentric, to say the least, approach to these negotiations,
Speaker 3: they sometimes end up in good places.
Speaker 2: We'll see, yeah, we'll say fingers crossed that they just
Speaker 2: you know, get back into something approximating Jacboa, but are
Speaker 2: able to put some rhetorical flourish on that keeps most
Speaker 2: Republicans on board, because I do think that that is
Speaker 2: a genuine risk, given the fact, you know what we're
Speaker 2: about to transition to block on the Medicaid cuts, the
Speaker 2: block on what's going on with MAHA. There are cracks
Speaker 2: that are starting to emerge. And as this administration gets
Speaker 2: more popular across a broader range of issues, as the
Speaker 2: economic numbers get more uncertain, it just gives you a
Speaker 2: lot less room to navigate. And also as the mitrop's
Speaker 2: getting closer, and many of these, you know, the members
Speaker 2: who are up are looking at their reelection bids and
Speaker 2: getting very nervous. And then of course there are such
Speaker 2: hawkish organized forces in Washington that the vast majority of
Speaker 2: the Republican caucus has been you know, has been aligned with,
Speaker 2: so it will be difficult for them to persuade their
Speaker 2: own caucus that this is a deal worth negotiating.
Speaker 5: We shouldn't just go to war with Iron, which of
Speaker 5: course would be an utter disaster.
Speaker 4: They have been flipping out over it.
Speaker 3: As soon as it became likely or possible that Trump
Speaker 3: was going to pursue a broad plan or a plan
Speaker 3: that broadly resembled JCPOA in some way or another meaning
Speaker 3: allowing for some enrichment for at least civilian purposes in
Speaker 3: the agreement.
Speaker 4: Yeah, quote unquote civilian purposes.
Speaker 3: And that's it's not that they don't have a point,
Speaker 3: that that's something that people should absolutely be concerned about.
Speaker 4: But is it realistic.
Speaker 3: No, in all likelihood, it's not realistic to start, let's say,
Speaker 3: thawing these tensions or cooling these tensions without coming to
Speaker 3: some sort of agreement that has in an agreement, you
Speaker 3: have to like give and take a little bit, and
Speaker 3: you end up with no agreement whatsoever.
Speaker 2: And the administration has been all over the map with
Speaker 2: regard to enrichment. Jd Vance there seemed to say no Enrichmond.
Speaker 2: Others have said no enrichment. Tonal Trump got asked about
Speaker 2: it and he said he's not sure, so which is good.
Speaker 4: I'm glad.
Speaker 5: I'm glad he said that.
Speaker 4: I think whit CoP's gone back and forth as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think that's right too, And I'm
Speaker 2: not I don't remember if it was in clip we
Speaker 2: played there or not that jd Vance made a comment
Speaker 2: during their saying like that no country has ever had
Speaker 2: civilian enrichment and not ended up with a nuclear weapon,
Speaker 2: and that.
Speaker 5: Is just not true at all.
Speaker 2: Japan, Brazil, Germany, Lens are among countries that enrich uranium
Speaker 2: and haven't pursued nuclear weapons. So not that part was
Speaker 2: not particularly encouraging. But we'll see where it all goes.
Speaker 4: Hey, that's a rare glimmer of optimism. I suppose the best.
Speaker 5: You're going to get for me, Crystal. All right, let's
Speaker 5: go ahead and move.
Speaker 2: Speaking of not having glimmers of optimism, let's move to
Speaker 2: the quite drastic Medicaid cuts that appear to be part
Speaker 2: of the big, beautiful bill that Republicans are in the
Speaker 2: process of negotiating.
Speaker 5: David dan Over at the American.
Speaker 2: Prospect getting the scoop here on the specifics of the
Speaker 2: Medicaid cuts that the Republican Caucus is planning on making.
Speaker 5: Let's put this up on.
Speaker 2: The screen, and guys, I'm just saying, I'm going to
Speaker 2: take my time.
Speaker 5: To go through a little bit of this because this
Speaker 5: is so important.
Speaker 2: So he says, I've obtained a list of the Medicaid
Speaker 2: cuts in the Republican reconciliation package. The big one is
Speaker 2: that they're going to raise premiums and copays on beneficiaries
Speaker 2: at or above the federal poverty line. That is what
Speaker 2: helps pay for the tax cuts, and that's what he
Speaker 2: has here in this text. He says the most potentially
Speaker 2: explosive item on the menu is cost sharing above one
Speaker 2: hundred percent of FPL. That's a federal poverty line. That
Speaker 2: appears to mean that Medicaid recipients making ad or above
Speaker 2: the federal poverty line, which is fifteen thousand and six
Speaker 2: fifty for a single individual and twenty one thousand and
Speaker 2: one to fifty very low amounts here for a two
Speaker 2: person household would have to pay some money for coverage,
Speaker 2: either in premiums, copays, or hospital visits and other treatment
Speaker 2: or other fees. Currently, Medicaid gives states the option to
Speaker 2: impose out a pocket spending on recipients, so some populations
Speaker 2: and services like children under eighteen or pregnancy care are exempted.
Speaker 2: Some premiums and enrollment fees are limited to beneficiaries above
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty percent of the poverty line. This
Speaker 2: policy would take that number lower. Making poor people pay
Speaker 2: more for healthcare is exactly the kind of cut effective
Speaker 2: cut to Medicaid that moderate Republicans have sworn they would
Speaker 2: not abide while reducing the federal share of o Bombcare's
Speaker 2: Medicaid expansion, which provides federal funding to extend Medicaid to
Speaker 2: adults under age sixty five up to one hundred thirty
Speaker 2: eight percent of the poverty level in forty states.
Speaker 5: In DC, is not part of the menu.
Speaker 4: This is a.
Speaker 2: Backdoor way of achieving something like that reduction on the
Speaker 2: backs of individuals who get Medicaid.
Speaker 5: There are other provisions in here as well. There are
Speaker 5: some changes to.
Speaker 2: The Affordable Care Act that would also increase premiums and
Speaker 2: raise out of pocket costs for people who enroll through
Speaker 2: the ACA market places, so that is significant. There's some
Speaker 2: changes here in terms of work requirements. That also you
Speaker 2: know what has been found previously with the Medicaid work requirements,
Speaker 2: in particular recording the Kaiser Family Foundation. This is also
Speaker 2: in Dane's reporting, is that sixty one percent of US
Speaker 2: adults on Medicaid already work. Large fraction of those who
Speaker 2: don't are either disabled or elderly. The requirement would primarily
Speaker 2: add red tape to the enrollment system. Push people out
Speaker 2: of Medicaid using bureaucracies is very common tactic, and states
Speaker 2: like Arkansas have already experimented with this and found that
Speaker 2: exact situation. It was expensive to implement and ultimately did
Speaker 2: not improve efficiency or anything.
Speaker 5: The goals you might imagine with that.
Speaker 2: Instead, it just pushed people out of the program because
Speaker 2: they couldn't go through all of the bureaucratic red tape
Speaker 2: in order to get in. So bottom line here is
Speaker 2: that they are planning on making Medicaid more expensive, raising premiums,
Speaker 2: making people who are somewhat above the federal poverty line
Speaker 2: pay in, and doing some other tweaks around the edges,
Speaker 2: including these work requirements, in order to reduce the cost
Speaker 2: of Medicaid. So quite significant, and we could put this
Speaker 2: next piece up on the screen just to get a
Speaker 2: broader sense of some of the different options that they
Speaker 2: had floated. This isn't specifically looking at the day of
Speaker 2: the day and report of what they've sort of landed on,
Speaker 2: but it lists all of these different options that had
Speaker 2: been suggested had been proposed. One of them is reducing
Speaker 2: the expansion of the population matching rate. Another one is
Speaker 2: limiting state taxes on healthcare providers, capping spending per enrollies,
Speaker 2: repealing eligiblibility, and enrollment final rate.
Speaker 5: Any one of these options.
Speaker 2: They find would yes reduce the federal deficits somewhat, and
Speaker 2: also would reduce Medicaid coverage by millions of people. Anywhere
Speaker 2: from eight point six million people to two point three
Speaker 2: million people would be cut off from Medicaid and you
Speaker 2: would have a significant increase in all instances in uninsured people.
Speaker 5: So that is where we are and what we're looking at.
Speaker 3: This is a trip war for Republicans who want to
Speaker 3: need to, by their own strategic intentions, pass a tax
Speaker 3: cut bill in order to we could disagree with their
Speaker 3: argument here, but in order to supplement the terif regime
Speaker 3: and the trade war.
Speaker 4: They don't believe.
Speaker 3: I mean, they've said this over and over again that
Speaker 3: they need a tax bill to have their intended effects
Speaker 3: in the trade war. And you know, you could go
Speaker 3: and look at that and say, well, then maybe you
Speaker 3: should have done the tax bill first, and if you
Speaker 3: got it passed, then done all of these tariffs at
Speaker 3: the at the sort of wild levels, unexpected levels that
Speaker 3: a lot of you know, even the administration sort of
Speaker 3: admits were very radical because they ended up walking them back.
Speaker 3: And Trump said the bond market it was getting a
Speaker 3: little yippy. So it's it's by their own admission that
Speaker 3: some of this was a little wild. So maybe wait
Speaker 3: till after you get the tax cut bill passed, because
Speaker 3: now Republicans need to offset the tax cuts with significant
Speaker 3: spending cuts. They believed that Doge was going to find
Speaker 3: Elon Musk first said two trillion dollars in savings. He
Speaker 3: then said one trillion dollars in savings. Now we don't
Speaker 3: even know if it'll be two hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 2: They did spend saving, probably spent more money than they say,
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding, not genuinely.
Speaker 4: Not out of the question. Yeah, it's they've they have
Speaker 4: not come anywhere near what Republicans expected Doche to do.
Speaker 2: Like they actually thought they were going to cut with
Speaker 2: trillion dollars or some absolutely they really thought that.
Speaker 3: I don't think anyone thought two trillion was possible, but
Speaker 3: I think, I mean, the federal budget is a while thing,
Speaker 3: and I think even like some Democrats will yeah, you
Speaker 3: could probably do that, but the way they went about
Speaker 3: doing it, it's kind of exactly what you would expect
Speaker 3: when you let oligarch run wild in the federal government
Speaker 3: with a bunch of like no fighting twenty year olds, right,
Speaker 3: because it's the same argument that people made against drowing
Speaker 3: Pete Haigsteth at the Pentagon and we talked about this
Speaker 3: with Mark Lucas, like maybe you need somebody.
Speaker 4: You have to find the rare person who knows the
Speaker 4: bureaucracy in order to take on the bureaucracy.
Speaker 3: Otherwise you end up not being efficient at all because
Speaker 3: you don't even know where to look, you don't even
Speaker 3: know what to do. And that's sort of been an interesting,
Speaker 3: like ez Recline argument against DOGE is that it's not
Speaker 3: efficient to just come in and make cuts. Some of
Speaker 3: these cuts end up being inefficient, and then you end
Speaker 3: up maybe spending more money than you even cut. But
Speaker 3: the bottom line is congressional Republicans now have to come
Speaker 3: up with a budget that allows them to do these
Speaker 3: tax cuts because they're also full of deficit hawks. They
Speaker 3: now have populists because some of these Republicans represent working class,
Speaker 3: heavily working class districts with a lot of people on Medicaid.
Speaker 3: And Trump has said we could roll the tape back
Speaker 3: from I think it was February nineteenth. He's sitting next
Speaker 3: to Elon Musk in an interview with Sean Hannity and
Speaker 3: says Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff will be touched.
Speaker 4: Then he goes on to say maybe for non citizens,
Speaker 4: that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: And so he was assuring the US citizen American tax pair,
Speaker 3: your Medicaid, your Medicare is going to be safe. The
Speaker 3: only things we might make are tweaking around the edges
Speaker 3: to affect non citizens or fraud. So they might be
Speaker 3: able to make the argument that work requirements are going
Speaker 3: against fraud whatever.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 3: Medicaid spending is about nine percent of the federal budget
Speaker 3: as of at least twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: I mean, is a huge amount of money.
Speaker 3: So it's irresistible for devis at hawk Republicans to want
Speaker 3: to cut Medicaid. But if you cut Medicaid, you infuriate
Speaker 3: a lot of people who put their rightfully or wrongfully,
Speaker 3: their trust in the Trump Republican Party and Trump in particular.
Speaker 3: How do they get to the tax cut bill with
Speaker 3: enough votes even to pass the House. The slim margins
Speaker 3: that they have genuinely a mystery at this point.
Speaker 2: Well, and most of the tax cut bill is just
Speaker 2: to give away to the rich. I mean it's you
Speaker 2: are literally cutting health insurance for poor people to pay
Speaker 2: for a tax cut for the rich. That's what you're doing.
Speaker 2: And there was even some acknowledgment. Remember there's some leaked
Speaker 2: Republicans to Axios. I think saying like that's going to
Speaker 2: be a tough one for us to be fige on yep,
Speaker 2: because that's it's so politically toxic that it is hard
Speaker 2: to imagine doing something more unpopular.
Speaker 4: We have the C three. This is Don Bacon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and put Don Bacon up on the screen. Don
Speaker 2: Bacon is in this. He's Nebraska right in this swing district.
Speaker 2: Has not actually announced whether he's running for reelection. Again,
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any way wins. I just you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think it runs the way that this year
Speaker 2: is shaping up. This is one of the districts actually
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders went to as well, recognizing and very smartly
Speaker 2: recognizing that him and others in similar positions would be
Speaker 2: a vulnerability on trying to cut medicaid. In any case,
Speaker 2: Don Bacon, one of the most vulnerable House members, is
Speaker 2: warning some Republican leaders have privately tried to get him
Speaker 2: and others on board with this reconciliation built by claiming
Speaker 2: any steep Medicaid cuts passed by the House, they're going
Speaker 2: to be blocked by the Senate anyway. Here's the tactic
Speaker 2: they've been using. He says, don't worry about the Senate.
