01/31/23: Debt Ceiling Fight, Elizabeth Warren Vs. Kamala, DeSantis Campaign, Big Pharma Corruption, CNN Ratings PLUMMET, Used Car Market & MORE!

Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Brystal? Indeed, we do lots of interesting things that we are looking at this morning. We have new polling about what Americans say is the number one problem in the country. You might be surprised it has changed recently. We also have news about how Wall Street is positioning themselves for this

debt ceiling showdown. Long story short, they're feeling kind of comfortable because they think they'll get paid even if veterans, seniors, the poor, whatever do without. They think bondholders are going to get theirs front of the line. So we'll talk about all of that. We also have some kind of interesting twenty twenty four news. First of all, Ronda Santis

assembling a team will take you inside of that. But also some question marks around whether Kamala Harris is going to be on the ticket with Joe Biden, so some little inside dirt there. We also have a just shockingly horrific story about the way that big Pharma gougeous consumers gouge' is the US government. I mean, listen, none of this is going to be surprising to you, but the scope and scale of what we're going to detail for you is truly horrifying. Also, some huge fallout in the used

car market. As you know, during the pandemic, used car market was through the roof. I mean you could barely get your hands on these things. Companies like Carvana just took off, skyrocketed, taking in all this capital, making big acquisitions. Well now, not to use a bad pun, the wheels are coming off of the industry and some major potential fallout there. Also, speaking of fallout, things not going so well for our friends at CNN, some of the worst

ratings that they have had in history. The new shuffling of the lineup doesn't seem to be working out for them. And the new head of CNN, Chrislick, just gave a new interview revealing some of the details of his plans and how he thinks that things are ultimately going. But let's go ahead and start with what is going on with regard to the debt ceiling. Let's go and put this first element up on the screen. So this is the first part before we get to the debt ceiling.

How Americans are feeling about our country, about our government. New pulling from Gallup asking citizens, what is the most important problem in the US? Now? Up until recently was inflation. Now it has switched mid concerns about that debt ceiling, potentially fallout from the MESSI Kevin McCarthy leadership fight. Now you have the government slash poor leadership as the number one issue that voters cite as problems facing the US. Inflation now comes in second, immigration now comes in third,

and economy in general coming in fourth. Now I do kind of look at these things and I'm sort of like, well, inflation the economy in general, Like you could kind of put those two together and say, Okay, the economy overall is still the number one problem. But I do think it's significant that over just the past month, you've had a significant uptick in the number of Americans saying that

the biggest problem facing the country is the government itself. Also, by the way, in terms of how people are feeling about the economy, you've got more than four and five US adults rating economic conditions in the country as only fair or poor. This is especially relevant given the fact that the Biden team thinks they're going to run on the strong economy, when four and five adults say the economy is not strong at all, it's fair or poor.

So that's important to note. You also still have seventy two percent of Americans saying the economy is getting worse, only twenty two percent say that it is improving, four percent say that it is staying the same. And back to what Americans think is the biggest problem facing the country. You know there is some unity between the parties, at least in the top issue. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So government ranks as the top problem for both Democrats and Republicans, and they throw in

their Republican leaning independence, Democratic leading independence. So for Republicans it's twenty four percent site government is the biggest problem Democrats not that far behind though, at eighteen percent. From there the list diverges someonet Inflation is the number two issue for both Republicans and Democrats. For the Republican side it is tied with immigration. Then from there you have

some divergence. You have economy in general. Again, that's one is shared, but Democrats more concerned than Republicans on unifying the country and race relations. But pretty remarkable when you have both Democrats and Republicans saying the government is the biggest problem. Now they probably mean very different things when they say that. It is a sort of like very

general term. You could be criticizing any number of aspects of the government, but I think in general, the sense that you know, we're headed to this showdown, things are messy, they're not delivering for me, They're not able to get their act together and really deliver for the American people

is shaping this view. What I found most interesting about it was the percent increase so in remember to December, during the mid terms and almost in the immediate aftermath, it was people who were saying that the government was at fifteen percent, saying that it was their top most important problem, and actually they had the economy in general and inflation above it. But then you have the percent change so dramatically from fifteen to twenty one percent, just

dramatically coming all the way up to the top. And like you said, I'm not so sure how exactly you can rate that. You could look at it maybe from a Democrat's perspective, You're like, well, the government's now the problem because the Republicans took over the House. Maybe that's it. They look at the speakership fight, same with the Republican Party.

They could say, well, now the government is especially more of the problem because we had an election and the Democrats still controlled the Senate, so now we have a pure gridlock, and that means not the thing is going to happen. I think it probably goes a level deeper than that on a bipartisan level. And it's been two years. I got the news yesterday that Biden's going to end the pandemic in May. I'm like, okay, well, I guess it didn't even know needed to be ended, but legally

that stuff matters. I think there's just a general sense of malaise of the last three years. It's just been horrible, and whenever you have bad leadership two years in a row, bipartisan, different houses, and all that changing, and nothing actually does change whenever. It's probably called for more than ever in modern history, at least since what nine to eleven, And then you look at it and nothing has really gotten done, and we can't really agree on anything. The partisanship seems

worse than ever. Intractable problems seem just as intractable. You have no choice but to say it is the government. And I don't know what to do with that information.

I think it's actually very sad. I think it is too actually, as someone who believes in, you know, an ideal functioning government as an important force in American life and in global life as well, you know, as I think about situating it in this exact context, I do think there's something about the specifics of the moment where, you know, number one, there there were some things that did get done when you had democratic control. You had the Chips Act, you had you know, the burn Pit legislation,

you had the Inflation Reduction Act. You did have a few pee you had the bipartisan infrastructure deal, you did had a very limited bipartisan gun deal. Even so, you

did have some limited things happening. Now there's an expectation before the next presidential election, nothing is going to happen except for, you know, a potentially catastrophic default on the debt, a lot of partisan you know, showdowns and haggling, you know, these sort of like which Hunt type committees to look at Hunter Biden, but never to examine anything that Trump

or his people ever did. And so I think there is that sense setting in and I think there's a real warning in here for both Republicans and for Democrats.

I mean, number one, listen the politics of how this is going to work with some sort of debt sealing, hostage taking situation, which it seems like we are inevitably headed towards, because that is the deal Kevin McCarthy made with the holdowns and his caucus people are not going to be impressed with you taking the country to the edge and potentially over So I think there is a micro timeline, major warning for Republicans in the direction that

they're headed in. But you know, when you have these increasingly negative feelings about the government overall, and this is what we've seen over the past forty years, you know, that is a really bad situation for Democrats who tend to be more the party of government to be in. So in this micro battle it might work out poorly for Republicans, but overall you lose the specifics of who did what and who was to blame over time, and the general sense that is left is just the government fails,

the govern doesn't work, the government cannot work. And again, I think that's a really damaging position for Democrats if

you're looking at it from a partisan perspective. But I also think for the possibility of moving the nation forward over the long term because listen, as much as like we complain about the government here and the corruption and the money in politics and the way that they sell out the interests of citizens all the time, there is no other body that can check the gigantic influence of

corporate dominance in American society. There is no other institution that can make sure you know, food is safe and water is clean and the basics of what citizens should expect out of life are ultimately meant. So I look at it level of like small D democratic input. It's like, well, what impact can we have on exon CEO and gas prices? Actually? None? All right, what do you have when it comes to the strategy, patroleum reserve and our foreign relations with Russia

a lot. And as we have found out over the last year or so, well, that is going to have a very major impact on our consumer is whether we like it or not. So you can hate the government, but the government is still going to think quite a lot about you. So I would always behoove people to think about the government. Yes, indeed, all right, so let's

talk a little bit more about the debt seiling. This is a really really important piece because ultimately, you know, in these various showdowns, the thing that really forces these politicians to the table is when the donor sit set gets unhappy, and in particular, when Wall Street becomes unhappy.

So one of the things that could have potentially saved us from a debt seiling showdown and ultimately going over the edge and having some sort of default is if Wall Street is putting a lot of pressure on all of the politicians that they have bought, saying this is going to be bad for us, this is going to be bad for the economy. Well, there's quite a bit of new reporting that says, actually Wall Street is kind

of chilling. They're not worried about this at all. Why Because they think even if there is a default that they, as bondholders, will be in line to get their payments first. So they're looking at the state of affairs and going,

this has no skin off my back. I'm still going to get mine, even as you who knows what's going to happen with Social Security payments, payments to veterans, you know, basic welfare, children's health insurance, all of these critical programs that ordinary people rely on, Well those are in jeopardy. They don't care about that. Go ahead and put this up on the screen from Politico. Here's what they say. They say Wall streeters break with Biden on the debt limit.

