Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
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Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 2: Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 2: What do we have today, Crystal?
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do many interesting developments to talk to you
Speaker 1: this morning. So Trump. Yesterday while we were doing our show,
Speaker 1: he was giving an interview to CNBC's squawk Box and
Speaker 1: floated potential cuts to social Security. We'll talk to you
Speaker 1: about that. We've also have a Boeing whistleblower who was
Speaker 1: found dead. A lot of questions there as Boeing is
Speaker 1: facing increasing scrutiny over many failures. The US just dropped
Speaker 1: a thread assessment indicating that perhaps BB Netna, whose coalition
Speaker 1: could fall apart. What is behind that? BB also giving
Speaker 1: big interview over at Fox News loves that American English
Speaker 1: language media apparently new questions about the failures of the
Speaker 1: West in terms of Ukraine. Some really interesting stuff there
Speaker 1: we want to break down for you. We're also taking
Speaker 1: a look at Bill Maher revealing his dream ticket. Guys
Speaker 1: are going to love this one. Cyber say. You'll look
Speaker 1: at a new UFO report and what it reveals and
Speaker 1: what it does not reveal. Jake Johnston is an expert
Speaker 1: on Katie and he's going to join us to talk
Speaker 1: about what is unfolding there. So a lot to get
Speaker 1: to you this morning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really excited. So a couple of things. First
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Speaker 1: All right, Let's go and get to this interview that
Speaker 1: Trump gave to CNBC yesterday. A lot of interesting moments,
Speaker 1: but this one probably was the number one issue that
Speaker 1: caught people's attention. Trump floating the possibility of cuts to
Speaker 1: social Security.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to that one thing that I
Speaker 3: think that at least, the perception is that there's not
Speaker 3: a whole lot of difference between what you think we
Speaker 3: should do with entitlements or non discretionary spending and what
Speaker 3: President Biden is proposing. It's almost the third rail of politics.
Speaker 3: And we've got what a thirty three thirty four trillion
Speaker 3: dollar total debt built up, and very little we can
Speaker 3: do in terms of cutting spending. Discretionary is not going
Speaker 3: to help. Have you changed your outlook on how to
Speaker 3: handle entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid? It seems like something
Speaker 3: has to be done or else we're going to be
Speaker 3: stuck at one hundred and twenty percent of debt to
Speaker 3: GDP forever.
Speaker 4: So first of all, there is a lot you can
Speaker 4: do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and
Speaker 4: in terms of also the theft and the bad management
Speaker 4: of entitlements. Tremendous bad management of entitlements. This tremendous amounts
Speaker 4: of things and numbers of things you can do. So
Speaker 4: I don't necessarily agree with the statement. I know that
Speaker 4: they're going to end up weakening social security because the
Speaker 4: country is weak.
Speaker 1: God to end up weakening security because the country is week.
Speaker 1: So anyway you heard there. At the beginning, he says,
Speaker 1: there are many things we could do, you know, talking
Speaker 1: about cutting Then he goes on to talk about waste
Speaker 1: for auden abuse. So his campaign immediately recognized this was
Speaker 1: a bit of an issue, so put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. They sought to walk it back and clarify
Speaker 1: his stance, claiming that what he was really talking about
Speaker 1: was that cutting waste, he wasn't talking about cutting benefits.
Speaker 1: Of course, the Biden Harris team immediately jumped on it
Speaker 1: and sent out this tweet, Trump quote, there is a
Speaker 1: lot you can do in terms of cutting soci security
Speaker 1: and medicare. What did you make of all of this, Soger, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean it's an own goal by Trump because one
Speaker 2: of the most powerful things that he did in twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen was take the opposite view of everybody else on
Speaker 2: the stage on Entitlement's actually then one of the main
Speaker 2: I would say, changes that he brought to the mainstream,
Speaker 2: especially seeing for some Republican politicians embrace it since then.
Speaker 2: So I thought it was a big problem for him.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is a like he just talks, and
Speaker 2: it's clear too that people have been inside of his ear,
Speaker 2: and I think that's the biggest problem, and this was
Speaker 2: something we saw over and over again in the Trump
Speaker 2: administration is despike the rhetoric and frankly what I actually
Speaker 2: probably believe that Trump thinks himself. He still surrounded himself
Speaker 2: with the likes of Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow, who's
Speaker 2: now on Fox and Fox Business, I believe, and he
Speaker 2: has his own show. There's an entire think tank here
Speaker 2: like America First Principles, which is staffed of all of
Speaker 2: his former people. Very likely many of them will be
Speaker 2: going into the next administration headed by the former Rick
Speaker 2: Perry person. I mean, we know what these people believe.
Speaker 2: So this to me is about the waters that he's
Speaker 2: swimming in and the fact that he would you know,
Speaker 2: he's a politically astute man, so a slip up like this,
Speaker 2: I was. I thought it was a big mistake. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a big mistake on his part.
Speaker 1: I was frankly surprised. I guess it's a bit of
Speaker 1: a reminder to me of how stupid he can be
Speaker 1: and how much he can shoot himself in the foot.
Speaker 1: You know, things are not static, and the fact that
Speaker 1: he walked it back doesn't really make a difference because
Speaker 1: the Biden team has their soot. Now they have their
Speaker 1: talking point. They can go out, Hey, Trump said he
Speaker 1: wants to cut social security in Medicare. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: believe you know those expression or you're lying eyes whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they've got the sot in the clip that they want
Speaker 1: for the ads. They can roll this out and claim
Speaker 1: that he wants to cut social security in Medicare. And
Speaker 1: I don't think it's crazy to think that he would
Speaker 1: just given a Sager was saying the type of staffers
Speaker 1: that come in, the type of operation that is here
Speaker 1: in DC, the type of instincts I mean Republicans. This
Speaker 1: has been something they've been seeking for a very long time.
Speaker 1: So I thought that was That was a really interesting
Speaker 1: and I think significant moment given how important those programs
Speaker 1: are to so many Americans. There was another moment that
Speaker 1: may be more personally significant to Donald Trump, which is
Speaker 1: that he cannot seem to shut up about e Gen Carrol.
Speaker 1: He's already been hit with multi tens of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars in terms of Deaf Nation suit against her, and
Speaker 1: yet he still had more things to say about her
Speaker 1: in this interview. Unbidden listigalisms.
Speaker 3: People sometimes wonder you know how to prioritize, and you
Speaker 3: just keep king, Well.
Speaker 4: The legal issues aren't, Joe. The legal issues aren't legal issues,
Speaker 4: they're Biden issues. Biden put Fanny, beautiful Fanny, who's turned
Speaker 4: out to be now a corrupt district attorney. But in
Speaker 4: my opinion, they're almost all corrupt. All of the stuff
Speaker 4: that you see is weaponized government. The DA in New
Speaker 4: York is being run by the DOJ. They put their
Speaker 4: top person into the DA's office. All of this stuff,
Speaker 4: including the mts Bergdorf Goodman, a person I never I
Speaker 4: never met. I have no idea who she is except
Speaker 4: one thing I got sued. From that point on, I said, wow,
Speaker 4: that's crazy what this is. I got charged, I was
Speaker 4: given a false accusation and had a host a ninety
Speaker 4: one million dollar bonds and a false accusation. People aren't
Speaker 4: moving into New York because of the kind of crap
Speaker 4: they're pulling on me.
Speaker 1: So he you know, goes on there. About Egan Carroll,
Speaker 1: her legal team says they continue to monitor his statements
Speaker 1: because he's already had two defamation judgments.
Speaker 2: Goes gast him in ninety one billion dollars bond against him.
Speaker 2: This is going to cost him some serious money between
Speaker 2: that and the what is it, the business trial, the
Speaker 2: fraud trial that happened, the civil fraud trilogy, and look,
Speaker 2: you may think they're illegitimate, but like he's got to
Speaker 2: pay no matter what state of New York. Apparently he's
Speaker 2: already appealed the court. This is already leading to a
Speaker 2: liquidity crisis within him. Another thing I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: he saw is that the RNC actually defeated a measure
Speaker 2: which said that their specific campaign cash can be used
Speaker 2: for Donald Trump's legal expenses. So it is officially now
Speaker 2: open the possibility, on top of a new cleaning of
Speaker 2: the house currently happening over at the RNC, that's some
Speaker 2: of the money that actually be raised by the party
Speaker 2: could then be used for overall legal expenditure. So I
Speaker 2: think it was a very specific reason why Trump and
Speaker 2: his team went very, very hard to make sure that
Speaker 2: the Haley Barber kind of amendment inside the RNC was defeated.
Speaker 2: And this is exactly why, because politically, I think, I mean,
Speaker 2: at a certain point, I'm curious what you think. Personally
Speaker 2: obviously he shut up, but politically, like you know, every
Speaker 2: time he attacks the legal system and tarnishes or like
Speaker 2: goes after the people who are coming against him, it
Speaker 2: does build him up into sort of a martyr. So
Speaker 2: he isn't a bit of an impossible situation.
Speaker 1: A martyr with his base which he's already won.
Speaker 2: Right, So what.
Speaker 1: Does that really benefit him? I mean, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, I think, both politically and obviously from a
Speaker 1: legal perspective, he should probably shut up about Egene Carroll
Speaker 1: because there was not that much media coverage of it.
Speaker 1: The more that it's in front of people that a
Speaker 1: jury found it credible that she was actually raped, in
Speaker 1: that he had to pay these tremendous amounts because of
Speaker 1: that finding, you know, the the more that sinks in
Speaker 1: for the pub is kind of a streisand effect of
Speaker 1: a case that was on the back burder because there
Speaker 1: were so many other criminal cases and this was a
Speaker 1: civil suit, so it got a little bit less media
Speaker 1: fanfare around it. So no, I don't think it's good
Speaker 1: for him to continue to bring up Egen Carroll and
Speaker 1: remind people of the specifics of this case and what
Speaker 1: it was ultimately all about. One other interesting moment from
Speaker 1: this interview something we touched on yesterday. So back when
Speaker 1: Trump was in office, he seemed amenable to a potential
Speaker 1: TikTok ban. Obviously didn't actually get it any changes through,
Speaker 1: but he seemed amenable to it. Now he seems to
Speaker 1: have switched his position. He got asked about that with
Speaker 1: the NBC. Let's take a listen to how he explained it.
Speaker 4: You guys decide you make that decision, because it's a
Speaker 4: tough decision to make. Frankly, there are a lot of
Speaker 4: people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot
Speaker 4: of young kids on TikTok who who will go crazy
Speaker 4: without it. There are a lot of users. There's a
Speaker 4: lot of good and there's a lot of bad with TikTok.
Speaker 4: But the thing I don't like is that without TikTok
Speaker 4: you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to
Speaker 4: be an enemy of the people along with a lot
Speaker 4: of the media.
Speaker 5: Mister Perry, is TikTok.
Speaker 6: But do you believe that TikTok is a national security
Speaker 6: thread or not? Because if it is, and I believe
Speaker 6: that your the Emergency Powers Order that you had put
Speaker 6: in place at the time suggested that it was, was
Speaker 6: that not true.
Speaker 4: I do believe that. I do believe it, and we
Speaker 4: have to very much go into privacy and make sure
Speaker 4: that we are protecting the American people's privacy and data rights.
Speaker 4: And I agree, but you know, we also have that
Speaker 4: problem with others. You have that problem with Facebook and
Speaker 4: lots of other companies too. I mean, they get the information,
Speaker 4: they get plenty of information, and they deal with China
Speaker 4: and they'll do whatever China wants.
Speaker 1: So there he is trying to clean this ut talking
Speaker 1: about I mean, I think basically he realized that this
Speaker 1: was a total political dud because so many people use
Speaker 1: TikTok and you know, to take away from them would
Speaker 1: be a disaster. And I do think that the personal
Speaker 1: like vendetta against Mark Zuckerberg, I think lose large as well.
Speaker 2: I was talking with some friends, and I believe that
Speaker 2: this is one of the biggest and probably possibly most
Speaker 2: impactful elements outside of the election, of stop the Steal,
Speaker 2: because a huge basically, the high IQ version of stop
Speaker 2: the Steel is no, no, no, the you know, bamboo
Speaker 2: ballots and all that stuff didn't happen. It was vote
Speaker 2: by mail, and vote by mail was because of Zuckerbucks.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the hell is.
Speaker 2: It all goes back to filthrapic donations by the Zuckerberg
Speaker 2: Priscilla Chand Foundation or whatever Priscilla Zuckerberg Foundation the gave
Speaker 2: to organizations that were putting out the vote and the
Speaker 2: democratic thing tanks. The Time magazine article is also a
Speaker 2: very very critical part of the high Iqot stop the
Speaker 2: Steel thesis. For those who don't know, it's basically a
Speaker 2: story about how democratic billionaire spent a lot of money
Speaker 2: trying to bring the election for Biben.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean politics. It's in America, guy, I'm.
Speaker 2: Saying, it's not like I does it bother me? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not illegal, it's not even honestly nefarious because they
Speaker 2: openly admit it in their five oh one c threes.
Speaker 2: And by the way, if you want to do something
Speaker 2: about that, there's this thing called Citizens United that we
Speaker 2: could all overturn change and we can take politics spending
Speaker 2: out of politics. But you know, do you really want
Speaker 2: to do that or do you also want your bucks,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Your billionaires to side.
Speaker 2: Let's all just be really honest about what happened. It
Speaker 2: is true that the forces of capital and culture definitely
Speaker 2: were against Trump, by for the most part in the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty election. Okay, but a significant amount a significant
Speaker 2: amount specifically of technology, which again comes back to this.
Speaker 2: This has now been retconned into this major thing about
Speaker 2: how it's Zuckerberg, specifically the zuck Bucks which drove out
Speaker 2: the vote, and that goes to like a Facebook thesis
Speaker 2: about voting, which has now spun into hating Facebook more
Speaker 2: than they hate TikTok.
Speaker 1: And I do significantly. Facebook is such a bastion for conservatives,
Speaker 1: Like conservative content does extraordinarily well on Facebook. So that's
Speaker 1: part of what is amusing.
