Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for
Speaker 2: the future of the show.
Speaker 3: This is the only place where you can find honest
Speaker 3: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
Speaker 3: not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
Speaker 2: go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
Speaker 2: you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
Speaker 2: and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 3: We need your help to build the future of independent
Speaker 3: news media, and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 4: We're calling this block corruption.
Speaker 5: The back half of it that we'll be talking about
Speaker 5: is a much more obvious We've got the President of
Speaker 5: the United States involved in a just straight up pump
Speaker 5: dump cryptoscheme. But first the less obvious but still kind
Speaker 5: of in your face element of Elon Musk's companies being
Speaker 5: poised to reap billions more in federal contracts than they've
Speaker 5: gotten in the past. And curious to get Sager's take
Speaker 5: on this, because I think there is a there is
Speaker 5: a defense of it on one level, but on another level,
Speaker 5: it's just not how we do government to have the
Speaker 5: CEO of a company that is getting money from the
Speaker 5: government be the one doling out the government contract. So
Speaker 5: we can put up this New York Times investigation by
Speaker 5: this is Eric Lipton is one of their investigative reporters.
Speaker 5: When The Times wants to do something that that leaves
Speaker 5: a mark, they will give somebody like Lipt in a
Speaker 5: couple of weeks to call up his sources and do
Speaker 5: a sweeping peace that I don't I don't listen to
Speaker 5: The Daily anymore, but I bet you know it gets
Speaker 5: pushed out on their various this show is available.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something about Michael Barbarrow's voice. It just doesn't work
Speaker 3: for me. I gotta be honest. But yeah, no, you're
Speaker 3: exactly right. The theory behind all this stuff is, oh,
Speaker 3: it's more efficient. And you know the funny thing is,
Speaker 3: if Elon wasn't in government, I'd be like, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: obviously more of it. But the problem is is that
Speaker 3: the appearance of corruption and is just as dangerous as
Speaker 3: corruption itself. So like the details you're saying, the Commerce
Speaker 3: Department is now saying that Starlink will be eligible for
Speaker 3: the federal government's forty two billion dollars royal broadband push. Now,
Speaker 3: it's pretty obvious that royal broadband by the government was
Speaker 3: an epic disaster, literally didn't work and actually had Derek
Speaker 3: on and that's one of the main things you mentioned.
Speaker 3: It is like, this is a huge failure. Starlink seems
Speaker 3: like the logical option, but you know, it's one of
Speaker 3: those where it's like, well, it's like, should you really
Speaker 3: be the person there who's also got their hands in there?
Speaker 3: And then in terms of like what portion of federal funding,
Speaker 3: is it really a fair process?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: I mean, it reminds me of the Halliburton stuff during Bush.
Speaker 3: I would say that's probably a little bit more self dealing.
Speaker 3: But I remember people like, but brown and Root are
Speaker 3: the best available option for this. It's like, yeah, but
Speaker 3: the vice president is still the guy who's running the war,
Speaker 3: so it's still pretty bad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, And I think you and I probably both
Speaker 5: agree that starlink is a better solution. Charling's cool, Yeah,
Speaker 5: it works broadband than royal broadband, like just just a
Speaker 5: complete mess. The government has failed to get that done.
Speaker 5: But then you're right, you're left with all right, or
Speaker 5: do we trust that Elon Musk is going to cut
Speaker 5: a fair deal with Elon Musk on behalf of the
Speaker 5: taxpayers or on behalf of Starlink. I mean he is
Speaker 5: obligated by law to maximize profits for his different corporations.
Speaker 5: Like that's that's the system that we have in place. Like,
Speaker 5: if you're not doing that, you are in violation of
Speaker 5: different fiduciary duties that you have to your shareholders. So
Speaker 5: is he required by law to rip off the American taxpayer?
Speaker 1: That that's actually a great point, is that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're looking out for SpaceX's business interests, you
Speaker 3: want to secure as much money as possible, and legally,
Speaker 3: are you looking to the government's interest you want to
Speaker 3: secure as less at least amount of money.
Speaker 5: There are criminals and there are criminal statutes on the
Speaker 5: books that relate directly to this. If you are a
Speaker 5: government employee and you are involved in government action that
Speaker 5: you know will increase your bottom line, that is a crime.
Speaker 4: It's a straight up crime.
Speaker 5: Time it's not often prosecuted because it's hard to usually
Speaker 5: prove in these cases.
Speaker 4: It's like, WHOA, Well.
Speaker 1: This is the thing about Elon that drives me crazy.
Speaker 3: Any normal employee of the government, and I know many
Speaker 3: you know who have had to work in the government.
Speaker 3: You have to at some points even sell off like
Speaker 3: individual stocks before you come work there. Let's say that
Speaker 3: you are, yeah, working in the Anti Trust. You're a staffer,
Speaker 3: not even appointee, You're just a staffer. You're making So
Speaker 3: let's say eighty thousand dollars a year, and you bought
Speaker 3: some Google stock, blue chip stock, Fortune five hundred company.
Speaker 3: You obviously have no inside information. You still have to
Speaker 3: sell it if you want to work, or you can't
Speaker 3: at least buy anymore. And you have to report everything
Speaker 3: that's there where. And again you know, the idea that
Speaker 3: some eighty twenty six year old working at the FTC
Speaker 3: is really going to have a massive implication on Google
Speaker 3: not the case.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 3: Even in the private sector, as I understand it, if
Speaker 3: you work at the banks, or if you work in
Speaker 3: finance at all, you're not even allowed to trade period
Speaker 3: like I think you can only buy like etf stand
Speaker 3: or Mutrient funds.
Speaker 1: You're not even allowed to do that.
Speaker 3: That's in a private sector appearance of corruption because they
Speaker 3: don't want to deal with you know, trials, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Now Here we're talking about again Elon and the SpaceX
Speaker 3: competing specifically for a government contract, and something Eric actually
Speaker 3: pointed out. They have four current pending requests with the
Speaker 3: FAA the Pentagon to build new rocket launch pads and
Speaker 3: so basically the military building something for them.
Speaker 4: And in federal protected land.
Speaker 3: In federal protected land, the FAA has moved to now
Speaker 3: approve one of those deals which had been pending. Now,
Speaker 3: maybe it should again, maybe you shouldn't. It should always
Speaker 3: have been approved, you asked me. It probably shouldn't have
Speaker 3: been approved. I think SpaceX and All is really cool company.
Speaker 3: I think they do a lot of cool work. But
Speaker 3: here it's about the appearance second they go. The first
Speaker 3: of the awards that was approved this month is specifically
Speaker 3: after the head of the FCC was supported by Elon.
Speaker 3: Now I know Brendon Carr. I don't think he's corrupt.
Speaker 3: I don't think that he's somebody who's been influenced by Elon.
Speaker 3: But the point is is that it still has to
Speaker 3: raise the question because this is one about radio frequency.
Speaker 3: And again, I know this is brain dead, but billions
Speaker 3: of dollars move on this stuff. I've been in this
Speaker 3: town long enough to see qualcomm and them spend un
Speaker 3: goodly amounts of money trying to get the right five
Speaker 3: G frequency approved for them by the FCC.
Speaker 1: So, yes, it sounds stupid.
Speaker 3: And it makes me one of those like, oh, maybe
Speaker 3: it's the right thing, but you really need to comprehend
Speaker 3: how much federal how many lobbying dollars are spent trying
Speaker 3: to influence this overall process. And it's just look, even
Speaker 3: if it's a bad look, a bad look is enough
Speaker 3: for me, you know, especially if we're going to criticize,
Speaker 3: you know, all these other people democratic like Nancy Pelosi's husband,
Speaker 3: day Trading stocks. Yeah, I think it's grotesque, right, It's
Speaker 3: the same here.