In this report, they say that these Wall Street bankers are quote unquote banking on the Treasury Department's ability to prioritize payments so that bondholders keep getting paid with the limited cash available. Such a move would hypothetically potentially avoid a global market crash, given that treasuries are the bedrock of the international financial system. The global Chair of Research at Barclay's says, most investors who follow US closely are very aware the US will not default on its bond.

So again translation we're going to get paid, so we're not that worried about it. Now, there's a lot of pushback on this idea that you can just go ahead and pay the bondholders and not worry about the other stuff and it won't technically be a default. Treasury secretary.

Former Treasury Secretary Jack Luke told this political reporter that this notion is intellectually bankrupt because at the minute that you have the US government not meaning its obligations, whether it's to bondholders or to anyone else, you are technically in default. And you're also in uncharted territory in terms of what the financial fallout is ultimately going on. So what I've heard is is that this is a real

scenario that would happen with the debt sealing. And the reason why is even if Congress does not appropriate funding to the government, the government has all kites of revenue sources. So for example, let's say this is all going down in the summer, well, guess what, they just banked a ton of tax revenue during tax season. Also, people who pay on a quarterly basis, so they can use that revenue to pay some obligation, So they actually do have

some discretionary authority because that's not congressionally appropriated money. That's

money that's coming in via taxes, now what. And that's why the Wall streeters are feeling very comfortable because they think that what Treasury Department will do is in a bid to prop up at least some of the global financial system, they're going to hit the bondholders first and not pay out you know, VA benefits or oh, I mean the list goes on forever, like pensions in terms of health services, medicare, like many of these things which

are or discretionary spending within the budget, where Treasury Department is actually much wonkier on what they can and can't do as opposed to these independent agencies which happen to benefit the disproportionately rich in the Wall streets, Yes, and Wall Street. And this is something we've been talking about since the beginning of you know, during Kevin McCarthy showdown.

In all of this, this was one of the things that Republicans were talking about, is we're going to come up with our plan of how we're going to prioritize payments so if there's not enough money coming in and we're going to come up with a plan of how to prioritize all of the it's like ten million pay payments that have to go out from the federal government. We're going to decide who are the winners and losers

in this ultimate battle to come. Now, the last time we faced a debt ceiling showed on it was like twenty eleven twenty twelve. They came up with some theoretical Okay, if we hit the wall, if we go over the ledge, what is this going to look like? How is this all going to work out? So they have kind of been through this intellectual exercise before, but it has never

actually come to implementing this plan. And you know, there's a big difference between theoretically having this list of ten million payments and how it's all going to work and actually coordinating that and making it happen. Not to mention, Okay, even if they're able to pull off that incredibly technically complex feet again, you don't know how the global financial system is going to react to the fact that the US government is not meaning all of its obligations, even

if it is meaning the obligations of the bondholders. It is disgusting and immoral that the economic royalists would get paid first, while you have like you know, veterans who are not getting their benefits or old people who are starving because they're not getting their Social Security checks on time, et cetera. So it is still a disastrous situation, It's just not one that Wall Street is particularly concerned about.

New York Times has similar reporting. Hadn't put this up on the screen, They say Wall Street is counting on a debt limit trick that could entail trouble. If the debt limit is breached, investors expect Chargery to put bond payments first. It would be politically and practically fraught. One former chief economist to Republican Center Rob Portman, who went through this exercise back the last time that we were talking about these sort of dead limit fights, said, prioritization

is really default by another name. It is not defaulting on the government's debt, but it is defaulting on its obligation. But another analyst at Bank of America says that prioritization is the lynchpin of calmness. Markets will come to expect a prioritization plan much more than they did back in

twenty eleven. And so you really have a mix of views on this, on whether it's feasible at all, on whether it will actually calm global markets, But it seems as of now most of Wall Street is kind of relaxed about this prospect, which, again, the reason that matters is because these are people who, like it or not, have disproportionate influence in Washington, and so if they aren't pushing people to find a resolution to this and make sure that we don't ultimately default, that is another chip

in favor of y'all. We may actually go over the ledge here and it could be a gigantic mess and a disaster. Yeah, it's important for that. We all know. We're talking about this with yesterday with Jeff Stein. It's like, oh, this could all seem like doom and gloom. Like, listen, we're close. You never know how close we're going to get, and we bear you know. I'm actually going back and reading Bob Woodward wrote a pretty good book about the twenty eleven debt crisis. I'm trying to become as familiar

I am with the exact decision points. We came pretty damn close to a default the last time around. We actually had some degrade in our debt downgrading in our debt that had some pretty big impacts at the time

on financial markets. One of the only reasons that we were really able to rescue ourselves out of it is that we were in a zero interest rate environment, so that whenever we came out, you know things, we had a bit of a malaise on the way back up in this quote unquote fake economic recovery that Obama touted in twenty twelve. Now, you know, we don't have the same cushion that we had at that time, So, you know, going off the edge, like you always point to Britain,

who the hell knows where you end up. You really have no idea what the consequence is going to look like. Yes, that's exactly right. And if you are someone who was concerned about the debt and the interest payments that are going out while having some sort of default and bondholders demanding a premium, means those interest costs are going up and you're actually going backwards now in terms of the

goals that you are at least pretending to uphold. There's one other piece of this, which is you know, sort of moving target and interesting, which is that Republicans have decided they want to have this fight. They've decided they want to have this showdown over the debt ceiling to cut spending, even though you know, during the Trump administration they didn't care, but now that it's a Democrat in

the White House, they do care. So the Dirntey secret is they don't agree whatsoever on what they actually want to cut. So CNN has a report they are apparently working behind the scenes to try to hash out what their demands would be to raise the debt limit. Do we have this guy's a five that we can put up on the screen from CNN, Here we go. New Republicans weigh debt ceiling demands ahead of McCarthy Biden, meaning

group of hardliners met Fridays. They weigh options onying major cuts to domestic a trim to defense, but don't want to touch those security and medicare okay. Well, guess what, guys, If you are going to cut as much as a lot of these hardliners want you to cut, is very difficult to do that without touching entitlements ultimately, I mean, the math just really doesn't work out that well. Social Security alone takes up about twenty one percent of the

federal government spent in the last fiscal year. Healthcare pro programs, namely Medicare, Medicaid, Children's Health insurance program, and Affordable Care Act subsidies account for about twenty five percent of the budget. So already you're talking about about half of the budget between healthcare, social security, and then the rest of the budget goes to a range of discretionary domestic programs, including

thirteen percent for defense and national security. So you add defense into the mix, and you're getting close to, like you know, you're you're up over well over half of the budget. And these are all items that many parts of the Republican Caucus are saying, no, no, no no, we don't want to touch any of that. Okay, well where are the cuts that going to ultimately come from, So

we'll see if they're able to work that out. And then the other there were two other pieces in this CNN article that were really no whether they're me soccer. First of all, I didn't realize there were a few members of the Republican Caucus who were just saying they will not raise the dead ceiling under any circumstance, just totally no to any even if they get all the

cuts or whatever they want. No, we will not vote to raise it, which to me seems utterly ridiculous and insane to give you a sense of what mcarthy is dealing with on that's side. And the other thing that I thought was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in my life, the quote unquote problem Solver's Caucus. This is like the bipartisan corporatist caucus that they were like, you know, this is Gotttheimer and the salt tax is

that crew. They have a potential contingency plan. They're working on a proposal that would, in part, try to set a ratio for the allowable amount of US debt compared to the country's GDP and develop a plan for budget cuts if that level is breached. The group is consulting outside experts to help draft the proposal. Now that might sound reasonable in theory, However, think about the situation you're in. If the GDP is going backwards, that means you're in

a recession. A recession is the time when you need to prime the pump and spend a little more money so that people can get the economy rolling again. Instead, what this plan would require is that you cut spending, likely thereby deepening the recession, likely thereby forcing even more cuts to spending in a downward doom loop. That's what these idiots are trying to put on the table for us.