Speaker 2: It's not none of this is coherent, Like it has
Speaker 2: to do money, and it has to do with like
Speaker 2: this general like you know, opposition to Google and to Facebook,
Speaker 2: which you know, I means they're not wrong, like people
Speaker 2: on the heads of those companies are democrats and all
Speaker 2: of that. But again, like it's about a much bigger
Speaker 2: structural thing if you actually want to dig into it,
Speaker 2: which most of these people don't. I think that genuinely
Speaker 2: is the major impetus behind this. Trump himself hates Zuckerberg
Speaker 2: with a passion that is like genuinely difficult to describe.
Speaker 2: As a result of this and a lot of this
Speaker 2: traces back to Molly Hemingway and her book, who wrote
Speaker 2: a whole thing about how big tech stole the election.
Speaker 2: So this is the thesis. It's been very very mainstream
Speaker 2: now at this point. If people are interested and want
Speaker 2: to go and like, look at the genesis, and I
Speaker 2: do think that the TikTok stuff is a result of that.
Speaker 2: Not to mention, Trump very recently made peace with the
Speaker 2: Club for Growth, the Club for Growth who he had
Speaker 2: a bit of a spat with him in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: They're cool now. The major major backer of Club for Growth,
Speaker 2: of jeff yass the guy who owns a twenty one
Speaker 2: billion dollar steak inside of by Dance, recently hired Kelly
Speaker 2: and Conway. He's been spending a lot of time down
Speaker 2: at mar A Lago. So if you combined personal corruption,
Speaker 2: hiring people around him, political convenience, and target because TikTok
Speaker 2: Band's main beneficiary would be Facebook and or Google, then
Speaker 2: it's like the perfect storm for Trump to reverse face
Speaker 2: and let's be on. I mean, this is a man
Speaker 2: who has no problem just like flip flopping on a dime.
Speaker 2: He has no shame and you know, in many respects,
Speaker 2: this is his fault. Like back in twenty nineteen he
Speaker 2: tried to do it, he was so incompetent that it
Speaker 2: wasn't able to actually get done, and they didn't follow through.
Speaker 2: And now you know, he is in a situation where
Speaker 2: Biden or at least whatever this House bill is trying
Speaker 2: to do the exact same thing Trump did, but then
Speaker 2: he can't. He's opposing it because it's Biden, and now
Speaker 2: there's all these other conditions attach.
Speaker 1: Do you think that his position changes the Republican party
Speaker 1: orientation towards TikTok because obviously they take a lot of
Speaker 1: cues from No.
Speaker 2: Actually, there is a lot more anti TikTok sentiment as
Speaker 2: I understand it in the House. But that said, as
Speaker 2: I said yesterday, I think this bill will pass the House.
Speaker 2: I do not think it will pass the Senate. The
Speaker 2: Senate has, first of all, I mean, you know, structurally
Speaker 2: crystal like a single senator can hold something up, whereas
Speaker 2: a single House member cannot. Rand Paul is already basically
Speaker 2: against the bill for a lot of the libertarian reasons
Speaker 2: that we discussed. There's enough Democrats also, who I don't
Speaker 2: think would be on the record who want to sign
Speaker 2: something like this, and then there's all these procedural ways
Speaker 2: you can kill something because they also have all their
Speaker 2: own TikTok bills and they have all these other considerations
Speaker 2: they would do. So I read this analysis too from
Speaker 2: a lot of the Capitol woll watch this morning. Most
Speaker 2: people don't think the sing is a chance to hell
Speaker 2: in the Senate. Okay, I don't think this will be
Speaker 2: a major problem, all right.
Speaker 1: At the same time, there's some fascinating new analysis that
Speaker 1: we wanted to dig into for you about the way
Speaker 1: that non white voters are basically voting more like white people.
Speaker 1: There is a racial realignment that is occurring that is
Speaker 1: showing up increasingly frequently in the polls, which a great
Speaker 1: Financial Times calumn with a bunch of associated charts that
Speaker 1: really broke this down and it was very interesting. Put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen, this first piece, and keep
Speaker 1: this up for a minute. So this tracks that racial realignment,
Speaker 1: as I said, with non white voters, especially non college
Speaker 1: non white voters, shifting away from Democrats and toward Republicans.
Speaker 1: So you can see that blue line is the Democratic
Speaker 1: share of those voters over time, and the red line
Speaker 1: is the Republican share of those voters over time. One
Speaker 1: thing Zaccer that I noted about this particular chart is
Speaker 1: you actually had some of this realignment occurring during the
Speaker 1: Bush years. There was a trend towards closing that gap
Speaker 1: that ended and reversed under Obama. I think partly, you know,
Speaker 1: because he was the first black president, and I do
Speaker 1: think that that forestalled something that was almost an inevitability
Speaker 1: that as the memories of the Civil Rights era faded,
Speaker 1: that younger black and brown voters would vote more in
Speaker 1: line with what their actual political preferences are, meaning that
Speaker 1: previously you had a lot of conservative Black and Latino
Speaker 1: voters who were nonetheless voting Democratic even though the party
Speaker 1: was at odds with some of their especially socially cultural
Speaker 1: conservative positions. And now with those memories of the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights era fading, they are beginning to vote more in
Speaker 1: line with what their actual political views and ideology, especially
Speaker 1: again on culture, really reflects well.
Speaker 2: I mean, the next graft guys, if we could please
Speaker 2: put that up on the screen, really reflects what you're
Speaker 2: talking about. So, for example, and this has been I
Speaker 2: think the biggest story I've been trying to hammer this
Speaker 2: home now for years. White college educated voters are the
Speaker 2: ones who are swinging most towards Democrats. People who are
Speaker 2: boomers sixty five plus also increasing. And just so everybody knows,
Speaker 2: this is not necessarily a bad thing for the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party because boomers and white college educated people they love
Speaker 2: to vote. Now, white non college educated slightly, moving Republican
Speaker 2: Asian Americans slightly. Then you look at the overall age groups,
Speaker 2: there's been major swings. The biggest swings amongst the eighteen
Speaker 2: to twenty nine demographic, amongst Hispanics and specifically amongst Black Americans.
Speaker 2: The Black American swing away from Democrats is some net
Speaker 2: minus twenty five percent. Again, I do not want to
Speaker 2: overstate this, but amongst younger blacks specifically and men as well,
Speaker 2: we are seeing increasing less identification with the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Now will this will these people vote? Maybe? Statistically probably not.
Speaker 2: Will this have a lasting impact on our politics? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think so. And the reason why is because increasing
Speaker 2: non party identification is now really the mainstream crystal. We
Speaker 2: saw this previously, where both the Democratic and Republican identification
Speaker 2: are near all time lows. Independent is actually nearly double
Speaker 2: the individual party identification for both Democrats and for Republicans.
Speaker 2: So a lot of these black voters, Hispanic voters. I
Speaker 2: wouldn't call them Republicans per se in terms of a
Speaker 2: vote read no matter what, or vote blue no matter
Speaker 2: who contexts, but I would say that they're up for
Speaker 2: grabs in a way that they have not been in
Speaker 2: a generation since the nineteen sixty four era, which really,
Speaker 2: you know, the whole Southern strategy and all that completely
Speaker 2: changed the US electoral map, and I think we're in
Speaker 2: the midst of that. Florida becoming a red state is
Speaker 2: a sign. Ohio becoming a red state is a sign,
Speaker 2: Georgia becoming a blue state, Arizona becoming or at least
Speaker 2: a purple state. Arizona, like our battleground maps from twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, are totally different from the way that we
Speaker 2: you and I are going to be watching this election
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true. But the next week went up
Speaker 1: on the screen because this was really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: This is something I hadn't really thought of. But this chart.
Speaker 1: The headline here says, we're used to the idea that
Speaker 1: young people lean more towards Democrats than the old, but
Speaker 1: the opposite is actually true of black Americans. The younger
Speaker 1: you are, if you are a black, black American, the
Speaker 1: less likely likely you are to identify with the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Now you'll notice that trend line for Republicans. It's sin
Speaker 1: sed up a little bit among young people. But it's
Speaker 1: more like you're saying, Sager, they're not switching from Democrat
Speaker 1: to Republican. It's more that they're less of these die hard, partisan,
Speaker 1: committed Democrats and more likely to be independents. And there
Speaker 1: is somewhat of an uptick among Republican support, although based
Speaker 1: on this chart it is relatively minimal. And you know,
Speaker 1: I have to say, like, obviously I'm no fan of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, but I think it's I think it
Speaker 1: is a healthy thing for Democrats to reckon with the
Speaker 1: fact that they cannot take any demographic group of their
Speaker 1: base for granted, because the minute that you know, you
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, well, they're just going to be with us.
Speaker 1: It really doesn't matter what, you know, what we do.
Speaker 1: The minute that that group is going to get absolutely
Speaker 1: none of their wishes and priorities met. So in that way,
Speaker 1: I actually think it's very healthy that you have this
Speaker 1: reassessment of the relationship with the Democratic Party, and it's
Speaker 1: more of like, Okay, well, what have you done for
Speaker 1: me lately?
Speaker 2: And that's what I hope and I wish the next
Speaker 2: one please. This, in my opinion, is like one of
Speaker 2: the most impactful graphs that you're ever going to see
Speaker 2: on American politics for those who are just listening. It
Speaker 2: says that the income divide in US politics is almost closed,
Speaker 2: and the richest now favorite Democrats over Republicans. It shows
Speaker 2: how the poorest third of Americans, spiking in the year
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty, which makes sense by a near plus twenty
Speaker 2: five percent margin, preferred Democrats, while the richest third, at
Speaker 2: again a near twenty percent margin, supported Republicans. Since then,
Speaker 2: the gap has roughly begun to narrow. It slightly went
Speaker 2: back to where things were in the Bush era, but
Speaker 2: from Obama really onwards, there has been a major swing
Speaker 2: of white college educated Republicans, who of course are going
Speaker 2: or sorry, white college educated people who are of course
Speaker 2: going to disproportionately make up the richest third of Americans
Speaker 2: swing in their Democratic preference. A lot of this is culture,
Speaker 2: but a lot of this is four year college degree.
Speaker 2: So while we can look at this in income, I
Speaker 2: really think it comes back to education, education, education, the
Speaker 2: poorest third of Americans increasingly becoming much more Republican over time.
Speaker 2: Let's be clear, they still do not prefer the Republicans
Speaker 2: on net when. Part of this is why I still
Speaker 2: think that Democratic coalition is very strong, is not only
Speaker 2: do they have a net preference amongst the poorest third,
Speaker 2: but now they have all of these rich people who
Speaker 2: love to vote, and they have all of their interests.
Speaker 2: You know that the Republican Party used to be very
Speaker 2: reliably you know, have them come out to the ballot box,
Speaker 2: while the middle third, middle class slightly more Republican, but
Speaker 2: still net fifty to fifty. And this comes back to
Speaker 2: a big problem in the Republican Party. I mean, people
Speaker 2: want to roll the tape and kind of look at
Speaker 2: what I would used to say back four or five
Speaker 2: years ago. I'd be like, look, inevitably, the Republican Party
Speaker 2: like they have to service these new working class voters.
Speaker 2: But I don't think it's true. I do think that
Speaker 2: culture is frankly enough, you know, to get you to
Speaker 2: net fifty, which if you can have billionaire donors and
Speaker 2: you can have white working classical vote for you, why
Speaker 2: wouldn't you do that. So, I mean politically, the current strategy,
Speaker 2: the obsession amongst Republican elites Crystal is we got to
Speaker 2: win back these suburban voters. It's not how do we
Speaker 2: service and further, a lot of these new poorer Americans
Speaker 2: who support us change our views maybe on cutting entitlements
Speaker 2: or unions or i mean minimum wage, all these other healthcare.
Speaker 2: They're all sorts of different issues. But this is kind
Speaker 2: of the trap. Now if a smart man would say that,
Speaker 2: they would adopt those and they would kind of accelerate
Speaker 2: that trend and make the richest people in the country democrats,
Speaker 2: so that you have the cultures, you know, you have
Speaker 2: the cultural capital and capital actual capital together and then
Speaker 2: you can use like a populist revolution against them. But
Speaker 2: that's not really what's happening. I mean, we talk a
Speaker 2: lot about here. It's class de alignment more than anything.
Speaker 2: And I also think gender plays a huge role because
Speaker 2: John Burne Murdock, the guy who wrote this, he didn't
Speaker 2: put this in here, but he wrote a previous colum
Speaker 2: which I did a monologue here. Huge portions of what
Speaker 2: we're discussing. Amongst those black and Hispanic numbers, it's almost
Speaker 2: all men, specifically black men. Like if you break out
Speaker 2: the black men and Hispanic men, we're talking about like
Speaker 2: net forty nine, net fifty and actual ties in some
Speaker 2: of those groups. So it's gender, a lot of it
Speaker 2: is income, and most of it comes down to socio
Speaker 2: cultural values. A lot of it is not really economic
Speaker 2: at this point.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and that makes sense because look, the parties
Speaker 1: do have differences on economics, there's no doubt about. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were just showing Trump, you know, floating cuts to entitlements.
Speaker 1: This is a long time Republican project. I think Democrats,
Speaker 1: even though they in the past, not very recent you know,
Speaker 1: quite recent pass under Obama Biden, they were also open
Speaker 1: to these cuts. At this point, they're pretty locked in.
Speaker 1: They're not going to cut social security and medicare unlikely
Speaker 1: to improve social security and Medicare, but they have really
Speaker 1: closed the door on cuts anytime soon.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: You see this in the little things that the Biden
Speaker 1: administration has done, the little cut, you know, the little
Speaker 1: cuts to prescription drug prices, the going after junk fees.
Speaker 1: You see it significantly in terms of labor and anti
Speaker 1: trust in particular. So I don't want to minimize our race,
Speaker 1: that there are real differences between the parties, but we
Speaker 1: are also in an era where both parties are fully
Speaker 1: locked into the neoliberal economic paradigm. So in that way,
Speaker 1: yes there are differences between them, those differences matter, they're significant,
Speaker 1: but the overall economic paradigm is the same, and so
Speaker 1: it's not like you have two competing economic visions, which
Speaker 1: in another time period, during the New Deal era, you
Speaker 1: did have two competing economic visions, and that's when you
Speaker 1: had you know, significant class based interest represented within the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. So now many of the battles are around sure,
Speaker 1: and it's also, as we've talked about before soccer, in
Speaker 1: an era when you know, people have little faith that
Speaker 1: either political party is going to be able to significantly
Speaker 1: deliver for them from a material perspective, the thing that
Speaker 1: it then makes sense for them to vote on is
Speaker 1: like who's with me, you know, who's with my cultural tribe.
