Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent.
Coverage that is possible.
If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints.
How you doing, Emily, I'm good, cold but good.
So we've got the world on the custom of World War three, and we've got big news out of all three.
Branches of the federal government today.
I also did an pre interview yesterday with giamm Long, former Foreign Minister of Ecuador, that we'll play either later today or later this week. But we're not going to be able to talk at length about the Supreme Court today, which is hearing a case that could upend basically everything, So tell us a little bit about that before we get into the rest.
So Chevron deference is essentially what's on the table at the Supreme Court oral arguments.
I mean, basically the ability of the administrative state to administer state.
Right, Yeah, So the Supreme Court decided a long time ago that deference if there is no clear direction from Congress, then the federal agency. The federal agencies have deference to essentially make their rules for how things run. So what's on the table, for example, in this case is some
herring fishermen off in New Jersey. There are federal mandates that say you have to pay for federal observers, and they're challenging that because it's just a I think it's an EPA either way, it's one of the Cabinet agencies rules. They don't want to have to pay for the federal observers. So that's what's getting tangled up. There's something called major
questions doctrine, which I know you know about. Yeah also says that in yeah so, but this is not a major question, is the And that's why it's made its way to the Supreme Court. This is something that the federal society has been like salivating over, maybe literally for a very long time.
I hope Chevron tefference falls.
I know, right, and I disagree on that, but it does basically undo everything I will say. I've talked to lawyers even like sort of federal society aligned conservative lawyers who actually don't think that if this is overturned, which given the makeup of the court it looks like it will be overturned.
We'll see more in the oral arguments to day.
I've talked to lawyers though, who say, basically, it's not that big of a deal, that it's not the sort of one two punch that conservatives think it is if Chevron's overturned, because now there are so many different, you know, other machinations and things that are baked into the cake.
Essentially, I would just say, be careful what you wish for, because the administrative state is what stitches together all of the laws, and if you get if you get rid of those laws, you know who would love that, plaintiffs.
Lawyers, that's absolutely true.
Then they are completely unshackled and they can do the heck out of everybody.
And monopolistic corporations. I mean, it's yeah, it definitely. There's a lot on the table in the oral arguments today, so we'll be covering those in the future for sure. The decision, of course, will come down in June.
Very end of the show.
We're going to have Sam Goodaldig, a Republican lobbyist, and Mike Williams, a Democratic lobbyist, with kind of what I think is going to be a fascinating conversation.
You don't want to stick around for that.
I've got an interesting story that I'll talk about later in the show that Ukraine. The Ukrainian military is now using iba gain, an extremely powerful hallucinogen, in microdoses to treat both dramatic brain injury and also for battle readiness.
This is new reporting I've got over in the intercept.
It's kind of Ukrainians on iba gain versus Russians on meth is how one of my sources described it.
So that's where we are at this point with that.
One can't wait for that segment.
That's really interesting reporting, Ryan, we are talking about the Republican primary, a horrible dispute happening at the southern border with the Texas government, the federal government. We're going to talk about updates from Israel. Let's start though, with the Houthies, so.
They were fresh. We can put this first element up fresh.
US aristraces, the third launched against the houthis coming at the same time as the United States is designating the Houthis as a terror organization. We will talk about later in this segment. There's this thinking among kind of American policy makers that all of the bombing of Yemen during the Obama administration didn't do it. All of the bombing of Yemen during the Trump administration through Saudi Arabia and
the UA that didn't get the job done. And what we need now is just a little bit more bombing of Yemen and that's going to solve the crisis.
Well, and you said something interesting there, which is a little bit more bombing, right.
Because this is not the it's not Gaza level bombing, no.
And so yeah, exactly, So it's this again, it's a tit for tat retaliation basically that to your point, comes on the heels of years and it's after October seventh now, so obviously things have changed a bit, but it's not an all out full scale and that's where it sort of becomes again. We talked about this yesterday for the Biden administration, what is the end goal of the bombing.
Right, because a full scale like invasion of Yemen and occupation of Sana in order to stop attacks on the Red Sea is obviously not in the cars.
No, nobody's even talking about it.
And so if all the Huthis need is the access is access to a couple of missiles and a couple of drones to continue to threaten shipping, no amount of bombing is going to stop that. In fact, it's absurd, Like the more we can put up a three real quickly, just jump to this one and then we'll go back
to a two. So Shell announced that it is shockingly suspending red sea shipments amid a war, like so we are escalating a war, launching regular air strikes and expecting that somehow, as a result of that, shipping company are going to be like, oh cool, we're good now. As long as the war is hotter and wider, then yeah, we'll send our ships through here. Right when these shipping companies like they actually don't care that much, Like if they have to go around the Horn of South Africa,
they'll charge more. The people who get charged more on the other end are the ones that are going to start complaining. And also obviously all of the Israeli shipping companies in the ports that are now you know, mostly idly and sitting empty. It's grinding significant elements of the Israeli economy to a halt as a result of this.
The journal notes around twelve percent of total global seaborne oil trade goes through the Red Sea.
Right right, So then that is eventually going to drive up prices. And that's and that's what the US is responding to, which is why the US called its operation Prosperity.
Guardian Prosperity Guardian.
They then subsequently said that they didn't need congressional authorization for air strikes on Yemen because they were defensive in action, but defensive against what it's defensive of the global economy, not of the United States. And you also can't I've heard you say, well they attacked one of the ships. Well you're not allowed to introduce a ship into hostilities and then have that ship receive hostile fire and then say, okay,
well now we have to defend ourselves. Like, that's not an end run around Article one of the Constitution, which gives Congress the authority to declare war.
Yeah, I mean absolutely not.