So just really galaxy brain thinking all the way around. Yeah, I mean overall, I just think that people aren't paying as much attention because they're still a couple of months away. But the initial shape of the fight is beginning to take place in some of the negotiation arounds who gets paid, what, what can realists be cut, etc. That's why we're spending so much time, just because it could have a huge impact on all of us really government services, I mean

a lot of things really could shut down. I've even seen speculation the FAA itself, all flights could be grounded if we went into a It's one of those completely unprecedented areas and you can't even imagine the trillions of dollars that it could wreak on the economy if we

do go over the line. Yeah, because people here like, oh, discretionary spending, well, you could probably cut there, and then you realize that that includes like the FAA budget, and it means that airplanes don't fly or literally, you know, I mean, there are no food inspections and now the

baby formulas tainted again or whatever. So it sounds in theory like, oh, I'm sure we could cut here and there, But in reality, some of these programs are incredibly crucial to the functioning of American life that we don't even

really realize, not to mention the global financial fallout. So last thing I'll say on this why we're covering it, why it's important, why there's a real possibility no one knows what percent that we end up in a sort of catastrophic situation, is because it really seems like none of the political actors here have an incentive to change their initial negotiating position. If you're Kevin McCarthy and you back down on the debt ceiling, your speakership is over,

I mean really clear for him. For the sort of hardliners in his caucus, I mean, their whole like clout and cred, etc. Is from posturing as these kind of kamakaze maniacs. So they're definitely not going to back down because it would go against their entire identity and brand. On the Biden side, I think you know, justifiably their view and they learn some from the twenty eleven crisis too, is we are not going to negotiate with hostage shakers.

We're not going to give into your demands when you are, you know, unre reasonable and just using this hijacking the global economy to try to force on the public something that you could not achieve through democratic means. And you know,

I think that's a reasonable position. I also think that the democratic base would be disgusted if there was some sort of a deal cut with the Biden White House on Social Security, Medicare or these other entitlement spending, so you know, they aren't really positioned to back down either. And then when you add to the mixed wall street basically like now we're cool with it, it's fine, you end up with a really disturbing situation. So listen, we've

been to these deadlines and walls before. They've found a way to work through it and it hasn't resulted in a total catastrophic collapse. But there are reasons to be concerned this time that it is worth keeping our eye on. YEP. I really hope that it works out. All right, let's talk about the latest twenty twenty fours upon us and there are new news articles popping up about whether or not Kamala Harris really has what it takes to continue as vice resident. Is Joe Biden's pick for vice president.

It's going to put this up on the screen from the Washington Post. It's always noteworthy when you get elite media like the Post or the Times writing these types of stories, because that means that political elites are basically planting these stories with the Post and with other outlets headline here, some Democrats are worried about Harris's political prospects at a pivotal point in Biden's term. Many party activists are not sure the vice president has shown she is

up to winning the top job. And of course, obvious context here is when you're talking about Joe Biden being potentially you know, if he wins reelect eighty six years old at the end of his next term, there's a real question whether he even makes it through that term, then she would step right into that top job. And if he does make it through that term, she would be the obvious like next in line to take the

helm as the Democratic nominee. So in this article they interviewed all of these like state level party activists and and something like a dozen of them offered concerns about, you know, whether or not she is up to the task. They say. Such concerns about Harris's political strength were repeated often by more than a dozen Democratic leaders in key

states interviewed for the story. So I'm speaking on the condition of anonymity to convey candid thus to give you one example of the type of concerns that are being raised. The former chair of the Cobb County Democrats in Georgia. I think this individual just stepped down, said, people are poised to pounce on anything, any misstep, any gaff anything she Kamala says, and so she's probably not getting the

benefit of the doubt. She said. They don't know enough about what Kamala's doing, and added quote it doesn't help that she's not that adept as a communicator. So these are people who you know, are hardcore Democratic partisans, are inclined to be in Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's camp, you know, believe in the power of like you know, representation politics and Kamala Harris being as the potential first

black woman president. But they have watched how this is unfolded for her, and they have not been particularly impressed, and they are concerned about whether or not she could ultimately win and ultimately handle the job. So the fact that you have this much discontent within the Democratic the sort of like party establishment of the Democratic Party voicing these concerns, and the Washington Post picking it up and

running with it is a very interesting thing. Yet we always pay attention to this why because what matters is the internal chatter and what's being leaked, And what's obviously being leaked are people close to the White House who have watched how terrible and unpopular that she has remained in the polls all throughout the Biden presidency. She's probably been one of the least like vice presidents in modern times. I mean, I really think you'd have to go all

the way back to Dick Cheney. Even then, you know, Republicans actually liked Dick Cheney a lot of the base date, it doesn't seem that Democrats particularly feel all that enthusias. I think Dan Quayle is probably the best example. And again that's not even not even in my lifetime that that happened. That's how far back we'd have to think to somebody who is so unpopular and actively a drag on the ticket for a sitting president of the United States,

and just a lack of political skill. That's the problem that they face here. But how are they going to get out of it? I just think, Look, I think this is all Washington talk. At the end of the day. How do you ditcher the black woman? You can't do anything about it? Yeah, that's right. I think that's exactly right. They put themselves in a drop of their own making. And the person who told Joe not to pick Kamala was actually his wife. Yes, and she's totally right about it.

I'm sure now he's like, damn, I should have listened to her. But I agree with you. I don't see how they back down of it. I would not be surprised if it was Pete Boodagee and Liz Smith in his camp who are planning some of these stories to try to drive a wedge that or exposing a wedge

that really already exists. And I think the way that the Democratic Party, like these local county chairs and whatever, the way they feel about it, and the way a lot of the Democratic base feels about both Joe and Kamala is a level of personal warm It's not like they despise them, but deep concerns about whether they are actually up to the task to win again. And remember Joe Biden's whole case in twenty twenty, The whole reason

he is there is because of electability. This is a front of top of mind concern for the Democratic base. It is the thing they care about seemingly more than anything else. And so when you see the fumbling performances from Joe, when you see the fumbling performances from with Kamala, it really strikes at the core of what their key

concern is for the future of the Democratic Party. We also noted this Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has certainly proven herself to be a highly political animal, was asked about a Biden candidacy, and she was very very clear that she supported Joe Biden for running for another term and

was behind him for the next time around. But then she got asked about whether Kamala Harris should be on the ticket as the vice presidential romany again, Let's take a li isn't what she had to say, speaking of you're having run for presidenthould Joe Biden run again for president to be eighty six by the time the second term is over. Yes, he should run again. And he is running again because he has gotten a tremendous amount done.

It's been two years. He's had the skinniest possible majority in the United States Senate and only a very small majority in the House. And look at what we've done. If he is that old in a second term, that vice presidency becomes even more important. Could Kamala Harris be his choice of the second time around? You know, I really want to defer to what makes Biden comfortable on his team. I've known Kamala for a long time. I

like Kamala. I knew her back when when she was an Attorney General and I was still teaching and we worked on the housing crisis together. So we go way back. But they need they have to be a team. In my senses, they are. I don't mean that by suggesting I think there are any problems. I think they are. So anyway, she really had just there. She won't really say, well, whatever Joe feels comfortable with, I'm not going to really say now after the fact, she did kind of come

in and try to do a clean job. Okay, well you're really moment there, Yeah, very revealing. What do you think do you think that she's going to do She thinks she thinks that she could still do it? Delusional? Yeah,

she might, did you possibly? She really might? I mean just remember, like part of the reason why, going back to my twenty twenty Democratic primary trauma, part of the reason that she like held out and stab burning the back and all of that was because she was like imagining that she was going to be the vice presidential pick, which was always fanciful, and then she thought maybe she'd get like a cabinet pick or whatever, also fanciful, and so you know, ends up she was wrong about all

of those things. And she's still in the center, which is a perfectly you know, fine and important place to be. But she she has demonstrated that level of delusion before, so it wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, I mean I just looked it up. She's seventy three years old, spring Chicken in senate years and democratic politics in normal years, that's pretty old. And you know, I was thinking, I was like, well, maybe this is her last chance. I mean, this is basically the last shot that you had at high or

elected office. Realistically, if you look at an actual oro real table. So maybe this is the right time, even though it is what a point zh one percent chance or whatever actually happening. I mean, okay, number one, they're not ditching Kamala because they can't get around the trap that they made it for themselves and the way that they've set up. You know, identity politics is central with

the Democratic base. So that's number one. Number two, even if in some crazy scenario Kamala steps aside or whatever happens, They're not picking Liz. They're picking Pete. They're picking Pete. I mean, he's the one. He's a kiss ass, extraordinary. He's positioned himself with the donor class, and I mean one thing that we noted like in New Hampshire, he's now meeting, actually beating Biden, which is gross for a million reasons that Pete is on top. It is also

a tremendous sign of weakness with Biden. But if they're looking at it and they were actually thinking about, Okay, who would we pick for vice president, they would look at these sort of polls and imagine that, Okay, Pete would bring something to the ticket here. Ultimately, I remember Joe said before, basically he wanted to build a bridge

to the Pete bootagegees of the world. So yeah, I think Elizabeth Warren, if that is the delusion she's harboring under, it is quite astonishing on a number of levels and fanciful on a number of levels. Good luck. Yeah, all right, we also have some news from the Republican side that we can bring you this morning. It looks like Rondasantis is increasingly positioning himself to take a crack at the

White House this time around. Go ahead, and we had reports from Politico and the Washington Post about the team that he is assembling. Here in Politico, they've got meet rond Deasantis's inner circle and they just kind of go down through the list of who the top advisors are and who is being lined up for what position moving forward.