Speaker 1: And so that's why you see not a class realignment,
Speaker 1: which would indicate that you know, working class people were
Speaker 1: all shifting towards one party, but a class de alignment,
Speaker 1: meaning that your income status is not really predictive anymore
Speaker 1: of which party you're going to affiliate. With because you know,
Speaker 1: it's more about those cultural interests than it is about
Speaker 1: those class or economic interests. I think that's a terrible
Speaker 1: state of affairs in terms of our politics, but I
Speaker 1: do think that's a reality of where we are and
Speaker 1: where we continue to have.
Speaker 2: I've been there for you know, we have been here before.
Speaker 2: I like to think about history and kind of think
Speaker 2: about how this was reolved previously. So I think the
Speaker 2: most analogous political era to where we are right now,
Speaker 2: it's called the Age of Acrimony, which was the eighteen seventies,
Speaker 2: the post reconstruction Rutherford B. Hayes, like the Bargain up
Speaker 2: until post Gilded Age, in the progressive era, where at
Speaker 2: that time, whether you were rich or poor in the South,
Speaker 2: you were voting for the Democrats because you hated black
Speaker 2: people and you wanted to preserve Jim Crow. And whether
Speaker 2: you were rich or poor in the North, you were
Speaker 2: voting Republican because you hated the South and your ancestors
Speaker 2: or your father or whatever fought against them in the
Speaker 2: Civil War. And yeah, you know, it turns out that
Speaker 2: word aligned ourselves with the Vanderbilts, the Wideners, and all
Speaker 2: these other rich people. But so be it. We got
Speaker 2: to resolve this question. Now, what a lot of people
Speaker 2: forget is we had some of the highest voting rates
Speaker 2: in the entire country at that time. And the reason
Speaker 2: why is people really hated each other. I mean the
Speaker 2: South they hated the North, and the North they hated
Speaker 2: him right back. And they wanted to preserve at least
Speaker 2: some in Massachusetts and others, preserved rights for blacks and others.
Speaker 2: And there was also big questions around capital, which the
Speaker 2: South hated because they didn't have any and the infrastructure.
Speaker 2: But the way that we resolved that was the progressive
Speaker 2: era with Teddy Rose and with Woodrow Wilson. The problem
Speaker 2: is we had to wait for a genius like Teddy
Speaker 2: Roosevelt to really come in and to completely flip the
Speaker 2: Republican coalition and lawmaking on their side. And he had
Speaker 2: to use his own personal will to actually change some
Speaker 2: of those questions. But he brought in a ton of
Speaker 2: new voters, and then Woodrow Wilson readopts this progressivism and
Speaker 2: actually changes the relationship of government to the people. But
Speaker 2: you know, don't get me wrong, it takes a long time.
Speaker 2: I mean, the era I just talked about was some
Speaker 2: forty years of genuine insanity in the US, and something
Speaker 2: we'll talk about later in the show is called the
Speaker 2: the Peter Turchin End of America thing. But what he
Speaker 2: really points to is that the Gilded Age is still
Speaker 2: the most analogous period to where we are right now.
Speaker 2: And I have a personal fascination, you know, with that
Speaker 2: time period. But more and more I think about it,
Speaker 2: I can't help but see not only the income parallels,
Speaker 2: but the haughtiness and the arrogance of the American elite
Speaker 2: at that time is exactly like it is today. It's
Speaker 2: the same. And it took a First World War to
Speaker 2: destroy them. I mean, it took a long and you know,
Speaker 2: the horrible and bloody war to actually change that consensus.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The last thing that I'll say about these charts
Speaker 1: that I think everyone should remember is that we can
Speaker 1: have these assumptions and politics that partisan identification and certain
Speaker 1: trends are just like immutable, like they are what they
Speaker 1: are and it's just always going to be that way,
Speaker 1: which is such a crazy way to think about politics
Speaker 1: when you consider, like it wasn't very long ago, West
Speaker 1: Virginia was a locked in democratic state, right and Colorado
Speaker 1: was like leaned Republican and was definitely up for grabs.
Speaker 1: Georgia was hard right, hard read. No Democrats diod a chance,
Speaker 1: although if you go back a little bit further, Republicans
Speaker 1: didn't stand a chance. So these things can't be taken
Speaker 1: for granted as just like you know that this trend
Speaker 1: is what it is and it's never going to change,
Speaker 1: or that black voters are always got one hundred percent
Speaker 1: identified with the Democratic Party and going to be locked in.
Speaker 1: Things change, and they shift, and people are dynamic, they
Speaker 1: change their minds, and you know, different generations have different
Speaker 1: approaches to things. So if we could actually end by
Speaker 1: putting that first chart a five back on the screen,
Speaker 1: because there's one last thing I wanted to note about
Speaker 1: that first chart. So a lot of the realignment racial
Speaker 1: realignment that you see reflected in this chart where Republicans
Speaker 1: almost close the gap, a lot of that is based
Speaker 1: on twenty twenty four polling. So a lot of it,
Speaker 1: see the very last piece where they really come together.
Speaker 1: You see the trends prior to that, but a lot
Speaker 1: of it where they really come together is based on polls,
Speaker 1: not actual votes. And so that's going to be one
Speaker 1: of the big stories of this election cycle is whether
Speaker 1: or not this chart and the way it looks here
Speaker 1: comes anything close to reality, or whether Democrats are able
Speaker 1: to stem the tide a bit. And I think the
Speaker 1: difference in that is, you know, the difference of who
Speaker 1: was going to be the next part of the United
Speaker 1: States right there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you you were absolutely right the big I
Speaker 2: mean the big flashing red sign. And this is funny
Speaker 2: because I was tweeting about this a little bit yesterday.
Speaker 2: I had a couple of Democrats that I was chatting
Speaker 2: with and they're like, hey, you can take all these
Speaker 2: you know, non voters that you want. These people is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: they may like you, they may have Instagram reels, but
Speaker 2: they hate Democrats. They're really going to come out to
Speaker 2: vote because our new white people, our rich white people.
Speaker 2: Those people love voting more than anything else and nothing
Speaker 2: gets them as jazzed up as a planned parenthood sticker
Speaker 2: on the back of their car. And I mean, I
Speaker 2: can make fun of them, but it's true. They vote,
Speaker 2: They vote their interests, and they organize. They have a
Speaker 2: lot of money, they have a lot of cultural capitals.
Speaker 2: So I wouldn't bet against them either. I mean, those
Speaker 2: you know in a certain sense, like you know, don't
Speaker 2: don't screw with suburban white women, like they will come out.
Speaker 2: They will come out to vote more than anybody else.
Speaker 2: Let's move on to the next part here. This is
Speaker 2: about Boeing. Been wanting to cover this story for quite
Speaker 2: some time, and then some shocking, shocking news broke yesterday.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen. A Boeing
Speaker 2: whistle blower was actually found dead here in the United
Speaker 2: States in what is being claimed is an apparent suicide.
Speaker 2: John Barnett. He had previously worked for Boeing for thirty
Speaker 2: two years. He retired in twenty seventeen and since then
Speaker 2: has spent his life being a whistleblower against the Boeing corporation.
Speaker 2: In fact, in the days before his death, he was
Speaker 2: giving evidence in this lawsuit against the company. He was
Speaker 2: actually found dead in Charleston. The real thing that mister
Speaker 2: Barnett had been whistleblowing about is that he previously worked
Speaker 2: as a seven eighty seven Dreamliner quality manager at the
Speaker 2: North Charleston plant, and he had specifically told BBC and
Speaker 2: other outlets that under pressure, workers had been deliberately fitting
Speaker 2: substandard parts to aircraft on the production line, and he
Speaker 2: also said he had uncovered serious problems with their oxygen systems,
Speaker 2: meaning that only one in four breathing mass would not
Speaker 2: work in an emergency. So soon after then starting work
Speaker 2: at that South Carolina company, became very concerned, eventually concerned
Speaker 2: enough to leave and to cooperate with law enforcement, with
Speaker 2: federal whistleblowers. He was an integral part actually of the
Speaker 2: FAS examination back in twenty nineteen of the problems that
Speaker 2: were happening over at Boeing, and was giving testimony in
Speaker 2: their most recent investigation into what the hell happened with
Speaker 2: Alaska Airlines. In the days before his death, he actually
Speaker 2: gave an interview to TMZ with some pretty shocking claims.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 7: One, this is not a seven three seven problem. It's
Speaker 7: a bowling problem. And I know the FA's going in
Speaker 7: and they've done due diligence and inspections to assure that
Speaker 7: the door plugs of the seven three seven are installed
Speaker 7: properly and the fasteners.
Speaker 8: And door properly.
Speaker 7: But my concern is what's the rest of the airplane,
Speaker 7: what's the rest of condition of the airplane? And the
Speaker 7: reason my concern for that is back in twenty twelve,
Speaker 7: Boeing started removing inspection operations off there jobs, so it
Speaker 7: left the mechanics to buy off their own work. So
Speaker 7: what we're seeing with the door plug blowout is what
Speaker 7: I've seen with the rest of the airplane, as far
Speaker 7: as jobs not being completed properly, inspection of steps being removed,
Speaker 7: issues being ignored. My concerns are with the seven three
Speaker 7: seven and the seven eight seven because those programs have
Speaker 7: really embraced the theory that quality is overhead and non
Speaker 7: value added. Well, I'd taken a team of four inspectors
Speaker 7: to Spirit Aerosystems to inspect the forty one section before
Speaker 7: they sent it to Charleston, and we found three hundred defects.
Speaker 7: Some of them were significant that needed engineering intervention. When
Speaker 7: I returned to Charleston, my senior manager told me we
Speaker 7: had found too many defects and he was going to
Speaker 7: take the next trip. So the next trip he went on,
Speaker 7: he took two of mine and when they got back
Speaker 7: they were given accolades for only finding fifty defects. So
Speaker 7: I pulled that inspector's side.
Speaker 4: That's a good.
Speaker 7: Spirit really clean up their act that quick. That don't
Speaker 7: sound right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they certainly didn't. And in fact, just yesterday, Crystal,
Speaker 2: there was a new report from the FAA that they
Speaker 2: caught Spirit Aerosystems Mechanics using liquid don dish soap as
Speaker 2: lubricant for that seven thirty seven Max door seal instead
Speaker 2: of you know, the properts livert lit to use. That's
Speaker 2: how they're cutting costs over there in Boeing, and that's why,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's been a lot of suspicion around mister
Speaker 2: Barnett's death because you can see he was pulling no
Speaker 2: punches and this isn't this is potentially a catastrophic event
Speaker 2: for Bowing. Bowing his most important aviation company in the
Speaker 2: United States, arguably in all of the West, huge military
Speaker 2: supply contractor, et cetera. They are now facing a Justice
Speaker 2: Department investigation, criminal investigation in this matter. And you know,
Speaker 2: Alaska really took every It took the I think of
Speaker 2: everybody's eyes on what's going on with this company and
Speaker 2: how deep the rot really goes inside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. There's also news this morning that a
Speaker 1: six week audit by the FAA of Boeing's production of
Speaker 1: the seven thirty seven max Jet found dozens of problems
Speaker 1: throughout the manufacturing process, according to a slide presentation that
Speaker 1: The New York Times was able to review. They initiated
Speaker 1: the examination after that door panel flew off. The agency
Speaker 1: announced the audit had found multiple instances in which Boeing
Speaker 1: and the supplier Spirit Aerosystems failed to comply with quality
Speaker 1: control requirements, including the company had failed thirty three of
Speaker 1: eighty nine audits during that examination conducted by the FAA.
Speaker 1: And just to speak to you, the claims that this
Speaker 1: whistleblower was in the middle of making when he was
Speaker 1: found dead in his vehicle in a parking lot, some
Speaker 1: of these claims had really been backed up by evidence,
Speaker 1: according to the BBC. Boeing of course denied all his assertions.
Speaker 1: We should put that out there. But in twenty seven
Speaker 1: they did a review by the FAA and it did
Speaker 1: uphold some of his concerns. It established the location of
Speaker 1: at least fifty three non conforming parts in the factory
Speaker 1: was unknown and were considered lost. Boeing was ordered to
Speaker 1: take remedial action. That's relevant because he had said that
Speaker 1: they were pulling parts out of the scrap heap that
Speaker 1: had been rejected as non conforming and using them to
Speaker 1: save time and cut costs, etc. So the fact that
Speaker 1: these non conforming parts were missing were indicative of his
Speaker 1: story being accurate. On the oxygen cylinders issue, the company
Speaker 1: said in twenty seventeen it had identified some oxygen bottles
Speaker 1: received from the supplier that were not deploying properly, but
Speaker 1: denied that any of them were actually fitted on the aircraft.
Speaker 1: But of course he had indicated that as many as
Speaker 1: one in four oxygen masks were unlikely to deploy because
Speaker 1: they were defective upon testing. So, yeah, the fact that
Speaker 1: he was in the middle of making these complaints, making
Speaker 1: his voice heard, and is found dead is extraordinary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really suspicious. And again, let's put this up there.
Speaker 2: This is just days after that. The US Justice Department
Speaker 2: is now opening a criminal inquiry into Boeing. This is
Speaker 2: tied to the Alaska Airlines incident specifically. Boeing also said
Speaker 2: told a Senate panel it cannot find record of the
Speaker 2: work done on the Alaska plane. Really interesting. Can't find
Speaker 2: any record, and I just want to take it back
Speaker 2: to all of the I want to take it back
Speaker 2: to the rot of this company because spirit Aero Systems
Speaker 2: used to be a part of Boeing and then it
Speaker 2: was sold off by Boeing in the pursuit of shareholderism
Speaker 2: and of profit. So now what's happening now, as they
Speaker 2: understand that they're in deep shit. Boeing is now trying
Speaker 2: to rebuy Spirit Error Systems. And now they're in a
Speaker 2: major crisis of the company because they're facing a Justice
Speaker 2: Department investigation. And I mean, the craziest part of all
Speaker 2: of this is that not even a few years ago
Speaker 2: they were found liable and nearly faced a murder prosecution
Speaker 2: for killing somewhat several hundred people in a faulty software update.