Speaker 4: And Brendan Carr is a good example.
Speaker 5: He's yeah, like you said, he's not personally like on
Speaker 5: the take, but he's very allied with Elon Musk, and so.
Speaker 3: I think that's ideological. Like I said, I've known Brendan
Speaker 3: for a long time. Is genuinely not like as a
Speaker 3: strong core beliefs around how the FCC should function, around
Speaker 3: big tech censorship, et cetera. This goes back probably a decade.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's really not about him. It's more
Speaker 3: about and the supporting of him and then the approval
Speaker 3: of said contracts. Again, it's probably the right decision, you know,
Speaker 3: to be able to speed things up, cut red tape,
Speaker 3: et cetera. But it's really more about the corruption and
Speaker 3: the appearance on his side than anything else.
Speaker 5: And it's just funny to see this, this huge oligarchy
Speaker 5: taking shape layered over a federal government that is like,
Speaker 5: on a micro level, like pretty corruption free in the
Speaker 5: sense that you try to take like a federal worker
Speaker 5: out to lunch. Oh as you what we're saying, yes,
Speaker 5: like they won't they won't go to like events that
Speaker 5: where it might be free food.
Speaker 1: Yes, what is it twenty five dollars?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it's like to have like all of that happening,
Speaker 5: which is, you know, you travel somewhere a lot of
Speaker 5: other places around the world. You know, you're shelling out
Speaker 5: money to government officials and cops and everything like you
Speaker 5: want to get even in Washington, DC, like you when
Speaker 5: it gets something approved, you increase this here and there.
Speaker 5: Like the corrosiveness of individual micro level corruption is a thing.
Speaker 4: Are you a side quests? Are you an f C
Speaker 4: A believer? Do you think that that's a good thing?
Speaker 1: I do because so f c P a Corrupt Practices Act.
Speaker 5: So the and here is my argument for it, Like,
Speaker 5: the thing that breeds insurgency and extremism and violence in
Speaker 5: countries around the world is corruption, and people don't.
Speaker 4: Really understand that.
Speaker 5: That link Afghanistan, for instance, it was the Taliban's willingness
Speaker 5: to root out the corruption of those drug lords.
Speaker 3: It was financial and it was kind of like not
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say sexual, but like they were instilling
Speaker 3: sexual morality.
Speaker 4: I guess in lieu of how things.
Speaker 5: They would say, well, it's talent, we don't we don't
Speaker 5: really like what they stand for, but what but they
Speaker 5: stand for.
Speaker 4: What they say, and that's all over the all over
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 5: The thing that will feed this instability and this violence
Speaker 5: is these people are ripping me off and I hate
Speaker 5: them and I want them to die. So I'll give
Speaker 5: the counter case.
Speaker 4: Look at the Arab spring.
Speaker 6: The Arabs.
Speaker 5: The first guy that immolated himself did it because he
Speaker 5: was pissed off at a fruit vendor inspector who was
Speaker 5: trying to shake him down for bribes.
Speaker 4: And dismiss.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll give the difference. So for people who
Speaker 3: don't know, Trump tried to suspend the FCPA, which basically
Speaker 3: prevents the US businesses from dealing with and corrupt practices abroad.
Speaker 5: But by the way, Rubio just sanctioned the former president
Speaker 5: of Argentina, Christina Kirshner, for corruption corrupt practices. It's like, bro,
Speaker 5: like two weeks ago, you said corruption's fine. So how
Speaker 5: are we sanctioning a former president for something that we
Speaker 5: say it's fine for our.
Speaker 3: I agree, I totally agree with that. I don't even
Speaker 3: know why we'd be sanctioning people for corruption because what's
Speaker 3: center less social So it just sends up. But I mean,
Speaker 3: how are you supposed to do business?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Like, how are you supposed to do business in many
Speaker 3: of these foreign countries like India famously one of the
Speaker 3: places where you really have to grease if we want
Speaker 3: our companies to be able to do business, Like, aren't
Speaker 3: they at a strategic disadvantage? What the Chinese people aren't
Speaker 3: paying people off? I mean, if we want to if
Speaker 3: we want to engage, and let's say East Asia, look
Speaker 3: no offense east Asia. But been around long enough to
Speaker 3: read exactly about the fusion of the Samsung and Panasonic
Speaker 3: and all this stuff. You can call it corruption or
Speaker 3: you can call it legalized corruption, but it's something, right, So,
Speaker 3: how are we supposed to do business? Let's say in
Speaker 3: a country where you have to give gifts and that's
Speaker 3: literally part of their business calls.
Speaker 5: You send McKinsey consultants and you tell them how to
Speaker 5: so you just cut.
Speaker 4: It out, like yeah, but that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: We're doing it anyway, so you might as well just
Speaker 3: make it, you know, instead of adding a bunch of
Speaker 3: legal red tape. It's like, yeah, we can't be corrupt here,
Speaker 3: but if other places are corrupt, like, what are you
Speaker 3: supposed to do?
Speaker 4: It's not like they don't find we thoroughly corrupt too.
Speaker 5: It's just that we've legalized it and we call it
Speaker 5: lobbying and we call it campaign spending.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. So are we are we just being a
Speaker 1: little hypocritical there?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: We're better than you. Yeah, we definitely. Okay, good, I'm
Speaker 4: glad you agree with me.
Speaker 3: All right, let's get to the Trump truth thing. This
Speaker 3: is also important. Let's put this up there on the
Speaker 3: screen from Donald Trump. I love Trump, so cool, the
Speaker 3: greatest of them all, Trump being trump coin. Trump Coin,
Speaker 3: of course, launched famous lots of questions coffee Zilla has
Speaker 3: pointed out about pump and dump schemes and others. You
Speaker 3: can actually see at the pump and dump that happened.
Speaker 3: Let's put that on the screen. Immediately after he tweeted
Speaker 3: or truthed or whatever about it, the coin shot up
Speaker 3: to twelve twenty five immediately lost overall dollar value. But
Speaker 3: I mean, part of the issue here with the transparency is,
Speaker 3: you know, you don't know who owns this thing. You
Speaker 3: have no idea who are some of the people who
Speaker 3: had it, who some of the wallet holders are. There's
Speaker 3: so much anonymity behind it. And just to have you know,
Speaker 3: the Trump and the thing is the Trump family has
Speaker 3: made it clear that not only do not have no
Speaker 3: problem with this as part of their business strategy, like
Speaker 3: Don Junior and others are literally partnered with what's that
Speaker 3: called World Liberty Financial. I think it is just a
Speaker 3: crypto organization behind that all sort of all Steve Wickoff's.
Speaker 4: Son, by the way, it's just hilarious.
Speaker 1: It's all a family business.
Speaker 3: So my point is is that you can clearly see
Speaker 3: I think that the more you see this type of
Speaker 3: stuff and especially become people aware of it, you even
Speaker 3: have like Dave Portnoy people like that who are calling
Speaker 3: it out.
Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, this is too much.
Speaker 3: You know, there's just something about this which rubs people
Speaker 3: the wrong way. And that's where with the Starling thing,
Speaker 3: I come back to. The defense will be oh, but
Speaker 3: it's the right company. It's like, yeah, maybe it is,
Speaker 3: but that's not the point. The point is is it's
Speaker 3: about the appearance itself. And I do think that's starting
Speaker 3: to become very politically potent around the.
Speaker 5: Country, and it becomes more potent if things are going
Speaker 5: poorly in the country.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, Like if.