I don't really know any of these people, Sage. I don't know if anybody stuck out to you in particular as being a particular I mean some of the names, like we don't have like the biggest heavy hitters, but you have people who have been kind of around the scene for a long time. Phil Cox is the only one I have any like direct relationship with from the past, got to seasoned kind of a communications guy. He's a campaign general consultant of the Rummer executive they say, of

the Republican Governor's Association. So that's like a high level. From what I hear, the most influential person in the DeSantis world is Casey DeSantis is his wife. Almost everything that I've heard is that she is the one driving his presidential ambitions to the assent that there are any that are involved, and kind of very tightly managing his image. She featured prominently in a lot of his ads. By all accounts, they have a very very close relationship, and

they're very like they're kind of a unit. The way that they think of themselves. They aren't very trustworthy, don't let a lot of people in. That is actually kind of a problem. Just because I've said this before. We doesn't have really a lot of people that are around him in the same way. The biggest name that actually jumped out to me was Miriam Adelson, because that is an endless pile of money. Miriam Aidelson, for those who don't know, is Shade Sheldon Adelson's wife. He since died.

That he was the casino magnate. I think he was like the Las Vegas Sans chairman. I think he's worth like forty something billion dollars. She is incredibly active in Republican politics and has been for a long time. Her own personal views almost perfectly align with Ron DeSantis. So to see that on there as a connection as somebody outwardly floating herself, and she was kind of pro Trump, or at least Adelson was had a long relationship with

Trump because of the casino world. For her to go with DeSantis this early on, that was actually the biggest deal for me because they need a lot of money, and if you want to do that, he's got Miriam Adelson and Ken Griffin. I mean Ken Griffin is worth like thirty billion dollars. I just talked about seventy billions

in wealth that you can tap right there. Yeah, So he has like an endless well of deep pocketed I mean you only need one really, like a multi multi billionaire who's all in for you, and he has at least a couple here on hand. So that is noteworthy. Let me go ahead and put the Washhip post piece up on the screen. Similar reporting, they say advisors to Florida governor on DeSantis actively preparing for a possible presidential run.

They're exploring staff options. Phil Cox, who you just mentioned, and Genera Peck involved in ongoing talks about twenty four expected by some to play a role in the run. Potential early state hires also identified, and so, like I said, Cox was a former executive director of the RGA, So that's a relatively well known person. And Genera was a key member also of DeSantis's twenty twenty two reelect team.

They both were ultimately so those are people he like, you know, brought on, they were involved in the re elect and now probably going to help run a presidential campaign. One last piece that I saw here just this morning is it's about FEC report time. So you know, candidates and potentially they have to file these financial disclosure reports showing how much money they've raised, what they spent on,

et cetera, et cetera. And so it's the end of January and Trump is going to have to file one, and apparently the fundraising numbers are going to be pretty weak. So we talked yesterday about how Trump was doing these lower key events in New Hampshire, low key event in South Carolina. And this they were portraying as an intentional strategy of like, oh, we're harboring our resources and we're doing things a little different this time. In reality, it may be a bit of a sign of financial weakness

that they just don't really have the funds. Not that they couldn't stage the rallies and don't have the money to do it, but that it would be a more significant strain on their resources, and that's the real reason why they're opting for these lower key events. Yeah, exactly. I mean, obviously money is not going to be the same as twenty twenty. Just the level of support just

doesn't exist is whenever you're the sitting president. At the same time, though, I do have to wonder, I mean, what happened all that stopped the steal money, right, I mean last time I checked want, I mean some two hundred and fifty million dollars. Actually, in a way, he did himself a disservice because he actively declared for president, which means he can no longer tap that super pac money from Save America that they have sitting in a

bank account waiting for the twenty four general election. Now he can only fund either himself, which you know that never happens. Donald Trump making use some of the NFT money that he made to fund the golf money from Saudi Arabia and went on to live golf money. He's he's transferred on over there, or you have to go and you have to do smaller campaign events. I actually think though, that Trump is at his best whenever he's in the small contingent, flying by the seat of his pants.

The more consultants and RNC types that all get involved, the worst off that he is. I mean, the twenty sixteen campaign was a bunch of clowns. Trust me, I literally know these people. They are some of the least sophisticated political operators ever. That said, that's what he needs. He needs somebody who really doesn't restraint him. Yeah, I mean, I think Hillary outspent him like ten to one. So

it's not like money even matters all that much. He had more money than God in the twenty twenty election. He still got beat. By some accounts. He outraised Biden in the early days of the campaign. So a lot of this I just take with a grain of salt of doesn't matter at all. More. It's more like the message of the candidate. He's going to get a ton of earned media no matter what. And honestly, what's what's he most comfortable in? I think this is his like

natural habitat Yeah. I've always thought he looks more comfortable on Trump Force one than he does in Air Force one. Yeah. So for him to be back on his plane, the familiar band back together, it makes sense. We'll see. I mean the question mark is whether in the interim listen twenty sixteen, twenty fifteen, that was a long time ago. At this so long and this man has been in a presidential bubble of his own making for quite a long time and seems to have lost a bit of

his touch that he had back then. So is he able to get that feel back? There have been a couple signs of it, you know, his coming out really hard on you will not touch social Security, Medicare and the stat ceiling thing. That was one sign of it. I would say his positioning himself in terms of the Russia Ukraine war is another sign of it. Abortion absolutely, I mean even before the midterm results came out, because that you know that you could rationalize is like, okay,

he's trying to cover his own ass. And just pit it on like it was abortion that was the problem in the midterms, not me. But the reporting is immediately after Roe was overturned, he knew this was a problem for Republicans. He knew this was really bad for Republicans. So he does have a little bit of that. You get glimpses still of that little bit of like normy sensibility that is lacking in many other corners of the Republican party. So we'll see if he can recapture any

of that original magic. Yeah, well, I'm semi doubtful, but I think that the ingredients are possibly there. Let's go to the next one here. This is a really interesting story, and this is one that I think highlights something that a lot of you have shown quite a bit of interest in big pharma and how they make a ton of money with the US government's help with lawyers and with regulations. So this is probably the best example so far from a big investigation. Let's go and put this

up there on the screen. Quote how a drug company made one hundred and fourteen billion by gaming the US patent system. They specifically for years delayed competition for its blockbuster drug at the expense of patients and of taxpayer with the monopoly that is about to end. So this goes back to it drug that some of you might

have even taken before. It's called Humeira. In twenty sixteen, it was poised to become a lot less valuable because the key patent on this anti inflammatory medication, which is used to treat stuff like arthritis, was expiring at the end of the year. Regulators had actually blessed already a rival version of the drug, and more copycats were already willing to come as the patent was about to expire. This was going to push down the medication. And I'm

not kidding here. It's actual sticker price fifty thousand dollars per year. So how did Humeira and the manufacturer actually do this. Well, they block the competitors from entering the market and actually, over the next six years continued to continue the price rise, and today this drug is the most lucrative in the history of the entire pharmaceutical industry.

So what they did is they use their monopoly power to orchestrate a delay by building all this intellectual property protection around its drug and then suing would be competitors before them, settling with them to continue delaying their product launches.