Let's put a two back up on the screen here, what you're going to see, Ryan, Can you tell us actually a little bit about this. This is a response actually from the Huthis, And if you're listening to this podcast, what you're seeing is a literal red sea and animation of a literal red sea and ships burning in the sea and over sunset. You're also seeing a rebel who's
gone majorly viral. The meme calls him Tim Houthy Shalla may because it kind of looks like Timothy actually right, But tell us what we're seeing from propaganda channels here.
So the first thing is the Houthis have been very clear that they want this, like they they are eager to have the United States launching a handful of air strikes at them, you know, they it is because it is useful to them domestically and regionally validating. Yeah, domestic domestically since the ceasefire with Saudi Arabia, that means the many public now has other demands of the government. They're
they're de facto government that that the situation improve. And that's kind of for for a lot of kind of rebel or revolutionary forces that that part of the process is less interesting like then than the actual fighting part. When you are at war with a hated rival, it's much easier to govern domestically, and so you've seen now the many public rally behind the Houthis in a way they hadn't since say, the twenty fifteen twenty sixteen era.
At the same time, regionally, polls among Palestinians and also around the Middle East are showing that the Huthis are now by far the most popular kind of regional actors, so they have a lot of their own interests. This and what's new about this I can't remember this happening in a conflict before. Is the way that the Western public is so readily able to identify with the people
that are supposed to be the adversaries. You see it certainly in Gaza, with all of these kind of Palestinian journalists becoming kind of influencer level celebrities on Instagram and TikTok, And that allows the kind of Western public to identify personally with a lot of with with you know, real
people who are under attack. Now you're you've seen the Houthis take this really interesting social media strategy where they're engaging directly with an American audience, like they will say death to America, but but you're cool, like you are
not We're not considering you America. You're American but the government does not represent your values, and they there's they have been encouraged by this by a response from an American public that is, like you, You've had a lot of people say saying thank you hoo these for like standing up against what Israel is doing in Palestine, and.
They seem encouraged by that.
This one seems to go a little bit off the rails because now you've got this American public just going gaga over this, like super hot.
Sailor he even he even responded.
And I mean, like all of that is just incredibly dangerous.
He's objectively hot though, right, I mean he's hot. This guy's hot.
I mean, there's good like he's he's a good looking to now. Newsweek called him Newsweek. The Newsweek headline was hot, hoothy. Pirate becomes online sensations, God, you're beautiful. I object to the pirate part because they are a de facto government carrying out a government policy. Whether you like the government policy or not or support it, don't support it. It's not piracy, like they're not not grabbing ships and like keeping the stuff and selling it.
It's not extra governmental.
Other than the fact that they are not the recognized government yet, but they are the recognized negotiating partner in governmental negotiations with Saudi Arabia, for instance.
It's actually I haven't ever had to parse the definition of pirate quite like this. Genuinely an interesting question, genuine interesting, but this is incredibly dangerous.
I get it.
I understand the social media back and forth. And in fact Ryan he responded, oh here.
Yeah, he said he's on Twitter because a lot of the Hohothies are on social media, and he wrote this is this is rough translate Google translation, but he wrote, responding to the Newsweek article, I did not talk about beauty or anything else. But our issue is Palestine and this is not the time to talk about beauty. I hope that my message will reach you a free Palestine and we will ignite it against the Israeli aggression that
violates human rights. I was going through the replies to that, and I saw a lot of people saying, you're so.
Right, give me a call.
Let's talk about that, Give me a call, call me, you're right.
Yeah.
Outrageous that people are objectifying you, call me.
It sort of reminds me of when like a model tries to post a political opinion. And I'm not comparing him to model because obviously he's a political actor and nonem but it reminds me of that when people can't get past how hot the person delivering the political messages.
You know, that happens to the best of us.
So the United States, we can put up this next element. The United States A four has designated this guy and everybody else associated with the Huthis as a foreign terrorist now not organization. So this this tweet that we have up there, says sources tell Fox. Biden administration is expected to redesignate the Houthis as a terrorist organization. After formerly removing the group from the FDO list in twenty twenty one, they're actually putting them on a slightly separate foreign terror list.
They held a press call last night where they announced this decision and basically what they're they're they're allowing thirty days, so it'll start from thirty days from today they will get this foreign terror designation. The main, the main kind of consequence of that decision will be that it will be very hard for the Saudi Yea many peace talks to conclude because the number one thing that the Yamenis
want out of the Saudi peace talks, is their money back. Basically, Saudi Arabia has had access us to a lot of you many money they basically their bank accounts.
And they've seized it.
And so many teachers, policemen, firefighters, public workers, and also soldiers have not been paid and there so there have been for years now and it has, you know, further this humanitarian crisis inside Yemen. So the main demand has been we want the money. For a while, the Saudis were saying, well, we'll pay some of the teachers, but we're not going to We're.
Not we're not going to pay the police.
And then it's and then eventually they are okay, we'll pay the police, but we're not going to pay the soldiers. And then eventually like, okay, we actually will pay the soldiers. Like because the Houthis are like, no, we're the we're the government. You're recognizing us as a government, you have to give us all of our money. If they're listed as a terror organization, they can't receive that money. At
the same time, it will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. And there was a really interesting kind of element of this when the when the US announced it where they said that they're taking unusual and almost unique precautions to try to prevent these sanctions that they're applying to hurt the many civilian population because they are so aware of the
current crisis that the many civilians are operating in. But to me, that is a rare admission that sanctions actually do hurt the civilian population, because normally the line from the State Department is sanctions only target the elites, they don't actually hurt people. But if they have to make kind of special carve outs for this, why would it be the case that other sanctions in the past.
Have been different.