Speaker 2: They'll fix it. And now we're getting ready to take
Speaker 2: our third vote on this. Bacon sat in a recent interview,
Speaker 2: we feel like we're being pushed up to the edge
Speaker 2: of the cliff here. So here he is in the
Speaker 2: swing district. He knows that this is political poison, and
Speaker 2: yet they are the tax cut thing Trump. This is
Speaker 2: the one thing that he consistently promised to the financier class,
Speaker 2: I mean really explicitly, like vote for me and you're
Speaker 2: getting your tax cut. And they are not particularly happy
Speaker 2: about the whole terriff situation. So I think that adds
Speaker 2: pressure that you on that piece you have to deliver.
Speaker 2: And you know, Republicans have long been lined up behind
Speaker 2: giving tax cuts to wealthy people. That was the primary
Speaker 2: accomplishment of Trump's first administration. So I think he also
Speaker 2: has like, you know, a sort of ego commitment to
Speaker 2: it as well, outside of the way it benefits himself.
Speaker 5: Personally as well.
Speaker 2: So that piece has to be in, and then to
Speaker 2: make up for it, they're increasing the Pentagon budget, so
Speaker 2: it's not coming out of the defense side of the ledger.
Speaker 5: That would be the other place you could.
Speaker 2: Look if you don't want to take healthcare away from
Speaker 2: poor people, Well that's off the table.
Speaker 5: They're upping the budget over there.
Speaker 2: So that leaves you with forced to make really quite
Speaker 2: significant cuts to Medicaid that are going to that Trump
Speaker 2: promised he wouldn't and that are wildly politically unpopular and
Speaker 2: more importantly, are going to be really devastating to millions
Speaker 2: of Americans who depend on Medicaid. And you know, in
Speaker 2: a way, this is a very real success of Obamacare,
Speaker 2: the way that Medicaid expansion has made this program much
Speaker 2: more politically popular and much more difficult politically to cut
Speaker 2: because you have so many more millions of Americans who
Speaker 2: benefit from Medicaid at this point than prior to the
Speaker 2: Obamacare expansion.
Speaker 5: So that's part of the background here as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the politics of those were Republicans even
Speaker 3: you know, I went back, so I wrote about this yesterday.
Speaker 3: I was going back and looking at some of you
Speaker 3: might remember this because you ran in the Tea Party years,
Speaker 3: Republicans were very careful the way they talked about Medicaid,
Speaker 3: Like actual Republican politicians were very careful the way they
Speaker 3: actually talked about They would talk about, you know, needing
Speaker 3: to reform Social Security or whatever, but when it came
Speaker 3: to Medicare and Medicaid, it was only like the hardest
Speaker 3: of the hardcore who would talk about like actually just
Speaker 3: cutting it and getting people off entitlement programs.
Speaker 4: There was a sensitivity around it.
Speaker 3: If you go back and look what they said, you'd
Speaker 3: be like, wow, that's really interesting because even at the time,
Speaker 3: I think they realized how just disastrous, how important it
Speaker 3: is to the seniors and the working class people who
Speaker 3: hate the government, and maybe saw some like hope in
Speaker 3: the Tea Party movement because they were like, yeah, term
Speaker 3: limits and like screw the big banks after the recession,
Speaker 3: how important these programs are to people. So it's just
Speaker 3: like it's the chickens are coming home to rouse for
Speaker 3: Republicans on this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess, Emily, can you speak to I mean,
Speaker 2: because the other side of it, you got the Don
Speaker 2: Bacon's on one side who were like, I'm about to
Speaker 2: get tossed down and may not even run for reelection.
Speaker 5: Because it's looking so bad.
Speaker 2: Then you have people who are genuine fiscal hawks who
Speaker 2: have signed on to some letter saying like no, we
Speaker 2: need steep Medicaid cuts. So they're trying to balance all
Speaker 2: of these pieces, which is I guess why leadership is
Speaker 2: going to Don Bacon and saying like, just trust does
Speaker 2: It's going to be fine. They'll work it out in
Speaker 2: the Senate. It's not going to be that bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well the Senate, I mean they're not. That might
Speaker 4: be their best option.
Speaker 3: And I think that's sort of what Mike Johnson is
Speaker 3: getting at because he's ruled certain quote unquote cuts out
Speaker 3: and that leaves them with like waste froggen abuse work requirements,
Speaker 3: and to quote Rick Perry, here, there's a third thing.
Speaker 3: I'm just forgetting it, but I have it right in
Speaker 3: front of me because Dan posted it. But yeah, they're
Speaker 3: going to get on whatever, like they're going to find
Speaker 3: some outline, but that outline is then going to be taken.
Speaker 3: And Dan put it a great way, and it's similar
Speaker 3: to what you just said. He said in his story.
Speaker 3: He was like, yeah, you're making poor people pay more
Speaker 3: for health care. That's the direct quote from Dane. No
Speaker 3: matter what Republicans do to Medicaid, yeah, Democrats are gonna
Speaker 3: be able to say that, Yeah, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: That's what they're gonna be able to say. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: If you get it down to unless it's just on
Speaker 3: like non citizens or something. But it doesn't matter if
Speaker 3: you add work requirements. That's still making poor people pay
Speaker 3: more for health care. And there's ways you can message
Speaker 3: it very effectively in some populous red districts, but it's
Speaker 3: an uphill battle, a real uphill battle, and it gives
Speaker 3: Democrats a huge gift with a very polarizing political environment
Speaker 3: and a polarizing president.
Speaker 2: And I just want to say with regard to work requirements,
Speaker 2: I said before Arkansas tried this, so this has been
Speaker 2: studied and it really should be seen as a similar
Speaker 2: tactic to what does is doing with Social Security, where
Speaker 2: they're just making it so you can't you can't get
Speaker 2: someone on the phone, you go to the field office,
Speaker 2: the field office has been closed or the field office
Speaker 2: has a three hour long line, so you're making impossible
Speaker 2: for people to access those benefits. And this is a
Speaker 2: common tactic and issue in neoliberalism where they put up
Speaker 2: so much red tape and layer it with so much bureaucracy.
Speaker 2: This is the kind of thing we need, like a
Speaker 2: real doge to tap. They lay it with so much
Speaker 2: bureaucracy that it means that people just cannot jump through
Speaker 2: all the hoops, or don't have time to jump through
Speaker 2: all the hoops, or can't figure out how to jump
Speaker 2: through all the hoops in order to access the benefits
Speaker 2: that they are entitled to. And that is I think
Speaker 2: what you should really that's the real underlying goal of
Speaker 2: work requirements is the idea that if we make it
Speaker 2: more difficult for people to be able to obtain these benefits,
Speaker 2: and you have to justify here's where I'm working years
Speaker 2: the hours, and I talked to my boss and may
Speaker 2: have cloudy on the phone and all of these sorts
Speaker 2: of things, then you are going to make it so
Speaker 2: fewer people enroll in Medicaid. And that's the way that
Speaker 2: you're going to cut the numbers that are on this program.
Speaker 2: So it is a backdoor way to make it so
Speaker 2: that fewer people are on Medicaid. It's a cut, that's it,
Speaker 2: bottom line. And yeah, so democrats will be able to
Speaker 2: point to the numbers whenever we get the final bill
Speaker 2: of exactly what is coming with you know what these
Speaker 2: cuts entail, and say this, many millions of Americans are
Speaker 2: getting kicked off Medicaid. For this many millions of Americans,
Speaker 2: you are increasing the cost, and you know it's Republicans
Speaker 2: will try to say, oh, work requirements, able bodied and
Speaker 2: know it's not really a cut all day long. But
Speaker 2: I think it's very difficult to explain your way out
Speaker 2: of your cutting healthcare for poor people to pay for
Speaker 2: rich people's tax cuts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is to put it in a corporate a
Speaker 3: bill with a corporate tax cut, which by the way,
Speaker 3: I mean taking the corporate tax rate from twenty one
Speaker 3: to fifteen percent.
Speaker 4: Don't need and it's a can of room to open it.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: I'm just like a total you need a like a
Speaker 3: flat tax basically a type of person. And we probably
Speaker 3: disagree on that, but I just believe that's the only
Speaker 3: way to close loopholes, and closing loopholes is the only
Speaker 3: way to get corporations to pay their fair share and
Speaker 3: to pay like to put revenue into the treasury. But
Speaker 3: to do this, to add this into a bill that's
Speaker 3: cutting the corporate tax rate for twenty one to fifteen percent. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that might get companies to in some small way bring
Speaker 3: back their corporate headquarters which have you know, like moved
Speaker 3: to Ireland. Johnson Controls, for example, moves to Ireland, but
Speaker 3: that's the corporate headquarters.
Speaker 4: It doesn't necessarily affect that many workers either way.
Speaker 3: They can make this argument that's about onshoring bringing jobs back,
Speaker 3: et cetera.
Speaker 4: But at the end of the day, Democrats can now say,
Speaker 4: in a corporate tax cut bill, you cut medicaid like
Speaker 4: it's just a disaster politically, there's no question about it,
Speaker 4: and they have.
Speaker 3: This happened again in twenty seventeen. Paul Ryan was out there,
Speaker 3: this is just going to be my little rant for
Speaker 3: just a brief second. Paul Ryan was out there talking
Speaker 3: about how he was going to get taxes down to
Speaker 3: a postcard and that is like, actually a very I
Speaker 3: think that would be if you're talking about like doing
Speaker 3: it via a flat tax.
Speaker 4: That is a very just.
Speaker 3: System of taxation, wouldn't require corporations to actually pay their
Speaker 3: fair share if it had the right policy incentives in it.
Speaker 4: And not that I trusted Paul Ryan to do that,
Speaker 4: but genuinely.
Speaker 3: If you say, we have this mandate and we're going
Speaker 3: to revamp the tax system, and you end up with
Speaker 3: the TCJA, which is a tax hit bill in twenty seven.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then you end up with whatever this bill
Speaker 4: is going to be.
Speaker 3: Right, you have all of if you claimed this mandate
Speaker 3: from political heaven right now, and you have the generational
Speaker 3: opportunity to do something like doge, and you're not going
Speaker 3: to take it to do any we know it's just
Speaker 3: because lobbyists would swamp them. You can never have a
Speaker 3: fair system of taxation because lobbyists will swamp you, and
Speaker 3: then you lose and you have no courage or backboner spine,
Speaker 3: and that's how we end up with these awful third ways.
Speaker 5: Yes, some of that I agree with.
Speaker 2: I think if you actually got rid of all of
Speaker 2: the corporate like deductions of the poles and whatever and
Speaker 2: had a lower like top line rate, but they actually
Speaker 2: had to pay it, like, there is a version of
Speaker 2: that that I would support, because many of these corporations
Speaker 2: pay nothing, yep, because they availed themselves of so many
Speaker 2: of these loopholes that exist in our tax gat All right, Well,
Speaker 2: you know who understands some of these things. No our hero,
Speaker 2: our heroin Laura Lumer. Laura Lumer who was also.
Speaker 4: He was an invite out for tomorrow's show.
Speaker 5: This is like, uh yeah she does. That's right, Laura.
Speaker 5: We would love to talk to you tomorrow. Genuinely.
Speaker 2: Laura Lumer and David Dan are heavily featured. Yesterday was
Speaker 2: the show and Duffy show tomorrow today and David Dan
Speaker 2: And this was.
Speaker 3: The difference between when I planned shows and when you.
Speaker 2: Plan I guess so I only loves her some show Duffy,
Speaker 2: I don't know. All right, put this up on the
Speaker 2: screen from Laura Lumer. So this is so funny to
Speaker 2: me always how she praises this, but anyway, she is hammering,
Speaker 2: uh this Trump ally Paragon Health CEO Brian Blaze for
Speaker 2: as a as a Rhino saboteur because he's pushed for
Speaker 2: aggressive Medicaid cuts. I'm going to read you her post
Speaker 2: here on Twitter. She says, in a shocking betrayal of
Speaker 2: President Trump's unwavering commitment to America's working class families and
Speaker 2: his promise to protect Medicaid, which he did promise, Paragon
Speaker 2: Health CEO Brian Blaze a covert never Trump we masquerading
Speaker 2: as a MAGA loyalist, spearheading a dangerous campaign to undermine
Speaker 2: the Republican Party's mid term prospects. Twenty sixteen tweets from
Speaker 2: Brian Blaze reveal he once said this is why we
Speaker 2: can't have Trump, meaning like, oh, he's a Trump critic.
Speaker 2: Along with bashing Trump on ex Blaze has also complimented
Speaker 2: Barack Hussein Obama.
Speaker 5: God Forbid Sea screenshots below.
Speaker 2: Brian Blaze doesn't want you to know this, but he
Speaker 2: is propped up by millions of dollars from the COC
Speaker 2: network's anti Trump war chest. It's currently pressuring congressional Republicans
Speaker 2: to defy the president's ironclad pledge to protect Medicaid, a
Speaker 2: program critical to the Hartley and voter supropelled Trump to
Speaker 2: his election victories. Blaze's insidious push to eliminate provider taxes
Speaker 2: would gut Medicaid funding, hitting Americans the hardest in rural
Speaker 2: red states like Texas, Florida, and Louisiana. By the way,
Speaker 2: this is one of the pieces that Dan reported is
Speaker 2: planned to be in the bill. Where Trump's base depends
Speaker 2: on the Medicaid program for survival. This is why Democrats
Speaker 2: are falsely accusing President Trump of trying to cut medicaid
Speaker 2: because they know it's an effective way to suppress GOP
Speaker 2: turnout for the twenty twenty six midterms. She goes on
Speaker 2: to talk about Steve Bannon. It's a long post. I
Speaker 2: won't read you all of it, but you know, basically
Speaker 2: it's Look, it's clever how.