So even though they knew they were going to lose, they used IP law, patent law, and legal legal chicanery to continue suing them, pushing things into active litigation, delaying the release of the drug and then doing it for a year and delaying it because every year is printing so many billions for the entire company one hundred and fourteen billion. Now at this point, the current sticker price of the drug is eighty thousand dollars a year, which

they continued. Remember this, they had fifty It's most lucrative drug in history, So they know it's going to end. So what do you do Whenever you have a limited monopoly and you know they know the time is going to expire eventually, you just keep jacking the price that drug up significantly. It's now up over sixty percent from one of its original and it's actually increased thirty times in the life cycle of the entire drug, including just eight percent this month. And by doing that, you just

print ungodly amounts of money. I mean, it really is difficult to actually even wrap your head around what one hundred and fourteen billion dollars actually is from a single drug. And then when you also consider we're talking about anti inflammatory and like, look, I don't want to go all Instagram health here, but let's just say it was a

hell of a lot of information. In the United States, a lot of people have arthritis, a lot of people do not eat well, and a lot of people turn to drugs, and doctors in particularly not going to tell you a lot about anti inflammatory foods or any of the other things that you can do on your own, and instead they're going to go ahead and prescribe you

this drug. Maybe by the time you get the drug, it's just too late at that point, or maybe you just can genitally have arthritis, you know, any one of these other conditions, so you actually need it in order to live a functioning life. In the meantime, these people earned insane amounts of money, and you have to think too about the consumers. Even if you have and I

want people to understand this too. Everybody's like, oh, insurance, you know, everybody likes their doctor, and whenever you go to the pharmacists, you're like, thank God, I have insurance. But you should think a couple of times around that, because the insurance companies negotiate these pre rebates with the actual pharmacies where they pay x amount per drug, even if the production costs of that drug if you bought it out of pocket, might be two hundred three hundred

percent less. So you think you're getting a deal, but you're actually getting screwed. And the reason why you're getting screwed is you have a preset amount that you can actually spend on drugs per year. This is actually very common in elderly plans. So you'll have let's say you're an elderly person, you're sixty five years old, and you're like, oh my god, I got this drug and it covers up to ten thousand dollars per year, and I only

to pay two thousand out of my pocket. You don't know that you're actually paying way more than if you didn't even have insurance. You have no idea. The pharmacies is not even allowed to tell you about this. A lot of these are secret on competitive agreements that are all negotiated behind the scenes. I have no idea how

any of this is even legal. But there was a real human cost to this, which is people had to spend a lot of their life savings or social security checks, effectively bankrolling the manufacturer of this drug one hundred and

fourteen billion dollars. Think about how much money. And this is a particularly egregious example because you had, for example, Medicare, which covered in twenty twenty the cost of this drug for forty two thousand patients, spent two point two billion dollars more on this drug from twenty sixteen to twenty nineteen, so just over three years than it would have if competitors had been allowed to offer their versions of this drug.

So two billion dollars just thrown out the window for this drug because of the way they were able to manipulate the patent system to their benefit. And so what I really want you to understand here is what the pharmaceutical shills and lobbyists would say, is, Oh, we need these patents because we're gonna you know, this is what enables us to invest all this money and life saving research,

et cetera, et cetera. What they really spend their time on in terms of drug research, Most of what they spend their money on is like new formula relations minor changes to their existing suite of highly profitable drugs. That's

one thing. So like, oh, we'll have it. Instead of a twelve hour time release, how about we have a thirteen hour time release that enables them, by the way, to help them gain the patent system, because the oh, this is a new innovation, we can get a new patent on this and extend our monopoly on this product. So that's one piece, and then the other piece is the sort of lawfare that they wage in protecting these

patent regimes. So one example that they give in this article, just to give you a sense, is an early hum era patent that expired in twenty sixteen claimed the drug could treat a condition known as in I don't know how to say this something spindylitis, type of arthritis that causes inflammation and that joints, among other diseases. In twenty fourteen, they applied for another patent for a method of treating

this same type of arthritis. But the only thing that was different about this patent, as they said, specific dosing of forty milligrams. And guess what, that patent application was approved, and that added eleven years of patent protection beyond twenty sixteen, just for that one little tweak of Oh, it's not

just for this particular type of arthritis. It's the forty milligram dosage in particular, and that was considered by our legal system a sufficient innovation to justify eleven additional years of this monopoly that is costing patients millions of dollars and costing the federal government billions of dollars on this one drug. The other thing I want to highlight here is they talk about the real world human beings who

are impacted by this, and it's terrible. You have people who know they one of the things this treats is painful skin condition psoriasis. There is, you know, no other drug that does what this one does to deal with what is an incredibly uncomfortable and painful condition. And so you've got people who are delaying retirement because they have to their their health insurance to be able to afford this critical drug for themselves. You have one example where

a woman was employed. Her employer. What they did, rather than author and health insurance, they actually paid all the medical costs on a pocket and it was costing them seventy thousand dollars a year for her prescription, which was actually more than her entire salary. So the HR Department actually called her up and was like, hey, would you be open to flying to the Bahmas to get this drug from a place that has it much much, much, much cheaper. And so that's what they ultimately ended up

having to do. Because of our system, the amount we pay for prescription drugs completely insane. I actually have a little bit of this in my monologue today. You have people who, you know, they they were tired, who didn't realize the way that costs were going to skyrocket for them with this essential prescription and they just can't afford and they're just having to go without. So there are

massive human costs for this. And the lies that were told about how these big pharma companies are just like looking out for us and investing in life saving research, it's bullshit. They're spending most of their time and money and research and efforts trying to find ways to keep

their monopolies and gouge the American consumer. It makes me sick thinking about some eighty year old lady who's not able to afford this drugs and literally getting breakouts of sores all over our face, you know, I mean, she's eighty years old, and or even one of the revelations here you know you were touching on, is it actually costs more for Medicare patients, So that means that the government is directly benefiting and subsidizing quite a bit of this.

It's one of the most corrupt schemes in history. And I don't even know how to describe how evil all of it is. Let's put this up there on the screen just to make sure that we link it to something even bigger. Big pharmer groups right now are actually rejoining a battle with governments on drug prices, and I love the subhead here. Tight budgets and US reforms are ending after a truce between industry and health authorities. Now

what exactly was that truce. The truce was during COVID there was obvious massive subsidization by the US government and by many governments around the world around COVID drugs, around pharmaceutical research, around directly profiting not only to vaccines, but you got to think about therapeutics and many of the other extraordinary measures that the government went to to make sure that these companies had everything they need to help

fight COVID. Well, now that all of that is ending, the pharmat industry is basically going and playing hardball with all of these governments which are rightfully pulling back on their spending and on their subsidies, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no no, we want to keep those subsidies going. We want to make sure that you're going to be spending

as much as you can. They point to a couple of examples, the same company pulling out of a major strict price regime in Europe after the National Health Service in the UK actually made the industry drawback some of its cost by over three billion dollars. So it's a major hardball situation in terms of which companies we are willing to work with some of these regimes. And it's

not just here, it's literally all over the world. And you should remember here we spent more on branded prescription drugs than any other on Earth, some cases spending more on the same drug in this country than in others, simply because they have straight up price controls over there.

But it goes to the fact that these mandatory discounts and all these things were taken away by many governments, and in many cases they were subsidized, and now these pharma companies are fighting for their life to get even more of their profit after having this quote temporary truth. So this goes even deeper than this one drug. Absolutely,

I mean we pay they have the numbers here. Overall, we pay about two point five times the average drug price paid by a group of thirty two comparison countries, and on name brand drugs, that disparity is even larger. We are the pharmaceutical industry's piggybank individual consumers and the US government are their piggy bank. They feel free to

gouge us to insane degrees. And you know, part of the problem has always been that matacare is not allowed to negotiate with these companies on the prices of drugs. So where you have France in the UK and other countries that are like, we're not paying more than X,

we're not allowed to do that. Now they just passed legislation that would allow us on a few This is like such a limited reform and a handful of drugs to be able to negotiate prices, and these drug companies are freaking out even about just that incredibly moderate reform that we ultimately instituted. So it's a racket. I mean, it really is just like a criminal, criminal racket. And you guys are their guinea pigs. You guys are there,

you know, you're their piggy bank. They think that they can go and gouge the US consumer and gouge the US government endlessly, and that there will never be any pushback. Why because they've bought off so many of our politicians, people like hersin Cinema, who have been like consistently making sure that any sort of reforms in this direction are completely limited. Yep, very true. All right, let's go to

the next one here, speaking of rackets use cars. I can't be the only guy who was in the used car market over the last two years, and I was like, what the hell is going on in here? So some of that is coming to an end. And actually, while that is some good news if you are a consumer, it may not be the best of news for the overall car market in the United States. Let's put this

up there on the screen. This guy, by the way, his name is car Dealership Guy on Twitter is an absolutely fascinating follow with a lot of insight into the industry. So he says, quote, I spoke with the smart CEO of a major dealer group today. He believes that used car prices have bottomed and it's possibly only up from here. He talks about how less used car supply is in the market. Dealers are actually holding leaner inventories due to

higher holding costs their days supply. The average number of days it takes to sell a used car has significantly dropped dropped over the last couple of months. And less supply generally does going to equal higher prices too. Is that actually new cars and this is part of the problem. Even if the used car price does drop, it was so high and new cars being unaccessible are at record highs. So right now, even at the current price levels, used

cars are still generally cheaper than a new car. It was a little bit of a flip during the pandemic, however, returning somewhat to normal and then finally there is possibil and I this is one thing I do hope for some pent up demand entering the market, because used car prices have finished twenty twenty two down about fifteen percent year over a year, so overall, as a consumer it might be a good time to buy a car, although you never do really know what's going to go on

with that. But on a bigger and a broader level is actually these used car companies, of which I'm gonna be honest, it took full advantage of somebody. One of my cars was involved in an accident and the mechanic was like, hey man, I'm just gonna tell you this as a friend. He's like, you should sell this car right now. He's like, this car is not gonna last for a while after such a catastrophic accident that it was involved in. And he's like, these idiot you know,