Finally, and then gets your response to this, the fact that it's taking thirty days. They said, that's so that they can work out all of the logistics of this, so it has the least.
Amount of harm to be many civilians.
But the Hoothies have said that the attacks will stop and the Red Sea traffic can flow when the Israel Gaza war ends. The US says it wants this war to end, So the fact that they're not even implementing these sanctions for another thirty days suggests the US doesn't have any optimism that it's going to be able to get Israel to stop this assault.
They should pressure and actually, I know we've talked before about how it's less clear cut because even Hamas doesn't know perhaps.
Where all the hostages are the HOO.
They should, of course, if they want to stop the blockade, they should pressure Hamas to release the hostages, which would be a huge step towards.
Which there is news on that this morning. I don't know if you saw this report.
The Cutter is very close to brokering another deal between Hamas and Israel. There was a small deal made that in exchange from more humanitarian aid getting into into Gaza, that they're bringing medicine to the hostages.
Like that's kind of one of the Macaver deals that was just struggle marketing trip and that's part of.
Part of this latter deal toward a bigger kind of hostage relief that could be coming very soon.
But you're right that the.
Who theis I mean, the who these are doing the HOO, these are trying to, you know, use what leverage they can to pressure Israel to end this and it would so yeah, well we'll see if this, if this hostage heel comes through the fighting that we're seeing last night and yesterday in Israel is like, I'm sorry. In Southern Gaza residents, they are reporting it's like nothing they've seen
the entire time. You know, we've been hearing from Israel that they're moving soon to a lower phase of this conflict. But the descriptions of the air strikes coming out of southern Gaza from last night in this morning were extremely intense. Hamasa's telegram channel putting up lots of different reports of all sorts of.
Battles throughout southern Gaza.
BBC reporting that Israel is closing in on Al Nasser Hospital, which one of the few hospitals that in southern Gaza that remains kind of a refuge for you know, probably thousands of people.
At this point. Israel also struck a Jordanian.
Field hospital in Gaza, and so uh Jordan has now angrily responded to that, accusing Israel violating the you know, humanitarian law and laws of laws of war. Can't can't strike another countries field hospital and you know, threatn and threatening you know, not military retaliation, but threatening you know, political repercussions. And it shipped like Jordan did not want to be in this situation, like at the very beginning, Jordan was actually kind of sending UH supplies and such like.
Two. I don't want I don't want to talk about the because I don't get it wrong.
But there was Jordan was kind of caught cooperating with Israel, and in response to that kind of signed on to the South African complaint they had better relations. Now Israel's like attacking their field hospital and there denouncing them.
It's like really spiraling.
Well, this is a good transition actually into something you've been reporting on a lot, which is the potential responses from Congress. And I was going to say members of the left in Congress, but actually Senator rand Paul joined in a vote that happened just last night. We want to start though, with a clip of Bernie Sanders kind of talking about it, and maybe Ryan, you could.
Set this up right.
So this is Senator Bernie Sanders talking to Jake Tapper about a resolution that he forced onto the Senate floor last night that all it would have done is required the State Department to take thirty days and to study the question of whether or not Israel is violating human rights with US weapons. We'll talk about how that vote went on the Senate floor. First, but first, here's Bernie Sanders talking to Jake Tapper.
The spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, responded to your plan, saying, quote, we do not believe that this resolution is the right vehicle to address these issues, and we don't think now is the right time. These relies have indicated they are preparing to transition their operations to much lower intensity, and we believe that that transition will be helpful both in terms of reducing civilian casualties as well as increasing humanitarian assistance.
Unquote, what do you say to that? I strongly disagree, Jake.
We've got, as Americans, take a very deep breath. What is going on in Gaza right now is a horrendous humanitarian catastrophe. We're looking at twenty three thousand people who have been killed, almost sixty thousand have been wounded, and two thirds of the people who have been killed are women and children. You're looking at seventy percent of the
housing units in Godza that have been destroyed. Jake, if I use the word Dresden, Germany to you, you think about the horrific destruction during World War iiO of that city what is going on in Godza now in three months is worse than what took place in Dresden over a two year period.
This is a catastrophe.
And now, according to the United Nations, after you have one point nine million people displaced from their homes, they don't have food, they don't have water, they don't have medical equipment, they don't have fuel. What you are looking at is imminent starvation. Children are starving to death. So my view has been from the beginning, Israel has a right to respond to this horrific terrorist attack from Kamas, but you do not have a right to go to war against an entire people, women and children.
So Ryan, that was to your point before Congress actually voted on this, What can you tell us about what was on the table as they went to vote yesterday late late last night.
Actually right?
And also so the backup what Bernie Center is saying about starvation. Un Special Rappertoire put out a joint statement yesterday saying currently every single person in Gaza is hungry. Order of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent. And so they put it on the they put it. Were you surprised to see Rampaul's I wasn't, no.
Not at all.
And actually I wasn't surprised specifically because when we had our discussion with him, was that about a month ago now, maybe a little longer than a month ago. I felt like he was really engaging with the questions.
That he was pretty critical and willing to be thinking pretty openly about this.
Right, and he's I feel like he's He's generally one of the standouts in the Republican Party when it comes to looking at our Middle Eastern policy and all of that. So not entirely surprising, although given how intense the sort of party line has been in the last couple of months on this one, I mean, vote your conscience.
It's impressive always.
So there were about eleven people who vote whose consciencence told them to vote with Bernie Sanders. If we can put the next element up there, LaFond of Butler, the new member of new Senator from California at Martin, Heinrich Masi Herono, Ben Ray Luhan, Ed Marky, Jeff Murkley, Ran Paul, Bernie of course, Chris van Holland, Elizabeth Warren, Peter welch.