Speaker 3: As you and I remember that Haliburton was a household
Speaker 3: name in through six, everybody knew about Halliburton and Dick
Speaker 3: Cheney and what was it? What was the pharmaceutical company
Speaker 3: that Rumsfeld is like Gilead Fund.
Speaker 1: I'm serious, Like, guys.
Speaker 3: Years ago, people who were the breaking points viewer of
Speaker 3: twenty years ago was aware of all of this stuff,
Speaker 3: and especially right I rock War caught no bid contracts
Speaker 3: and all of that. In the federal government, there was
Speaker 3: a real feeling that not only that this war is,
Speaker 3: you know, killing America's troops, sons and daughters for something
Speaker 3: that we didn't necessarily want or sign up for. But
Speaker 3: it was also a pretext for bilking the American taxpayer.
Speaker 1: It was a very politically powerful message.
Speaker 5: And when the war's going okay, then the yeah people
Speaker 5: were like, oh, Alburton, they're doing a good job.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: The second that it turns then you have then you
Speaker 5: have a plausible and legitimate scapegoad. It'd be like, oh, you,
Speaker 5: you corrupt bastards, can't even wage the war.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So the parallel would be Trump's handling of the economy.
Speaker 5: So if he can get prices down, keep unemployment low,
Speaker 5: get mortgage interest rates down, interest rates down, and have
Speaker 5: people feeling good about the economy, then be like, I,
Speaker 5: you know, have your fun with your Trump coin. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and all of this, like this weird thing where you've
Speaker 5: got like a three time CEO as your like special
Speaker 5: advisor with the kid on his shoulder, Like that's fine
Speaker 5: because I'm doing well.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: If if you start seeing job loss month over month,
Speaker 5: unemployment going up, and you get stagflation with prices still
Speaker 5: going up, then people are gonna be like, get enough
Speaker 5: of this.
Speaker 4: Stop. You don't get to rip us off while we're suffering.
Speaker 5: You can rip us off if we're doing well, so
Speaker 5: if we're all in this together, we're all making money,
Speaker 5: then it's fine.
Speaker 4: Then that's the best deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like win win win, in words of Michael
Speaker 3: Scott's all right, look it's we're on.
Speaker 1: We got to watch it.
Speaker 3: And I do think that this will eventually become not
Speaker 3: only it's not just politics, because I've also been thinking
Speaker 3: about Elon. If you are and this is going to be,
Speaker 3: Oh my god, can you imagine if the Democrats win
Speaker 3: the House of Representatives in twenty twenty six, the number
Speaker 3: of hearings for Elon and for SpaceX, It's going to
Speaker 3: be unbeliev the amount of subpoenas, the amount of government scrutiny,
Speaker 3: the I mean, look, you know Elon and them accused
Speaker 3: the Biden administration of lashing out at them. Good luck
Speaker 3: if a Democrat ever wins the White House again, if
Speaker 3: you're Tesla SpaceX and all that, as we all know,
Speaker 3: it's very influenced by government contracts, you know, it's one
Speaker 3: of those where and then not to mention the whole
Speaker 3: brand hit that you were taking. This is like literally
Speaker 3: an existential risk. And everyone was applauding him, saying, oh
Speaker 3: he had it took an existential risk. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it'll work out for four years, but like that's not
Speaker 3: really how the American government works, so good luck.
Speaker 5: Yes, he's acting like he feels like there will never
Speaker 5: be an opposition takeover.
Speaker 3: I think we are one eighteen months away, you know,
Speaker 3: when the Democrats, or let's say if the Democrats take
Speaker 3: especially in the House because they have subpoena power. I mean,
Speaker 3: the amount of legal red tape. We're talking about hundreds
Speaker 3: of millions of dollars just in legal fees, compliance oversight Committee,
Speaker 3: House Transportation Committee, specific writers, and every bill that exempts
Speaker 3: Elon Musk's companies from participating a federal I mean, you
Speaker 3: could see some serious, like serious serious ramifications for Elon himself.
Speaker 3: And remember, I mean, was it Bannon went to jail
Speaker 3: for contempt. Like this is not a joke, Like they
Speaker 3: sure they'll refer to the DJ under Trump and they
Speaker 3: won't do anything.
Speaker 4: But Trump may not be around forever.
Speaker 3: Like you could easily see in two years from now
Speaker 3: or four years from now when Trump is out of
Speaker 3: the White House and whoever the Democrat is, let's even
Speaker 3: a Norman Democrat, I don't know, like Ruby Diego. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Ruby Diego, John Assen, any of these folks.
Speaker 1: Of course they're gonna do.
Speaker 3: This is gonna be a core ask of mace, you know,
Speaker 3: in the same way like pardon j Sixers and all
Speaker 3: that stuff for for for Trump voters. This is gonna
Speaker 3: be I think a core demand of a lot of
Speaker 3: the liberal base going forward.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: And then the more self dealing you are and the
Speaker 3: more government contracts you are, the more attack vectors that
Speaker 3: the future has for you. You actually want to and
Speaker 3: you'll government proof yourself if you're gonna do so.
Speaker 5: Right, And this is before they've you know, broken soul
Speaker 5: security or Medicare, like whatever, whatever calamity may befall this
Speaker 5: administration between now and then hasn't hasn't come yet.
Speaker 4: Maybe there will not won't be one and all the.
Speaker 5: Checks will go out, yes, but if if they don't
Speaker 5: look out, all right.
Speaker 1: Steve Witkoff, tell us what's going on.
Speaker 5: So this Steve Witcoff, middiast envoy who you know famously
Speaker 5: browbeat Yahoo into the the January twentieth ceasefire, which moved
Speaker 5: into which was supposed to move into phase two between
Speaker 5: February and March, instead has resulted in Israel relaunching its
Speaker 5: assault on Gaza. You had Witcoff joined Tucker Carlson for
Speaker 5: a very long and interesting interview, but also do the
Speaker 5: rounds some of the rest of the media in which
Speaker 5: he kind of reverts back to the Biden administration argument
Speaker 5: that actually this is all Hamas. Let's roll a little
Speaker 5: bit of witcough here.
Speaker 4: I know that you've said Hamas has been unreasonable in
Speaker 4: trying to respond to another round of the next phase
Speaker 4: of a ceasfire.
Speaker 1: Where do we go from here?
Speaker 4: What are the odds you get them back to the
Speaker 4: table and get these hostages home.
Speaker 7: Well, I certainly hope we get everybody back to the
Speaker 7: table and get the hostages home. I was I was
Speaker 7: in a Doha. I met with many of the Arab
Speaker 7: leaders at the Arab summit. I thought we had a deal,
Speaker 7: an acceptable deal. I even thought we had an approval
Speaker 7: from Hamas. Maybe that's just me getting getting you know, duped,
Speaker 7: but I thought we were there, and evidently we weren't.
Speaker 7: So this is on Hamas. The United States stands with
Speaker 7: the State of Israel. There's just us that's a one
Speaker 7: hundred percent commitment, and we've expressed that Hamas had every
Speaker 7: opportunity to demilitarize, to accept the bridging proposal that would
Speaker 7: have given us a forty or fifty day cease fire
Speaker 7: where we could have discussed demilitarization and a final truce.
Speaker 7: There were all kinds of opportunities to do that, and
Speaker 7: they elected not to, and this becomes the alternative, and
Speaker 7: it is unfortunate. Do I think if would we be
Speaker 7: amenable to reach out from Hamas, of course, we would
Speaker 7: be no different than in the Russian conflict.
Speaker 4: We want to end the killing, but.
Speaker 7: We need to be clear who the aggressor is here,
Speaker 7: and that is Hamas.