Speaker 2: All of the fixes we're supposed to have been put
Speaker 2: in place down a new CEO, new corporate practices. But
Speaker 2: this tells you, like, it's not the new CEO problem,
Speaker 2: it's that the company doesn't know how to build an
Speaker 2: airplane anymore. And that can't get over it. Because this
Speaker 2: is the backbone of US manufacturing, high tech manufacturing specifically,
Speaker 2: it's one of the pride and joys of the US economy.
Speaker 2: And as usual, you know, over the last seventy seventy
Speaker 2: or forty thirty forty years, now, so it's the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: It turns out that it's all just a financial fakery.
Speaker 2: They hired Niki Haley on the board, buying back tens
Speaker 2: of billions of dollars worth of their own stock. The
Speaker 2: stock is doing great, you know, before this, even after
Speaker 2: the you know, crazy incident, that's all they cared about.
Speaker 2: They never cared about this, and then it all just
Speaker 2: comes to head when a freaking door plug blows out
Speaker 2: of the middle of the airplane. Lucky that it didn't
Speaker 2: happen when they were cruising altitude and several people would
Speaker 2: have been sucked.
Speaker 5: Out and killed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there are two major societal root cause
Speaker 1: trends that led to these terrifying, horrifying and in certain instances,
Speaker 1: deadly mistakes. Number one is, as you're discussing the financialization
Speaker 1: of Boeing, which is something we see across companies, what
Speaker 1: does that mean? It means rather than caring about having
Speaker 1: the best engineers and the best product and making sure
Speaker 1: Dan well sure that it is safe and ready to go,
Speaker 1: Instead they were more focused on catering to the giant
Speaker 1: casino that is Wall Street. So and that is not
Speaker 1: specific to Boeing. But obviously, in the instance of Boeing,
Speaker 1: the results are absolutely horrifying. Number two is a widespread
Speaker 1: trend across democratic and Republican administrations in the neoliberal era
Speaker 1: of defanging regulatory bodies and handing off some of their
Speaker 1: key functions to industry itself. So over successive administrations, including
Speaker 1: some very recent day regulation under the Trump administration, the
Speaker 1: FAA has basically handed off a lot of its key
Speaker 1: functions to relying on companies like Boeing to basically self certify. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds insane, but I'm not kidding. This
Speaker 1: is the direction that many government agencies have gone in
Speaker 1: where they're not even really capable of doing the sort
Speaker 1: of quality control and safety inspections that would be required
Speaker 1: to ensure that the public is kept safe when they're
Speaker 1: flying on one of these jets. It's handed off to industry.
Speaker 1: So you have the fox watching the henhouse in this
Speaker 1: instance and many others, And so that's how you end
Speaker 1: up with a situation like this where you know, so
Speaker 1: many things, such sloppy work. If the testimony of this whistleblower,
Speaker 1: this now deceased whistleblower, is accurate, you know, just total
Speaker 1: shoddy safety standards, commitment to the bottom line speed saving
Speaker 1: costs above else, and you know, we see where this
Speaker 1: leads to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're exactly right, Crystal. Hey, everybody, we
Speaker 2: were taking the show and there were some major breaking
Speaker 2: news that just came out. Some trans at least excerpts
Speaker 2: from the transcripts of the Special Counsel that interviewed Joe
Speaker 2: Biden and alleged that he at times had forgotten the
Speaker 2: name of his son and Moore has now had and
Speaker 2: been released ahead of Robert Hurst's testimony the Special Council
Speaker 2: before Congress later on today. We wanted to take some
Speaker 2: time out of the show just to bring you some
Speaker 2: of the excerpts from that transcript, because, frankly, they are
Speaker 2: extraordinary and they do back up. Mister Hurst claims, let's
Speaker 2: go and put this up there on the screen, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to read directly from the transcript, specifically from
Speaker 2: the time when Biden appears to have forgotten the year
Speaker 2: that his own son bo had died. He says, well,
Speaker 2: several eyes, I don't know, this is twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: that area the Special Council. Yes, sir, mister Biden, remember
Speaker 2: in this timeframe, my son is either been deployed or
Speaker 2: is dying. And so it was. And by the way,
Speaker 2: there were a lot of people at the time when
Speaker 2: I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me
Speaker 2: to run at this point, except the President. I'm not
Speaker 2: and not a mean thing to say. He just thought
Speaker 2: that she had a better shot of winning the presidency
Speaker 2: than I did. And so I hadn't at this point,
Speaker 2: even though I'm at penn, I hadn't walked away from
Speaker 2: the idea that I may run for office again. But
Speaker 2: if I ran again, I'd be running for president. And
Speaker 2: so what was happening? Though? What month did bo die?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Was it May thirtieth? A White House lawyer? Twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: unidentified male speaker. Twenty fifteen, mister Biden. And this is
Speaker 2: the key quote. Was it twenty fifteen he had died?
Speaker 2: Unidentified male speaker? It was May of twenty fifteen, Biden?
Speaker 2: It was twenty fifteen, his lawyer. I'm not sure of
Speaker 2: the month, but I think that was the year. Another person,
Speaker 2: that's right, mister President Biden. And then what's happened in
Speaker 2: the meantime is that and Trump gets elected in November
Speaker 2: of twenty seventeen, he asked, unidentified unidentified male speaker, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. All right, so then why do I have
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen here, White House Counsel. That's when you left
Speaker 2: office January of twenty seventeen. Yeah, okay, but that's when
Speaker 2: Trump gets sworn in January, right, mister Bauer, right, correct, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: and in twenty seventeen bo had passed. And this is personal, so,
Speaker 2: I mean, Crystal, this is crazy. Also, they haven't released
Speaker 2: the line from this, but this is your and mind
Speaker 2: favorite one so far. Mister Biden needed to be nudged
Speaker 2: to recall the name of the federal agency that takes
Speaker 2: custody of official records for the National Archives, or that
Speaker 2: a fax machine is the name of the device that
Speaker 2: transmit images of documents over phone. Minds ironic, because he's
Speaker 2: so old, he probably did use fax machines, you know
Speaker 2: the name, even if we have outlived them.
Speaker 1: I have used a fax machine.
Speaker 2: I've never used that.
Speaker 1: But listen, I was saying, sometimes my brain feels a
Speaker 1: little bit like this, but I do feel confident I
Speaker 1: could always recall what the name of a fax machine was.
Speaker 2: I mean let's be real here, like this is crazy,
Speaker 2: here's yeah.
Speaker 1: So a few things. First of all, you recall that
Speaker 1: the president took great umbrage at the idea that he
Speaker 1: could not recall when his son had passed. He also
Speaker 1: took great umbrage at the notion that the Special Council
Speaker 1: had even brought this up. Well, it's clear from the
Speaker 1: transcript the Special Council didn't actually bring it up. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden himself brought it up. And it is entirely accurate
Speaker 1: to say he was unable to recall, even within a
Speaker 1: few years, the date of when his son died. Not
Speaker 1: only that, in the same exchange, you see him struggling
Speaker 1: with the dates of when he was vice president. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: you guys who are watching are probably political junkies like
Speaker 1: we are. I mean, those dates of two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight and twenty sixteen are permanently etched in our heads
Speaker 1: as these seminal political moments of Barack Obama getting elected
Speaker 1: and then Donald Trump getting elected and being sworn in,
Speaker 1: Not in twenty not in twenty sixteen, not in November
Speaker 1: of twenty seventeen, but in January of twenty seventeen, when
Speaker 1: he's sworn in, so to be really struggling to grapple
Speaker 1: with this basic timeline is really something. And then you
Speaker 1: know the line about he couldn't recall what a fax
Speaker 1: machine was. You know, there's a lot of coworld reading
Speaker 1: the New York Times accounting of this transcript. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of cope in there about, well, they didn't talk
Speaker 1: about all the times when he was lucid, and they
Speaker 1: didn't talk about the fact that he seemed to have
Speaker 1: this really great recall of the layout of his own house,
Speaker 1: which is like, okay, to be impressed with that, But
Speaker 1: you know, I think it speaks to the fact that
Speaker 1: you can have moments like President Biden did in the
Speaker 1: State of the Union, where he more or less had
Speaker 1: it together and seem, you know, energetic and lucid, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And then you also have times, and anyone who has
Speaker 1: elderly loved ones, friends, family and whatever can relate to this.
Speaker 1: You also have times that are very foggy and where
Speaker 1: you're struggling with basic name, states, places, et cetera. So
Speaker 1: I think the transcript is entirely consistent with that understanding
Speaker 1: of where the president is mentally, and that understanding, which
Speaker 1: is shared with the American people think it also soccer
Speaker 1: underscores the some of the predictions we were making about
Speaker 1: how the impact of the state of the Union, which
Speaker 1: was you know, built so highly by the punnic class,
Speaker 1: is unlikely to be stained because for every instance that
Speaker 1: you have like that where he seems like, all right,
Speaker 1: he's still got some you know, gas in the tank,
Speaker 1: there are instances like what's represented in this report where
Speaker 1: he's struggling, he's fumbling, he's mixing up names, he's mixing
Speaker 1: up countries, presidents of countries, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, and it's not an exaggeration. Again,
Speaker 2: I'm going to read directly from the transcript. He says,
Speaker 2: do you have any idea where a material would have
Speaker 2: been before it was moved into your garage? Biden? Well,
Speaker 2: if it was twenty thirteen, then he goes, when did
Speaker 2: I stop being vice president? Someone says twenty seventeen, So
Speaker 2: it goes, so if I was vice president, it must
Speaker 2: have come from that stuff. That's all I can think of.
Speaker 2: Then he later on is asked, my problem is I
Speaker 2: never knew where any documents were coming from or who
Speaker 2: packed them, just that I got them delivered to me.
Speaker 2: So at this stage two thousand and nine, am I
Speaker 2: still vice president? Someone whispers to him. He goes, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: I mean again, you and I both know. I'm like, yeah, dude,
Speaker 2: he became vice president in January of two thousand and nine,
Speaker 2: when Barack Obama took the oath of office. So yes,
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine, you were the vice president.
Speaker 2: Twenty seventeen, we all know when Barack Obama left office
Speaker 2: and Donald Trump assumed office. Like, how do you not
Speaker 2: recall that immediately off the top of your head. I
Speaker 2: had previously seen Joe Scarborough defend Biden and be like,
Speaker 2: I loved my mother more than anyone else. And if
Speaker 2: you immediately asked me, I may not know the time,
Speaker 2: the exact year that she had died. I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: first of all, that's concerning. Second, I don't believe you.
Speaker 2: But third is what it becomes clear here. It is
Speaker 2: a pattern of being clearly mixed up. More so, it
Speaker 2: is backed up entirely by multiple public moments. Crystal of
Speaker 2: confusing the President of France with Mitrand, who is now dead.
Speaker 2: He has been gone for so long and no longer
Speaker 2: the president confusing the names and the leaders on top
Speaker 2: of people that he used to consort with or his
Speaker 2: times in the past, Like this is all a much
Speaker 2: bigger pattern in his public life, which is now confirmed shockingly,
Speaker 2: honestly in an official transcript by the Department, who again
Speaker 2: concluded they could not prosecute him because no jury would
Speaker 2: believe that like a doddering old man, you know, willfully
Speaker 2: was trying to hold secrets inside of his garage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And you know, there's a lot expressed
Speaker 1: that we can see in these bits of the transcript
Speaker 1: that we have in front of us about he has
Speaker 1: no idea how this is what he's saying, no idea
Speaker 1: how these boxes came to get there, no idea what's
Speaker 1: in those boxes, doesn't even recall the documents that are
Speaker 1: in these boxes, et cetera. And so I think that
Speaker 1: plays into the Special Council's recommendation not to charge him,
Speaker 1: based on the fact that you know, a jury would
Speaker 1: be like this man is confused about all kinds of things,
Speaker 1: including how these boxes apparently ended up in his garage.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I'll say here is that you know,
Speaker 1: the American people have legitimate concerns about what's contained in
Speaker 1: this Special Council report, how that reflects upon his ability
Speaker 1: to do the job. These are you know, understandable, legitimate
Speaker 1: based on their experience of the president and at this
Speaker 1: point in his life, and his team is also sort
Speaker 1: of communicating to the public that they also don't have
Speaker 1: confidence in his ability to assuage these concerns, which is
Speaker 1: why they keep him hidden so much. You know, it's
Speaker 1: one thing, Yes, he did the State of the Union
Speaker 1: off of a teleprompter. It was okay for all things considered,
Speaker 1: but you know, free form interviews with difficult difficult interview,
Speaker 1: worse giving press of ails, et cetera. We know the
Speaker 1: way that they have really sheltered and shielded him from
Speaker 1: those exchanges. There has not been a commitment yet to
Speaker 1: even debate with Donald Trump. I don't that may be
Speaker 1: a smart strategy, but in terms of democracy, they really
Speaker 1: owe it to the American people for them to get
Speaker 1: a sense of where he really is, not just on
Speaker 1: one night, but overall a more complete picture in general.
Speaker 1: And listen, I also want to say, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people that despise Donald Trump, and even if
Speaker 1: he's consistently as sort of befuddled as he comes off
Speaker 1: at times in this transcript, may still say I don't care,
Speaker 1: like it's not a great situation, but I'm still going
Speaker 1: to vote for Joe Biden. But they really do owe
Speaker 1: it to the American people to make him more available
Speaker 1: so that that determination could really be made.
Speaker 2: Yep, I totally agree. But yeah, it'll be up to
Speaker 2: the American people. What I just can't believe is that
Speaker 2: they actually do want to run him for four actually
Speaker 2: five more years remaining in the office.