Chris van Holland probably the most important vote there because he is he and Chris Murphy are kind of collectively the two most respected Democrats in the Senate at the State Department.
Like if you're a State Department official, you know you.
Want the approval and you kind of fear the disapproval of both Murphy and Van Holland, and so to have Van Holland vote for that is will be noticed.
In Foggy Bottom.
Van Holland and Murkley both just were at the RAFA border crossing in Gaza.
Van Holland came back.
Van Hollen Murkley both came back and sensed at what they had seen there and said that Israel is deliberately withholding humanitarian aid and sparking the UNS describing as famine conditions.
So the vote was seventy two to eleven, and Ryan, I think that.
Was everybody else.
I was just going to say.
Republic was not there because there there was Democrats who missed it.
I can look, but it's an interesting question.
A bunch of Republicans had missed another, I had missed a couple other votes.
This happened at eight pm last night, so on a Tuesday night, and so seventy two to eleven, it's pretty resounding no. And again, the element we just tied up on the screen was a tweet, and the way that it was put there is the Senator just voted seventy to eleven to kill Senator Sanders resolution to have the
State Department report Israel's human rights abuses against Postinians and Ryan. Though, what you're saying is that it's a little different even than that, it's a little softer even than that, it's not so much report Israel's human rights abuses. It's report on potential investigating.
Yeah, are they doing anything wrong? Kirby's response is interesting. He's saying, we don't need to do this because Israel has assured us that at some point in the near future it's going to.
Slow down its attack.
The only but back in Israel, the politicians are saying the opposite, like they're saying that this isn't stopping.
Right, and the only reason it would stop is if.
The United States kind of used its leverage to pressure it to stop. And I think that in the long run, this is not going to be beneficial to Israel either, and it's friends and allies who kind of enabled it in this moment are not doing Israel a favor.
Now, tell us about this Haretz report.
We can put this up on the screen where this is the first paragraph of the report. The Jewish Culture Department of the Ministry of Education has walked back it's agreement to help fund an annual Shavut event that took place in twenty twenty three organized by the Midge you know, Regional Council, due to Israeli Arab broadcast journalist Lucy Arisha's participation as the event's host. I am in shock, she
told her. It's so hurtful to me, especially at the time we find ourselves in right now after October seventh. There's no other word for it except racism. In selling my good name, what's going on here.
Ran, there is a a racist block that has significant power inside the Israeli government at this point. Is like when we say that this is the most far right Israeli government in Israeli history, it's not hyperbole like that. The Israeli government itself would say that that is that is the case, And there there is a there is.
A faction within that, within that coalition that.
Believes things that here in the United States are just abhorrent and repellent, such as you a woman who represents mixed marriage cannot represent Jewish.
Culture according to this element of the ministry.
Uh.
And it's you know, as the spotlight shines on some of these some of these practices because the world is now paying so much close attention, the claim that Israel often uses in its defense that it is the only it is this beacon of democracy, it's the only democracy in the Middle East, you know, begins to fall apart, because, well, if you're the only democracy in the Middle East, what is this like this this we do not associate this type of state action with democracy.
And they're saying okay.
Regarding the event, appears that there was a failure in communication between the director and the supervisor, going full bureaucracy because the publication went to the group without receiving the approval of the supervisor. According to the procedures, the activity can't be approved. So we'll see how that unfolds.
Going Hopefully the attention gets them to backtrack on this.
But to your point, I mean, it is actually a really interesting question. Post October seventh, when attentions are as high as they are in Israel. Are they able to withstand the intense pressures and suspicions and yes, racism that exists and proceed in sort of seemingly democratic banal machinations like hosting a speaker at a government event. I mean, this is a very interesting sort of flare up I think culturally.
Yeah, And we also wanted to play this clip from the European Parliament from an Irish member of Parliament yesterday who you know, she's a controversial figure within the European Parliament and I think but this clip of her denouncing both Biden and Israel has gone wildly viral.
Despite the catastrophic debt toll it has inflicted, Israel is losing on the ground and in the court of public opinion. There's no way that this ends that doesn't leave Israel a pariah state with occupation and a paratheid on borrowed. And they know it. So they're doing everything they can, desperate acts of aggression to provoke a wider conflict with Lebanon, with Iran, with anybody to draw in the US to
save them from the consequences of their own actions. And as Yemen shows, Butcher Biden is reporting for duty with Europe throut genocide by his side. They are the ones who have enabled the continuation of Israeli terror. Without them, it would already be over. So take notes, Butcher Biden, the ancestors of the Ireland that you claim to be from, disown you. Keep our country out of your mouth and ask for vonderlyon and genocidal Germany with your words, indeed supporting Israel in the ICJ, not.
In our name.
The people of Europe stand with Palestine and with South Africa.
Particularly harsh words for Biden Ryan given that when Biden visited the Middle East as president, he specifically said that he can empathize with the plight of the Palestinians because he is Irish.
He's very proud of his Irish heritage. When he was right.
After he was won the election, a BBC reporter shouted out to him, you know, he was President Biden, BBC, BBC and he turned around.
He's like, BBC, I'm Irish, what are you.
I'm not talking to BBC. And he was steeped in this tradition he wants. In a speech, said that he was told that one of his ancestors was in the Molly mcguires, which is like this kind of mining, kind
of terror group. And he said later they turned out heard they heard that that was not true, and he said they were all disappointed because they wished, they wished it was true, because Molly McGuire's are total folk heroes among kind of Irish Catholics in in uh in Pennsylvania and in that in that region where he's where he's from.
So yeah, to have to have him called butcher bide, which is a very Irish kind of phrasing and denounced by denouncing those strong terms, you know, probably lands, even if it's not from the very top of the Irish government.