Speaker 5: It feels almost impossible for people here in the United
Speaker 5: States to have any clear sense of what on earth
Speaker 5: is going on because we're so propagandized about this. If
Speaker 5: you want to have a better idea what's going on,
Speaker 5: you read the Israeli media. So there's the Times of
Speaker 5: Israel article. And this is the kind of a right
Speaker 5: leaning publication. This is not a retz like left leaning one.
Speaker 5: This is Times of Israel article. They say, quote Hamas
Speaker 5: has insisted on sticking to the original terms of the deal,
Speaker 5: which was supposed to begin its second phase at the
Speaker 5: beginning of March for a month, though Israel refused to
Speaker 5: end talks on the specific terms of Phase two, as
Speaker 5: the stage's general framework requires it to fully withdraw from
Speaker 5: Gaza and agree to a permanent end of the war.
Speaker 5: In submitting his Bridge proposal earlier this month, Witkof accepted
Speaker 5: Israel's aversion to Phase two.
Speaker 4: So this is what happened. They struck a deal.
Speaker 5: The US guaranteed it, and then Israel insisted on breaking
Speaker 5: the deal. And that is according to the Israeli pressed
Speaker 5: and also according to reality. Like, that's actually what happened,
Speaker 5: and Witkoff knows every detail of that.
Speaker 4: I think we can only assume that this is the
Speaker 4: same movement that took out Adam Bohler Witcoff for people.
Speaker 3: Again, I need people to understand this with Wicoff, he
Speaker 3: has been the target of more assault on a Trump
Speaker 3: appointee than any single other individual. His temerity was what
Speaker 3: he asked BB.
Speaker 4: To work on.
Speaker 1: Shabbati agreed to a c smart You.
Speaker 3: Think I'm joking that they cannot tolerate this, like any
Speaker 3: sense of America is the superpower here? No, Oh, that's
Speaker 3: why Bowler he was disappeared, right, he might he's he's
Speaker 3: an Il Salvador.
Speaker 1: Along with all those other guys. You're never even gonna
Speaker 1: see him again. The same with the Wickoff.
Speaker 3: Like the thing that they decided on is that he's
Speaker 3: a Katari asset number one and then number two, which
Speaker 3: is which is so ridiculous. Again, I tweeted that I
Speaker 3: think he saw it as well, where I was like, really,
Speaker 3: like the people who are in the Israel lobby are
Speaker 3: going to accuse people being funded by a foreign government,
Speaker 3: like do you have no shame?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Have you no shame?
Speaker 5: As as we speak, Netanya, who's sent inner circle is
Speaker 5: under investigation for taking bribes, food cuts her.
Speaker 1: It can't make it up.
Speaker 3: You literally cannot script it. And yet here in Washington,
Speaker 3: like you said, we can't talk about any of this now.
Speaker 5: The other things you will learn if you follow the
Speaker 5: Israeli press, but not the American press, although if you
Speaker 5: follow breaking Points, you hear about it.
Speaker 4: Why did net Ya.
Speaker 5: Who refused to go into phase two? Why did he
Speaker 5: choose this time? A couple of different things. The head
Speaker 5: of the shin Bet was instigating net Yahu, so he
Speaker 5: fired fired first time in Israeli history that this happens,
Speaker 5: and he needs political support to do that. He has
Speaker 5: to finish a budget by the end of this month,
Speaker 5: and to do that he needed Zoe Smoch and Benjy Gevier,
Speaker 5: you know, back in his coalition. And so in order
Speaker 5: to do that, he had to restart the genocide on
Speaker 5: on Gaza. There were protests against the firing of the
Speaker 5: shin bet Head.
Speaker 4: Huge, really real like James Comey level, as.
Speaker 5: Well as massive protests on behalf of getting the remaining
Speaker 5: captives out of out of Gaza, and net Yaho's corruption
Speaker 5: trial was moving forward launching the bombing.
Speaker 4: When he did allowed the trial to be delayed.
Speaker 5: I feel like you say this stuff out loud, you
Speaker 5: sound like a crazy person.
Speaker 4: It's like, this can't this can't be true.
Speaker 5: This can't be why hundreds and hundreds of people are
Speaker 5: getting are getting killed right now so that Ho can
Speaker 5: could get his budget passed and can avoid his corruption
Speaker 5: trial and can and can suppress these protests and the
Speaker 5: investigations into himself. Right Yet, that is precisely and explicitly
Speaker 5: what is happening.
Speaker 4: Right But that's you know, not enough.
Speaker 3: And Wick Cough, like I said, he has just changed
Speaker 3: his tune completely on the Hamas question.
Speaker 1: Remember Bowler.
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, they're afraid that we might find out
Speaker 3: they're good guys, you know, like that born and he's like,
Speaker 3: I understand why they're upset, but we're not a client
Speaker 3: of Israel. Oop oops gone black bag clearly over his head.
Speaker 3: Here's Wick Cough, you know, basically sounding off on Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 3: Same stuff we've heard a million times. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3: This is Southern Command of Israel. Then showed me a
Speaker 3: film of what happened on October seventh, yep. And the
Speaker 3: film is horrific. Yes, it is about mass rapes.
Speaker 5: He talks about the head of babies and stuff. Is like,
Speaker 5: I haven't seen this forty seven minute video that they have.
Speaker 5: You show could the people have been people have been
Speaker 5: very clear about what's in it, and none of that
Speaker 5: is in it. That's just it's just a lie. Like
Speaker 5: it's just untrue that that video includes any of that.
Speaker 4: Just it just doesn't.
Speaker 5: But yes, it does show how chastened he is from Uh,
Speaker 5: you know, Bowler getting getting knocked on his heels and
Speaker 5: so what is the consequence for people on the ground
Speaker 5: in Gaza? Uh we put up D three here. So
Speaker 5: Nasar hospital. So this is, by the way, that's that
Speaker 5: is a tent. There's a tent encampment. These are these
Speaker 5: are like two thousand pound bonds being dropped on tents
Speaker 5: and what what Israel has been doing that's not hospital.
Speaker 4: We'll talk about that in a second.
Speaker 5: Is after they have acknowledged that they were responsible for
Speaker 5: that air that air strike that that you saw on
Speaker 5: the on the tent encampment there that they said there
Speaker 5: was a Hamas figure who was in one of the tents,
Speaker 5: and that therefore that's why they believe that they the
Speaker 5: you know, the moral and legal right to kill all
Speaker 5: of the people that were anywhere near them.
Speaker 1: It is crazy. Just linger on that. Not that long ago.
Speaker 3: There's a whole Wolf Blitzer segment, you know, talking about
Speaker 3: ten the first tent bombing it. Remember Blitzer asked him
Speaker 3: about even he criticized he's a former APAC employee, all
Speaker 3: this other thuff.
Speaker 1: Even he's like, hey, guys, like, what are we doing here?
Speaker 4: Nowadays?
Speaker 3: It's not even a headline anymore, it's just reality. It's
Speaker 3: just the day, you know, of the business. Like you said,
Speaker 3: if this is done for a purpose, like you know,
Speaker 3: if you think back to the Allied bombing campaigns against
Speaker 3: Germany and Japan. The purpose, at least ostensibly we can
Speaker 3: argue about it, you know, probably forever is what is
Speaker 3: to destroy the war machine of Germany and the ability
Speaker 3: and the will of the German public and the war
Speaker 3: machine of Germany. Here though, they're like, oh well, we
Speaker 3: need to kill every last terrorist, and you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: but you know, by your own admission, like this has
Speaker 3: not worked. He's done this for two years. Rockets are
Speaker 3: launched from Goda onto was it Tel Aviv?