Speaker 5: She frames it.
Speaker 2: She frames this as like it's a betrayal of Trump's promises, when,
Speaker 2: of course, like obviously Tonald Trump, if he didn't want
Speaker 2: Medicaid to cut be cut, could just go to Mike
Speaker 2: Johnson and John Thune and be like, we're not cutting Medicaid.
Speaker 5: That's not happening.
Speaker 2: But definitely yeah, but obviously she's got a frame it
Speaker 2: in terms of like he's betraying Trump and Trump's promises
Speaker 2: and endangering and intentionally endangering Republicans for the midterms.
Speaker 5: So that's that's her play here.
Speaker 4: Clever framing. Though.
Speaker 3: Let's throw this next hairsheet up on the screen, because
Speaker 3: Republicans are going to be sort of flailing around. Basically
Speaker 3: that Republicans are are looking to offset the tax cuts
Speaker 3: again by selling some public land. This is actually a
Speaker 3: fairly popular proposal in some corners of Republican world. I
Speaker 3: haven't looked too deeply into it, and I will now, Crystal,
Speaker 3: but they're going to have to come up with some
Speaker 3: really creative mechanisms because Dose didn't do what they wanted
Speaker 3: Dose to do, and they are cutting taxes a whole
Speaker 3: lot on top of the tariffs, so they badly need
Speaker 3: this to be like a real shot in the arm
Speaker 3: to the markets and to the overall economy. And they
Speaker 3: also have to get the damn bill passed. So that's
Speaker 3: the I mean, they have to make all of these cuts,
Speaker 3: like massive cuts, and get the bill passed with what
Speaker 3: like a two to three volte margin, and that all.
Speaker 5: Increase the Pentagon budget.
Speaker 2: So you have to make up all of that as well,
Speaker 2: and increase the ICE budget and the detention the you know,
Speaker 2: the budget that goes to like these private prison contractors
Speaker 2: that stand up detention centers. That's being increased massively. So
Speaker 2: it's not just the tax cuts, although that is the
Speaker 2: most sizable piece of it. But you're all so upping
Speaker 2: you know, the police and the military and so ICE yep.
Speaker 2: And so now you're like, maybe we can sell off
Speaker 2: some public lands, some public assets to fund tax.
Speaker 5: I'm sure that's going to go over well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this should be an easy sell back come at
Speaker 3: their districts over the course of the summer.
Speaker 4: But again, like the pressure here is so high, the
Speaker 4: stakes are so high.
Speaker 3: They can only lose like three votes or something, and
Speaker 3: you have the Don Bacons of the world, who may
Speaker 3: not be running for reelection. He's actually criticized. Was it
Speaker 3: Haigseeth the other day that he came out and criticized.
Speaker 3: He's been critical of the administration in some surprising ways,
Speaker 3: which to me signals he doesn't think he's running for
Speaker 3: reelection or he's at right now. I mean, it's like
Speaker 3: you said, could he even win reelection?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think they've given him a lot of bandwidth to
Speaker 2: criticize the administration because they recognize the situation that he's
Speaker 2: in and they want him to run again because I
Speaker 2: think I think he's probably dead man walking in terms
Speaker 2: of getting re elected anyway. But if anyone could win
Speaker 2: the seat, he's like the only one that has a
Speaker 2: pre so I think they're willing to give him a
Speaker 2: fair amount of bandwidth, is my read.
Speaker 3: We'll see what they do for Republicans in that situation
Speaker 3: as they approach votes, which probably I'm guess gonna be
Speaker 3: around fourth of July.
Speaker 4: So we'll follow it all.
Speaker 2: Shall we get to this very interesting story with regard
Speaker 2: to the surgeon general. Okay, I'll start from where we are,
Speaker 2: and then we'll back up and do some of the
Speaker 2: backstory here. So put Trump's announcement here up on the screen.
Speaker 2: He pulled his previous surgeon general nominee and has now
Speaker 2: announced doctor Casey Means to be nominated our next Surgeon
Speaker 2: General of the USA. Casey has impeccable MAHA credentials and
Speaker 2: will work closely. This is what Trump said with our
Speaker 2: wonderful Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Junior,
Speaker 2: to ensure a successful implementation of our agenda in order
Speaker 2: to reverse the chronic disease epidemic and ensure great health
Speaker 2: in the future for all Americans. Her academic achievements, together
Speaker 2: with her life's work, are absolutely outstanding. Doctor Casey Means
Speaker 2: has the potential to be one of the finest surgeon
Speaker 2: generals in US history. Congratulations to Casey. Secretary Kennedy looks
Speaker 2: forward to working with doctor Jeannette. I don't know how
Speaker 2: to say her last name, do you in another capacity
Speaker 2: at HHS, thank you for your attention to this matter.
Speaker 2: Doctor Jeanette. I'll just call her, sorry that I don't
Speaker 2: have the pronunciation correct. Haven't been married to Mike Waltz.
Speaker 11: So good.
Speaker 5: There's another. Just gotta gotta love that one.
Speaker 4: So a way Shakespeare. This is Shakespeare.
Speaker 5: It truly is.
Speaker 2: So she and the drama is as of yet unresolved.
Speaker 2: There are many acts I guess to go in this
Speaker 2: in this drama, but doctor Jeanette gets pulled after criticism
Speaker 2: from Laura Lumer and others.
Speaker 3: I think who by the way now says she's been
Speaker 3: hired by Donald Trump himself about four times, but his
Speaker 3: staff has always thwarted lumour the hiring process.
Speaker 2: Really I just saw this, Okay, interesting, So anyway, the
Speaker 2: original one gets pulled because of you know, backlash from
Speaker 2: Lumer and others, you know, feeling like she had been
Speaker 2: she was too pro vaccine, that sort of thing, right,
Speaker 2: She was like too sort of normal in terms of
Speaker 2: the medical establishment. So they didn't like her, so they
Speaker 2: pulled her. There was also some question about her LinkedIn
Speaker 2: page said she graduated from a different medical school than
Speaker 2: she actually graduated from something like that as well. Okay,
Speaker 2: so she gets pulled and doctor Casey Means gets put in.
Speaker 2: I'm going to leave it to you to explain a
Speaker 2: little bit about Casey Means and her brother, Callie Means,
Speaker 2: who kind of came out of nowhere to be huge.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's fair to call them health influencers.
Speaker 4: You know, they make the.
Speaker 2: Podcast Circuit Rogan Tucker very tied in with the MAHA
Speaker 2: movement and so and you know, have voiced all of
Speaker 2: the right skepticisms of vaccines.
Speaker 5: Will show you Joe Rogan clip where.
Speaker 2: Casey Means is saying, like, you know, vaccines may cause autism,
Speaker 2: the same nonsense that RFK Junior pedals and is aggressively pushing.
Speaker 5: With his you know, his study that he's conducting.
Speaker 2: That seems he's already come up with the answer of
Speaker 2: what he wants that study on autism ultimately to say.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of the world that she comes out of, Emily.
Speaker 3: So I think maybe a good place to begin is
Speaker 3: with this clip of Calli and Casey Means on Joe
Speaker 3: Rogan's show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and actually Robert F.
Speaker 3: Kennedy Junior told people to watch their parents on Joe
Speaker 3: Rogan Show kind of held it up as a good
Speaker 3: example or a good explainer primer on what MAHA is
Speaker 3: all about. So if we roll this stop from Rogan
Speaker 3: it's C seven, you'll get a good flavor of sort
Speaker 3: of what they're all about. And we can go a
Speaker 3: little bit deeper given that she's now nominated for surgeon General.
Speaker 4: So let's go ahead and roll C seven.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I bet that one vaccine probably isn't causing autism,
Speaker 13: but what about the twenty that they're getting before eighteen months? Like,
Speaker 13: we don't look at it in synergistic you know, And
Speaker 13: so that's a big problem. And this is where the
Speaker 13: cult of the science, and I say the science specifically,
Speaker 13: because science is beautiful. Using the scientific med and using
Speaker 13: that way of inquiry into the natural world is a
Speaker 13: beautiful art, but weaponizing papers that are often bought for
Speaker 13: or corrupted, and you know, they the leaders of some
Speaker 13: of our key medical journals have actually even said that
Speaker 13: fifty percent of scientific research that published ends up being wrong.
Speaker 13: So it's bought for, corrupted, or wrong. We rely on this,
Speaker 13: and if one interesting trend that we're seeing in our
Speaker 13: world is that if we do choose to put dots together.
Speaker 13: Use our intuition, are God given intuition. Anything other than
Speaker 13: this particular way of examining things, you are dangerous. You
Speaker 13: are dangerous. And I think that that's something we need
Speaker 13: to really question, you know, I think especially as a woman,
Speaker 13: like and I'm thinking about having kids soon, I'm like
Speaker 13: thinking about like, wow, like I I have the ability
Speaker 13: in my body to like build a human three D
Speaker 13: print a human, pulling a soul to that human. I
Speaker 13: don't need a peer reviewed study or a textbook to
Speaker 13: tell me how to do that. Our body and our
Speaker 13: intuition and our minds and the subtle things happening inside
Speaker 13: is are important. They are incredible. We have now been
Speaker 13: told that, like you can't trust it, and you are
Speaker 13: dangerous if you do that. And I think that's one
Speaker 13: of the reasons why I think parents are very frustrated
Speaker 13: right now is because parenting. I'm not a parent yet,
Speaker 13: but you know CALLI is. But like, you know, when
Speaker 13: we're being told now that parents are the enemy for
Speaker 13: using their own judgment about their families and kids, like,
Speaker 13: I think that's probably it's deeply frustrating to people. And
Speaker 13: that's basically what we're being asked to do.
Speaker 3: So I think that clip actually encapsulates a lot of
Speaker 3: caliing Casey means in just the two minutes.
Speaker 12: That you heard.
Speaker 3: So to Crystal's point, they did kind of come out
Speaker 3: of nowhere.
Speaker 4: CALLI means and I always confuse their names, by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 4: CALLI means the man. They're brother and sister, So CALLI
Speaker 4: means the brother.
Speaker 3: Sort of has this whistleblowing story of how he used
Speaker 3: to be a pharma not pharmer, I'm sorry, a food lobbyist,
Speaker 3: so working for some of these like awful corrupt big food.
Speaker 4: Companies like Coca Cola.
Speaker 3: Coca Cola, right, and so he started doing like kind
Speaker 3: of whistleblower threads on X and that started to get
Speaker 3: a lot of attention.
Speaker 4: Now, his sister nominee for Surgeon General.
Speaker 3: Her personal story and she explains it on that Rogan
Speaker 3: episode basically is that she went to med school and
Speaker 3: I think it was Stanford prestigious, and I think they
Speaker 3: come from a pretty well off background.
Speaker 2: I think their dad is also a doctor something like that. Right,
Speaker 2: And you wrote some book that Laura Lumer did not
Speaker 2: like about gay people.
Speaker 4: Yes, it was about a flamming kid.
Speaker 5: I don't know what that's about anyway.
Speaker 3: Laura Lumber said that it was about trans people, but
Speaker 3: apparently it's just about gay people.
Speaker 4: We don't even need to get into it.
Speaker 3: But she went to med school, did five years of
Speaker 3: a residency and then dropped out because she says she
Speaker 3: had this sort of awakening as to how and this
Speaker 3: is very popular Maha will.
Speaker 4: It's very popular argument.
Speaker 3: Our medical system is obsessively treating symptoms for the sake
Speaker 3: of profits that go to pharma ag big food and
Speaker 3: end up corrupting the medical system, rather than treating causes
Speaker 3: in ways that don't benefit pharma.
Speaker 4: So ozembic is a good example. They talk a lot
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 3: Instead of asking people to spend more time cutting out
Speaker 3: sugars or carbs, or you know, doing a lot of
Speaker 3: physical activity, we.
Speaker 4: Just give people ozempic.
Speaker 3: And whether or not that's true, that's the argument that
Speaker 3: they have. I think there's actually a lot of truth
Speaker 3: to their criticisms and actually to RFK Junior's criticisms of
Speaker 3: the corruption in the system. But do they then pedal
Speaker 3: appropriate solutions. That's where the question becomes much more significant.
Speaker 2: It's very well and diplomatically put because well, and here's
Speaker 2: here's the thing.
Speaker 5: You know why, Yes, yes, how I feel about these people?
Speaker 2: Yes, because she Cali means an Arcade Junior and the
Speaker 2: Maha crew, like, they'll talk a lot about the profit
Speaker 2: motive and the corruption in the system, et cetera. But
Speaker 2: then your solution has nothing to do with getting the
Speaker 2: profit motive out of the healthcare system.
Speaker 5: And in fact, both Cali and Casey Means have.
Speaker 2: Their own for profit healthcare companies that their solutions, whether
Speaker 2: it's to COVID or anything else, just happened to bolster
Speaker 2: their own it's convenient profit making direction. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: how what if we applied the same analysis you're applying
Speaker 2: over here?
Speaker 5: What if we apply that to you?
Speaker 4: What is that?
Speaker 11: You know?
Speaker 5: What does that come out looking like?
Speaker 2: So in any case, these two individuals apparently a lot
Speaker 2: more controversial in some of the MAGA and Maha world.
Speaker 5: Yes than I really expected.
Speaker 3: This was like overturning a rock and seeing beneath the
Speaker 3: surface that there's all kinds of like bugs fighting each other. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I don't mean that that wasn't to imply people
Speaker 3: or bugs. It's just to imply that, like beneath the
Speaker 3: surface of Maha, there's this raging battle for the soul
Speaker 3: of Maha because the close close stakeholders have like this
Speaker 3: is a very tight knit circle.
Speaker 4: I think it's a fair way to say, not just
Speaker 4: online but offline.