Going after Germany too there also quite nerro.
Doesn't spare anybody in general.
No, the harsh words all around. All right, let's move on to New Hampshire. Actually, Ryan, because the entire country has moved.
On to New Hampshire.
I remember Nikki Haley when she was speaking on Tuesday night or Monday night when I really caucuses where it's all big blur in an election year, Monday night, she said, I love you Iowa, but now we're going on to New Hampshire.
It's just so typical.
Been fun I'll never be in this state again.
Yeah, like, don't make me do this, please, we can go ahead and put the first element up on the screen. This is a poll from the American Research Group that was conducted between January twelfth and fifteenth, So January twelfth and fifteenth, right before the caucuses, So Nicki Haley can and third obviously in the caucuses. This is a New Hampshire Republican primary voters. They have her tide with Donald Trump at forty percent. So Haley forty percent, Trump forty percent,
Disantus all the way down at four percent. Notably, Viveke Ramaswami is at four percent, so you can maybe expect that Trump has a little bit of a boost over that forty percent. Maybe it's not quite so tied now that Viveke has dropped out of the race, and in fact he is in New Hampshire, uh.
Stumping for Trump as well.
I think we maybe even have video of vivec in New Hampshire that we can play because they're.
Sort of whispering in each other's ears really beautifully. Do we have that? Guys?
Thank you?
Wow?
That's how is that pretty good?
Right?
I was pretty good?
And he's a fantastic guy, and he's really he's got something that's very special because he started off with a zippo and he's got he ended up very strong. He did a great job. I was actually surprised when he called up because he was doing well and it's an honor to have his endorsepin. He's going to be working with us and he'll be working with us for a long time.
So aftergetting about seven point seven percent in Iowa, if obviously dropped out indorse Donald Trump, he is now stumping for Donald Trump. He was drawing some pretty big crowds in Iowa, I think in part because whatever you think of the guy, he's.
A compelling speaker, entertaining. He makes a very entertaining and energetic case for Donald Trump. So maybe a little bit of a weapon there.
But Nicki Haley is pretty close to Donald Trump. And when I say pretty close, I mean relatively in the RCP polling average, so that pole has them actually tied. But in the RCP average going into the Iowa caucuses in New Hampshire, Nikki Helelly was still down double digits to Donald Trump, and so we're.
Still the tie. Pole is a big outlier it's a.
Big, big outlier, and if she was trying to get a bump going into New Hampshire, she probably would have had to do better than third place, Ryan, because the third place surge isn't gonna do much for you. She is at I think she's at like twenty nine in the RCP average latest year.
I think that last one gave her a little bumps, and now they have her at Trump forty four point five percent, Haley thirty one point three percent.
Just still technically double digits down. Yeah, in the polling average. So there's an outlierpole showing her there. The path even if she wins New Hampshire is I mean, you really have to squint to see the path for her, even if she wins New Hampshire. She is leaning on this
next generation, new generation of leadership. When Dana Bash pressed her on the Egen Carrol defamation damage's case that was happening in New York yesterday, Nikki Haley had an interesting response, Let's play that this is an element too in this block.
He's already been found libel for defaming Egen Carrol, who accused him of raping her thirty years ago. A jury found him libel for sexual abuse, and this trial that he's attending today is about damages that he must pay her.
You're the only woman in this race.
How do you feel about your party's front runner being held liable for sexual abuse?
I mean, first of all, I haven't paid attention to is his cases, and I'm not a lawyer. All I know is that he's innocent until proven guilty. And when he's proven guilty and he's sitting in a courtroom, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You've got investigations on Trump and Biden.
A lot of people forgive me, but a lot of people in the Republican Party blow it all off and say that it's all a witch hunt, and which is because I think some of the cases been particular.
This one I haven't looked at. But look, if he's found guilty, then he'll he needs to pay the price. He needs to do what he's supposed to every one of these cases, they need to be heard out, he needs to defend himself. If he is found guilty, he's going to pay the price. If he's not found guilty, then we move forward. What I will tell you is I'm focused on the economy, the border and education and getting our country back on track. If he's sitting in
a courtroom, that goes back to what I'm saying. We can't continue to be distracted, we can't continue.
To be in chaos.
We have a country to say.
So for some.
Context on that case that was just mentioned, here's from NBC News. They say testimony will begin Wednesday, So today in Egen Carroll's damages trials, that's the testimony is what is beginning today against Donald Trump, with the writer on the witness stand and the former president who was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her expected to be in the courtroom. That decision came down several months ago.
Carol eighty will tell the New York Federal Court jury and the defamation case how her life turned upside down after Trump. Then the President repeatedly slammed her publicly after she first came forward in twenty nineteen with allegations that he sexually assaulted her in a dressing room in a Manhattan department store in nineteen ninety six. We don't have to debate the merits of the Egen Carroll case. We've covered this before. I honestly don't find that case particularly credible.
She was though he was found liable for the allegations in New York, why they're now talking about the damages.
And the fun detail, like he already got hit with damages.
Yeah, this case comes from what he said after that, after that, So and immediately when I saw him defaming her again, I was like, you can't do this.
You just got slammed for this.
I mean, he can do it if he wants to pay.
And she immediately sued him again, and this time they didn't have a trial because they're like, we already adjudicated the facts of the case. You said this again and worse stuff, so now you're going to pay again. So yeah, he can keep doing it. It's just going to cost him judgment after judgment after judgment.