Speaker 1: It is what it is, all right, guys, some very
Speaker 1: interesting news vis a vi bb Netnya Who's so the
Speaker 1: US has released in intelligence assessment. This happened just yesterday,
Speaker 1: which shed some insight I think into some of the
Speaker 1: political maneuvering, maybe less so the actual reality of the
Speaker 1: Netnyaho coalition and its strength in Israel. Let's go and
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. So this intelligence assessment,
Speaker 1: called the threat Assessment, raised doubts about whether or not
Speaker 1: net nyah who could stay in power, as the CIA
Speaker 1: director said a hostage deal was the most practical way
Speaker 1: to halt, at least temporarily, the war in Gaza. That
Speaker 1: threat assessment says the net NYA, whose right wing coalition
Speaker 1: quote may be in jeopardy. Here's specifically the language in
Speaker 1: the report. They say, distrust of Netna who's ability to
Speaker 1: rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its
Speaker 1: already high levels before the war, and we expect large
Speaker 1: protests demanding his resignation and new elections quote a different,
Speaker 1: more moderate government is a possibility. The report also predicted
Speaker 1: that Israel would have trouble achieving its stated goal of
Speaker 1: destroying Hamas. Quote Israel probably will face a lingering armed
Speaker 1: resistance from Hamas for years to come, and the military
Speaker 1: will struggle to neutralize hamasa's underground infrastructure, which allows insurgents
Speaker 1: to hide, regain strength and surprise Israeli forces. Sosager. It's
Speaker 1: interesting that this was included in this report, obviously a
Speaker 1: very intentional inclusion. Now, whether or not that right wing
Speaker 1: coalition is in fact in jeopardy is, you know, as
Speaker 1: a real question mark. There's definitely a lot of fishers
Speaker 1: there that have come out into the public. The public
Speaker 1: definitely does not support Nanyaho, although a significant amount at
Speaker 1: least feel like he should stay. They shouldn't have new
Speaker 1: elections until asked after the war is concluded, which is
Speaker 1: why he wants the WOR to continue basically indefinitely. So
Speaker 1: there are some real fishers and problems there for him,
Speaker 1: which we've spoken about before. But what I took more
Speaker 1: note of is just the fact that this was this
Speaker 1: sort of like shot across the bow from the Biden
Speaker 1: administration to express their displeasure with Phoebe and also positions
Speaker 1: their critique of Israel as just being about this one
Speaker 1: person versus these sort of broader issues, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: reflect the fact that you know, the entire security cabinet,
Speaker 1: whether they're a quote unquote moderate or right wing like Nannyah,
Speaker 1: who are more or less basically united, as is the
Speaker 1: public behind this all at assault on a Godza strip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Odie and I their threat assessment. It is
Speaker 2: a political document, like people should be very clear about that.
Speaker 2: I read most of it yesterday just it was interested.
Speaker 2: I like to see what the CIA and all them
Speaker 2: been cooking up in terms of their fakery on Ukraine.
Speaker 2: That's why I was reading through. But I read through
Speaker 2: the Israel thing and actually didn't strike me because I
Speaker 2: hadn't thought of it in the political way that you are.
Speaker 2: But it should have been obvious is this is the
Speaker 2: bipartisan or sorry, this is the democratic like emerging consensus.
Speaker 2: We're like, well, I read a bb and now the
Speaker 2: government has this fake intelligence. Maybe you know that his
Speaker 2: coalition and all that have been undermined. And I don't know, Crystal.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I think there's no doubt he's tremendously unpopular.
Speaker 2: At the same time, it's March twelfth, like it's been
Speaker 2: a long time since October seventh, he's still there. This
Speaker 2: lasted longer than Liz trusts, and she did not nearly
Speaker 2: as bad as Bibi, right, So if the political will
Speaker 2: was there, I feel like something would happen. I'm not
Speaker 2: as confident that Netanya, who is as weak, you know,
Speaker 2: as people may think, especially if there's ongoing on hostilities.
Speaker 2: Obviously why it's his direct interest to continue to do so.
Speaker 2: But it is noteworthy for the political point.
Speaker 1: That yeah, I see it as part of the rest
Speaker 1: of the pr campaign that we've been tracking. The Oh
Speaker 1: we're really concerned about civilians. We're going to do you
Speaker 1: know a humanitarian aid drop that you killed five people
Speaker 1: and barely contains any aid, or we're going to build
Speaker 1: over multi months with one thousand plus US soldiers this
Speaker 1: temporary port when we could just pressure Israels who actually
Speaker 1: let in the trucks that are a mass at the
Speaker 1: border right now, and by the way, pressure them to
Speaker 1: stop the bombing. But we don't want to actually change
Speaker 1: our policy. We just want to change the way the
Speaker 1: Democratic base feels about that policy. So, you know, putting
Speaker 1: out this this is like the next iteration of all
Speaker 1: those leaks early on about how Biden was having really
Speaker 1: tough conversations with net Yahoo. This is like the next
Speaker 1: iteration of that. It comes after Kamala Harris said the
Speaker 1: words cease fire, saying temporary ceasefire, so not the lasting
Speaker 1: ceasepire that you know, the majority of the American public
Speaker 1: wants to see, but co opting that language. It comes
Speaker 1: after very significantly actually inviting Benny Gantz, a rival of
Speaker 1: net NA who's an also member of the Security Cabinet,
Speaker 1: to come visit with the Vice President and also with
Speaker 1: Jake Sullivan over the objections of net Nyaho. So again,
Speaker 1: I think they're trying to posture for the American public
Speaker 1: and especially for the Democratic base that they get it.
Speaker 1: They care about Palestinians, they don't like this bad guy,
Speaker 1: this bad Apple Net Yahoo, even though the problems go
Speaker 1: far beyond him. So that's the sort of vein that
Speaker 1: I'm seeing this in as part and parcel with the
Speaker 1: rest of the pr push to change the imaging and
Speaker 1: branding of the US complicity and the genocide without actually
Speaker 1: changing the US policy of being complicit in the genocide.
Speaker 1: At the same time, Bib Natanyahu himself notably gave a
Speaker 1: big interview over to Fox and Fox News, Fox and Friends,
Speaker 1: where he made some interesting comments, including some that are
Speaker 1: very disconnected from reality, about how Americans feel about Israel's
Speaker 1: assault on Goz At this point, let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: I'm telling you that we have to take care of
Speaker 8: Israel's security in our future, and that requires eliminating the
Speaker 8: terrorist army. That's a prerequisite for victory. That victory is
Speaker 8: important not only for us, it's important for the civilized
Speaker 8: world as we're finding these barbarians. And let me tell
Speaker 8: you something. You know, I've seen these recent polls were
Speaker 8: eighty two percent of Americans support Israel and its battle
Speaker 8: against Kamas. Eighty two percent. That's been constant over the
Speaker 8: last five months. So they recognize that our battle is
Speaker 8: your battle, and our victory is your victory. And I'm
Speaker 8: sure that deep down everyone in Washington understands that.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure where he's getting his numbers from.
Speaker 1: That eighty two percent of Americans support Israel and have
Speaker 1: consistently supported Israel since October seventh. Let's go and put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. Just put some actual numbers
Speaker 1: to it. This was quoted by Ken Roth. He says
Speaker 1: more than half of Americans state Washington should hold weapons
Speaker 1: shipments to Israel until it stops the assault on Gaza.
Speaker 1: According to a new poll, many in the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: want Biden to use some of the US considerable military
Speaker 1: aid to Israel as a lever. We've been tracking this,
Speaker 1: of course, Saga. I mean overwhelming numbers in favor of
Speaker 1: a ceasefire, especially among the Democratic based, huge, huge numbers
Speaker 1: in favor of a ceasefire. Now we have a majority
Speaker 1: saying hey, we should not be shipping weapons until they
Speaker 1: stop this assault on Gaza. So I don't know where
Speaker 1: his eighty two percent number is coming from, but it
Speaker 1: is incredibly fanciful and disconnected from reality. In addition, you know,
Speaker 1: he continues to use this framing like, oh, our war
Speaker 1: is your war and you know, pulling us into this. Listen,
Speaker 1: in a sense, he's right because of the way that
Speaker 1: we've supported it. But you know, the idea that this
Speaker 1: has some broader global stakes outside of the conflict between
Speaker 1: Israel and Gaza. I mean, that's the other piece that
Speaker 1: has always been objectionable to me.
Speaker 2: Well, that is certainly what he would like, because he
Speaker 2: wants to pawn everything off after the day of the
Speaker 2: war ends, onto us truly, and for us to pay
Speaker 2: for it, as we are already doing with this new
Speaker 2: Gaza peer and thousands of American soldiers that will be involved.
Speaker 2: His dream is for us to occupy Gaza and for
Speaker 2: him them to just you know, disappear. I guess Scott free. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: there's also no Palestinian state. Interesting, you know, how they
Speaker 2: get everything that they want. He really struck this also
Speaker 2: later on in the interview Crystal, where he frames it
Speaker 2: not even in terms of a US war, but how
Speaker 2: this is good for Islam, this is good for Muslims
Speaker 2: in the region, this is good for Gosins. This is
Speaker 2: very Iraq war esque, like trying to make a coalition
Speaker 2: of the willing and a liberation of the country itself.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: The future of the Middle East, the future of many Muslims,
Speaker 8: the future of Gosins is dependent on our victory, and
Speaker 8: we don't intend to get up. We're going to achieve
Speaker 8: this victory, I hope with the solid support of the
Speaker 8: American government as we've had up to now, and I
Speaker 8: hope it continues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there you go. It's now. It's a war
Speaker 2: for gossins, It's war of liberation. A lot. There's just
Speaker 2: so many rings to Iraq, you know, throughout all this,
Speaker 2: from the response to not understanding how the international community
Speaker 2: is responding to the lack of day after you know,
Speaker 2: plan or even if they do have a plan, and
Speaker 2: whether they're going to execute it or not. So I
Speaker 2: don't know. I mean rhetoric like this, it's clearly built
Speaker 2: for somebody to be clear, it's obvious why it's going
Speaker 2: on Fox News. I wish just for once, he would
Speaker 2: do an interview in his own country with his own media,
Speaker 2: because they would actually press him.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 2: Even though Israeli societies buy and large behind the war,
Speaker 2: they're much more you know, they're much more willing to
Speaker 2: ask real questions, ask a hostage question or something. These
Speaker 2: people ask him nothing. It's just like sounding off on
Speaker 2: Fox News. Ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's also, I mean, it contributes to the increasingly partisan
Speaker 1: valance of how Americans feel about the state of Israel.
Speaker 1: And I mean, Nano has been long been a part
Speaker 1: of affiliating that is, the you know, the cause of
Speaker 1: Israel and Zionism directly with the Republican Party. This goes
Speaker 1: back to Obama when he was very opposed Netna, was
Speaker 1: very opposed to the Iranian nuclear deal. He comes over
Speaker 1: the objections of Obama, speaks to Congress, and you know
Speaker 1: it's from there that you see this trend developing. And
Speaker 1: now you know, you see very clearly the overwhelming majority
Speaker 1: of the Democratic base wildly disagrees with Biden's unconditional support
Speaker 1: of Israel policy. Quite a lot of independence do, a
Speaker 1: not insignificant number of the Republican base does. But Republican
Speaker 1: elected politicians are almost completely locked up, with basically the
Speaker 1: exception of like Thomas Massey in support of effectively the
Speaker 1: Biden policy, even though they posture is like, oh, we
Speaker 1: want to go even further, like there's much further that
Speaker 1: you could really go. But there was another moment in
Speaker 1: this interview that was quite noteworthy, not because it's new,
Speaker 1: but because it's somewhat new for Americans to be grappling
Speaker 1: with the fact that the Israelis, especially led by bib Nanya,
Speaker 1: who have no interest in a Palestinian state, which remember,
Speaker 1: has been the official stated goal and policy all the
Speaker 1: United States of America for literally decades now. And you
Speaker 1: know here he is saying, listen, no one wants a
Speaker 1: Palestinian state. Me least of all, let's take a listen
Speaker 1: to that.
Speaker 8: Ninety nine to nine Knnestant members that's over ninety percent
Speaker 8: supported my policy of opposing a Palestinian state being rammed
Speaker 8: down Israel's throat. That's what we had the other day.
Speaker 8: So when people say, well, we have to have this,
Speaker 8: you know, talk with Nataniel because he's holding back the
Speaker 8: prospect of this wondrous peace for the Palestinian state. You
Speaker 8: don't have an issue with me. You have an issue
Speaker 8: with the entire people of Israel. They're really united as
Speaker 8: never before and uniting to destroy Hamas and ensure that
Speaker 8: we don't have another Palestinian terrorist state like the one
Speaker 8: they had in Gaza that could threaten the of the
Speaker 8: state of Israel. That's something that the people of Israeli
Speaker 8: are united behind, and for what I can see, most
Speaker 8: Americans support that as well.
Speaker 1: So he's saying, listen, in Israel, we're united. We don't
Speaker 1: want a Palestinian state. Now, he wildly overstates the case,
Speaker 1: because you know, when you actually pull israelis there is
Speaker 1: still some support among the Israeli public for an eventual
Speaker 1: Palestinian state. Can put this up on the screen. This
Speaker 1: was the latest pull I could find. The question also
Speaker 1: is quite specific to the moment, so I thought that
Speaker 1: was good too. Poulterers asked, you support or oppose the
Speaker 1: notion that as part of a deal to end the war,
Speaker 1: which will include long term military quiet guarantees from the
Speaker 1: US and a peace agreement with Arab states such as
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, Israel should agree to the establishment of a
Speaker 1: Palestinian state. Fifty one percent said no, But you do
Speaker 1: have thirty six percent who say yes. So it's not
Speaker 1: like it's one hundred percent uniform. But Bibi is making
Speaker 1: it as clear as Dayan said repeatedly, many many times
Speaker 1: now to the US public directly, I do not want
Speaker 1: a Palestinian state. I will stand in opposition to a
Speaker 1: Palestinian state. It has been my lifelong goal to block
Speaker 1: a Palestinian state. And so that part of the particular
Speaker 1: US fantasy about the Israeli government position and the idea
Speaker 1: that the problem in terms of thwarting a peace deal
Speaker 1: is solely on the Palestinian side, that particular fantasy. He
Speaker 1: is insisting on getting rid of, wiping clean, shooting down,
Speaker 1: and it's pathetic and humiliating for the Biden administration that
Speaker 1: they can't really acknowledge or gropple with that, and that
Speaker 1: he feels perfectly comfortable to go on American television and
Speaker 1: put that in their face that like, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that's your goal, but I don't care. I am completely
Speaker 1: opposed to it, always had been and always will be.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's the issue is that it's like a fantasy version
Speaker 2: of Israel that lives in their head, not the real
Speaker 2: one that most people are grappling with. That's also why
Speaker 2: some of the public polling such diverges with a lot
Speaker 2: of the rhetoric that we see out of the administration.