Speaker 3: A lot of these people know each other, work with
Speaker 3: each other now and RFK Junior is the figurehead of
Speaker 3: the movement. A lot of people have personal relationships with
Speaker 3: RFK Junior. And we didn't have time to put this
Speaker 3: in the rundown because it just kind of this was
Speaker 3: all happening last night. But doctor Jack Cruz, who was
Speaker 3: really big in Maha circles, and you know he's been
Speaker 3: on podcasts with like Andrew Cuberman, I think before is
Speaker 3: Maha guy. He says, quote, I have it on firm
Speaker 3: authority that Kelly Victory, another MAHA figurehead, was Bobby's pick
Speaker 3: last weekend for surge in general. Kennedy called people Monday
Speaker 3: and said Jeannette was out and Kelly was the front runner.
Speaker 3: In a phone call to Kelly from RFK, all caps
Speaker 3: this means Bobby has no juice, no power.
Speaker 4: DJT.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump allowed Susie Wilds to put in the World
Speaker 3: Economic Forum and fabians inside the gates.
Speaker 4: So this is not a random nobody.
Speaker 3: This is somebody in Maha world who's like pretty significant
Speaker 3: and is already staunchly against this nomination for surgeon General.
Speaker 4: The meanses have been very close the means. The meanses
Speaker 4: have been very close to Bobby Kennedy. Like that's obvious.
Speaker 4: Everyone kind of knows that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But they come across to a lot of people
Speaker 3: in Maha world as suspicious and her nomination when they
Speaker 3: thought that their other ally Calli victory had it just
Speaker 3: graded on these people who were already very suspicious of
Speaker 3: Calli and Casey Means. They do think the story is
Speaker 3: a bit convenient that both of them sort of dropped
Speaker 3: out of these prestigious gigs medical school residency lobbying work
Speaker 3: suddenly started infiltrating Bobby Kennedy world, which is quite interesting.
Speaker 3: You can imagine those circles are filled with people from
Speaker 3: all walks of life, including you know, like Intel world,
Speaker 3: including like quirky science world. It just got to be
Speaker 3: the strangest place to go to Thanksgiving dinner, right, can
Speaker 3: you imagine zoea nuzzy No, actually, people from Glossy magazine,
Speaker 3: like it's just crazy stuff.
Speaker 4: So they're very suspicious of the means.
Speaker 3: They see them as people who may be compromised by
Speaker 3: the political establishment, and this just set that into hyperdrive.
Speaker 2: So this is the one that was really shocking to be.
Speaker 2: Nicole Shanahan, who was K Junior's vice presidential pick and
Speaker 2: has been She has said some things that she was
Speaker 2: nervous about, but she's as far as I know, really
Speaker 2: held back on any significant criticism of him or AJJS
Speaker 2: or the Trump administration. She tweeted this, Yes, it's very
Speaker 2: strange with regards to Casey means being put in very
Speaker 2: strange doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 5: I was promised that if I support.
Speaker 2: RFK Junior in his Senate confirmation, that neither of these
Speaker 2: siblings would be working under AHHS or in an appointment,
Speaker 2: and that people much more qualified would be I don't
Speaker 2: know if RFK very clearly lied to me or.
Speaker 5: What is going on.
Speaker 2: It has been clear in recent conversations that he is
Speaker 2: reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions, and
Speaker 2: it isn't President Trump. With regards to siblings, there is
Speaker 2: something very artificial and aggressive about them, almost like they
Speaker 2: were bred and raised Manchurian assets. There is a lot
Speaker 2: going on in that one tweet. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 2: she has to be persuaded to support RFK Junior in
Speaker 2: a Senate confirmation hearing.
Speaker 5: That's news in and of itself.
Speaker 2: And one of the pledges that was made is that
Speaker 2: Casey and Cally Means would be nowhere in this administration
Speaker 2: the way right, because to your point, RFK Junior talked
Speaker 2: about them a lot on their campaign trail, you know,
Speaker 2: in big speeches. He would make a point of shouting out,
Speaker 2: you know, Calle Means in particular. And so the fact
Speaker 2: that this is a little behind the curtain of behind
Speaker 2: the scenes, she wants nothing to do with them, is
Speaker 2: actively seeking out pledges that neither one of them will
Speaker 2: have anything to do with this administration, and is now
Speaker 2: saying not only maybe he lied to me or maybe
Speaker 2: you know someone is is he has no juice, someone
Speaker 2: regularly is controlling his decisions, and it isn't President Trump.
Speaker 2: So that is there is a whole lot there, And
Speaker 2: I think it also comes in the context of, like
Speaker 2: we were saying before, as the administration becomes more unpopular,
Speaker 2: you're going to see more things like that. You're going
Speaker 2: to see more cracks emerge, more people coming out who
Speaker 2: are willing to be critical who were not willing to
Speaker 2: be critical before.
Speaker 4: That's a good point. And by the way, paranoia breeds paranoia.
Speaker 3: So when I mentioned like Intel a couple of minutes ago,
Speaker 3: the reason I say that is Robert of Kenneth Junior
Speaker 3: is somebody who is incredibly critical of the CIA for
Speaker 3: obvious reasons and is like actively taking steps to you know,
Speaker 3: get these files released that obviously the intelligence world does
Speaker 3: not want released. And we could have a separate debate
Speaker 3: and segment all about what's actually happening in that space.
Speaker 3: But the bottom line is he's obviously somebody who would
Speaker 3: be a target for concern and surveillance.
Speaker 4: From that world. And you see how that is.
Speaker 3: You know, that's pretty pretty much people agree on that, Like,
Speaker 3: it's not a that's not crazy, and it's not a
Speaker 3: conspiracy theory. It's just yes, of course they would be
Speaker 3: keeping track and keeping tabs on someone like that, especially
Speaker 3: now that he's in a really big position of power
Speaker 3: in the United States government.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 4: On the other hand, because some of.
Speaker 3: That stuff is obviously just sort of true logical common sense,
Speaker 3: you end up with paranoid people finding other paranoid people.
Speaker 3: It's sort of a circle of paranoia that is trying
Speaker 3: to be a governing coalition and that is incredibly difficult
Speaker 3: to hold together, just in a practical sense, like not
Speaker 3: even based on the of Maha, just practically really hard.
Speaker 3: I think this we saw this happening actually at the Pentagon,
Speaker 3: where they were so paranoid about leakers that someone who
Speaker 3: was trying not to leak ended up getting like push
Speaker 3: up of the Pentagon for leaking, even when he was
Speaker 3: trying not to leak. Because the paranoia is so intense,
Speaker 3: and I think we're seeing the same thing happen in
Speaker 3: Maha world. But that's where just my last point is
Speaker 3: the language about born in bred Manchurian candidates in the
Speaker 3: Shanahan tweet is and she calls it quote very strange.
Speaker 3: It is I think alluding to and generating a sense
Speaker 3: of paranoia in Maha world, which is already conspiratorial.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and such a great point, not in.
Speaker 3: Ways that are entire like you, I think there are
Speaker 3: some really suspicious things about Robert F.
Speaker 4: Kennedy. Is the shooting of Robert F. Kennedy. I don't
Speaker 4: think that's insane.
Speaker 3: But if your gateway into politics is from those issues,
Speaker 3: then you end up sort of in these paranoid firing
Speaker 3: circles like Mexicans Standard spider Man means.
Speaker 2: I saw Mike Flynn is now like who's who was?
Speaker 2: Like the number one QAnon hero is now like some
Speaker 2: QAnon people think.
Speaker 5: That he's Oh boy, you know, I did came about
Speaker 5: some other.
Speaker 2: Conspiracy in which he's the villain. So that speaks to
Speaker 2: the dynamic you're talking about. I just pulled up Laura
Speaker 2: Lumer's Twitter feed and she is going in. Oh is
Speaker 2: she She is going in on Casey means.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's fighting with Charlie Kirk about it.
Speaker 2: Ooh, let me just I'm just gonna read you one
Speaker 2: of her posts because it's interesting. She says President Trump's
Speaker 2: pick for US SARCH. In general, Casey Means said she
Speaker 2: prays to inanimate objects, communicates with spirit mediums, uses shrooms
Speaker 2: as plant medicine, and talks to trees. She also doesn't
Speaker 2: even have an active medical license.
Speaker 5: That is actually true.
Speaker 2: The inmates are running the asylum. This is literally from
Speaker 2: one of Casey means newsletters. I had the entire page
Speaker 2: archived and took screenshot. She was just chosen by President
Speaker 2: Trump to service the next US search in general, take
Speaker 2: a look at this section on her newsletter. Casey Means
Speaker 2: said she was looking for romance. She would do shrooms,
Speaker 2: talk to trees, participate in full moon ceremonies, and to
Speaker 2: inanimate objects with a spiritual medium. So basically, the new
Speaker 2: Surge in general is a total crackpot, a shroom consumer,
Speaker 2: and she talks to trees and doesn't even have an
Speaker 2: active medical license. She's making me like Casey Means more.
Speaker 4: I was just going to say, you know who we
Speaker 4: need to have on in all seriousness is Ryan?
Speaker 3: Well, Ryan, Yes, we should have Ryan and Mary Anne
Speaker 3: talk about the merits of this type of WU as
Speaker 3: Casey Means has put it, like she's openly said it
Speaker 3: embraced the wo wou and just all of this stuff
Speaker 3: is unfairly derided by like snobbish elites. There's there's no
Speaker 3: question about it. Now, does the should the surgeon in
Speaker 3: general be somebody who's writing about openly talking to trees
Speaker 3: on her hikes? You know, Crystal, I'm less firm on
Speaker 3: that one. I think probably no, Probably about do you have.
Speaker 5: An active medical license? How do you feel in that one.
Speaker 4: Don't love that either. Don't love that either.
Speaker 2: So her conclusion here is again is never Trump's fault,
Speaker 2: another failure by the geniuses who work for Trump on his.
Speaker 5: Non existent vetting team. It's the vetting team's fault.
Speaker 2: I guess there isn't a single conservative doctor in America
Speaker 2: doesn't have a history of being a Marxist tree. We
Speaker 2: are so doomed, aren't we, and then receives so uh.
Speaker 3: If producer Mac just texted, the trees can talk if
Speaker 3: you believe that's right?
Speaker 4: Yes, see what happened.
Speaker 3: We learned today as we were prepping this segment. I
Speaker 3: don't want to take Ryan's thunder. You can ask him
Speaker 3: about this tomorrow, Crystal. But he is a certified or
Speaker 3: former certified Reiki instructor. So we're not anti WU here
Speaker 3: at breaking points.
Speaker 4: No, not at all, not at all.
Speaker 2: But I guess to make the political point, there have
Speaker 2: long been tensions and contradictions within the coalition which elected Trump,
Speaker 2: and it is true that like the Marian is a
Speaker 2: perfect example of this.
Speaker 5: The like WU alternative.
Speaker 2: Medicine hippie, like the anti vax thing used to be
Speaker 2: like rich La, people's true we're running in some of
Speaker 2: the same you know, social circles that used to be
Speaker 2: on the left, and so you know, when that group
Speaker 2: gets subsumed into the MAGA movement, there are going to
Speaker 2: be some you know, some beliefs that clash. And in
Speaker 2: any case, I don't know there's I'm still I think
Speaker 2: we're just still stratching the surface of this one. I
Speaker 2: really hope Laura Lumer comes on the show tomorrow so
Speaker 2: I can hear more from her about what she thinks
Speaker 2: I do too.
Speaker 4: We're going way too long on this.
Speaker 3: But the final point, I mean, because like Alex Jones
Speaker 3: was popular on the left after nine to eleven because
Speaker 3: of his conspiracy theories, and that's another coalition or another
Speaker 3: coaltion that's been subsumed.
Speaker 4: Into the broader Magat coalition and is really paranoid.
Speaker 3: So again, like you put all of these eccentric puzzle
Speaker 3: pieces together and it's really hard to actually govern. And
Speaker 3: again it's not that there aren't good reasons to question
Speaker 3: government and elites. It's just as a working coalition, practically
Speaker 3: really hard to have so much eccentricity and distrust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought I can't remember who wrote Maybe it
Speaker 2: was Naomi Klein, I'm not sure, wrote about like a
Speaker 2: crank realignment where it's like, yeah, all the various conspiracy
Speaker 2: branches Naomi Woolf, Yeah, also, yeah, exactly, all sort of
Speaker 2: like coalesced within the Republican movement, and sometimes those conspiracies
Speaker 2: clash in important ways, and I think that's part of
Speaker 2: what's playing out here. That's right, Okay, let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and get to the latest. With regard to deportations, this
Speaker 2: is another one that I guess it's a little bit
Speaker 2: of a mystery at this point, although some pieces of
Speaker 2: it are significantly reported out, so it looks like the
Speaker 2: Trump administration was, maybe still is planning on expanding their
Speaker 2: worldwide foreign bolog deportation policy beyond El Salvador. Also to Libya.
Speaker 2: President Trump was asked about this specifically. He says he
Speaker 2: doesn't know. There's so many parts of his administration that
Speaker 2: he just has no idea about, apparently Emily.
Speaker 5: And that may be the case.
Speaker 2: Actually, it may be the case that Stephen Miller is
Speaker 2: just handling this sport folio and Trump is like, do
Speaker 2: whatever you want to do, and that's how things are going.
Speaker 2: In any case, Let's take a listen to the president.
Speaker 5: They're the questions, amnustriction sending mans to Libya.
Speaker 10: I don't know. You'll have to ask Homeland Security please,
Speaker 10: So doesn't know.
Speaker 2: Seems like a kind of important piece for him to
Speaker 2: have some insight into it at this point, but he
Speaker 2: claims he has no idea what's going on here.
Speaker 5: So let's put this up on the screen. This has
Speaker 5: now sparked a.