Carvana Vroom companies. He's like, they'll buy anything, and he's like, they'll just write you a check. And he was right. So maybe it turns out that wasn't such a sustainable business model. Let's he turn out this screen. The pandemic car sellers, the pandemic use car boom is coming to

an abrupt end. And they talk about how dealership seeing sales and prices drop as consumers are tightening their belts, and that especially companies like Carvana, which were printing money to a historic degree over the last two years, maybe completely screwed. We're talking again about used car prices. They are falling fourteen percent on the year, but actually declining even more and more as the months go on, and

all of that is significantly hurting their bottom line. Carvana reported a quarterly loss of more than five hundred million dollars and had to lay off four thousand employees. In the last twelve months. They have piled up significant amounts of debt. Its stock price has fallen ninety five percent in the last twelve months. At this point, I'm like, maybe I should buy it. Whenever you look at that, they maybe not financial advice, by the way, they maybe

headed for bankruptcy a very much. Honestly, three states have actually suspended the Carvana operating license from consumer complaints. And what they're saying is, quote, we think there's a decent chance the company will just end up having to file for straight up bankruptcy. They have too much debt for the level of sales and profitability, can't support that debt load, and will likely need to restructure. Carvana to be clear, says that they have sufficient funds to turn its business around.

I've heard that one before pretty recently, actually, so who knows. This entire experiment in the used car world, it seemed like everything was changing. You could buy and sell a car online. It's not looking so good. Right now, Chris, And this is one of those things that people get caught up in the hype of the idea. It's got a feel of like a sexy idea that Slim has come and they built these gigantic car vending machines that like, you know that your car would be delivered to and

then you can go and pick up. I mean, they look super cool. That's what the image for those of you who could see on the screen was one of these big car vending machine towers. Unfortunately it's completely empty, in a sign of the times and the troubles for Carvana. There's kind of a deeper story here, though. Let me read you this piece because I think it reveals it connects to the tech recession stuff and some of the

other things that we've been covering. They talk about how when the pandemic forced car buyers a shop online, Carvana became a Wall Street Darling. Its stock swored reached a high of about three hundred and forty five dollars a share back in twenty twenty one, but that hoopla obscured some operational troubles. The company has never reported profit for a full year, never reported profit for a full year.

In the nearly decade that his shares have traded on the stock market, it has spent a lot of money to add retail locations, build those fancy towers, refine its online platform. In some markets, it has struggled to grow amid stiff competition, and it goes on to talk about some specific problems that they had in the Denver market.

But again, when interest rates were basically zero and cash was cheap and easy, something like Carvana, which had a good story and seemed sexy and seemed like an idea that's time time had come, could continue to float its operations and can continue to move forward and have these insane stock market valuations based on the story. Well, now with the Federal Reserve lifting rates, the music has kind

of stopped. And so now if you don't actually have a profitable business model, that is going to be a real problem for you. And adding to their troubles is the fact that they made a gigantic acquisition at sort of like the peak of the market, and that has added to a massive debt burden that has made it very difficult for them to ultimately overcome. So it's kind of a shame because you know, the idea of it is really cool. I also hate going to car dealerships.

A lot of people do. They find the experience very stressful. The idea of just being able to like pick and choose at home and have the thing delivered to your door or at one of these local car vending machines, it sounds like a cool idea, but the economics of it at this point just have it worked out. They just don't have the kinks worked out. That's why they got their license pulled in a couple of states because people are having so much trouble to getting the titles

to the cars that they supposedly already purchased. So not looking too good for Carbona. It's tough. I wanted Carvona to work, I wanted room to work. And look, it's because these used car dealers. They're basically legalized mob bosses. I don't know if people know this, but you know, they did an analysis in twenty nineteen of who the richest people in America are. So get this, twenty percent of people in twenty nineteen who filed an income tax return who made more than one point five to eight

million dollars. They're used car dealers. These guys are making more money than God. And it's like, if you really want to be a millionaire in this country, you should be a used car dealer or a mechanic and body shop owner, because nobody knows what the hell it should cost. There's all these hidden ass fees that are in there, and if you use just even some basic business sense, it looks like you can extract a hell of a lot of rent. I went deep on this. I was like,

how's this possible? Why then are there not used car dealers all over the place. There is an insane licensing regime that goes from the county, state, and business level where you both have to team up with the so called dealer itself, right like the brand Honda. You got to get permission from your local county, You got to deal with some real estate guys in terms of zoning laws and all this. It's incredibly corrupt. So a lot of this is actually regulated at the state and the

county level. And of course, why would any average citizen ever know about this, Like, yeah, that's how it works, whatever, But actually you're really getting hosts. One of the ways I learned about this was from the battles that Tesla has in terms of having to open different shops and

all that. But the more research you do, you're like, wow, this entire thing is a racket to a degree where I don't even know what an actual car should cost, Like if you were able to just buy it straight from the distributor, it might be as much as ten thousand dollars less. It really might. They also they have a lot of local political power. I mean, partly because they have to be able to navigate this regime and whatever, but oftentimes, like your local car dealership owners are very

politically connected. They're doing local donation, they're state rep their state senator, et cetera. So anyway, they're a sort of like locally very politically powerful growth. But you know, bigger picture, one of the things we've been focused on, obviously, is the way that the fedlifting rates has dramatically impacted our economy.

We focused a lot on the housing market and how much just a moderate increase and mortgage interest rates makes housing dramatically unaffordable, buying a home impossible for so many people. That's why the market is kind of like frozen at a standstill right now. And it's a very similar picture

for car buying. The interest rates on auto loans have also gone up significantly, and in fact, there's a piece in this article where one of the owners, I think it was a car Max, was talking about you know, they see that people go on the website, they're looking at a car, they pick something out, they go and they calculate what that monthly payment is going to be given where interest rates are today, and they bail out. They say, I can't do it, it's not affordable anymore.

So having a huge impact on the auto industry, and in particular in the used car sales, which of course was like red red hot during the Pinnet red hot also matters in terms of loans and the way that also, you know, cars status symbol of the United States. A lot of Americans buy far more cars than they actually need,

and they buy new cars all the time. I guess it's one of those things that we just really love to spend a lot of money on, and that's actually a big driver of consumer sales and really a lot of satisfaction that people find in their lives. So how this impacts, how this impacts all of you is actually pretty significant, especially you know, used cars is seventy percent of the entire market. Yeah, it does make people don't realize that. Okay, let's go to CNN couldn't help but

resist this particular one. Just a hilarious new analysis of the data. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. CNN just suffered its worst ratings week in nine years. So let me just read you these numbers,

because they're genuinely stunning. Average across all of CNN, according to Nielsen, was four hundred and forty four thousand in primetime, ninety three thousand in the all important age twenty five to fifty four news demographic, four hundred and seventeen thousd total viewers, eighty thousand in the demo for the total day. By comparison, they're doing so badly that they even look like a joke. In relation to the other cable industry,

which is also doing like a joke. Fox News drew a total of just one point four million that would have been terrible even five years ago, and only one hundred and seventy six thousand of them in the key demo. MSNBC notching only six hundred and twenty nine thousand total viewers, only sixty nine thousand in the key demographic. I mean, just imagine this at the peak of Fox, MSNBC, at CNN, not a single one of them can crack more than two hundred and fifty thousand people in the key demographic.