So this brings us to Niki Haley's point. She pivoted as Dana Bash was pushing her. Nikki Haley pivoted and said, listen, I haven't been paying attention to it, but this is
what I'm talking about with all of the cases. She's actually, i think, going in the opposite direction of where the vast majority of Republican voters want her to talk about, which is if you look at everyone except for Niki Haley basically, but if you look at you know, over the course of the last year, as the indictments against Donald Trump have stacked up, I think it was you Ryan he said, it looks like a crocodile when you look at the polling with DeSantis in particular, Trump's polling
keeps going up because the more oxygen that these cases are getting, the more Republican voters. I'm not talking about everybody, but the more Republican voters say he's got to be the one. He's the one that's being targeted by the political establishment, which we all agree sucks, so he has to be the one to carry the torch going forward. And Nicki Haley is really making the opposite argument, and
perhaps that's because it's really her only opening politically. She has to then appeal if he's that and this is true. In the RCP average, he's around sixty percent, Donald Trump is and all the other candidates. I think Nikki Haley's around like twelve percent. De Santis is around ten percent
in the RCP national polling average. Of course that was from before Iowa, but still that's a huge, huge margin for Donald Trump Ron de Santis voters, people that Nicki Haley is going to want to pick up to make up that about ten point difference roughly that she has a New Hampshire right now with Donald Trump. Those are not the voters that want her to be attacking Trump for being attacked with law fair and Again, whatever you think of all of these cases, I do think some
of them are more serious than others. Whatever you think of that though, Republican voters are sick of it, but they're not sick of it to the extent that they're going to say, Hay lady from the Boeing board who sucked up to Donald Trump for a really long time then decided you kind of had different opinions on him, and now you're attacking him for being attacked.
I'm not sure that's the winning message.
Nikki Hilly needs to cobble together the math for the coalition?
Is there one like?
It doesn't seem like there is a message or a coalition that is bigger than the MAGA coalition behind Trump.
Yeah. I think that's the biggest problem.
I think of the Republican elector at about thirty percent, I would say, are hardcore always Trump.
As I think DeSantis has described them in the past.
So with that old always Trump voting block and all of the attention on the indictments, yeah, I'm the more and more I think about it, there really was no room. And obviously we have the benefit of hindsight now that there's a year and all of these indictments in the rear view mirror to look back when Destantus and Haley and Tim Scott were launching their campaigns and Mike Pennce were launching their campaigns and say in retrospect, there wasn't going to be a lot of oxygen for anybody else.
I think that was pretty evident why it was happening. But now it is just abundantly clear that when you stack together the always Trump voters with the people who are watching what's happening in the indictments, you know, it's I don't know what the path ever would have been realistically.
David Axelrod just said the Republican Party is steaming toward nominating a candidate for president who is facing four criminal indictments, including one for plotting to overturn a free and fair election. He very well could be a convicted felon by the Republican Convention in July, and he could win all true facts.
You know, I saw a lot of people having those sort of moments after the Iowa Caucus and he sort of cleaned up. Beth Moore, who's controversial and evangelical circles, was saying, you know, we really need to come to terms of trump is and it's like we needed.
To do that eight years ago.
If you didn't do that over the last eight years, and it speaks actually to I think one of the biggest problems is here. I think it was one of the biggest problems for Nikki Haley. I think it was one of the biggest problems for Destantas is that they, like a lot of the left, instead of kind of grappling with trump Ism head on, meeting Trump voters where they are, they try to kind of have it both ways.
They tried to say, listen, like especially Haley and de Stanta's like, listen, Trump did some good things, but at the end of the day, you know, he's just a distraction.
He's just you know, wild whatever it is. But voters like that. Not every voter likes that, but enough voters like that.
And the other thing, and this is The last thing I'll say in this is if even if they're.
Ambivalent on the mean tweets and whatever.
Else, they really really hate the political establishment. So if you're juxtaposing main tweets with Nicki Haley, people are going to choose the mean tweets. If Nicki Haley's answer is ambivalence on some of these major questions, like she got into that really interesting bat with rond de Santa Son welfare reform, she got into really interesting spot on girls sports, all of these different things, or I think it was actually on locker rooms and bathrooms and some of the debates.
So's if it's sort of like milk toast elite ambivalence versus mean tweets Republican voters. Enough Republican voters, in fact, a majority of Republican voters are going to go with the mean tweets.
Well, they've got their man.
Then are you not voting in the Republican primary.
I'm voting in that primary that's delucked.
Oh for people who are voting the New Hampshire primary, have you seen this? So there is a kind of an anti war kind of ground swell that is urging people who are voting in the Democratic Primary in New Hampshire.
The Democratic Primary is going to be competitive.
They're telling people vote right in ceasefire, don't vote for Dean Phillip, don't vote for Marion Williams, and don't don't write in Jank, but vote right in ceasefire, and that they think if enough people can write in ceasefire against Joe Biden, that that will at least kind of show how much kind of public opposition there is to it.
I don't know if there's.
Time for that to catch on among kind of rank and file voters, but there's an effort underway, and you know, if it goes viral, you know, I could see it catching on well.
In speaking of milk toast ambivalence centrist ambivalence, I think Dean Phillips has some really legitimate gripes with the DNC, is not going to be an attractive candidate, even though Bill Ackman just infused like a million dollars into his campaign. That said, because he now has money and attention from some people that have big platforms, this is definitely like
there will be more New Hampshire's for Democrats down the line. Now, New Hampshire doesn't have a lot of delegates, and you're probably.
Not to be zero because they're not supposed to be having their Democratic primary. Yes, like so DNC told them this doesn't even count, doesn't count, right, so just go ahead right and sees fire cares doesn't even count.
It doesn't count.
But that I can't throw away aboute you don't have.
That's gonna I mean, to some extent, it does seem like that sort of shadow race, the side race is picking up steam in a way that could be something Biden has to respond to at some point.