Speaker 2: Court fight because you first had the New York Times
Speaker 2: and one other outlet I want to say it was
Speaker 2: Reuters reporting that the administration was planning on shipping some
Speaker 2: migrants to Libya in an expansion of the El Salvador program,
Speaker 2: and they you know, it's pretty well reported out.
Speaker 5: We talked about a little bit on the show yesterday.
Speaker 2: Then lawyers started getting win from clients that they were
Speaker 2: being transferred and they were being asked to sign papers
Speaker 2: that told them that you know, required them to agree
Speaker 2: to getting deported to Libya. And most of the immigrants,
Speaker 2: I think all of the immigrants who were receiving these
Speaker 2: papers were from somewhere in Asia, different Asian countries that
Speaker 2: were being given these papers and being told you are
Speaker 2: going to be you are going to be shipped to Libya.
Speaker 2: So let me read a little bit from that political
Speaker 2: report we just have up on the screen. The Trump
Speaker 2: administration's reported planned to hurriedly deport immigrants to war torn
Speaker 2: Libya would clearly violate an earlier court order barring such
Speaker 2: summary deportations, a federal judge warned Wednesday. US District Judge
Speaker 2: Brian Murphy's assessment followed an emergency motion filed by lawyers
Speaker 2: for a group of Asian immigrants seeking to block a
Speaker 2: military flight that appeared to be on the verge of
Speaker 2: taking off from Texas, even as the two competing governments
Speaker 2: that control portions of Libya rotally indicated they would reject
Speaker 2: deportation flights from the US. Libya remains divided after years
Speaker 2: of civil war, thanks to US controlled by a U
Speaker 2: unrecognized government in the West and basically a war lord
Speaker 2: named Khalifa.
Speaker 5: Haftar in the east. Half.
Speaker 2: Tar's son, Saddam Interesting, was in Washington last week meeting
Speaker 2: with Trump administration officials.
Speaker 5: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Libya has a number of detention facilities for refugees and migrants,
Speaker 2: which human rights groups have described as deplorable. I saw
Speaker 2: others described it as a hellhole. Have warned that abuses
Speaker 2: are rampant, including torture, forced labor, and slavery. That's what
Speaker 2: these Libyan prisons are known for. So effectively, you get
Speaker 2: the New York Times report saying they're planning on dow
Speaker 2: This Marco Rubu had previously said they were going to
Speaker 2: expand beyond El Salvador, so fit with his comments. Then
Speaker 2: you have Asian migrants being moved around and asked to
Speaker 2: sign these papers telling them asking them to accept their
Speaker 2: deportation to Libya. Lawyers intervene. They followed this file, this
Speaker 2: emergency motion.
Speaker 5: There was also a.
Speaker 2: Flight that you know how you're able to look up
Speaker 2: scheduled flights. There was a flight that appeared to be
Speaker 2: the militi terry flight and then going to take these
Speaker 2: migrants to Libya. So lawyers intervene. They have this hearing.
Speaker 2: The judge says, you can't do this. If you are
Speaker 2: planning on doing this, this would violate prior orders. So
Speaker 2: it's blocked for now. And then both of the Libyan
Speaker 2: governments are in this divided country are saying no, no, no,
Speaker 2: we wouldn't accept deportation flights. But the son of the
Speaker 2: warlord part of the government had met with Trump administration
Speaker 2: officials last week.
Speaker 5: So that's kind of where we are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's apart from the political the Politoco article. They
Speaker 3: say they've also worked to reach potential agreements to the
Speaker 3: Trump administration with countries to detain people deported from the
Speaker 3: United States, similar to the agreement they reached with El Salvador.
Speaker 3: And so when you factor that in the United States
Speaker 3: feels that it was getting a deal with the Seacott deportations,
Speaker 3: but it was also helping to fund Bucala's prison expansion.
Speaker 3: And so you could see how warlords in war torn
Speaker 3: Libya would maybe see all of this money as potential
Speaker 3: like I'm going to say jobs program, but that means
Speaker 3: you know, spoils program in like really corrupt countries and
Speaker 3: all likely war torn corrupt countries. You can see where
Speaker 3: their motivations would would be, like we're going to actually
Speaker 3: get more power and control in our own country with
Speaker 3: these deportations. I mean, it just the motivations on Libya's part. Uh,
Speaker 3: there's just there's it's money. It seems pretty clearly that
Speaker 3: it's money which puts.
Speaker 2: In power because if you're in the midst of you
Speaker 2: know what's effectively you know, a civil war. You want
Speaker 2: to bolster your position as the true legitimate government of
Speaker 2: Libya with the US doing a deal with Trump the
Speaker 2: Trump administration seems like a pretty solid.
Speaker 4: Way to achieve that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I mean, I'm looking enough how many people
Speaker 3: are registered lobbyists for Libya right now? I just went
Speaker 3: the fair doac of because that's typically how these sort
Speaker 3: of deals get greased. You you have some lobbyists whose
Speaker 3: client is one of these governments, and they make the
Speaker 3: introduction and then it goes from there. But Gunn has
Speaker 3: talked about this, Grinnell has talked about this, how you
Speaker 3: actually can't deport people to prisons with particular conditions.
Speaker 4: You have to have conditions that are the same that
Speaker 4: are like in compliance with US. Yeah.
Speaker 2: This was I mean, this was established during the War
Speaker 2: on Terror, where it was like, no, you cannot deport
Speaker 2: You can't send people to Egypt knowing that Egypt will
Speaker 2: torture them and then be like, well, we didn't torture them,
Speaker 2: even though you know that, you know this other country
Speaker 2: is going to torture them. It's the same law applies here.
Speaker 2: You can't say, well, you know, well it's up to Bucali.
Speaker 2: What he does with them. No, you know the record
Speaker 2: of these prisons, you know the record of these prisons
Speaker 2: in Libya which are described as a hell rife with
Speaker 2: you know, slavery and sexual abuse as well, by the way,
Speaker 2: and just horrific, every horrific condition you can possibly imagine.
Speaker 5: So that appears to have been the plan.
Speaker 2: Now it's interesting that both Libyan governments are denied that
Speaker 2: they would accept these deportation flights. That either could be
Speaker 2: Cya with regard to domestic population that they feel would
Speaker 2: not you know, like this arrangement, or it could be
Speaker 2: that the Trump administration asked them to say that they
Speaker 2: were not going to accept these deportation flights, because you know,
Speaker 2: when you look at the it looks quite clear that
Speaker 2: this was there. They were planning to do this if
Speaker 2: they were not immediately blocked by the courts. They were
Speaker 2: moving aggressively, you know, quite hastily to move these Asian migrants,
Speaker 2: to get them to sign off these papers to you know,
Speaker 2: they had the flight ready to go, and it's only
Speaker 2: because the courts were able to intervene pretty quickly that
Speaker 2: this was blocked. But I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say that this is off the table at all, So
Speaker 2: we'll just we'll keep an eye on this one, and
Speaker 2: certainly gives credence to what Marko Rubio had said previously
Speaker 2: that they are looking beyond just El Salvador to other
Speaker 2: countries around the world as well. Gouad and put D
Speaker 2: four up on the screen here too, guys, because we
Speaker 2: had just a couple of other updates we wanted to
Speaker 2: bring to you guys. So federal court, this is from
Speaker 2: Prem Thaker. He says, a federal court has denied the
Speaker 2: Trump administration's efforts to stop the transfer of Ramesa oz
Speaker 2: Turk to Vermont.
Speaker 5: This is the student who wrote.
Speaker 2: The ab ed and then was you know, arrested by
Speaker 2: like six some of the masked agents of the state.
Speaker 2: Court orders that she be there by May fourteenth. The
Speaker 2: Trump administration was trying to keep her in Louisiana. She
Speaker 2: has been accused of no crime, just co writing a
Speaker 2: campus op ed arguing for divestment. And this is really
Speaker 2: significant because the administration was really judge shopping and that's
Speaker 2: why they wanted her in Louisiana. So they were Khalil
Speaker 2: was as well, That's exactly right, and they thought they
Speaker 2: had a much better shot there and wasn't Kalil also
Speaker 2: wasn't didn't he Khalil. It wasn't Khalil. It was the
Speaker 2: other Madawi who was released in Vermont, Vermont. So I
Speaker 2: think that they, you know, they feel like the Vermont
Speaker 2: judges are going to be more fam verable to these cases.
Speaker 2: So this is a really significant win for her in
Speaker 2: attempting to be released. And you know, and and this
Speaker 2: deportation based purely on speech to be denied. But you know,
Speaker 2: these cases are definitely going to go all the way
Speaker 2: up the chain, I would say to the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: is going to have to say whether or not Marco
Speaker 2: Rubio can just decide based on your student oup ed
Speaker 2: that you're a threat to our foreign policy and that
Speaker 2: you're an anti Semite and therefore you must be deported.
Speaker 2: That remains, you know, ultimately unresolved, but big, big temporary
Speaker 2: win for her to be you know, force them to
Speaker 2: move her back to Vermont.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, and I think if the government this has
Speaker 3: happened a little bit with kil mar Abrego Garcia, you
Speaker 3: have to wonder why all of this information like the
Speaker 3: video FROMUS traffic stop and in Tennessee and additional information
Speaker 3: about like the restraining order allegations of domestic abuse, which
Speaker 3: his wife has since walked back. It's very strange to
Speaker 3: me that that stuff wasn't immediately presented when the media
Speaker 3: started to focus on the Abrego Garcia case. It first
Speaker 3: happened with an Atlantic article actually, and the administration's response
Speaker 3: was piecemeal, and some people have speculated that what they
Speaker 3: were trying to do was lay a trap for Democrats
Speaker 3: like Chris van Holland who were going to El Salvador,
Speaker 3: and then as after he's an l Salvador released the
Speaker 3: spousal abuse allegations. And the reason I'm connecting this to
Speaker 3: oz Turk is that I genuinely think if they had
Speaker 3: any other information other than this obed, there's any other
Speaker 3: evidence than this otbed that went into this woman's arrest
Speaker 3: by thugs. Sorry, but that's what they're like, masked all
Speaker 3: black wearing ice agents.
Speaker 5: We actually kidnapping.
Speaker 3: We still don't actually even know what government agency did this,
Speaker 3: and so if we if they had more information, I
Speaker 3: think we would know it. At this point, I don't
Speaker 3: actually think the administration was strategically dripping out information on
Speaker 3: Abrego Garcia. I think they're they're just shooting first and
Speaker 3: asking questions later. Yeah, and flying by the state of
Speaker 3: their pants. And so again, I think if there was
Speaker 3: more evidence that oz Turk was like a reasonable candidate
Speaker 3: for this kind of deportation on some sort of actual
Speaker 3: hamas operative or exactly right right right, then we would
Speaker 3: know it by now. And literally nothing in her case,
Speaker 3: like nothing has come out. They had that court filing
Speaker 3: in the case of other Vermont Madawi, Yeah, they had
Speaker 3: that court filing about the gun store clerk that came out.
Speaker 5: It took them a while story, by the way, but anyway.
Speaker 3: It was a wild but anyway, they at least have
Speaker 3: the story. They at least have that allegation. And in
Speaker 3: this case, there's been absolutely nothing over the course of
Speaker 3: more than a month now since her arrest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nothing, And she really has been one of the
Speaker 2: cases that has captured people's attention because it is first
Speaker 2: of all, we have the video. Second of all, it
Speaker 2: is so preposterous the idea that you would write a
Speaker 2: notp ed for a student newspaper and be disappeared and
Speaker 2: vanished and you know, disappeared into Louisiana and attempted to
Speaker 2: be deported just over that.
Speaker 3: Well not a crazy ap at either, like disagree with it,
Speaker 3: but not like an actual antisemitic screen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just like, you know, politely calling for
Speaker 2: divestment from, you know, by the universities. It's just really
Speaker 2: standard stuff in terms of basic campus activism.
Speaker 5: And yeah, so I think I think you're right about that.
Speaker 2: I saw some speculation also, like oh, maybe there's something
Speaker 2: else that we don't know about it. It's like, I
Speaker 2: do think we would know at this they would have
Speaker 2: dug something up if they there was anything to.
Speaker 5: Dig up whatsoever.
Speaker 2: So in any case, that's a significant win for her.
Speaker 2: Just one last piece here, just to keep an eye on,
Speaker 2: in terms of the conditions in our own detention centers,
Speaker 2: which are wildly overstretched and overcrowded.
Speaker 5: Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: We've had a fairly significant number of migrants who have
Speaker 2: died in custody during Trump's first one hundred days. These
Speaker 2: are still under investigation, so in many instances we don't
Speaker 2: know the details of what happened, whether they had pre
Speaker 2: existing conditions that contributed to these deaths, but certainly something
Speaker 2: to keep an eye on. Seven migrants have died while
Speaker 2: in the custody of immigration police or Ice. One woman
Speaker 2: in particular, Blaze, and two other migrants dide in Florida,
Speaker 2: one died in Arizona, another in Missouri, went in Texas,
Speaker 2: one more in Puerto Rico. Individuals raged in age from
Speaker 2: twenty seven to fifty five, came from different corners of
Speaker 2: the globe, embarked on the odyssey the US for various reasons,
Speaker 2: through various means, but ultimately ended up in the same place,
Speaker 2: imprisoned in an infamous network of migrant detention centers, denounced
Speaker 2: for the mistreatment and conditions. So one other piece to
Speaker 2: keep them an eye on is even as we focused
Speaker 2: on the conditions in seacatt focused on now the conditions
Speaker 2: in Libyan what that would potentially look like.
Speaker 4: You also have.
Speaker 2: Allegations, significant allegations of mistreatment and lack of sufficient care
Speaker 2: in the detention centers here as well.