Speaker 2: But eventually they will have to grapple with reality. You know,
Speaker 2: the war will come to the end one day and
Speaker 2: then what you know, what exactly are we going to do.
Speaker 2: We'll see yep. Indeed, let's move on to the next part.
Speaker 2: There's some really shocking and just terrible footage that is
Speaker 2: coming out of Ukraine. There's been footage now that has
Speaker 2: been verified of Ukrainian border guards who actually caught several
Speaker 2: men of conscription age who are attempting to flee the country.
Speaker 2: Each of them had paid ten thousand euros to actually
Speaker 2: escape Ukraine. Ukrainian border guards caught them and beat them
Speaker 2: actually on camera. We can place some of that that
Speaker 2: you can see here. I mean, it's just really brutal treatment,
Speaker 2: as you guys can see, like being dragged out, thrown
Speaker 2: on the ground, being beaten up, being harangued there at
Speaker 2: the border, and it is just illustrative of the desperate
Speaker 2: conditions that a lot of the people in the country
Speaker 2: now feel as the war continues to not doing very well,
Speaker 2: and I think that, you know, this reality is beginning
Speaker 2: to sink in for a lot of people. The CIA
Speaker 2: director actually just yesterday testified he's like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: without usaid, we're going to see a lot more of
Speaker 2: the falls of Atvika. But the irony is is that
Speaker 2: the reason that we have to get more aid. Is
Speaker 2: that then maybe in twenty twenty five they can change
Speaker 2: the status quo. I mean the status quo. You can't
Speaker 2: change the fact that you have a population that doesn't
Speaker 2: particularly want to fight. As evidenced here, most of those
Speaker 2: who did want to fight are either dead or now maimed.
Speaker 2: The average age is some forty eight to fifty years old.
Speaker 2: In the Ukrainian military, they've been unable to adopt Western
Speaker 2: style tactics successfully. What they can do is to employ
Speaker 2: a massive amount of artillery ammunition. Here's the problem. We
Speaker 2: literally don't produce even one third the entire west of
Speaker 2: what Russia can do in a single year. I mean,
Speaker 2: all of the odds are stacked against them, and the
Speaker 2: fundamentals of the conflict have been basically the same from
Speaker 2: day one f Sixteen's Crystal As you'll remember. The only
Speaker 2: thing that I think more AID would do now at
Speaker 2: this point is have the Ukrainians be in such a
Speaker 2: risky position that they would get US involved. And we're
Speaker 2: starting to see some of this. The checks, the French,
Speaker 2: the polls are all trying to normalize now the idea
Speaker 2: that NATO troops should have to go in and on
Speaker 2: the ground, which of course is full blown World War three.
Speaker 2: That's their plan what they have right now.
Speaker 1: Otherwise, I mean, they have no pay, they don't have
Speaker 1: a shot prayer victory. So yeah, I mean we've seen
Speaker 1: the way that there's been this escalation from the beginning
Speaker 1: of the Ukraine War of all these red lines that
Speaker 1: were drawn about you know what we would and wouldn't send,
Speaker 1: and we just keep you know, walking by them, walking
Speaker 1: by them, walking by them, and eventually you get to
Speaker 1: the point where the only thing left is all right,
Speaker 1: you need troops because you don't have enough fighting men
Speaker 1: left or willing. So I guess we're going to come
Speaker 1: in and do that as well, which is why you
Speaker 1: really can't just hand wave away some of the things
Speaker 1: that Emmanuel Macron in particular has been saying. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean this video is I think it's really important
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. Number one, it underscores the
Speaker 1: fact that even though I'm sure that if you ask
Speaker 1: Ukrainians like, do you want to keep, you know, in
Speaker 1: theory fighting and reclaim your land, You're going to get
Speaker 1: an overwhelming yes. But when you ask Ukrainians, are you
Speaker 1: personally at this point willing to risk your life in
Speaker 1: service of that goal. The answer is increasingly.
Speaker 3: Know.
Speaker 1: It also underscores the fact, you know, these men had
Speaker 1: paid a significant amount of money to try to avoid
Speaker 1: the draft, and this was something that we had talked
Speaker 1: about before, the fact that you know, those there is
Speaker 1: a significant corruption problem in Ukraine. So those who have
Speaker 1: been able to pay, who have the money, have buy
Speaker 1: and large been able to escape fighting in the war.
Speaker 1: And so it's left to the poor and those without
Speaker 1: the means or the political connections who were sent into
Speaker 1: this meat grinder, and increasingly you're running out of those
Speaker 1: as well. So as much as the you know, military
Speaker 1: weapon issue is acute for Ukraine, the manpower issue is
Speaker 1: at least as acute for Ukraine. I think that is
Speaker 1: part of what comes out in this city.
Speaker 2: I've said this too. I saw it personally. I was
Speaker 2: in Budapest and in Vienna. They're Ukrainians everywhere. It's a joke,
Speaker 2: like the tour guides joke about it. They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: by the luxury hotels, They're like, look at all these
Speaker 2: Ukrainian plates. There was a joke in Vienna that every
Speaker 2: strip club in the city has been packed full for
Speaker 2: two years by all these rich Ukrainian dudes who don't
Speaker 2: want to fight and are filthy rich. I mean a
Speaker 2: certain point, you can't judge them because they paid their
Speaker 2: way out and they don't want to. But it's more
Speaker 2: one of those where it's like, really, this is such
Speaker 2: an open secret in all of Europe, and yet here,
Speaker 2: especially in Central Europe, but over here, like we have
Speaker 2: a fantasy version of this conflict. You also see the
Speaker 2: continued descent is completely crushed no matter where it comes from.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen. The recent
Speaker 2: target of Ukrainian propaganda is the Pope, who has provoked
Speaker 2: outrage for saying that Ukraine should have the courage to
Speaker 2: quote raise the white flags and end the war with Russia.
Speaker 2: I shall also be clear, he didn't actually specify that
Speaker 2: Ukraine should be the one, but he said that people
Speaker 2: should have the courage to quote raise the right flag
Speaker 2: and to end the war in order to stop the suffering,
Speaker 2: to which the Ukrainian Foreign minister said, our flag is
Speaker 2: a yellow blue one. This is the flag by which
Speaker 2: we will live, die, and we will prevail. We shall
Speaker 2: never raise any other flags. And the Ukrainian President Vladimir
Speaker 2: Zelenski said that the Pontiff was quote engaging in virtual
Speaker 2: mediation and that they support us with the prayer and
Speaker 2: their beliefs. But this is indeed what a church with
Speaker 2: the people is, not twenty five hundred kilometers away somewhere,
Speaker 2: mediation between someone who wants to live and who wants
Speaker 2: to destroy you. We've also seen, let's put this next
Speaker 2: one up there, that they are now Ukrainian propaganda accounts
Speaker 2: that are tarnishing the Pope in a Russian made flag,
Speaker 2: as if that's going to be a popular strategy all
Speaker 2: across Europe and for a lot of the people who
Speaker 2: have been calling for peace in Ukraine. But it just demonstrates,
Speaker 2: Chris how unhinge the discourse remains, and it's just a
Speaker 2: basic concept floated there by the Pope and he was
Speaker 2: like almost immediately crushed. You actually see some of this
Speaker 2: too whenever he talks about Israel and gods as well.
Speaker 2: So yeah, not necessarily surprised, but it does show you
Speaker 2: how crazy the rhetoric that remains inside Ukraine is and
Speaker 2: it does not match any of the actions that anyone
Speaker 2: with the eyes can see.
Speaker 1: The Foreign Minister of Ukraine seemed to equate the Pope's
Speaker 1: position here to Nazi collaboration in the last century. He said,
Speaker 1: first of all, he called on Francis to stand on
Speaker 1: the side of good, not put Russia and Ukraine on
Speaker 1: the same footing and call it negotiations. He also appeared
Speaker 1: to refer to collaboration between some of the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: and Nazi forces during the Second World War. Quote at
Speaker 1: the same time, when it comes to the white Flag,
Speaker 1: we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. I urged to avoid repeating the mistakes
Speaker 1: of the past and to support Ukraine and its people
Speaker 1: in their just struggle for their lives. The reality is,
Speaker 1: if we had actually cared about the Ukrainian people, we
Speaker 1: would not have short circuited those negotiations early on. Obama
Speaker 1: actually had warned Biden back during his administration not to
Speaker 1: over promise the Ukrainians, knowing the limits of what our
Speaker 1: support could do. But we again engaged in this delusional
Speaker 1: and very arrogant view that said, oh, we can keep
Speaker 1: our hands clean and just you know, ship some weapons
Speaker 1: will be good for our economy, the military, the military
Speaker 1: industrial base will love it, and we'll be able to
Speaker 1: destroy Russia. We're going to use our economic sanctions, et cetera.
Speaker 1: None of that has gone the way that they thought
Speaker 1: it would, you know, at least of all the sanctions
Speaker 1: at this point, we threw Russia's the most sanctioned country
Speaker 1: on the planet. We threw our entire playbook at them
Speaker 1: and basically gave a preview of how limited the efficacy
Speaker 1: of those sanctions actually is. So way to go, guys.
Speaker 2: Great strategy, that's totally shocking, and yet very little changing
Speaker 2: there in terms of the status quo. Perhaps reality will
Speaker 2: eventually sit in, but it is not today.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, some notable comments from Bill Maher recently. We
Speaker 1: always love his political evolutions. Here this man support of
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders in twenty sixty though, I mean he yeah,
Speaker 1: in theory did Then he goes to Amy Kolobashar in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and now he's got a new idea of
Speaker 1: his dream ticket. Let's takealism.
Speaker 9: I know it's crazy to think that she could run
Speaker 9: with Biden, but that's my dream, a unity ticket, and
Speaker 9: then he would, I think, definitely win because nobody's going
Speaker 9: to And of course she said some crazy things most
Speaker 9: politicians have not as crazy as we've never been a
Speaker 9: racist country. I mean that's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2: But you would literally destroy the Democratic base. I mean,
Speaker 2: take off the first African American female Vitu.
Speaker 5: She's a woman of color, but it's just.
Speaker 2: Like women are like the the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: So he's talking there about dream ticket with Joe Biden
Speaker 1: and Nikki really.
Speaker 2: Or bit Romney of course, don't want erase Mitt Romney. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean this is this is one
Speaker 2: of those where every time a unity ticket gets mentioned,
Speaker 2: you should be terrified. The last unity ticket that almost
Speaker 2: materialized in America was John McCain and Joe Lieberman, two
Speaker 2: of the most unhinged neo cons to ever live. Can
Speaker 2: you imagine how many wars we would have been in
Speaker 2: if those two had ever been elected to the presidency.
Speaker 2: I would have rather had Sarah Palin and the Vice
Speaker 2: President's chair and then Joe Lieberman. But you know, media
Speaker 2: eats this crap up. They love it, the idea that
Speaker 2: Nicki and Biden are going to join forces. Or again,
Speaker 2: Mitt Romney, It's like, what do these people believe? Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: they may talk nice, they may also not like Trump,
Speaker 2: what do they fundamentally believe it? Turns out it's some
Speaker 2: crazy stuff here. They always erase that they'd rather take
Speaker 2: the rhetoric whatever.
Speaker 1: There's some real alignment between Nicki and Biden on Israel, certain,
Speaker 1: and of course there's onement between Biden and Trump on
Speaker 1: Israel as well. So great democratic choices we have here.
Speaker 1: How do you think this ticket would actually perform though?
Speaker 1: Do you think it would do well if you didn't
Speaker 1: care about the policy and the idea of you know,
Speaker 1: having this neocon is vice part to whatever. If you
Speaker 1: put that aside and you're just talking about pure electoral politics,
Speaker 1: how do you think it would.
Speaker 2: Do I hate to say it, I actually think he's right,
Speaker 2: and I think it would do well. I do think
Speaker 2: I say I think I respect Terra the person who
Speaker 2: said that it would destroy the democratic coolish Yeah, Democratic
Speaker 2: coalistion and hates Trump so much they're going to vote
Speaker 2: for anybody who's not named Trump. Second, Nikki Haley, as
Speaker 2: we've all seen, she gets about a third of the
Speaker 2: people who vote in these GOP primaries, suburban women, and
Speaker 2: all of them they do love her. They love that
Speaker 2: particular brand, rhetoric, the kicking whatever direction that she is.
Speaker 2: I can see it. Actually, I hate to say it.
Speaker 2: I actually think that given what we talked about in
Speaker 2: our earliest segment of the show about a lot of
Speaker 2: rich people preferring Democrats, now you can get a decent
Speaker 2: amount of the rich peopleho are still Republicans to crossover
Speaker 2: to vote for somebody like her. They fetishize the idea
Speaker 2: of you know, unity in the worst possible way, and
Speaker 2: it may draw enough of these rich small business owner
Speaker 2: Republicans who don't like Trump to at least consider voting
Speaker 2: for Biden, and they would love that idea. Plus they
Speaker 2: hate they probably hate. They probably hate Kamala more than
Speaker 2: they hate Nikki Haleey. Although I could be wrong, so politically,
Speaker 2: I unfortunately believe that it might be a potent take.
Speaker 2: Romney's a different story, that's actually different. I'm really I
Speaker 2: think of my work.
Speaker 1: I'm not as convinced. You know, I've even seen polls
Speaker 1: that were Nicki versus Biden where Trump actually does better
Speaker 1: versus Biden. So I think her electoral strength number one
Speaker 1: is a bit overstated. In number two, the comment that
Speaker 1: Tara made there is an important one, which is you're
Speaker 1: already on the rocks with significant portions of your coalition.