Speaker 1: Some city in.
Speaker 3: Israel, just like a last week, which is one of
Speaker 3: the core competencies that you said that you were going
Speaker 3: to wipe out, which is actually proof that it's not
Speaker 3: working right now.
Speaker 4: You would think that you would.
Speaker 3: Adjust strategy here in Washington during the Second World War
Speaker 3: whenever we see you know, we would do bombing assessments wherever, like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this didn't work, We've got to change to this. We're
Speaker 3: gonna try this. We're gonna try that. We're going to
Speaker 3: do a change of tactics. We need to change all
Speaker 3: It's it's almost like that the strategy, the strategic goal
Speaker 3: is non existent because it's tied to their political ends
Speaker 3: at home exactly.
Speaker 5: And it goes back to what we were just saying.
Speaker 5: The strategy has nothing to do with the war. It's
Speaker 5: all about these domestic political interests. It would be as
Speaker 5: if FDR was bombing Berlin because FDR had a corruption
Speaker 5: trial on Tuesday and he's trying to fire like the
Speaker 5: head of the OSS, because the OSS is looking into FDR,
Speaker 5: and he's also on the take from Cutter, which didn't
Speaker 5: exist yet or Yeah, So that that that explains why
Speaker 5: then none of it makes sense from a strategic or
Speaker 5: even a tactical perspective because it's not actually aimed to
Speaker 5: make any sense.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 5: There are two this and the last piece we showed
Speaker 5: you there was Nasar Hospital that was the second floor
Speaker 5: of Naser Hospital directly targeted by it in Israeli airstrike.
Speaker 5: Earlier yesterday, Ferro Saidwa and Mark Permutter were on CNN
Speaker 5: from Nasser Hospital talking about the crimes that they were
Speaker 5: seeing being committed by Israeli forces. Perlmutter, you famously may recall,
Speaker 5: was one of the authors of that New York Times
Speaker 5: article talking about how the the Israeli forces were targeting children, snipers, headshots, shot.
Speaker 4: In the heart.
Speaker 5: It became this thing where the Israeli defenders said this
Speaker 5: is all made up. Then they started you started having
Speaker 5: people online like you know, parsing the different x rays
Speaker 5: and so times that looked back in It was like, no,
Speaker 5: we ran this by like dozens of other medical experts
Speaker 5: and what they are saying is true. So these are
Speaker 5: high profile critics who had been in Gaza before left Gaza.
Speaker 5: American doctors now are back in Gaza in Naser Hospital
Speaker 5: and are going back on CNN criticizing the Israeli war machine.
Speaker 5: And later that day, a missile targets the second floor
Speaker 5: of the hospital. They claim they were targeting some Hamaska.
Speaker 5: According to the medical staff there, there was a seventeen
Speaker 5: year old who was going who was supposed to be
Speaker 5: going in for surgery.
Speaker 4: As a result of this attack, he died.
Speaker 5: He wasn't he didn't he wasn't killed directly from it,
Speaker 5: but he couldn't get the surgery that he needed and
Speaker 5: as a result died. We're still sorting through exactly you
Speaker 5: know what the what the other casually as are.
Speaker 4: You can put up D five. This is from this
Speaker 4: is from drop site News.
Speaker 5: Doctor Sidwah told us that the explosion hit either the
Speaker 5: hospital building.
Speaker 4: Or just outside of it.
Speaker 5: This was in the fog of the early moments, and
Speaker 5: the front of the hospital is on fire, he said.
Speaker 5: A patient it was about to be transferred from the
Speaker 5: ICU to the operating room, is now and hold it
Speaker 5: almost certainly going to die unquote that patient. That patient
Speaker 5: did in fact, ie, you can put up D six
Speaker 5: as well. This is a report from the scene. You
Speaker 5: can see the fire and that and the hell of
Speaker 5: Delpartaris says, this is not the first time nor the
Speaker 5: second time that hospitals have.
Speaker 4: Been directly targeted.
Speaker 5: Israeli occupation forces are directly targeted, so the surgical department
Speaker 5: inside not certain medical complex directly target with the wounded
Speaker 5: patients and medical staff all inside of the complex. And
Speaker 5: it reminds me very early in this what turned out
Speaker 5: to be a genocide. There was this weeks long debate
Speaker 5: here in the United States about that whether or not
Speaker 5: Palaestdinian Islami Jahad rocket or an IDF rocket had targeted
Speaker 5: a particular hospital.
Speaker 4: And since then.
Speaker 5: Israel has hit every single medical facility in Gaza, and
Speaker 5: hit many of them multiple times. Earlier this week, they detonated, planned,
Speaker 5: planned demolition of the only cancer treatment facility in Gaza.
Speaker 5: And you compare that with this furious denial that they
Speaker 5: had attacked this one hospital back in like November of
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three. It shows you, like where the world
Speaker 5: has gone in the time since, because that was outrageous
Speaker 5: when it happened, to the point where they had to
Speaker 5: deny that they did anything, and all these ocent people
Speaker 5: doing this for there are forensic work on it, and
Speaker 5: now they're like, yeah, we hit that hospital with the
Speaker 5: American doctors in it.
Speaker 4: Uh huh, what about it? What are you going to do?
Speaker 4: We're like, not could do anything. Actually, nobody's gonna do anything.
Speaker 3: I think what is stunning to me about wick Cough
Speaker 3: was his is his clear about face. And it's just
Speaker 3: clear the political forces at work that are trying to
Speaker 3: move everything. The chessboard is clear to anybody who can
Speaker 3: watch it all happen. The Pentagon is developing these war plans.
Speaker 3: So wick Cough wins in the early days, the first
Speaker 3: fifty days, I would say he's the victor. Adam Bohler
Speaker 3: is the high water mark of anybody who wanted to
Speaker 3: see a departure. But his problem is he said the
Speaker 3: wrong the quiet part out loud. We are not a
Speaker 3: client's meet of Israel. Boom lopped. What happens a week
Speaker 3: later Yemen? Who the bomb?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Because what?
Speaker 3: Because people can finally point to the Adam Bohler Wick
Speaker 3: Coff sees fire and all and say no, this is
Speaker 3: not working. The convinced Trump and the people around him
Speaker 3: who are neo cons and others so like, see, we
Speaker 3: have to be strong, right, So we start to bomb
Speaker 3: Yemen and the who thies and that leads to what
Speaker 3: more of a policy on Iran, which is, oh, well,
Speaker 3: we previously Trump said let's have a deal.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you, like, let's have a diplomat.
Speaker 3: Now they're like, oh, Iran will be held responsible for
Speaker 3: every Yemeny rocket. And then at the same time, what
Speaker 3: else happens? Oh, the Gaza war breaks out again, which
Speaker 3: means that the increase in the attacks in Yemen and
Speaker 3: or stability all around the region is going to increase.
Speaker 3: And as all of this starts to tick up, the
Speaker 3: divergence of that time becomes more clear. This is the
Speaker 3: policy apparatus and decisions that they want. They want an
Speaker 3: environment where it's much more likely to go to war
Speaker 3: with Iran to quote unquote be strong with Iran, to
Speaker 3: bring critics and all those like Quick Cough and others
Speaker 3: to heal. And they want to get away from any
Speaker 3: reality where Trump.
Speaker 1: I think Trump did want them. I mean he liked
Speaker 1: being the peacemaker.
Speaker 3: I think he also really likes the idea of talking
Speaker 3: to the Iatola signing a great Iran deal.
Speaker 4: But it's going is right.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I'm gonna hold I hope for the
Speaker 3: stake of all of us that it does happen that way.