He's smart politically not to respond to it now.
But uh, there's something's happening, something's brewing under the surface there.
So let's talk about this scandal unfolding on the border. What's going on there?
Yeah, absolutely, so, there's just horrible news, and you know, predictably horrible news. But we can put the first tear sheet up on the screen. This is from CNN. I'm going to read a little bit from the article here. The drowning deaths of a woman and two children from Mexico near the US Mexico border have magnified the rift between Texas and federal officials over who has jurisdiction in that part of the Rio Grand area and how to
tackle the migrant crisis. The tragedy happened days after state authorities blocked the US Border Patrol from accessing two and a half miles of the US Mexico border near Eagle Pass, Texas, which was recently the epicenter of the migrant crisis. That area includes Shelby Park, a city park on the Rio Grand that Texas authorities blocked off with fencing gates and razor wire, effectively denying access to federal Border Patrol agents.
So that's what Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has been pushing for is sort of heightened state control in the absence of federal action, to sort of enforce stricter policies on the physical land the territory as migrants are making their way across the Rio Grand River over to the Texas side.
And so what happened, Oh my gosh, it's Ryan.
This story, I mean went it went viral right away, and then what we're going to talk about is that some different things, some new art.
But the way it was originally framed was that the implication was that the border patrol we're trying would have been able to rescue this family, but the state troopers, you know, basically blocked them from getting there. One of the first things that immigrant advocates said when they saw that story circulating was that's odd because often border patrol is the one blocking activists who are trying to prevent
people from drowning. So now when when all of a sudden, did border patrol you know, get getting you know, so enthusiastic about trying to trying to rescue people when in the past they've been in the way. Sometimes border patrol does rescue people, I don't, and there are a lot of you know, good brave people that work with them, with a lot of people who were also you know, have participated in you know, blocking access to people or knocking over water in the desert, putting people at risk.
So then we discover that it seems like the timeline and line up right that the family had tragically drowned already.
But that doesn't let anybody off the hook, and that's what we should get into here. So I'm now jumping back to an AP paragraph from January fourteenth, because I think it gives insight into what the story initially looked like. They reported the U s Homeland Security Department said Saturday that Texas denied federal agents access to a stretcher border when they were trying to rescue three migrants who drowned.
The federal government's account came hours after Henry Kuayar said the Texas Military Department in Texas National Guard quote did not grant access to border patrol agents to save the migrants Friday night. Mexican authorities recover the bodies of a woman and two children Saturday across the border from Eagle Past, Texas.
So just that first graph from the Associated Press mirrors the reporting that was happening over the weekend and into early this week when it says that Department of Homeland Security said Saturday Texas denied federal agent's access to a stretch of border when they were trying to rescue three
migrants who drowned. What it looks like had happened is that the migrants drowned around eight pm, they didn't learn about it until nine pm, and then were denied axis when they were trying to rescue additional migrants who survived.
Right. So it's still not cool.
And what I think is extremely disturbing about this whole story, and this is a new again. I'm going back to the other ap story that's sort of reflecting on some of all of this after it has come down, is that there are lawsuits going back and forth between Texas and the Biden administration over who can do what at the border because Greg Abbott is saying and listen, there's even Republicans have lots of debate over the merits of Greg Abbott.
There are a lot of Conservatives who.
Are not happy with Greg Abbott in Texas. There are a lot of people in general are not happy with Greg Abbott in Texas. But the mass of human suffering that has poured into Texas and that is the border is an incredible challenge for any any governor, whether they're
a Republican or a Democrat. And the Biden administration's policies, we've we've talked and debated this before, from my perspective, make this worse constantly by CBP one for example, by getting rid of Romain in Mexico, by all of those different things. And again, I know we've debated those and probably disagree on some of this stuff, but the fact of the matter is it's it's not crazy to look what the Biden administration has done and say this is creating a real problem for taxing.
I think we agree.
It's it's it's not a good situation on the border, and it's not it's not rational like it's it's not it's not well organized, and it's dangerous.
And that's exactly the point that it's. It's it's leading to these bureaucratic disputes that are putting people in danger because when you're reading the filings from the Department of Justice about how people were going to different like people in the representatives of the bureaucracy when people needed to be rescued because there's dispute over who can do what on that land.
It is just appalling.
Right, you don't have time to file emotion if somebody needs to be rescued quickly. My understanding though, is that the states have no role in immigration policy.
So where does AVOC get off here.
They're litigating that in the courts and it's gone back and is.
There any legal argument other than we're going to do it and then fight it in the courts.
I mean, yeah, I mean I think that's what the argument is.
And one of the things that people target is it's USB Arizona. You remember the Jan Brewer a SB ten seventy case when then Arizona Governor Jan Brewer people may or may not remember from the Obama era, sort of a figment of the Tea Party heyday, she had passed a long called the SB ten seventy that was allowing I think it was Arizona state troopers to you basically ask people for their papers when they're pulled over for
traffic stops. And Arizona the Supreme Court overturned that, but a lot of states like Texas under Republican leadership, think that's at an unfortunate precedent now that they feel like they're not getting enough support from border patrol and federal agencies. As you have a rampant cartel activity on their borders,
human trafficking on their borders. And when I say human trafficking, I mean actually, you know, basically every migrant who crosses has paid the cartels, and that's all coming into Texas. Some people are coming into Texas with debts to the cartels. Actually a lot of people are coming into Texas with that's the cartels. There's just all kinds of abuse and human suffering. Again that we've talked about many times, but
this is how Greg Abbott has handled it. We have a slot here from Texas Governor Greg Gabbott, who was talking to Dana Lash on her show.
D three.