Speaker 1: You pick some psycho Republican corporate neocon type as your
Speaker 1: number two, like they are going to They're gone, right,
Speaker 1: They're at the very least not going to show up,
Speaker 1: maybe vote third party whatever. So I feel personally like
Speaker 1: the type of white, suburban, college educated voters that would
Speaker 1: be interested in the Biden Nicki ticket are probably already
Speaker 1: voting for Joe Biden. Like that realignment I think has
Speaker 1: already pretty much happened and consolidated, which is why you
Speaker 1: saw even the Republican primary, the people who were voting
Speaker 1: for Nicki Haley were a lot of Democrats who had
Speaker 1: a pretty favorable view of Joe Biden are likely to
Speaker 1: vote for him in the fault anyway. So I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's the electoral winner that Bill Maher thinks
Speaker 1: it is. I'm personally a little more skeptical of that
Speaker 1: as long as we're playing like fantasy politics here. There
Speaker 1: are some other noteworthy comments from actor Robert de Niro
Speaker 1: on the show as well about how he feels about
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and what might happen in another Donald Trump term.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to.
Speaker 10: Those such a mean, nasty, hateful person, I'd never pay
Speaker 10: play him as an actor, because I can't see any
Speaker 10: good in him, nothing, nothing at all, nothing redeemable in him,
Speaker 10: and we have to and whoever the people are who
Speaker 10: want to vote for him, and they look like intelligent
Speaker 10: peoples around there for some reason that it can't be.
Speaker 10: It cannot be. If he is he wins the election,
Speaker 10: you won't be on the show anymore.
Speaker 2: He'll come looking for.
Speaker 5: Me, He'll they'll they'll be, they'll.
Speaker 10: Be things that happened that none of us can imagine.
Speaker 10: That's what happens in that kind of a dictatorship, which
Speaker 10: is what he says. Let's believe him, take him at
Speaker 10: his word.
Speaker 9: I did from the beginning. Yeah, I mean, I said
Speaker 9: from the very beginning, this guy is never going to
Speaker 9: concede power. And he still hasn't. He still hasn't admitted
Speaker 9: he lost the last election, and he advertises that he
Speaker 9: will go on. He thinks, he says, he's been cheated
Speaker 9: out of one term, so maybe we should get rid
Speaker 9: of the only president only gets two terms.
Speaker 4: Thing.
Speaker 2: There is so much narcissis and these people it's unlike,
Speaker 2: how are you Robert de Niro at the center of
Speaker 2: Trump's mind? Like nobody cares about you? Dude, what are
Speaker 2: you talking about?
Speaker 1: Actually had kind of the same react, So a few things.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't really dispute his characterization of Trump.
Speaker 1: I did find it interesting, And I'd like to speak
Speaker 1: with another thespian about the analysis that he wouldn't play
Speaker 1: him because he can't see any good in him, Like,
Speaker 1: is that necessary to make a character interesting, that you
Speaker 1: at least see some side of humanity in them?
Speaker 2: He played the sociopath Bernie made Off, so he can't
Speaker 2: play Trump, Like, what are you talking? Made Off? Look,
Speaker 2: you can hate Trump if you want. Made Off was
Speaker 2: genuinely an evil person in terms of what he did
Speaker 2: and the people who he ripped off, including members of
Speaker 2: his own religious community who he bankrupted, and he never
Speaker 2: expressed a single ounce of remorse and drove his own
Speaker 2: son to suicide. So if you can play that person,
Speaker 2: and oh and his other son then died of cancer,
Speaker 2: arguably from the stress induced by having to turn his
Speaker 2: own father in as a crook, if you can play
Speaker 2: that person with some level of empathy. But you think
Speaker 2: that Trump is somehow more evil than that that, I
Speaker 2: think you're actually out of your mind.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, and not to mention in killers of the Flower
Speaker 2: Moon a murderous psychopath who is poisoning his own daughter
Speaker 2: or no whatever, uh whatever Leo. Yeah, it's Leo's wife,
Speaker 2: but I forget their relationship. I think it might be
Speaker 2: his uncle or something like that. Anyway, dude, Yeah, if
Speaker 2: you could play somebody who is poisoning Native women, killing
Speaker 2: them and then rolling up their inheritances so that you
Speaker 2: can then take over plot you know. Spoiler alert by
Speaker 2: the way, then I think that you can possably play
Speaker 2: Trump in a movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought that was interesting. I just wonder if
Speaker 1: other actors have that same sense of, like, I need
Speaker 1: to be able to find some like positive aspect of this,
Speaker 1: you know, killer psychopath whatever in order to pay anyway,
Speaker 1: put that aside. That was what struck me too. Is again, like,
Speaker 1: I think Trump is a deeply dark and nefarious figure.
Speaker 1: I think what he did on Generary six was horrible.
Speaker 1: I think he does want to take power and hold
Speaker 1: onto it and likes all of those things. But there
Speaker 1: isn't evidence. I guess I wouldn't say it's evidence based
Speaker 1: that Trump, who could have, I guess gone after Bill
Speaker 1: Maher and Robert de Niro in the first term, particularly
Speaker 1: has a sight set on them for the second. That
Speaker 1: is a part of it. That's like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other problems that you focus on with
Speaker 1: the Trump era, him going to lock up random actors
Speaker 1: or commentator.
Speaker 2: Donnie Deutsch said the same thing. Remember, probably he's gonna
Speaker 2: throw ust In Priss. It's like, no, he's not. Nobody
Speaker 2: is thinking about you except you, and that is where
Speaker 2: the narcissism. I mean, if you saw the crowd laughed
Speaker 2: at him, they were laughing well, and that's why.
Speaker 1: I couldn't quite tell if it was a joke or
Speaker 1: it is meant to be serious, But it seemed like
Speaker 1: he managed to be serious even as the audience thought.
Speaker 2: It was serious. I think Bill is too, So anyway,
Speaker 2: that's our latest update from the Bill Maher edition also
Speaker 2: had to give a little bit of a UFO update
Speaker 2: and put that in the show. Let's put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen broke. Earlier this week, the Pentagon,
Speaker 2: in what is now tradition at this point, has said
Speaker 2: it has found no evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft in its possession.
Speaker 2: A sixty three page unclassified report published says that the
Speaker 2: most comprehensive report the Pentagon has ever produced. They have
Speaker 2: batted down claims of any reverse engineering programs. Inside of
Speaker 2: the Department of Department of Defense. It was part of
Speaker 2: the ARROW Office, the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which
Speaker 2: says that they reviewed records from nineteen forty five to
Speaker 2: October of twenty twenty three and have definitively been able
Speaker 2: to find that there has been no evidence of any
Speaker 2: US government investigation, academic sponsored research, official review panel that
Speaker 2: has confirmed any sighting of a ua REP that has
Speaker 2: represented extraterrestrial technology. According to Major General pat writer in
Speaker 2: this statement, now, there are a couple of things though
Speaker 2: that they may be neglected to point out, and some
Speaker 2: other glaring things that I wanted to put in there.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there please on the screen. Actually
Speaker 2: Garrett Graff, who who wrote an interesting book about UFO,
Speaker 2: some of which I have beef about, but it actually
Speaker 2: raises some good questions. First and foremost, he goes, there
Speaker 2: are four actual questions that are not being answered here.
Speaker 2: One is the alternative hypothesis of secret tech from foreign nations.
Speaker 2: Two is their definition of quote what a peculiar characteristic
Speaker 2: of an aircraft is? Three is anything about material and
Speaker 2: any material science breakthroughs by defense contractors and four is
Speaker 2: quote scientists at the forefront of physics point out that
Speaker 2: we should be humble about how little of the universe
Speaker 2: that we truly understand and of the knowledge limit that
Speaker 2: was baked into the report. But I thought that the
Speaker 2: questions that he raises are very legitimate, Crystal, and I
Speaker 2: just think it comes back to the idea that an
Speaker 2: agency which has been unable to pass its own audit
Speaker 2: for five years can effectively now audit all of its
Speaker 2: historical programs going back to nineteen forty five and be
Speaker 2: and claim any sort of legitimacy in the eyes of
Speaker 2: the public. In my opinion, totally ridiculous, actually, when you
Speaker 2: incorporate many of the questions that Garrett, who is by
Speaker 2: the way, a skeptic of a lot of stuff that
Speaker 2: I would believe even that he points out in his
Speaker 2: Wired report.
Speaker 1: So this does not close the door for you in
Speaker 1: terms of how.
Speaker 2: Cold you're like these people can't account for a trillion
Speaker 2: dollars in their own body.
Speaker 1: Us nothing to see here. People were all good. I
Speaker 1: did think this our article was very interesting because it
Speaker 1: matched up some of the claims and you know, testimony
Speaker 1: people who saw things that they couldn't explain with what
Speaker 1: the report claims that it was, and pairs that up
Speaker 1: with past incidents of things that were thought to be
Speaker 1: UFOs and then were later identified as just advanced US
Speaker 1: aircraft that the public didn't know about yet. So he
Speaker 1: writes a ar O untangled. One witnesses claim of spotting
Speaker 1: a UAP with quote peculiar characteristics at a specific time
Speaker 1: and place and were able to determine at the time.
Speaker 1: The interview said he observed the event. The DoD was
Speaker 1: conducting tests of a platform protected by an SAP, a
Speaker 1: special acts this program that means people don't know about it.
Speaker 1: The seemingly strange characteristics reported by the interviewee matched closely
Speaker 1: with the platform's characteristics, which was being tested at a
Speaker 1: military facility in the time frame the interviewee was there. So,
Speaker 1: Garrett Wrights, what was that craft and what were its
Speaker 1: peculiar characteristics? A lot of the questions he raises here
Speaker 1: is like, Okay, so if you're talking a lot of
Speaker 1: this up to new technology development or even more radically,
Speaker 1: like new potential understandings of physics and the basic mechanics
Speaker 1: of how the universe works, like tell us more about that,
Speaker 1: what if? What is that all about? What are we developing?
Speaker 1: Because this is one of the things you always point
Speaker 1: out is typically there's some indication of breakthroughs that are
Speaker 1: about to be made, or like the science or the
Speaker 1: math has already worked out and theoretically and it just
Speaker 1: hasn't been able to be applied in a practical way.
Speaker 1: So what he's getting from this report is a lot
Speaker 1: of maybe there are some quite you know, there may
Speaker 1: be some quite advanced technology the public eye no awareness
Speaker 1: of that might have been reverse engineered from China or
Speaker 1: Russia or another global power and could explain some of
Speaker 1: these instances as it has in the past.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's captured alien tech. I mean, you know, we
Speaker 2: would know. Like this is the thing I say it
Speaker 2: all the time, as you just reference the atomic bomb
Speaker 2: was an engineering problem. It was not a theoretical problem.
Speaker 2: There is no theoretical solution for many of the peculiar characteristics,
Speaker 2: as he points out, for a lot of what is
Speaker 2: pointing out, for a lot of what has been described
Speaker 2: by these people, maybe they're mistaken. And look, I should
Speaker 2: also note ninety nine point nine percent are going to
Speaker 2: have a human explanation that's the point of actual review.
Speaker 2: The reason why I don't take anything these people say
Speaker 2: seriously is that the former Director Sean Kirkpatrick has conducted
Speaker 2: himself in a crazy manner and has honestly lied to
Speaker 2: the American public multiple times now, at least whenever he
Speaker 2: was under oath and before Congress. That's been disproven by
Speaker 2: his own staff too. Is that we still remain and
Speaker 2: have huge questions from the UFO whistleblower, David Grush. One
Speaker 2: of the points that he made in his testimony again
Speaker 2: under oath was that defense contractors specifically have been using
Speaker 2: this audit loophole and the lack of oversight over DoD
Speaker 2: funding by siphoning off large amounts of product, large amounts
Speaker 2: of funding to then rededicate to material science research as
Speaker 2: it is then applied to UFOs. Is he lying, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I mean, no one's proven that he's yet
Speaker 2: lied yet so far, there have been multiple efforts otherwise
Speaker 2: to actually obfuscate his testimony and to keep him from
Speaker 2: testifying a classified setting to a lot of these people.
Speaker 2: Apparently the news is now chrisly Action might be going
Speaker 2: to work for Congress, which would be great because maybe
Speaker 2: it can help uncover some of this stuff. My only
Speaker 2: point is that there is no reason to take anything
Speaker 2: that these people say and just as definitive when again,
Speaker 2: whenever it comes to the law mandated audit, they cannot
Speaker 2: account for more than a trillion dollars of their own
Speaker 2: assets five years or so in a row. It's like,
Speaker 2: how are we supposed to believe that you conducted some
Speaker 2: comprehensive thing going back until nineteen forty five, like all
Speaker 2: the bureaucratic trickery and all the other things that Garret
Speaker 2: Graft lays out to in his piece.
Speaker 1: So what happens next?
Speaker 2: Sagarbout what it was going to happen next. It's like
Speaker 2: we just keep waiting. We just wait and wait and wait.
Speaker 2: It's like we keep getting these fake reports. They assume
Speaker 2: people will believe it. People keep telling me that, you know,
Speaker 2: there's going to be some more whistleblowers and others for
Speaker 2: catastrophic disclosure, especially after what happened with the UFO Amendment.
Speaker 2: It's possible. I don't know. I still wait. I'm a
Speaker 2: bit despondent now. Honestly, I thought Grush would change stuff.
Speaker 2: I thought more people would come forward. I've been informed
Speaker 2: that more maybe will, but you know, we'll take it
Speaker 2: in a case by case basis. I'll only evaluate it
Speaker 2: as we can see in terms of what comes to me.
Speaker 2: But this does not allay any more of my big
Speaker 2: questions that remain here.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, we have some decidedly terrestrial and man made concerns.