Speaker 3: I still look at these k I think one of
Speaker 3: the big questions is whether this rate is outpacing what
Speaker 3: we've seen before. That's one of the questions that the
Speaker 3: Trump administration is going to face. A lot of migrants are,
Speaker 3: for understandable reasons, in poor health, and it's obviously incumbent
Speaker 3: on the US you know, this is part of the
Speaker 3: problem with the law that people. I don't mean that's
Speaker 3: the problem with a lot. I mean it's a problem
Speaker 3: for providing health treatment to people. The law says you
Speaker 3: do have to detain people while their asylum cases are
Speaker 3: heard out. The Biden administration actually found ways to not
Speaker 3: do that, which is part of people like my criticism
Speaker 3: of them. But when you detain people, then that does
Speaker 3: create a huge burden on the health system because you
Speaker 3: actually have to attend to their well being, and so
Speaker 3: to let that sort of drop in the priority list
Speaker 3: is obviously that should be a huge, huge area of
Speaker 3: concern for DHS and anyone who's overseeing these facilities.
Speaker 4: Who are absolutely crowded.
Speaker 3: But are they then redetaining people for the sake of
Speaker 3: deportation at a rate that allows them to provide adequate
Speaker 3: medical oversight a big question for them going forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's turn to what's going on in the crypto world.
Speaker 2: You know, favorite favorite topic of mine here, Emily, I
Speaker 2: still am not over the fact that Trump launched and
Speaker 2: then his wife launched these meme coins days.
Speaker 5: Before I mean literally like a day before he.
Speaker 3: Was inauguryan it is Hunter Biden's art on sterils.
Speaker 5: I mean Hunter Biden's art could not have imagined.
Speaker 4: I mean Hunter Biden's damn it, I should have done that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have I have a friend. I don't think
Speaker 2: he'll mind me sharing the story. I have a friend
Speaker 2: who was convicted of He ran for state Senate in
Speaker 2: Missouri Congress in Missouri. Yeah, and he was convicted of
Speaker 2: he was coordinating with the super pac. It was the
Speaker 2: most penny anti shit you could possibly imagine. But the
Speaker 2: government really wanted to wrot the book at him an
Speaker 2: example of him, and the Karnahan's ers were very powerful
Speaker 2: Missouri hated his guts and so anyway, he gets sent
Speaker 2: to prison for a year and his fellow inmates were like, well,
Speaker 2: what did you you know? How much money did you
Speaker 2: get out of this kiving is like literally nothing? And
Speaker 2: they're like, what's wrong with you? Like, if you're gonna
Speaker 2: do something and end up here, you may as well
Speaker 2: at least like really properly better. And that's how what
Speaker 2: I keep thinking about with regard to the like the
Speaker 2: Hunter Biden, the Nancy Pelosi insider trading, all this shit
Speaker 2: looks like nothing compared to the billions that they're collecting
Speaker 2: through this these meme coins, through their development properties around
Speaker 2: the world. I mean, it really boggles the mind and
Speaker 2: is in my mind one of the top examples of
Speaker 2: how we just are not a functioning society.
Speaker 5: Agree the fact that this just happens and everyone just
Speaker 5: moves on.
Speaker 4: This is like capitalism. You couldn't script it better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is has to be in stage
Speaker 2: capitalism where it's just eaten everything.
Speaker 5: It's eaten everything.
Speaker 2: So in any case, but this article up on the screen,
Speaker 2: all right, so we are learning more about who exactly
Speaker 2: are the top Trump crypto buyers vying for dinner seats
Speaker 2: since he's giving away these, you know, the top crypto
Speaker 2: investors are going to get to have a special dinner
Speaker 2: with him, which just again astonishing.
Speaker 4: More than half of the talks about maybe some maybe
Speaker 4: some business.
Speaker 2: I'm sure just how much they appreciate the uh, you know,
Speaker 2: his his crypto savvy. Anyway, most of the more than
Speaker 2: half of the top holders here have used foreign exchanges
Speaker 2: that say they ban US users, suggesting many of the
Speaker 2: purchasers of these Trump crypto meme coins are based outside
Speaker 2: the US. Buyers of the Trump token, a cryptocurrency the president,
Speaker 2: began marketing two days before his inauguration, drove sales higher
Speaker 2: in the past two weeks after its issuers announced an
Speaker 2: unprecedented promotion, more than two hundred of the meme coin's
Speaker 2: largest holders would be invited to attend a May twenty
Speaker 2: second dinner with Trump It's Virginia Golf Club, or the
Speaker 2: top twenty five would qualify for an exclusive reception for
Speaker 2: him and what the meme coin's website discret as a
Speaker 2: VIP tour.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: An analysis by Bloomberg News shows that all but six
Speaker 2: of the top twenty five holders who've registered on the
Speaker 2: website's leader board used foreign exchanges that say they exclude
Speaker 2: customers living in the US. More broadly, at least fifty
Speaker 2: six percent of the leader board's top two hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty holders used similar offshore exchanges. The present prevalence of
Speaker 2: these likely foreign buyers echoes concerns that congressional Democrats have
Speaker 2: expressed about the essex of marketing the coin with the
Speaker 2: promise of presidential access. Raises questions about how attendees at
Speaker 2: the promotional dinner, who are publicly identified only by three
Speaker 2: or four letter usernames they've chosen will be vedit. So
Speaker 2: the tld R here is that the Trump administered Trump himself,
Speaker 2: not the administration, just Trump has opened up the most
Speaker 2: brazen avenue of obvious corruption you could possibly imagine, where
Speaker 2: if you are foreign government, foreign person, a company, a
Speaker 2: US person, whoever, rich person who wants to get access
Speaker 2: to and get a goodie from the Trump administration, which
Speaker 2: has consolidated all this power within the singular person of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, what do you do. Well, perhaps you buy
Speaker 2: millions and millions of dollars in Trump shit coin, which
Speaker 2: personally benefits him, show him brag about how much you
Speaker 2: pumped up his crypto coin, or you know, you get
Speaker 2: to go to this fancy dinner and get to get
Speaker 2: your time with him and plead your case.
Speaker 4: It is completely insane.
Speaker 2: It is insane. It is inane, absolutely insane. And again,
Speaker 2: if we were anything approaching a functioning society, there is
Speaker 2: no way that we would just permit this and go
Speaker 2: on and that this would be okay. We are talking
Speaker 2: about world historic levels of corruption endemic in this whole play, and.
Speaker 5: I just I don't even know what to say about it.
Speaker 2: It's so naked, it's so incredibly naked, and of course,
Speaker 2: the idea that this administr oh, it's America first and
Speaker 2: all for US interests, and how does that possibly comport
Speaker 2: with allowing whoever around the world, but apparently a majority
Speaker 2: of foreign buyers to outright bribe you through the mechanism
Speaker 2: of this meeting coin.
Speaker 3: It's I mean, it's exactly what we said it would
Speaker 3: be all along. It's a complete and again going back
Speaker 3: to the Clinton Foundation, remember that the claims.
Speaker 4: Actually, I think people on the left and the.
Speaker 3: Right could probably agree, like left left and populist right,
Speaker 3: populist left and right coul probably agree that what Hillary
Speaker 3: Clinton was doing with the Clinton Foundation was completely insane percent.
Speaker 4: That is what Donald Trump is doing with this mean coin.
Speaker 3: Right, It's like a way for to pedal influence and
Speaker 3: access with what is no with no transparency at all.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what this is. So the concept and in
Speaker 3: principle it's very much the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like country friends are just accelerated through the
Speaker 2: magic of crypto.
Speaker 3: And it's always been again like this Donald Trump is
Speaker 3: were naked, and it like they've never really been particularly
Speaker 3: ashamed of this. I remember, you know, you would all
Speaker 3: these events would be had at the Trump Hotel during
Speaker 3: Trump one point zero, and you would see, I mean
Speaker 3: this never ending door of people from like diplomats, foreign businesses,
Speaker 3: American businesses, all mingling together literally in the lobby, which
Speaker 3: is the actual the etymology of our phrase for lobbyists
Speaker 3: is because people used to hang out in the lobby.
Speaker 4: I think it was of the Willard and talk to
Speaker 4: like Ulysses us Grant. But that's what it is.
Speaker 3: It's it's getting access and influence to people in positions
Speaker 3: of power. And yeah, that's always I mean Trump divested
Speaker 3: from the Trump organization, I think in one point zero,
Speaker 3: in two point zero, and it's like, why why even bother.
Speaker 3: It's just like I don't even bother, Like just buy
Speaker 3: the hotel back, you know, might as well just like
Speaker 3: move the White House business to the hotel.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: And I want to emphasize too, the way this relates
Speaker 2: to the tariffs, because and this has always been my
Speaker 2: contention with the that yes, there may be various people
Speaker 2: in the administration have various goals, but one of the
Speaker 2: primary goals for Trump is power and the ability because hey,
Speaker 2: this is a great marketing scheme for his cryptos shit coin.
Speaker 2: Because now everyone in the world has incentive to pay
Speaker 2: the money, give you your millions, come to your dinner
Speaker 2: and make the case for why they need this exemption.
Speaker 2: They need this car bount, they need you know, this
Speaker 2: particular goodie so that their business can survive and thrive
Speaker 2: in the Trump terror regime.
Speaker 5: That which is precisely.
Speaker 2: Why the power to levy these terrors is supposed to
Speaker 2: be with Congress to avoid exactly this, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of direct favor trading and having to come and you know,
Speaker 2: petition the king. That's precisely why those powers are supposed
Speaker 2: to be with Congress. So it really fits together. I
Speaker 2: do want to say, Democrats, don't get off the hook here.
Speaker 2: Put E two be up on the screen. This is
Speaker 2: our other David Dan work reporting here. So you got
Speaker 2: really a lot of bipartisan support for crypto at this point,
Speaker 2: and not just crypto, but like allowing crypto to do
Speaker 2: whatever sort of scams and schemes that they want to.
Speaker 2: And there was this bill that relates to a light
Speaker 2: regulatory touch for what's called stable coins that looked like
Speaker 2: it was on its way to sailing through because crypto
Speaker 2: has massively invested in funding the campaigns both of Democrats
Speaker 2: and Republicans and punishing any Democrats by the way, Katie
Speaker 2: Porter being the primary example of this, who were crosswise
Speaker 2: with them. So this bill looked like it was going
Speaker 2: to sail through. Then all of this Trump mean coin
Speaker 2: stuff really starts to bubble and Democrats start getting and uncomfortable. Okay, well,
Speaker 2: do I really want to associate ourselves with this industry
Speaker 2: when you see what Trump's doing, et cetera. So there
Speaker 2: it became somewhat of a question whether this pro crypto
Speaker 2: bill was going to be able to get through the Senate.
Speaker 2: And so, basically, in a classic Schumer move, in fact
Speaker 2: one quotes to this as being quote unquote Shtumer one
Speaker 2: oh one, They're going to add an amendment to the
Speaker 2: shitty crypto bill that allows Democrats to virtue signal, an
Speaker 2: amendment that is definitely going to fail. It allows Democrats
Speaker 2: to virtue signal about how much they disapprove of what
Speaker 2: Trump is doing and allow them to be able to
Speaker 2: message that like, oh, they were really trying to stand
Speaker 2: up to Trump, when really they're just enabling the very
Speaker 2: corruption that Trump is aggressively partaking in.
Speaker 5: So that's their that's their move.
Speaker 4: Yeah, great, I love them. Yeah, classic, things couldn't be better.
Speaker 5: Things could not be better?
Speaker 2: And last one here before we get to Emily's breakdown
Speaker 2: of what's going on with punch Bowl. Jeff Stein great
Speaker 2: reporting on another facet of extraordinary corruption within the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: which is the use of put each re up on
Speaker 2: the screen. Here, guys, the use of pushing starlink as
Speaker 2: a tool in the tariff trade war. So Jeff sign says,
Speaker 2: we've obtained internal cable showing how the US government is
Speaker 2: pushing countries facing tariffs to clear the way from Musks Starlink.
Speaker 2: State Department says it's good to encourage other countries to
Speaker 2: adopt starlink. Others point to blurring of Musk's private and
Speaker 2: government roles, and you know, in fairness, if Elon Musk
Speaker 2: was not one of the most powerful people within this administration,
Speaker 2: maybe it does make sense to you know. The Biden
Speaker 2: administration also did some promoting of starlink as an alternative
Speaker 2: to Chinese telecoms, Like, who owns the satellites and the
Speaker 2: telecom infrastructure is very important personally, I don't want it
Speaker 2: to be owned by any singular person, even if that
Speaker 2: person does business in America. You know, or's American citizen,
Speaker 2: as Elon Musk is.
Speaker 5: So let me just give you a little bit of the.
Speaker 2: Details here, because I think that is extraordinary, he says,
Speaker 2: less than two weeks after President Trump announced fifty percent
Speaker 2: tariffs on goods from the tiny African nation of Lesotho.
Speaker 2: Something we talked about here.
Speaker 4: But I think you pronounced it incorrectly.
Speaker 3: I think this was the whole thing when remember Lesotho
Speaker 3: was one of the everyone's like such a random country, right,
Speaker 3: and then everyone's like, you're pronouncing everyone's pronouncing.
Speaker 5: Oh, so I don't say that the thh it's just
Speaker 5: t okay.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I didn't take apology at Lesoto, the country's communications right
Speaker 2: regulator held a meeting with representatives of Starlink after their
Speaker 2: hit with the tariffs. The satellite business owned by Elon
Speaker 2: Musk had been seeking access to customers in Lesotho, but
Speaker 2: it was not until Trump unveiled the tariffs and called
Speaker 2: for negotiations overtrade deals that leaders of the country of
Speaker 2: roughly two million people awarded must firm the nation's first
Speaker 2: ever satellite Internet service license, slated to last four ten years,
Speaker 2: and it goes on to say They're far from the
Speaker 2: only country. It has decided to suddenly take up Starlink
Speaker 2: company reach distribution deals with two providers in India and
Speaker 2: March has won at least partial accommodations with Somalia, Democratic
Speaker 2: Republican of Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, although this is probably
Speaker 2: not a comprehensive count, just so there you go, congratulations,
Speaker 2: Elon Musk dose was not a complete and utter failure.