Speaker 3: But I'm watching the chessboard right all move where you know,
Speaker 3: one year, two years, you never know. It just takes
Speaker 3: one event and things pop off like that.
Speaker 5: The only hope remaining is also in the Tucker Carlson
Speaker 5: Witcoff interview, and it's Witcof talking at length about how
Speaker 5: important a deal with Iran and a broader Mid East
Speaker 5: deal is to Trump. And as Witkoff says accurately, it
Speaker 5: all runs through Gaza. Like the Abraham Accords, fundamental flaw
Speaker 5: was that it pretended the Palestine question could just be
Speaker 5: completely ignored. Now people like Witcoff and Trump understand that's
Speaker 5: not the case. You want Saudi Arabia, the amiradis Iran
Speaker 5: all to kind of come to an actual accord. You
Speaker 5: got to figure out what you're doing with Gaza and
Speaker 5: with the West Bank.
Speaker 3: Interesting tweet Ryan just now minutes ago from JD Vance.
Speaker 3: Steve Whitkoff is a great guy, doing an incredible job.
Speaker 3: The people sniping and Naim are mad that he's succeeding
Speaker 3: where they failed for forty years. Turns out a lot
Speaker 3: of diplomacy boils down to a simple skill. Don't be
Speaker 3: an idiot. What do you make of that? That seems
Speaker 3: like a that's.
Speaker 4: A bat signal? Good?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 5: JD Vance has a powerful faction within particularly the Pentagon,
Speaker 5: but also the broader foreign policy apparatus that is America
Speaker 5: First Pieces, much more realist. He's oriented right, and that
Speaker 5: he's stepping in.
Speaker 1: I can't tell.
Speaker 3: Well, so he's that bat that's a bat signal for something?
Speaker 3: It could be on Ukraine. We'll probably cover that tomorrow.
Speaker 3: We don't have time to get into it all today
Speaker 3: because Steve also made quite a few controversial comments on Ukraine.
Speaker 3: If you're a Ukraine firster here in Washington, basically saying, yeah,
Speaker 3: we're gonna have to have territorial concessions, and they're like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, you freaking out about it. But I
Speaker 3: do think that that's a subtle way of also signaling
Speaker 3: against some of these neo kan attacks. But unfortunately, I'm
Speaker 3: just I'm not sure. I think it might be too
Speaker 3: late because at this point, you know, with Wikkoff, if
Speaker 3: you're going in public, you know, basically embracing the Israeli
Speaker 3: line of where the war is and sidelining out of
Speaker 3: Bowler and instead letting Mike Walton all these other guys
Speaker 3: who are just straight up Neil Cohns back into the
Speaker 3: decision making. It doesn't seem like it's a situation that's
Speaker 3: going to go in the direction that we would have hoped,
Speaker 3: let's say, in the first month or so the Trumpetinustry.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the best hope would be that he just understands,
Speaker 5: particularly after the Bowler situation, these are the words you say, Yeah,
Speaker 5: no matter what happens, you blame hamas right and you
Speaker 5: say Israel has the right to defend itself.
Speaker 4: Now he does have magic words.
Speaker 3: If he doesn't have publiclyans still breaks Babe. Behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: I'm fine with.
Speaker 5: It, okay, Right, he's he's still an American, so he
Speaker 5: has to say the magic one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so maybe fault, that's right. Do you condemn Hama?
Speaker 5: Do you condemn Hamas for Israel striking the NAS hospital?
Speaker 5: Come like absolutely, Yeah, outrageous on the part of Mamas.
Speaker 4: That's a good way. I like it. Let's get over
Speaker 4: to the economy block.
Speaker 3: We had to cover this, so Secretary Lutnick over at
Speaker 3: the Commerce Department.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do have I like Howard.
Speaker 3: Lud too, just because he is he's just built for
Speaker 3: this moment in terms of the absolute chaos, where he's
Speaker 3: got the smile on his face, believes nothing, a pure
Speaker 3: just a pure opportunist. Jettisoned himself to the top of
Speaker 3: the United States government by being the Trump co chair
Speaker 3: of his campaign. Do you remember during the campaign when
Speaker 3: he put himself in the speaking slot before or after
Speaker 3: j D. Vance, Like he put JD up there, and
Speaker 3: then it was Lutnik and then Elon and then Trump
Speaker 3: and everyone was like Lutnick, like.
Speaker 1: Why is he getting a star billing at this time?
Speaker 3: He's the one and he's still upset, Howard Lutning get
Speaker 3: still upset that he's not the US Treasury Secretary. He
Speaker 3: thinks it's a downgrade that he's the head of the commerce, right. Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: he is well ish because remember commerce powerful with terrors. Anyway,
Speaker 3: Howard Ludnik sits down with the All In podcast crew, Chamath, Polyhopatia,
Speaker 3: and Friedberg in this crazy set that they use sometimes
Speaker 3: over at the White House.
Speaker 1: And in the Magisty, in the majesty.
Speaker 3: Of the Imperium of the White House, the capital of
Speaker 3: the global Empire. He starts to make some pretty unhinged
Speaker 3: comments about Social Security.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: I describe it to people this way. Let's say Social
Speaker 6: Security didn't send out their checks.
Speaker 4: This month.
Speaker 6: My mother in law, who's ninety four, she wouldn't call
Speaker 6: and complain. She just wouldn't. She thinks something got messed
Speaker 6: up and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always
Speaker 6: makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining. And if
Speaker 6: all the guys who did PayPal, like Elon knows this,
Speaker 6: my heart right, anybody who's been in the payment system
Speaker 6: and the processed system knows the easy way to find
Speaker 6: the fraudster is to stop payments and listen. Because whatever
Speaker 6: screams is the one's stealing because my mother in law's
Speaker 6: not call it.
Speaker 4: I mean, come on, your mother.
Speaker 6: Eighty year olds, ninet year olds. They trust the government
Speaker 6: that trusts. Okay, maybe got screwed up, big deal. They're
Speaker 6: not gonna call it scream at someone, but someone who's
Speaker 6: stealing always does. So what happens is we need to
Speaker 6: get to so the people who are getting that free money,
Speaker 6: stealing the money inappropriately getting the money, have an inside
Speaker 6: person who's routing the money. They are going to yell.
Speaker 4: And scream, right, Yeah, that totally makes sense.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: The other reason that his mother and Lama may not
Speaker 3: scream is that Howard's worth one point five billion. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that tends to help.
Speaker 4: You know, you don't have to worry about your six
Speaker 4: hundred dollars a month check.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know why I scream when companies who you know,
Speaker 3: like you know, we run a business here, sometimes vendors
Speaker 3: or whatever the people don't pay on time. It's because
Speaker 3: you know, I have employees to pay, right, so you
Speaker 3: got to make payroll or you know whatever. The what's
Speaker 3: the alternative if your maybe need to pay this thing
Speaker 3: called rent? Howard, I know you haven't paid that in
Speaker 3: a long time mortgage.
Speaker 1: You know, these are.
Speaker 3: Things that we more mere mortals are lucky to deal
Speaker 3: with in the case of a mortgage rent, you know,
Speaker 3: in the case of let's say somebody who's living on
Speaker 3: this little thing called a fixed income. Ryan, you talk
Speaker 3: what I need to find the exact stats on the
Speaker 3: number of people realize only on socier security, And it's
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 5: And it makes to me absolutely zero sense that the fraudster.
Speaker 4: Usually the fraudster.
Speaker 5: Would be the one who is going to take as
Speaker 5: much money quietly as they can, and then when their
Speaker 5: fraud is busted, they slink on to the next fraud.