Imagine a basic YouTube creator out there is getting more than two hundred and fifty thousand views in the key demo. I think almost one hundred percent of the views on this channel and of our podcast downloads from what we are able to know, are all in the key demo. And you could probably say that about all of new media independent media. This is just horrific, and it doesn't make any sense relative to the amount of money that they get paid because it's a fake industry. The entire

thing propped up by these cable subscriber fees. Can you imagine if someone paid us a billion dollars just to exist. That's basically what it is. That's how their business model has no impact on whether people watch their stuff or not. But the funny part to me is that all of the new changes that they've made at the network Crystal have been a massive failure. The Don Lemon one in particular,

has actually which was supposed to revamp the Morning. They actually dropped from their originally pathetic numbers by several by tens of thousands of viewers. In total, it is now the one of the worst most dismally rated shows in the history of cable television in the Morning. And what are they going to do about it? I mean, look, at this point, I'm not sure if it's possible. Like CNN CEO Chris Licked, he gave an interview yesterday to

the Los Angeles Times. Let's put this up there on the screen, and this is one of those views you probably should just never say some of these things out loud, because he was like, we want to restore trust. And the interviewer is like, what does that mean? Why exactly do you want to restore trust? And he said, well, we have a lot of data to say that trust has eroded. And you're like, wow, you're just that explain why. He's like, we got to fix it because we can

see in our data it's a real problem. We can see within our data that people don't trust us anymore. Of course, his solution to that was hiring Bill Maher and putting Don Lemon in the Morning, putting stuff that was available on YouTube for free on eleven thirty at night. That's an interesting strategy. We'll see if it works out. Yeah, putting Don Lemon in a hoodie up on the morning, okay, again fascinating also, of course, as you you actually worked

in this environment, I never have. I'm only observed they're already sniping at each other from behind the scenes. Oh you re there. You know there's strife at the show as it struggles to find its voice. You can tell me despise each other. Yeah, I mean, and some of

that between Caitlin Collins and Don Lemon. The the fact that that's spilled out onto the air right tells you it is really easily behind the scenes, because I mean, they really you know, obviously you're trying to be professional whatever, I try to keep that behind the scenes. So the fact that's spilling out on air at all tells you they like already completely despise each other. And yeah, the fact that there are these kinds of leaks coming out

from the program about its troubles. Apparently the EP that was you know, originally on the show has already been reassigned, already fired, which already you know, which is a major indication that they feel like this is not going well. And part of what ellisten, I haven't watched it, so I don't want to claim I like really know the ins and outs of why it's failing and why the

mechanics aren't working. But what they're talking about is the whole concept is really kind of confused, at least with the you know, John Berman and Allison Camerda, like they had a decent camaraderie, they were able to bounce off each other, and you knew what the show was, right. It's a political morning show. It's a news morning show with the CNN liberal slant, like that's what it is.

Now they're sort of trying to bring in these elements of like a Today Show kind of thing, but then it's also trying to be the you know, CNN news politics thing that it was, and the two things just do not really mesh together. And so there's concern of like, Okay, well, you're not winning the morning show watchers from today's show. That's a totally different thing, and you're not winning those people over, and now you're in danger of losing the audience,

the small audience that you did have. So and then you know, you put together three personalities that clearly don't like particularly like each other or vibe, which is incredibly important on television. And you know, nobody wants to watch three people who like hate each other's guts. No one wants to watch that, except for in like a viral clip that I'll watch. But as a sustainable like this is how I'm gonna start my day, absolutely not, So

that's a disaster. Their other big change that they are making is instead, at least this is the way I read it, I don't know. I read this like four times to make sure I was understand it correct. Here's what they say. The network is going to host a standalone weekday nine to twelve block anchored by John Burman, Kate Baldwin, and Sarah Sidner. Then they're going to have a one to four pm standalone block hosted by Brianna Kaelor,

Boris Sanchez and Jim Shudeo. So instead of having like the individual anchors per hour, they're going to do two more giant three hour blocks with these trios of anchors, which, again, like you know, if the vibe works out, maybe, I mean, but if any of these people have friction or they're not able to gel together, it's going to be a I don't know, and the whole thing just has the

it's giving rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Absolutely not bringing in anything new, not really doing anything new, just like, let me just reconfigure what I've got here and sell it like it's some brand new concept and we're doing something totally different, when really it's just kind of the same old thing in our new, probably worse reconstituted form. Their biggest problem is how can you go outside the form when anybody with the brain would not

work within that form. Imagine if they came to it. First of all, it would never happen. But like if they came to it, whoa we should come? You're like, so we should shorten our show, give up our business, give up our independence all to come and work for you so that we can speak in between advertising breaks, all while having a corporate sensor over your mouth the entire Why would we ever do that? Of course? You know they say money, but like, look, some of us

value things much more than money. It's called independence and be able to say what you actually think. And there's a lot of people like that that are all in this business. None of whom would even conform to what CNN would want. And then number two, anybody that would probably be willing to go work there, Well, that's not really somebody who's going to be able to even really be able to bring an audience in the first place. Sure,

the mar thing is not a bad strategy. I mean, since he has a big a fan base that does watch him on HBO and you have some of that. But I just keep coming back to if you really want to watch, just go on YouTube, Like why you tune in live? That impetus. I just think that's gone. I think it's dead outside of breaking news, prestige television like The Last of Us, which I'm currently obsessed with

dying right now from the last episode. People who know what I'm talking about, Well, there's that, there's sports, which people like to watch live, and then there's if there's

some major breaking news event. I mean, that's still where CNN and ANTEC and Fox News, but CNN in particular, that's where they really still have a value add because they do have this gigantic global footprint and if you're just in the situation where the facts are coming, you're trying to figure out what the hell is going on. You know, that's still where they are kind of like at their best. But you can't think there are going to be a lot of weeks where you don't have

that gigantic breaking news tent pole type of event. And I think your initial point is the most important one and one that frankly all of these cable news operators are aware of, which is that their business model is a zombie shop. It does not make sense, Like if you were going to invent this thing today, it would never work because people would be like, I'm not paying these premium ad dollar rates for your show that nobody

watches and which has like a trash reputation. I'm not paying, you know, to add you to my cable bundle, like charging my cable subscribers more to add you to my cable bundle when people aren't even really watching it. I'm certainly not paying you what they're getting paid right now. And so that's why you see all this cost cutting across the industry. I mean, in particular at m A, SMBC and CNN Fox because they have a larger audience, they have a little bit of a larger, longer timeframe.

But the writing is on the wall for them as well. You know, they're they're trying to hold on as best they can to what they have to pare down their expenses and be able to make it work. And you know, you can see it in this sort of like rearranging the deck chairs approach that Chris Lick is taking. Because you can't pay to bring in gigantic new talent, that's not going to work out. They cut the you know, original series that CNN was paying a lot of money

for those, and frankly they were successful. Yeah, we're good. Even that they know they're cutting all of that out, he's saying, Oh, we're going to do it in house, and it's just going to be just as good. I'm highly doubtful of that. So anyway, that's the situation that they're in. We'll see where it all ends. Good luck, all right, Sacher, we are you looking at well. One of the most consequential foreign policy minds in American history is probably someone you've never heard of unless you were

an international relations major. George Kennon. He was a diplomat for the United States and towards Russia, expert who after World War II, became the father of containment strategy towards the Soviet Union. In a nutshell, containment was a winning argument at the time in a debate about how to

handle the Soviet Union. On the one hand, you had Mccarthurits and others who advocated a policy of rollback, which effectively meant confronting the Soviet Union where they were and trying to push their domination of the Eastern bloc of Europe back to the core territory of Russia. Kennan's containment strategy recognized the danger of Soviet expansionism, but struck a more defense of tone that the policy of the United States should be quote that of a long term, patient,

but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. Kennen argued that containing the Soviet Union from further expansion avoided the risk of direct confrontation, and that, if pursued, would eventually cause it to break up. He was right, of course, at the time, in a debate that could have easily led us to nuclear confrontation, and his analysis was built upon years of dealing with the Russians both before and after and during World War Two. Having suffered through the

trauma of watching millions of people die. Usually, though the hagiography of Kennen in official circles it ends right there. People who see him rightfully as one of the most important architects of the post World War two international order and the father of containment liked to disregard much of his realist tendencies, which governed his thoughts throughout his life, and especially in his thoughts of how the United States should approach Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Those of you who have been watching for a while will remember Kennon's warnings about NATO expansionism in nineteen nine, when he wrote, quote, such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti western militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion, to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy, to restore the atmosphere of the Cold War to East West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy and directions

decidedly not to our liking. Furthermore, a new biography of Kenan actually tells us even more. Kennen wrote in a private letter after the admission of the former Saviet Soviet States in to NATO the quote nowhere does this choice appear more portentious and pregnant with fateful consequences than in the case of Ukraine. Kennan actually thought a lot about Ukraine.