Speaker 2: Tesla may be in the tank, but your Starlink business
Speaker 2: is thriving well.
Speaker 3: This is one of the complicated things about Elon Musk
Speaker 3: and it's with SpaceX and Starlink, and particular I think
Speaker 3: they're the best examples. Is that starlink is an excellent product,
Speaker 3: Like it is genuinely a significant innovation, and it's helpful,
Speaker 3: and it like probably is the best candidate, like SpaceX,
Speaker 3: and a lot of these different bidding processes and a
Speaker 3: lot of these different negotiations, but you can never actually,
Speaker 3: like we nobody will ever know whether Starlink or SpaceX
Speaker 3: during the Trump administration were chosen because they were the
Speaker 3: best candidates because or other Musk products, by the way,
Speaker 3: get contracts because they were the best candidates because obviously
Speaker 3: there's not a fair process period. The illusion of a
Speaker 3: conflict is a conflict of interest. Anyone who studies conflicts
Speaker 3: of interest knows that that's tell you just the appearance
Speaker 3: of a conflict in and of itself is undue influence.
Speaker 4: And so that is a problem with having Musk and
Speaker 4: the meme coin.
Speaker 3: Just be hovering over every policy decision that the Trump
Speaker 3: administration is making foreign and domestic, is you can never
Speaker 3: disentangle the influence, that's right, that their personal interest has
Speaker 3: in all this. And I think that's probably why the
Speaker 3: meme coin, and I think even like Starlink, is part
Speaker 3: of the background of our conversations, not our but like
Speaker 3: the national conversation about Trump.
Speaker 4: And Musk, because it's never in the foreground.
Speaker 3: I mean not often, although Jeff found a great example here,
Speaker 3: but it is always it's part of the landscape. It
Speaker 3: is a permanent fixture, and you can never go back.
Speaker 3: You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. When
Speaker 3: you have Musk not divesting, you have Trump with the
Speaker 3: meme coin coin. It just it adds a permanent question mark.
Speaker 3: And that's what banana republics like, That's what happens in
Speaker 3: Banana republics. You have just these permanent question marks and
Speaker 3: you can't always prove things A plus B.
Speaker 4: You can't do you can't do it in every case.
Speaker 4: But that's the problem in and of itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and sometimes it does seem actually quite clear in
Speaker 2: this administration what is going on. Last thing I'll say,
Speaker 2: with regardless Starlink, just as a broader concern is you know,
Speaker 2: in the early days that Ukraine War, elon Mus comes
Speaker 2: in and so I'm going to provide access starlink access
Speaker 2: to the Ukrainians in their fight against Russia. And starlink
Speaker 2: has been extremely important for comms on the front lines
Speaker 2: in Ukraine.
Speaker 5: And then there were certain.
Speaker 2: Things that Zelenski did that he didn't like, and then
Speaker 2: he decided to pull access, I think in crime or whatever.
Speaker 2: Whether or not you support the decisions he made in
Speaker 2: that instance, it was very troubling to realize this man
Speaker 2: is basically doing foreign policy as like a private businessman.
Speaker 5: And that's just to underscore I remember his meeting with India.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, yeah, And that's just to underscore how important
Speaker 2: these this infrastructure is, how significant it is to our
Speaker 2: country to foreign policy. And you know, the fact that
Speaker 2: one business with the wealthiest man on the planet has
Speaker 2: so much control over it. I think everyone should be
Speaker 2: really uncomfortable with that to start with. And when you
Speaker 2: layer on top of that, the level power he has
Speaker 2: within the Trump administration without having been elected, just you know,
Speaker 2: installed in there in this role has always been really
Speaker 2: really deeply troubling to be and continues to be so.
Speaker 2: And this is the case in point of why this
Speaker 2: is really problematic in terms of, you know, our country
Speaker 2: and representing the best interests of Americans versus the best
Speaker 2: interests of Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: It just makes me so mad because Musk, you know,
Speaker 3: leads this argument against George Soros's influence over the American government,
Speaker 3: and Trump will talk about the same thing too, And
Speaker 3: it's just frustrating because it exploits the genuine concerns of
Speaker 3: a lot of Americans who feel like they get the
Speaker 3: short shrift and like they get left behind in this
Speaker 3: economy that's designed for political elites and a spoil system
Speaker 3: that's designed to benefit elites over them, and they're exploiting
Speaker 3: that in ways that's like give me a break, give
Speaker 3: me a break, and entirely predictable, not at all surprising,
Speaker 3: and Trump has always been much more open about it.
Speaker 3: I think that's what's even more grading about Elon Musk
Speaker 3: because he still sort of claims the moral.
Speaker 4: High ground in no way that Donald Trump yeah knows
Speaker 4: what he can't. Yeah, and he almost just doesn't care.
Speaker 3: He's a he's like a he's Roy Cone, right, like
Speaker 3: he's a mob boss and he kind of rebels in that.
Speaker 3: But Elon Musk really like has an Arab sanctimony about
Speaker 3: him when he talks about these things, and I mean,
Speaker 3: he just isn't even trying to look like he's not
Speaker 3: part of it.
Speaker 2: George Soros could never dream of the level of power
Speaker 2: and influence that Elon Musk has it and the government
Speaker 2: at this point. Yeah, all right, Emily, what are you
Speaker 2: taking a look at?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, we have a little exclusive here at Breaking
Speaker 3: Points this morning punch Bowl News, the media startup launched
Speaker 3: by three Politico veterans back in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4: We have a new document that.
Speaker 3: Reveals new details of how that company is supporting its
Speaker 3: journalism by courting deep pocketed corporations obtained by US at
Speaker 3: Breaking Points. The document, which is offering twenty twenty five
Speaker 3: partnership opportunities is hardly an aberration here in DC. We're
Speaker 3: outlets from Axios to Politico take major cash from corporate sponsors,
Speaker 3: hoping to influence coverage and reach beltweigh readers.
Speaker 4: The leaked punch.
Speaker 3: Bowl deck, though, is rich with specific details about their
Speaker 3: business model, including a quote two hundred and ten thousand
Speaker 3: dollars going rate for sponsorship of punch Bowl's flagship daily
Speaker 3: newsletter two hundred and ten thousand dollars ahead of publication.
Speaker 3: A spokesperson at punch Bowl punch Bowl News told us
Speaker 3: at Breaking Points that a chart reflecting those numbers from
Speaker 3: the leaked document quote is an outdated price sheet that
Speaker 3: no longer reflects accurate data about punch Bowl News. They added, quote,
Speaker 3: we are proud to be a growing, profitable media startup
Speaker 3: that employs nearly forty people.
Speaker 4: So the deck that we got our hands on touts a.
Speaker 3: Quote from house speaker Mike Johnson on March eleventh, saying
Speaker 3: he reads all of punch Bowls newsletters, indicating that the
Speaker 3: deck is recent to at least the spring. And actually
Speaker 3: we verified that punch Bowl was passing the deck along
Speaker 3: just within the last week. So in its pitch to
Speaker 3: potential sponsors, unch Bowl claims that the newsletter reaches two
Speaker 3: hundred and ten thousand inboxes every morning with a forty
Speaker 3: to fifty percent open rate. The outlet says the midday
Speaker 3: and PM editions of that newsletter reached sixty six hundred
Speaker 3: inboxes with an open rate of fifty five to sixty
Speaker 3: five percent. Punch Bowl also bragged about internal polling that
Speaker 3: found quote k Street leaders resoundingly pointed to us, invoking,
Speaker 3: of course, lobbyists, when asked about the newsletter, they would
Speaker 3: characterize as the most important.
Speaker 4: Part of their media diet.
Speaker 3: What a pitch to sponsor the site for a week,
Speaker 3: during which punch Bowl claims to get sixty five thousand impressions.
Speaker 3: The rate is thirty thousand dollars. Custom content will run
Speaker 3: sponsors of cool two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Summits
Speaker 3: and editorial events featuring two lawmakers go for three hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty five thousand dollars, which then drops to three
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty five thousand for editorial events that feature
Speaker 3: a single lawmaker.
Speaker 4: Great deal.
Speaker 3: Punchbowl describes its audience as being made up of quote
Speaker 3: elite influencers, including one hundred percent of Senate and House
Speaker 3: offices and committees, with a fifty fifty split between Republicans
Speaker 3: and Democrats, ninety seven percent Fortune, one hundred saturation, one
Speaker 3: hundred percent executive departments, and eleven offices in the White House. Indeed,
Speaker 3: when Caroline Levitt hosted punch Bowl in the White House's
Speaker 3: new media seat and in April twenty ninth briefing, she said, quote,
Speaker 3: it is the first newsletter that Capitol Hill and the
Speaker 3: White House reads every morning, in the middle of the.
Speaker 4: Day and throughout the evening.
Speaker 3: Amusingly enough, as it seeks to appeal to corporate sponsors
Speaker 3: in the Trump two point zero administration, punch Bowl claims
Speaker 3: that it's quote not a legacy media organization, which allows
Speaker 3: us to be more nimble, more authentic, and more trusted
Speaker 3: by our core readership similar Beltway outlets. You probably remember,
Speaker 3: this came under fire from the Trump administration earlier this year.
Speaker 3: In February, Team Trump ordered quote the General Services Administration
Speaker 3: to terminate every single media contract expensed by the agency.
Speaker 3: We knew that, according to an email that was obtained
Speaker 3: by Axios, which directed the GSA to quote poll all
Speaker 3: contracts for Politico, BBC, E and E, which is.
Speaker 4: A political newsletter, and Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: So at the time, Levitt said, quote, I can confirm
Speaker 3: that the more than eight million taxpayer dollars that have
Speaker 3: gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American
Speaker 3: taxpayer's dime.
Speaker 4: Will no longer be happening now.
Speaker 3: Just last week, if you read Political Playbook, you probably
Speaker 3: saw it was sponsored the entire week by Planned Parenthood,
Speaker 3: perhaps as a consequence of the outlet's rocky relationship with
Speaker 3: the current government. Gotta find more money somewhere asked by
Speaker 3: Breaking Points, though, whether any of the subscriptions punch Bowl
Speaker 3: may have from cabinet agencies and executive branch offices violate
Speaker 3: any instructions regarding media subscriptions, a White House official confirmed
Speaker 3: to US yesterday quote three subscriptions terminated, two at SBA
Speaker 3: Small Business and one at RRB as part of a
Speaker 3: broader effort to eliminate unnecessary media subscriptions. Little news there
Speaker 3: in the deck. Punchbowl tout's past partnerships on custom content
Speaker 3: with Google, Amazon, Walmart, and Defense Congloberate RTX quote Google
Speaker 3: and punch Bowl news partner together in twenty twenty one
Speaker 3: through twenty twenty four on a sustained messaging campaigns, letters,
Speaker 3: custom products, and events supporting its work focused on small
Speaker 3: businesses and local economies that outlet outlet boasts. Now, this
Speaker 3: reflection on the outlet's quote support for Google's work is,
Speaker 3: of course not easily reconciled with punch Bowl's repeated claim
Speaker 3: in the deck and elsewhere to present quote unbiased coverage. Well,
Speaker 3: the company may believe it's cover just free from partisan bias,
Speaker 3: it can't seriously claim to be free from ideological biases
Speaker 3: given that its corporate benefactors are deeply ideological entities buying
Speaker 3: influence to advance those causes. And the deck punchboll sells
Speaker 3: its custom quote the future of collaborations as actually including
Speaker 3: quote editorial features exploring different areas of a mutually agreed
Speaker 3: upon topic, and a podcast series. So in other words,
Speaker 3: it is selling influence over specific editorial decisions to major corporations.
Speaker 3: And this is exactly what corporate funded news outlets deny doing,
Speaker 3: often arguing they do not allow advertisers or sponsors to
Speaker 3: influence covers. We'll take your money, but we're going to
Speaker 3: do what we want that's the line you. Heretually includes
Speaker 3: a Venn diagram illustrating the quote custom product as the
Speaker 3: overlap between the interests.
Speaker 4: Of your brand described as a quote true partner and
Speaker 4: the publication I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 3: Punchball also uses a document to pitch social events, which
Speaker 3: range in price from one hundred thousand dollars to two
Speaker 3: hundred and.
Speaker 4: Seventy five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Quote a social gathering with Punchbowl News community members exposes
Speaker 3: sponsor brands to Washington's elite insiders. The deck says, adding quote,
Speaker 3: punch Bowl News will work to bring together a high
Speaker 3: level audience of DC insiders from across industries and the
Speaker 3: public and private sectors. Throughout the deck, Punchball highlights its
Speaker 3: previous partnerships with McKenzie, Blackrock and Goldman Sachs. One slide,
Speaker 3: This is amazing practically resembles like a NASCAR vehicle. It
Speaker 3: has the logos of thirty seven major corporate quote partners,
Speaker 3: from massive pharmaceutical companies to defense contractors to oil and
Speaker 3: gas heavyweys. If you're listening to this and not watch
Speaker 3: it watching it, go to YouTube and look at the video,
Speaker 3: because just seeing those logos in one place on a
Speaker 3: news outlet's pitch deck is incredible. It's again worth emphasizing
Speaker 3: know that punch Bowl is not alone and broker in
Speaker 3: these financial relationships or using them to get more business
Speaker 3: from the Fortune five hundred world. The leaked deck is
Speaker 3: just a glimpse into the ordinary Beltway corruption of these outlets,
Speaker 3: where they pedal access to corporations and lobbyists, and they
Speaker 3: deserve very little credibility when repeatedly insisting that those critical
Speaker 3: sources of cash do not at all influence editorial decisions.
Speaker 3: It was plain of day, Actually plane is day in
Speaker 3: this deck that they do as both the journalists and
Speaker 3: their corporate sponsors know. That's kind of the whole point, Crystal.