Speaker 5: Like you don't sit there and throw yourself a parade
Speaker 5: and invite a lot of extra extra scrutiny. That yes,
Speaker 5: And but to your point, yeah, if I were if
Speaker 5: my son in law was worth a billion and a
Speaker 5: half dollars, then yeah, I probably would not be sweating
Speaker 5: my social Security check either.
Speaker 3: It's like, lady, are you really even relying on Social Security? Lady,
Speaker 3: you don't manage your own finances.
Speaker 5: Let's just call it for what it is when her
Speaker 5: social Security check comes or what the value of it is, right,
Speaker 5: why would she be weird?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: It would be weird. Right.
Speaker 3: It's like if you if you've got a billion and
Speaker 3: a half, you know, son in law, I would hope,
Speaker 3: at least where I come from, he's taking care of
Speaker 3: your bills.
Speaker 4: He's not helping her out if she's relying on her.
Speaker 3: That's actually a whole other meta commentary of which we
Speaker 3: I hope to get to one day.
Speaker 1: But mother in law, clearly he hates her.
Speaker 5: But while you look at that, let's jump real quick
Speaker 5: to E four because this is this is related to it.
Speaker 5: At the same time that you've got Howard Lutnick out
Speaker 5: there acting like the Republicans are never going to see
Speaker 5: another voter again, you have the Social Security Administrator acting
Speaker 5: one doing these same doing a very similar thing. He
Speaker 5: threatens that he's going to shut down the entire Social
Speaker 5: Security Administration and not send out checks because he's mad
Speaker 5: at a judicial ruling and he's trying to make a point.
Speaker 5: And the point was, Oh, this judge thinks that he
Speaker 5: can run Social Security better than I can. Let's let's
Speaker 5: let him try, and I'll go into the it SYSM.
Speaker 5: I'm just going to shut the whole thing down and
Speaker 5: that'll show him. So he's sort of threatening like malicious
Speaker 5: compliance with this judicial order.
Speaker 4: The judge cracked down.
Speaker 5: On him, and as you saw now that now he's saying,
Speaker 5: he says, IDTK says, I Am not shutting down the agency.
Speaker 5: But think about where the Republicans are, if they're at
Speaker 5: the point of their quote, is I am not shutting
Speaker 5: down the agency? Yeah, if you're explaining that you're not
Speaker 5: actually going to shut down Social Security Administration, you've somehow
Speaker 5: gotten yourself into weird political terrain.
Speaker 4: So yeah, something like half of elderly people.
Speaker 3: I've got it here, of those aged sixty and older,
Speaker 3: are quote very reliant on Social Security. There is at
Speaker 3: least I'm indication from twenty twenty that forty percent of
Speaker 3: older Americans depend entirely on Social Security. So what's the
Speaker 3: average Social Security payment?
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 3: Like one thousand dollars a month, thirty six thousand a
Speaker 3: year maybe, yes, okay, so twenty two thousand a year,
Speaker 3: that's I mean, that's not a lot of money right now.
Speaker 3: Not so if we got let's see what is the
Speaker 3: average Social Security payment in the US, that's it.
Speaker 4: That's that's what you got.
Speaker 3: Okay, So nineteen hundred dollars a month and they're supposed
Speaker 3: to make. Let's see, they're supposed to pay tax, at
Speaker 3: least some income tax on that. I guess if you're
Speaker 3: only making that year that you're not paying, you're not
Speaker 3: going to pay any income tax. You have to make
Speaker 3: rent food mortgage and or rent food prescriptions prescriptions because
Speaker 3: Medicare is not going to.
Speaker 4: Cover or astra medicare premiums. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: It's nineteen Oh my, I can't even imagine this one
Speaker 3: nine hundred and seventy six dollars.
Speaker 4: That is crazy.
Speaker 3: I mean that's after the cost of living adjustment that
Speaker 3: previously went into place from January of twenty two. I
Speaker 3: remember that was a nine percent increase on what there
Speaker 3: already was.
Speaker 4: So that's nothing, all right.
Speaker 3: So if you've got nineteen hundred dollars a month, that's
Speaker 3: effectively poverty. Which reason this exists is not to have poverty,
Speaker 3: you just have to think, like use your brain cells
Speaker 3: for having a billionaire commerce secretary going around telling people, Oh,
Speaker 3: if you miss your payment, that's not a big deal.
Speaker 3: The average American is a blown tire away from complete bankruptcy.
Speaker 3: Like five to six hundred dollars emergency payment. They don't
Speaker 3: have it. I mean that, and we're not even talking
Speaker 3: about retirement. People are like retirement, that's a dream. I
Speaker 3: don't even know what you're talking about. So if you
Speaker 3: put all this stuff together, I mean, you're looking at
Speaker 3: a situation where you're basically just taunting people to.
Speaker 4: Vote against you.
Speaker 3: I can't think again even the optics there, it's like
Speaker 3: this Roman style stage and look, no offensey all in guys.
Speaker 3: But you know Tamath and Friedberg are filthy rich. I
Speaker 3: know he's a billionaire. I don't know if he's a
Speaker 3: billionaire's probably a hundred million whatever. Yeah, he's doing fine.
Speaker 3: All right, So you know, you got three year billionaire
Speaker 3: and or billionaires on a stage talking about social Security
Speaker 3: and about how have you complained about that?
Speaker 4: You're a fraudt rate.
Speaker 3: Whereas any normal person who's ever been in somewhat financial distress,
Speaker 3: if you've ever even had a paycheck come a couple
Speaker 3: days late, it's a problem. It's a serious problem, especially
Speaker 3: when yeah, like we run a business.
Speaker 4: You know, we literally have to make payroll.
Speaker 3: You know, you or others probably at some time in
Speaker 3: your life at least had sometimes where somebody didn't pay
Speaker 3: you or whatever on schedule. They're like, dude, I need
Speaker 3: this money to pay my rent. The amount of financial
Speaker 3: stress that it can cause in your life is.
Speaker 4: Immense, and is that really a society you want to
Speaker 4: live in?
Speaker 3: With old people feeling that way, that's where the program
Speaker 3: exists in the first place.
Speaker 1: So I thought it was preposterous.
Speaker 3: I want to pair that though, with one of my
Speaker 3: favorite stories that I've seen in quite some time. Let's
Speaker 3: go and put this up there on the screen. This
Speaker 3: is the state of America right now. Door Dash and
Speaker 3: Klarna have signed a deal where customers can now choose
Speaker 3: to pay for food delivery in interest free installments. So
Speaker 3: you guys, remember Klarna, it's the buy now, pay later
Speaker 3: app that bnpl where this type of debt is actually
Speaker 3: very hard to track. We don't have exact numbers. What
Speaker 3: we do know is that this amount of debt is
Speaker 3: actually is not counted in overall debt figures, and it
Speaker 3: is estimated that there are tens of billions of dollars
Speaker 3: of Americans who are on these buy now, pay later
Speaker 3: plans which are not registering in credit cards. Right it
Speaker 3: doesn't actually show up as pure credit card debt even
Speaker 3: though it is money that you do. Oh well here
Speaker 3: with respect to Klarna, seeing this now applied not just
Speaker 3: to clothing and all of that, which is in my
Speaker 3: opinion bad enough, but now you've got it apply to
Speaker 3: food delivery, and it's.
Speaker 4: Just so perfect because.
Speaker 3: Food delivery itself is a luxury right, It's already one
Speaker 3: where it's not only a luxury good going back for forever,
Speaker 3: but it's also one where the door dash Uber eats
Speaker 3: and all that model is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's convenient, but you may not notice.