He warned in a series of memos throughout the Cold War that if Ukraine were to get its independence from Russia, quote, Washington should not interfere, at least initially, because quote an independent Ukraine would be challenged eventually from the Russian side. Perhaps an end to this nightmare in Ukraine can be found in his pressience. He actually wrote that for any potential balance of power to work in Ukraine, that the United States should quote push for a composing of the

differences along the lines of a reasonable federalism. He especially thought it was important for the US to understand the population of Greater Russians living throughout the Soviet Bloc, and anticipated that should break up occur, it was important to have a genuinely representative coalition in the region. Really, what strikes me in reading Kennon's words almost seventy five years ago is just how much remains exactly the same now.

To be sure, look, he got a lot wrong. He was wrong about how quickly it would take for Ukrainian national identity to form and the ferocity of its defense went under attack. But underlying his analysis was a weary man who went to Moscow in nineteen thirty three. He lived through the Stalin Purges, he saw rivers of blood flow through World War II, and he was animated through his entire life of an intense desire to the end

of his days to never see that happen again. In fact, at the end of the Cold War, when he really got a lot of a claim for how containment would end the Soviet Union, he actually wrote that he thought the entire thing was avoidable in the first place. He pointed to a letter in his biographer when it was alive, to a note from Joseph Stalin in nineteen fifty two which invited the then president of the United States to hold talks over the shape of post World War II Europe.

It could have been another Potsdam conference, but the offer was rebuffed internally. In Kennon's view, that was a mistake. Why because he thought the United States could have avoided a lot of heartache and nuclear missile stick cares if

it engaged in quote negotiation, especially a real negotiation. At the time, Kennon's biographer Frank Costeliaga writes of the takeaway quote, Kennon's lesson for us in understanding the Cold War of the twentieth century and in diffusing the explosive tensions of the twenty first century is that seemingly intractable conflicts may be more susceptible to settlement than it may at first appear. Now we should take no man as gospel, but a more fulsome view of what a great man, throughout his

great thinking about our great issues of our time. It's something we should just all consider, we should listen to. In my estimation, the debate around Ukraine today is shrouded in a toxic discourse where if you question for a moment American interest over Ukraine and interest, you're somehow branded as a putent puppet. What Kennon always understood and wrote from was a reality. Russia exists, it will remain the colossus in the region, likely for centuries, even though it

is economically and socially backward. That is and has always been the case in Russia. But it doesn't erase geopolitical realities of power. Fundamentally, the debate goes to a very deep level. Should we engage with the world as it is, or ignore risk to pursue what we want. A lot of people throughout history pursue the latter strategy when they forget the reminders of what that risk actually looks like.

In my opinion, we would all be better off if we just thought about the man for a little bit, just like the people who eventually defeated the Soviet Union did. They found his advice very valuable, And I thought the new biography is fantastic and a lot of the stuff I was reading about it And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagre's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Crystal, what are you taking

to look at? Well, guys, the latest Mister Beast video dropped and it's kind of beautiful and it's also honestly kind of brutal. And the video you watch as Mister Beasts his real name is Jimmy, pays for one thousand people to undergo a simple surgery to cure them a blindness. As you watch, you see a father able to clearly view his son's face for the first time in years. You see a young man who's able to drive for

the first time in his life. You see providers able to go back to work, you see a mother in tears at having her life instantly transformed by a generous stranger. And because it's mister Beast, he also randomly through in a few ten thousand dollars giveaways, even a fifty thousand dollars giveaway on top of all of it, so you get to watch the unadulterated joy of people having crushing

financial stress lifted off their shoulders in an instant. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with mister Beast, he's got one hundred and thirty million subscribers on YouTube. He is the number one YouTuber in the entire world, and this type of random act of charity is kind of par for the course for his content. He's famous in part for those random cash giveaways. So anyway, that's mister Beast. But this late, this video has actually led

to some backlash. You're probably thinking, what the hell the man cured blindness for a thousand people who, without him would still be suffering from visual impairment. How in God's name can that possibly be controversial? Well, here with some of the online discourse curtsy of distractify to give you

a little bit of flavor of what people were saying. Quote, if mister Beast truly wanted to do something good and truly cares about disabled people, he would not monetize their suffering and make them tap dance on video just so he can slap it up on YouTube. I'm tired of having to perform gratitude for wealthy people just to stay alive. Others went even further. This person tweeted, there is something so demonic about this and I can't even articulate what

it is, and they've got screenshots from the video. Sticking with the satanic theme here, this individual really went all in, tweeting he is literally the anti Christ. He's performing our society's equivalent of miracles through these excessive acts of faux generosity and is garnering everyone's undivided love and admiration, and doing so, he will start subverting christ teachings next and preaching selfish action. Mister Beast apparently literally causing that in

times or something. Now, all of this is clearly pretty unhinged, not because their rage is unjustified, but because it is wildly misplaced. Mister Beasts did not create a situation where one hundred million people around the world have curable blindness which could be fixed with this simple ten minute surgery.

In America, Mister Beasts did not architect the disgusting for profit healthcare system that allows people in the richest country in the world to go without basic health care, but the Mister Beasts video it does definitely expose a grotesque failing in our system. Here. It reminds me of the meme about how all those heartwarming local news stories just

basically illustrate some truly dystopian element of our society. Like here's a few examples heartwarming coworkers donate six days personal time off for nurse who can't work while battling leukemia, or there's this one. I hope I make it seven year old Alabama girls selling lemonade to fund her own brain surgery, or getting closer to the Mister Beasts dynamic Brighton teacher who went above and beyond for students wins a year of rent payments on the Ellen Degenerous Show.

That is nice of Ellen. I'm glad she did it, But why the hell should this or any teacher have to rely on the kindness of a TV celebrity to be able to afford their damn rent. The bottom line is, mister Beast's blindness video should not exist. It shouldn't be necessary. And if you feel that way, by the way, mister Beast, he kind of agrees with you. He tweeted, I don't understand why curable blindness is a thing. Why don't government

step in and help? Even if you're thinking purely from a financial standpoint, it's hard to see how they don't ROI return on investment on taxes from people being able to work again. And his point is a completely reasonable one. If the US government was guided by care and concern for its citizens and a pragmatic interest in human capital investment,

his logic would make perfect sense. Why wouldn't you pay for a relatively inexpensive surgery to not just ease suffering, but gain tax revenue from a more productive workforce if that's the thing you care about. But he's missing, though, is that it's not the government's bottom line that matters when it comes to the health industry. What governments policy are the profit margins of the entire health industrial complex, which spends millions to make sure that our disgusting profits

over people's system stays in place for all eternity. You want to talk about return on investment. We spend more than any other nation in the world on healthcare, and yet we get worse results than any other developed nation. It's disgusting. It should be criminal. All these pigs in the healthcare industry want to feed at the trough, so they will fight with everything they have to block the

obvious solution, which is universal healthcare. It's okay to feel happy for the lucky one thousand who can now see clearly thanks to the generosity and the business model of a YouTuber, and it's okay to feel rage. You should feel rage at a system that puts profits over people. Mister B's most popular video ever. It was actually a takeoff on the Smashed Netflix series. I don't know if you guys watched the series or his video on it,

but it was take off on squid Game. In the Netflix show, financially desperate people are pitted against each other in a series of murderous games for cash, to the delight of wealthy elites who were gathered there to watch the whole spectacle. The last person alive wins a cash prize and a ticket out of the financial stress that made their life so miserable, they were willing to risk

that life for a chance at the cash and the relief. Effectively, their poverty was so endlessly devastating they'd rather die than continue to live under its crushing weight. Save your rage for the architects and keepers of our American squid game, not the YouTuber who stumbled on a way to help some people within the confines of that system and the online discount course around. This was kind of interesting and if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. All right, guys, we'll see you later. As a reminder, we got a show remotely coming in from Austin, Texas on Thursday for our live show prep on Friday. We're excited to see all of you there. Stay tuned for the show. We got a great counterpoints for everybody tomorrow morning. We will see you all later. Love you guys, See you soon.