Speaker 3: When we were flipping through this deck, we were having
Speaker 3: a good time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I said to you.
Speaker 2: I was like, here, we are appealing to the unwashed
Speaker 2: masses like suckers, when all we need is to be
Speaker 2: like Mike Johnson watches.
Speaker 4: Breaking Points sponsors by Walmart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's but yeah, this this is not
Speaker 2: a unique model to punch Bowl whatsoever. Political pro operates
Speaker 2: and these there's other like trade pubs where basically you know,
Speaker 2: they gather information that is very valuable to one specific
Speaker 2: industry and then expect those members of that industry toppony
Speaker 2: up very significant sums for those types of subscriptions. But
Speaker 2: the DC newsletter tip sheet business is so incredibly lucrative,
Speaker 2: and then you expect.
Speaker 4: So lucrative two hundred and ten thousand dollars a week.
Speaker 2: And they say, like almost they have almost forty staff
Speaker 2: members and their overhead is very low. And then to
Speaker 2: be raking in these kinds of you know, oh, you're
Speaker 2: going to pay three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
Speaker 2: have some one day event with two lawmakers or whatever.
Speaker 4: Google and Goldman have done it.
Speaker 2: It exposes the very corrupt dealings between corporate America, the media,
Speaker 2: and these members of Congress who are also showing up
Speaker 2: at these events and participating in them.
Speaker 3: Every consumer of the news knows that corporations, and any
Speaker 3: person with common sense knows that corporations want good press
Speaker 3: and they want good access in Washington.
Speaker 4: Journalists have absolutely no right to give it to them.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's insane.
Speaker 3: They have no reason to just give it to them, unless,
Speaker 3: of course, it's you know, genuine and vetted and reported
Speaker 3: out they have no reason to give corporations this access
Speaker 3: and good press, which they do. You see it again,
Speaker 3: like this has been going on for years. They will
Speaker 3: always embed a nice little ad when you're scrolling. It's
Speaker 3: not just the bar at the top that says punch
Speaker 3: Bowl am brought to you by Goldman sax or McKinsey
Speaker 3: or whatever. Yeah, has that, But then it usually has
Speaker 3: a little blurb that's the skies to look like news
Speaker 3: in the middle of it, and most people just scroll past.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, it's like, give me right.
Speaker 3: Yeah they say in it, because usually they'll say that's
Speaker 3: not editorial content, that's an ad, but they say in
Speaker 3: this deck, the punchbol deck.
Speaker 4: This is one of my big takeaways from it.
Speaker 3: They say, we will do events on a mutually agreed
Speaker 3: upon topic, or we'll do custom content on a mutually
Speaker 3: agreed upon topic, and we will give you podcasts for
Speaker 3: It's those are editorial decisions that you're farming out.
Speaker 4: That's right, you're selling them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can't look even if you are
Speaker 2: the most you know, the most honest human being being,
Speaker 2: trying to maintain your integrity. When you structure a system
Speaker 2: where you are financially rewarded for towing a certain ideological
Speaker 2: line or reporting something and not reporting something else.
Speaker 5: Human beings are subject to those incentives.
Speaker 2: They can talk themselves into it and why it's the
Speaker 2: right choice, and why it's noble, and why actually they
Speaker 2: really do believe in going in that direction. So that's
Speaker 2: why it's so important to understand the incentives of your
Speaker 2: business and the way that you're structuring, which is of
Speaker 2: course something that we thought about very intentionally here. But
Speaker 2: you know, one of the things that's ironic to me
Speaker 2: is in Trump two point zero they're trying to brand
Speaker 2: themselves is like we're new media. We're not like that,
Speaker 2: like the media that's like biased against it. We're totally different.
Speaker 2: And you know, in a sense, this is the danger
Speaker 2: of the new media era because those old boundaries that
Speaker 2: are in place. Look, I worked at a cable news network.
Speaker 2: The advertising department is kept totally separate. When I was on,
Speaker 2: you know, hosting a show, I had no idea what
Speaker 2: commercials were going on in the break I was involved
Speaker 2: in that. I didn't talk to corporate sponsors. I wasn't
Speaker 2: hosting events for a pharma or whatever, getting along, you know,
Speaker 2: there was none of that. And when you break down
Speaker 2: those traditional norms and boundaries that have existed, one of
Speaker 2: the things you open the door to is just more brazen,
Speaker 2: outright corruption because it is lucrative and it does allow
Speaker 2: them to be quote unquote more nimble in servicing Google
Speaker 2: or you know whoever is willing to pay the two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars price tag. So that's been
Speaker 2: one of the things that has been troubling to me,
Speaker 2: frankly about the new media era is that oftentimes it
Speaker 2: doesn't actually lead to more honesty and more independence. It
Speaker 2: leads to more brazen, more direct ties to whatever interest
Speaker 2: it may be. And you know that's certainly the case
Speaker 2: here with what we can see in this in this
Speaker 2: pitch deck.
Speaker 3: You know, it's also like not the same as for example,
Speaker 3: Rogan selling express vps right, Like, these are massive corporations
Speaker 3: with significant public interest. I mean, it's like it's been
Speaker 3: political interest. And I always love when the whether it's
Speaker 3: Politico or Axios, their line is we are not this
Speaker 3: does not this is a firewall. It doesn't influence our
Speaker 3: editorial decisions whatsoever. But of course if that was true,
Speaker 3: these companies would not pay them. They would absolutely not
Speaker 3: pay them if that were true. And it's also always
Speaker 3: on the front of your mind. If Meta is giving
Speaker 3: you money for your newsletter, you're very conscious of that.
Speaker 3: And as a writer, you know because it's filed, like
Speaker 3: it's when you file, you then see it in your
Speaker 3: publication or you see it in the commercial break whatever.
Speaker 3: They know they get special access. They know that they
Speaker 3: get warmer sentiments from you. The other point I want
Speaker 3: to make, Crystal is that is so funny to say
Speaker 3: they're unbiased, right, because they genuinely believe that, they really
Speaker 3: truly think that they don't have a bias R or D,
Speaker 3: and that means that they're quote unquote unbiased. But what
Speaker 3: they are is biased towards towards the ideology of corporate influence.
Speaker 5: That's right, like this, like that's ideological.
Speaker 4: That is a bias in and of itself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're biased against that, and we're open about that,
Speaker 3: Like we don't just pretend to be like neutral. We
Speaker 3: are very against corporate influence. Yes, and so that's you
Speaker 3: have to recognize. It's just like brain did not to
Speaker 3: understand that that's a bias.
Speaker 2: That's such a great point because to them. It's just
Speaker 2: like it's just the air that they breathe. Just this
Speaker 2: is the default, and so they don't recognize you're supposed
Speaker 2: to be adversaries. What an extorary bias it is and
Speaker 2: one that exists, yes, in both parties, so you can
Speaker 2: be very highpartisans but also very biased in the direction
Speaker 2: of corporations should get whatever they want.
Speaker 4: Two final things.
Speaker 3: White House confirmation that Punchable subscriptions were canceled quite interesting
Speaker 3: because that was you might remember when the USAID money
Speaker 3: was being tracked by all of the right wing sleuths
Speaker 3: on x Politico got hit pretty hard. A lot of
Speaker 3: unsubscribes from government offices where you get premium subscriptions to
Speaker 3: punch Ball that gives information that you pay a ton
Speaker 3: of money for the access to. So it looks like
Speaker 3: the White House, I don't know when that happened, can
Speaker 3: follow up with them on that, but looks like they
Speaker 3: had a few offices unsubscribe to punch Bowl. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure if that was the results of our reporting or
Speaker 3: if it happened before, but either way, that's that's also happened.
Speaker 3: And then secondly, punch Bowl giving us a comment that
Speaker 3: this is out of date. You know that at best
Speaker 3: it would be out of date, you know, within a
Speaker 3: week or so.
Speaker 5: That's technically out of date.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 5: I used to say.
Speaker 2: The other thing that I noticed is like their numbers
Speaker 2: are pretty small, you know, but they don't need them
Speaker 2: to be big as long as there is long as
Speaker 2: the power players are reading their publication, small group of people,
Speaker 2: that's all it takes.
Speaker 4: And small group of people with a lot of money.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's it. That's it exactly.
Speaker 2: And I think Ryan made this point when we were
Speaker 2: talking about like the USAID political pro subscriptions.
Speaker 5: I think he was the one that made the point
Speaker 5: of life.
Speaker 2: Those publications, like the trade pubs in particular, that go
Speaker 2: deep in different industries where there's not a widespread news interest.
Speaker 2: But you know, if you're in this industry, like you
Speaker 2: need to of like let's say you're in the trucking industry,
Speaker 2: logistics industry, you need to know like what's going on
Speaker 2: and what's going on in.
Speaker 5: Capitol hell, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And so it does create a genuine need for that
Speaker 2: information that's important for lawmakers and important for those industries
Speaker 2: to understand what is going on. So probably the only
Speaker 2: answer to that really is like public funding of those
Speaker 2: type that type of information being created.
Speaker 5: Otherwise it is going to be just like.
Speaker 2: The politicos or the punch bowls or whatever the world
Speaker 2: that you know capitalize on the need for that, and
Speaker 2: the extraordinary benefit to a small handful of people that
Speaker 2: you know, justifies huge, huge sums of money being spent.
Speaker 4: Fun little uh, fun little documentary.
Speaker 5: Yeah, nice work on.
Speaker 4: Lots of fun too. I mean I did almost the
Speaker 4: whole week. I think maybe I did do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were a rock star this week. Thank you well,
Speaker 2: thank you for having all of us have lets of
Speaker 2: things going on our lives.
Speaker 4: It's it's crazy. Yeah, across the board.
Speaker 5: Appreciate you being able to jump in.
Speaker 2: And I heard you and Ryan unilaterally decide that we're
Speaker 2: ditching the counterpoints. This is actually something we've been talking
Speaker 2: about because yeah, because it is like, you know, the
Speaker 2: original ideas you and Ryan show like it would be
Speaker 2: you know, it'd be different and be your own brand
Speaker 2: and whatever. But increasingly like we're all just we're doing
Speaker 2: a thing here, you know, and it's everybody's you know,
Speaker 2: it's very egalitarian. We're all all on and even footing here.
Speaker 2: There's no counterpoints and breaking points separations. So I think
Speaker 2: we are very much in agreement that we should move
Speaker 2: beyond these artificial borders, artificial arbitar arbitrarily drawn on the
Speaker 2: show schedule.
Speaker 3: More to come in that space. I think, yeah, people,
Speaker 3: we'll be around, We will be around. Finally, Chris, I
Speaker 3: just want to make this point. We were talking about
Speaker 3: Livia earlier and I mentioned I was looking up at
Speaker 3: Fara dot gov. Is there any registered lobbyists. Indeed, there
Speaker 3: are registered lobbyists and I have for Africa Confidential actually
Speaker 3: notice one of these filings back in November twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: and this is still an active registration if you go
Speaker 3: to Fara dot gov. Ibrows and raised in Washington, DC
Speaker 3: by the lobbying contract filed in October between the Libyan
Speaker 3: House of Representatives now based in Bengazi and K Street
Speaker 3: outfit Vogel Group. It's a Republican led biorepublican which could
Speaker 3: benefit the political allies of Libyan National Army leader General
Speaker 3: Khalifa Haftar.
Speaker 4: The contract is curious and that it is.
Speaker 3: Signed between CEO Alex Vogel, a former Republican staffer, and
Speaker 3: Josephi schmidz On behalf of the Libyan Parliament. Thousy Alnuari,
Speaker 3: the ambitious Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, is named as
Speaker 3: the principle. So to the point that farophiling. Actually, if
Speaker 3: you read it, you have to say what your work
Speaker 3: is going to look like. You have to say, like roughly,
Speaker 3: what it's going to look like. And of course it's
Speaker 3: enumerated here Government affairs and media consulting, including but not
Speaker 3: limited to providing introductions and to engaging with federal government
Speaker 3: bodies and entities, think tank trades and other public policy groups.
Speaker 4: Blah blah blah goes.
Speaker 3: On to say that, so we'll look into it and
Speaker 3: try to get answers to see if that had anything
Speaker 3: to do with the attempted flight. Yeah, but we were
Speaker 3: talking in the segment about how those introductions between lobbyists
Speaker 3: are often how that happens, and come to find out,
Speaker 3: we see there is a lot being contract that is
Speaker 3: specifically saying they're getting paid for introduction.
Speaker 4: So we will try to put those dots.
Speaker 2: The sun was here last week, yeah, and then a
Speaker 2: flight was put on the schedule to shift my grids
Speaker 2: s Olivia.
Speaker 3: So it could be nothing, I mean like it genuinely
Speaker 3: could be nothing. We're just you know, noting this, but
Speaker 3: we will look for answers.
Speaker 5: A lot of journalisming this morning, Emily.
Speaker 2: A lot of googling, nice Mark, all right, last saying,
Speaker 2: last thing, last thing.
Speaker 5: We'll be here for the Friday show. Ryan and me. Definitely.
Speaker 2: You, I think have some other things going on, so
Speaker 2: we'll see if you're able to drop in or not.
Speaker 2: In any case, thank you guys Breakingpoints dot com. For
Speaker 2: those of you who are premium subscribers, we super appreciate it.
Speaker 2: You have enabled the expansion and you know it's been
Speaker 2: I think really important in Trump two point zero to
Speaker 2: be able to have that extra day and give you
Speaker 2: coverage Monday Friday, So thank you for that. If you're
Speaker 2: not a member yet, if you're able to sign up
Speaker 2: as a premium member, we're going to have more news
Speaker 2: to come with regard to the premium subscription and membership.
Speaker 2: But I just want to say thank you to all
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Speaker 2: you back here tomorrow,