Speaker 3: Stuff on there is like three times more expensive, let's say,
Speaker 3: than it used to be. So between food inflation, delivery fees,
Speaker 3: process fees, etc. Everybody's the only people win in our
Speaker 3: door Dash and Klarna here. The restaurant they get what
Speaker 3: of whatever the actual order is, so they got to
Speaker 3: jack their prices up just to be able to make
Speaker 3: that the consumer is paying more for the food the driver.
Speaker 4: Let's not even get started on that.
Speaker 3: In terms of how much they're getting out of this
Speaker 3: entire thing, and now we're financing the order, that is
Speaker 3: like the worst, literally of all worlds. It actually also
Speaker 3: shows you how the promise of these apps was ease.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, ease, is great if you're rich, if
Speaker 3: you can afford it. Ease is you know, also comes
Speaker 3: with a cost. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Speaker 3: There's only trade offs. Well, now we see higher food
Speaker 3: prices for everybody. We see drivers and all that who
Speaker 3: don't even work for a company getting paid like the
Speaker 3: old pizza delivery guy, now solely reliant on contracts except
Speaker 3: you know, contract basis getting paid a middling.
Speaker 4: Amount or whatever per hour.
Speaker 3: And now the consumer who is ordering this has to
Speaker 3: pay or is in such financial distress over the increased
Speaker 3: prices of everything they have to finance this across time.
Speaker 1: And so as people know, I'm a fan of Dave Ramsey.
Speaker 3: This was his uh, this was his reaction to the
Speaker 3: to the story let's put E three please up on
Speaker 3: the screen.
Speaker 1: The picture of himself.
Speaker 3: There is something very horseshoe for me to see Dave
Speaker 3: reacting to a more perfect union tweet. So there they
Speaker 3: have more in common, you know, than you might think.
Speaker 3: But there is something about this which is just so dystopian,
Speaker 3: and we can make fun of it all we want,
Speaker 3: but also you and I know Ryan, this is going
Speaker 3: to be a very financially product, and that is the
Speaker 3: That is the true black pill of it all.
Speaker 5: And the only other thing I'd add to that is
Speaker 5: the waste, my god. Like the delivery order comes, it's
Speaker 5: the foods in a plastic bowl with a plastic lid,
Speaker 5: in two plastic bags, and then they put plastic utensils
Speaker 5: in there too. It's like, you send it to my home.
Speaker 5: You think I don't have a fork?
Speaker 1: Some places you have to check, and they still put
Speaker 1: it in there.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, all right, because the last thing they ever
Speaker 5: want is somebody complaining.
Speaker 4: The customer is always right. But yeah, it's like we
Speaker 4: have forks at home. Come on, everybody's gonna fork.
Speaker 1: This is where European sensibilities are starting to come in, right.
Speaker 4: Think about it, Think about the scale of it. I
Speaker 4: don't disagree with where is the all this is going
Speaker 4: to go?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what's the cost?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: The cost of the cost of the business is much higher.
Speaker 1: One person complains.
Speaker 5: Exactly and then Klarina like okay, they tell you that
Speaker 5: there's going to be no interests and yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, folks, how do you think Klarna makes money? If
Speaker 3: you think they're just giving this away to you for free. No,
Speaker 3: it's a non profit. They know you're not going to
Speaker 3: pay for it. Yeah, let me look up their revenue actually, right,
Speaker 3: so right.
Speaker 5: If you don't pay within thirty days, then they're going
Speaker 5: to then they start hitting you with the fees and
Speaker 5: the fines.
Speaker 4: And they're also.
Speaker 5: They're now introducing like these different two dollars service charges here,
Speaker 5: and they're one of their big things has always been,
Speaker 5: you know, no service charge, no fees like this is
Speaker 5: and now like guess what, like once they've got you hooked,
Speaker 5: they're going to find ways to add the junk fees
Speaker 5: in and you know what, go ahead and call the
Speaker 5: CFPP and complain. You're going to get a busy signal
Speaker 5: there because the people who are funding these types of
Speaker 5: companies made sure that the CFPP is not going to
Speaker 5: be around to check the abuses of companies like this.
Speaker 3: So here's what we've got. Klarna's revenue surged twenty four percent.
Speaker 3: This is just from two days ago. They're actually filing
Speaker 3: for IPO. They're going public gradulations. Congratulations, that's right. Media
Speaker 3: reports suggest they are aiming to raise more than a
Speaker 3: billion or fifteen bill between one, exceeding evaluation of some
Speaker 3: fifteen billion dollars. The BNPL market is projected to surpass
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty billion by twenty thirty two. Klarna's
Speaker 3: revenue just last year is two point eight one billion dollars,
Speaker 3: compared to a two point two billion dollars a year ago.
Speaker 4: It earned some twenty one million.
Speaker 3: Dollars, which actually kind of low, showing that they're investing
Speaker 3: a lot of that back into the product, some one
Speaker 3: cent per share compared to losses. So it's a profitable
Speaker 3: company and they are making two point two eight billion dollars. No,
Speaker 3: no fee, not based on you, because it's like the
Speaker 3: credit card, they know you're not going to pay it.
Speaker 3: I had no idea until I started listening to Dave.
Speaker 3: Seventy seven percent of people just don't pay their credit card,
Speaker 3: which is wild. I have no idea. I didn't you
Speaker 3: know there was an option. Just basically I was raised.
Speaker 3: But it's like, yeah, some people just don't just don't
Speaker 3: pay it, And you're like, oh, okay, so now it's
Speaker 3: oh so that's what. Yeah, so seventeen percent, you know, APR,
Speaker 3: and that stacks up and.
Speaker 4: It keeps going and it goes and it goes and
Speaker 4: it goes.
Speaker 3: And no wonder people are in thousands of dollars in
Speaker 3: credit card debt. So this whole by now pay later
Speaker 3: model like this, it's proven if they the product wouldn't
Speaker 3: exist if they didn't make any money.
Speaker 5: Yeah, people paid, if people paid on time, they wouldn't
Speaker 5: make two billion dollars a year. We have no fees,
Speaker 5: but we have two billion in revenue.
Speaker 4: How'd that happen? It's devastating, weird. It's not good.
Speaker 1: It's really it's bad.
Speaker 3: And it's just more about people, you know, sinking into
Speaker 3: a money hole thinking that they're getting something convenient. Yes,
Speaker 3: I think the consumer and all that should do due diligence,
Speaker 3: et cetera. But there's something just really gross, you know,
Speaker 3: about all of this being just so ever present. It's
Speaker 3: just never been There's never been an easier time in
Speaker 3: humandustry to get cripplingly in debt and ruin your life.
Speaker 3: I really believe that between you got hooked on credit
Speaker 3: cards and buy them now pay later, and up charges
Speaker 3: and food delivery fees and all of it's just like
Speaker 3: the entire ecosystem is just designed.
Speaker 1: To part you with whatever dollars that you happen to have.
Speaker 5: The VC is very cleverly got the whole country. You
Speaker 5: hooked on cheap delivery.
Speaker 4: True, very true.
Speaker 5: It was like basically free and subsidized right by this
Speaker 5: by the VC billions, and then just gradually they start
Speaker 5: turning the temperature up on the cost of it, and
Speaker 5: now you're you know, you're hooked on getting it delivered.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: Sorry, guys, we didn't have time to talk about the
Speaker 1: soda story.
Speaker 3: Really wanted to, but we went along with Glenn and
Speaker 3: I think that's probably a lot more beneficial to the
Speaker 3: audience and hearing about this. So don't worry about it.
Speaker 3: You're gonna get it all on Tuesday. We will see
Speaker 3: you all then
Speaker 5: With speak Pat