Speaker 1: Real chaos unfolding in Haiti. We wanted to understand more
Speaker 1: about what's happening. We've got a great guest standing by
Speaker 1: to do help us do exactly that. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1: Chaotics situation unfolding right now down in Haiti, where current
Speaker 1: Prime Minister ariel Onrie has said he will resign once
Speaker 1: a transitional council is in place. This comes in the
Speaker 1: wake of a variety of paramilitary organizations or gangs forming
Speaker 1: an alliance to try to overrun the state government. We
Speaker 1: wanted to dig into whatever the heck is happening here,
Speaker 1: and we're lucky to have an expert on Haiti joining
Speaker 1: us at the table. Jake Johnston is the author of
Speaker 1: Aid State and he is also a senior research associate
Speaker 1: at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Welcome, Jake,
Speaker 1: great to have you.
Speaker 2: Good to see you man.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So, first of all, start with is what I just
Speaker 1: said there accurate? How would you describe what's happening and
Speaker 1: unfolding on the ground in Haiti?
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean I think in general that set's right.
Speaker 11: I mean, we've had this announcement last night, and I
Speaker 11: think one key piece of this also is that announcement
Speaker 11: followed a separate announcement coming out of Kingston from the
Speaker 11: care Com community, the leaders of the Caribbean Nations. Secretary
Speaker 11: of State Blincoln was there as well. Prim Missire of
Speaker 11: Canada also participate in a number of other forms, announcing
Speaker 11: support for a new Transitional Council Presidential Council of seven
Speaker 11: members to take over the government and name.
Speaker 5: A new Prime minister.
Speaker 11: And so that directly preceded Henri's pre recorded message last
Speaker 11: night sort of announcing his intention to eventually resign.
Speaker 2: So why don't you take us back to some of
Speaker 2: the roots of this people, I'm not even particularly familiar.
Speaker 2: We covered previously some of the collapse, but it feels
Speaker 2: like there's been full scale societal breakdown. So what are
Speaker 2: at the roots of this most recent iteration of that
Speaker 2: and what do you get into in the book?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 11: Sure, So I think, you know, there's a few things
Speaker 11: to understand about this very approximate causes of what happened.
Speaker 11: I mean, so one, there was an announcement about two
Speaker 11: weeks ago from these same actors that are now announcing
Speaker 11: a new government that Henri would hold an election in
Speaker 11: August twenty twenty five, so well out into the future.
Speaker 11: This is a leader who has come under a criticism
Speaker 11: for his lack of legitimacy, right, consolidating all the power
Speaker 11: under him over the last two plus years in office
Speaker 11: in Haiti, and so that was obviously met with quite
Speaker 11: a bit of concern in Haiti, right. And it was
Speaker 11: the next morning that you really saw these coordinated attacks
Speaker 11: against government institutions begin across the capitol. Taking a step back,
Speaker 11: right and going into some of these deeper causes, right,
Speaker 11: because this has not happened. You know, this is not
Speaker 11: a week old. It's not two weeks old. It's not
Speaker 11: two years old, right, I mean, in many ways, this
Speaker 11: is two hundred years old. Haiti was born of a
Speaker 11: successful slaver vaults, right, the first country to abolish slavery
Speaker 11: and its constitution, and in many ways it has paid
Speaker 11: for that ever since. Right, and at the root of
Speaker 11: so much of the conflict won this history of foreign intervention,
Speaker 11: and two a broken social contract where you have a
Speaker 11: state that has not represented or been held accountable by
Speaker 11: the people itself, but really more so from external actors,
Speaker 11: which again gets into that history of foreign intervention.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about who these gangs are, what are
Speaker 1: their roots, what do they want, what's the role that
Speaker 1: they're playing in this cars?
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's a lot too unpack here, right, and things
Speaker 11: are moving quickly, and I think there's also another issue,
Speaker 11: which is, you know, what people say, as we know,
Speaker 11: is not always what their real motivations are.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 11: So the big change that we saw over the last
Speaker 11: couple of weeks was that these disparate arm groups that
Speaker 11: again have been involved in different sorts of criminal activities kidnapping, rape, extortion,
Speaker 11: things like this for many years, but of course all
Speaker 11: have different motivations, different interests, different connections to communities and
Speaker 11: things like this, have joined forces together right in this
Speaker 11: effort to oust ONNRI. But what their ultimate end goal
Speaker 11: in all of this is, I think remains a bit.
Speaker 5: To be seen.
Speaker 11: They have been seemingly allied with an individual who is
Speaker 11: seeking to claim political power and become president. An individual
Speaker 11: Gi Philippe. He is a former police officer who was
Speaker 11: very involved in the two thousand and four coup of
Speaker 11: the democratically elected John Berchard Aristid. He was in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 11: he was arrested in Haiti and actually extradited to the
Speaker 11: US and spent the last six plus years in jail
Speaker 11: on money laundering related to drug trafficking charges. And he
Speaker 11: was actually just deported back to Haiti by the US
Speaker 11: administration in November of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 5: And there does.
Speaker 11: Appear to be at least some coordination between his political
Speaker 11: ambitions and the actions we're seeing from armed groups in
Speaker 11: the streets.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, So relate back to you were talking about
Speaker 2: foreign intervention. Your book is called Aid State. Just give
Speaker 2: us some maybe even more context as you're talking there
Speaker 2: about intervention, about some of the failures of AID. As
Speaker 2: you said, as bipartison, it goes back a long way
Speaker 2: for people who aren't as familiar.
Speaker 11: Maybe yes, of course, I mean I talked some about
Speaker 11: the history, right, and so we can talk about the
Speaker 11: US occupation in French colonism, but we don't need to
Speaker 11: go that far back to understand the foreign intervention.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 11: I mentioned the two thousand and four coup in twenty ten.
Speaker 11: This was right after the earthquake, right, And this is
Speaker 11: what I think a lot of US audience sort of
Speaker 11: remembers about Haiti was this big earthquake and billions of
Speaker 11: dollars being pledged in a very high profile effort. Former
Speaker 11: President Clinton was awfully involved. Secretary of State Clinton was
Speaker 11: involved at the time as well, so ten billion dollars.
Speaker 11: But there's an electoral process right after that earthquake as well,
Speaker 11: and the international community of the US, the OS, and
Speaker 11: other players direct intervened and overturned the results of that election,
Speaker 11: ushering into power. Michel Martelli and him and his political
Speaker 11: allies have basically been governing the country with the backing
Speaker 11: of the international community for the last fifteen years.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 11: And so when we look at the situation today, that
Speaker 11: dynamic is at the cause of so much of this. Right,
Speaker 11: is that these governments that have been elected in very
Speaker 11: low turnout votes, with questionable legitimacy, with possible criminal ties
Speaker 11: and alleged things of this nature, and that have received
Speaker 11: this international support so consistently for so long. It really
Speaker 11: made a Haitian solution Haitian's coming together to build something different,
Speaker 11: to build something that could actually be sustainable, next to impossible.
Speaker 11: And I think one of the really concerning things right
Speaker 11: now is with Henri. He was blocked from returning to
Speaker 11: the country about a week ago. He tried to return,
Speaker 11: he was not able to. He's been basically quiet and
Speaker 11: holed up in Puerto Rico for the last week ipen
Speaker 11: until last night. But in that vacuum, in that absence
Speaker 11: is international actors who have sort of facilitated this political negotiation.
Speaker 11: But the optics of what happened, it looked almost as
Speaker 11: if Haitian coalitions were submitting their applications to the international
Speaker 11: community to be accepted. And this dynamic of foreign actors
Speaker 11: providing legitimacy for Haitian governments is again at the cause
Speaker 11: of the root cause of so many of the issues
Speaker 11: we've seen, right, And so this announcement in and of
Speaker 11: itself is certainly not a solution to the situation in Haiti, right.
Speaker 11: It is a potential first step, but far from a
Speaker 11: resolution of the crisis.
Speaker 1: Part of what you lay out in your book, and
Speaker 1: you actually start with this is this comparison between the
Speaker 1: quote unquote nation building we did in Afghanistan alongside this
Speaker 1: quote unquote less heralded and less visible quote unquote nation
Speaker 1: building that we were doing in Haiti. Obviously, both were
Speaker 1: complete and utter failures. One of the things that you
Speaker 1: point out is the fact that you know aid, international aid,
Speaker 1: which sounds great and sound okay, you want to go in.
Speaker 1: It's humanitarian and Bill Clinton's going to be there and
Speaker 1: he's going to help you all. But over time, the
Speaker 1: way that AID has been deployed has been in the
Speaker 1: service of our interests and not in the service of
Speaker 1: Haitian interests, and has actually undercut the ability of the
Speaker 1: Haitian government itself to fulfill that basic social contract. So
Speaker 1: what can we say about this project of nation building
Speaker 1: in Haiti as we watch what's unfolding now?
Speaker 11: Yeah, I think the most similar thing is you can't
Speaker 11: impose a democracy, you can't impose a state from external sources, right,
Speaker 11: I mean.
Speaker 5: It's just not going to work.
Speaker 11: You might buy a little time, you might have these
Speaker 11: periods of stability, but in the long run, it is
Speaker 11: going to blow back, right, it is going to blow up.
Speaker 11: And that is I think what we're seeing in Haiti.
Speaker 11: I think it's what we've seen in other nations where
Speaker 11: this has been tried as well. We're looking at foreign
Speaker 11: assistance in general, right, and it's not all humanitarian, right.
Speaker 11: There are big money going through development projects and things
Speaker 11: like this. One thing to understand, right is these aren't
Speaker 11: you're sort of mom and pop NGOs, church groups that
Speaker 11: we sort of think of when we think of humanitarianism.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 11: The biggest players who receive US foreign assistants money are
Speaker 11: for profit corporations. Okay, we've designed a system that delivers
Speaker 11: aid aid right to developing countries and others.
Speaker 5: But as you said, at its core are US interest, right.
Speaker 11: And so for Congress who doesn't really like to appropriate
Speaker 11: money for foreign aid in general, if they are going
Speaker 11: to justify it, what's in it for my district, what's
Speaker 11: in it for my constituents?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: And so we have created a legislation.
Speaker 11: We've created requirements that force these aight agencies to give
Speaker 11: money to US corporations to import US things. And Okay,
Speaker 11: you can understand it from a US perspective and US interest,
Speaker 11: but what is the actual effect of that on the ground, Right.
Speaker 11: It's undermining local markets, it's undermining local organizations, the very
Speaker 11: organizations whose organization, right, who bring people together is what
Speaker 11: could actually lead to a sustainable local solution.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 11: They're undermined by all of this money coming in and
Speaker 11: going to outside actors.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 11: And of course, as you mentioned, the government capacity itself.
Speaker 11: So the Haitian state, right through these aid policies, and
Speaker 11: this has taken place over decades.
Speaker 5: Has really been outsourced.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 11: You've got about eighty percent of public services health, education
Speaker 11: and things like this handled by private sector actors and
Speaker 11: goos funded by development banks and things like this. This
Speaker 11: totally severs the relationship between the population and the state.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 11: You can't hold those actors accountable for those services that
Speaker 11: you're getting, and that really distorts the notion of a
Speaker 11: sovereign democracy itself.
Speaker 1: So where do you think things go from here? And
Speaker 1: do you have a sense of what the Haitian people
Speaker 1: would actually like to see?
Speaker 11: Well, look, I think you know, I certainly don't mean
Speaker 11: or intend to speak on behalf of the Haitian people, right,
Speaker 11: it's obviously up to them. I think there are a
Speaker 11: few principles that certainly I've heard, which is, you know, openness, transparency,
Speaker 11: inclusion in a process, right that involves Haitians sitting around
Speaker 11: a table and coming together with a solution, right, And
Speaker 11: I think these foreign imposed and foreign organized solutions directly
Speaker 11: undermine that.
Speaker 5: And so you know, we'll see how this.
Speaker 11: Plays out, right, and how effective they're able to do
Speaker 11: to meaningfully people's lives. But there is going to be
Speaker 11: a trust deficit from the very beginning with any government
Speaker 11: that comes out of an agreement or an imposition from
Speaker 11: outside actors.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: Did the paramilitary organizations enjoy any kind of popular support
Speaker 1: or they're just seen as violent killers or criminals.
Speaker 11: I don't think it's an extremely simple answer, right. I mean,
Speaker 11: I think to various degrees, some of these actors do
Speaker 11: have ties at least in their communities, right. I mean,
Speaker 11: this has been a context that's been building over years,
Speaker 11: with these groups fighting each other over territory, and you
Speaker 11: rely on them for protection, for any ability to move,
Speaker 11: you are relying on these actors, and so there's a
Speaker 11: certain amount of that built up. I don't think, you know,
Speaker 11: my impression at least is that anyone in Haiti is
Speaker 11: looking for armed groups to actually take stay power. And
Speaker 11: I think there's an open question of if they are
Speaker 11: even after that. Right, Like I was mentioning earlier. These
Speaker 11: political connections I think are so key to trying to
Speaker 11: understand this dynamic. You know, we've seen import of prints.
Speaker 11: The last couple of days. Things have come down a
Speaker 11: little bit, just a little bit, right, They're really intense
Speaker 11: attacks on government institutions have calmed down. The port control
Speaker 11: has been re established over it and things like this.
Speaker 11: People are moving about a little bit more. I think
Speaker 11: that's obviously related to these political negotiations that are happening
Speaker 11: right giving some face.
Speaker 5: Are are people going to get a seat there? Are
Speaker 5: they not?
Speaker 11: How are we going to react to this? And I
Speaker 11: think now today everyone's waking up. Okay, we've had this
Speaker 11: announcement from Henri, this new presidential council backed by the
Speaker 11: foreign governments. What is going to be their reaction? You know,
Speaker 11: we'll see. My guess, right, is that this alone is
Speaker 11: not enough to convince them to drop their fights.
Speaker 2: Well, it's been very, very insightful, and we'll rely on
Speaker 2: you again if this comes up, So thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and guys, please check out the book. I've been
Speaker 1: reading it Aid State. It is fascinating, not only to understand,
Speaker 1: you know, more deeply what is happening in Haiti right now,
Speaker 1: but is a real window into US influence around the world.
Speaker 1: I guess is the nicey I could possibly say that, Jake,
Speaker 1: great to have you, thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thanks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pleasure.
Speaker 2: We'll see you guys later or this way the
Speaker 4: K