Sorry, we are using every tool that can they use, from building a border wall, to building these border barriers, to.
Passing this law that I signed that led to an open lawsuit by the biod administration where I signed a law making it illegal for somebody to enter Texas from another country and so and they're subject to arrest.
And subject to deportation.
And so we are deploying every tool and strategy that we possibly can. The only thing that we're not doing is we're not shooting people who come across the border, because of course the bid administration would charges with murder.
Okay, so Greg Gabbott, and let's make sure we understood him clearly at the end here.
The only thing we're not doing is shooting people because we would get charged with murder.
We would get charged with murder.
That's the reason why.
That's it. That's the one.
This went really viral in Texas media and he's getting a ton of fire for it. Again, I think we this is this is probably something house. He responded to it basically exactly as you expect and say, you know, I'm having this broader conversation about an invasion on the border, and you know that's what I was talking about. I was talking about, you know, acts that and I guess, so what.
Do you want me to say? I said I wouldn't shoot that.
I said I wouldn't shoot that.
Right.
So again, I think the outrage is really unfortunate from the media here because I think there's something Bill Malegion of Fox has said. There are people who are drowning every single day.
You put up the Texas Tribune one that goes with this, right.
Yeah, here you can see this. This is the Texas Tribune. This is Abbot's response. But you know again, this is people are drowning every single day in their efforts to cross the Rio grand Part of ABBA's response actually was that nobody has ever drowned at a legal port of entry.
So if you're.
Crossing the Rio Grande, which I actually think it's it's probably lower numbers of illegal crossers who are swimming the river because there's so many legalized pass through CBP one to come in and make a dubious asylum claim. And that's part of the problem with the Biden administration's policy is that it has this.
Overly brought right.
Why are people Are people just not aware that they can just check in?
Basically, It's like under the.
New policy, you turn yourself over and then after a while you're released with a court date basically.
And the problem is there's still quotas, and the quotas are different depending on where you were on the border, and every single day where you were on a border. Like I've seen a guy like I was at a restpite center once and watching this guy flip through WhatsApp messages on his phone with border patrol in the US and this was in Renos, and he's he's just going through his phone all the messages about who can come across on what.
Day and how many people this day.
They nobody day to day has any idea how many people are gonna be able to get across and why there's like no rhyme of reason to it other than you know what Border patrol knows about, what DHS knows about.
And it's incredibly confusing.
So I think desperate people I often wonder that too, like why not wait it out. But I think desperate people take desperate steps. They don't have the money. The cartel spread information, but they don't have maybe they don't have the money to sit and wait for their CDP one appointment because there's a backlog on the appointments, so they can, you know, pay less to cross something to
that extent. So it's it's just an abject disaster. And a lot of times what you've seen are actual members of the cartel swimming people halfway through the river and
then sending them off. And so the idea that there would be some like enforcement of cartel members who are breaching the border, I mean, I think Greg Abbott said something that sounded really callous and flippant, and that's a huge problem for Republicans when they talk about this issue, because I think the Biden administration is so clearly wrong on it and so clearly wrong on it from the perspective of human dignity and human suffering that there's no need to be casual and flip in a way that
actually sounds like Republicans aren't taking seriously the moral high ground that they have on this issue, and not just Republicans, but anybody that looks at the Biden administration's policy and is like, this is a bureaucratic disaster that's putting.
Lives on the line.
Meanwhile, it seems like Republicans are going to end up rejecting any type of negotiated border or immigration deal in Congress. You can put this last Bloomberg element up. You've got Jim Jordan here saying that Speaker Mike Johnson is going to reject a Senate a Senate border deal, but if a Senate, even if the Senate can get something through.
You know, the cynical assessment that I've been making the whole time has been that Republicans don't have an incentive to cut a deal with Democrats here because the crisis on the border is better politically than resolving it.
And so.
They will use the argument that, well, we're not taking this bill that is eighty percent of what we want because we're going to wait until we're in full power and get one hundred percent of what we want.
But that argument is in many.
Ways just to cover for being actually okay with it with the crisis, so that they can use it now Democrats. You know, it's not unique to Republicans Democrats are I can't operate justice cynically. I'm curious for your take if that's why you think this deal's falling apart, or if it's or what like, why wouldn't Republicans take this moment where Biden is just trying to give away the store.
I think it's not just Republicans.
I think it's not just Democrats I should say that don't want to do anything about the border. To your point, I think it's also Republicans that you see the.
Political benefit of it.
But I think it's also Republicans that are fine with the unending flow of cheap labor into the country because to actually deal with this, you need to deal with asylum, and what the Biden administration is willing to do so far is not serious. It's saying things like, well, we're going to fund border patrol and things that make it really easy for Biden to go out in the campaign trail in twenty twenty four and say Republicans blocked this
immigration effort that I made. I wanted to give border patrol more money, and Republicans didn't want to do it. Because you can have all the money for border patrol in the world and again, you are letting people make all of these appointments through CVP one. There's a huge CVP one backlog. There's asylum judication backlogs because the definition of asylum is confusing because the courts have these competing definitions that change all of the time.
So the huge issue with Title forty two.
Then you can fund border patrol all you want, you can give them all the money in the world. You can have all your fun little lasers and peter tail equipment.
On the border.
It's not going to matter unless you deal with asylum. So I think when you see the opposition from Freedom Caucus types type of people, they're saying, listen, it's not serious.
It's going to give by in the talking point.
When you see opposition from centrist type Republicans, I think it's less authentic.
All right, Well, let's turn to Ukraine and talk about a wild story that I've got over at the intercept there. If you put up this first element here, say, the Ukrainian military is partnering with a founder of the Yippies for a ie Be Again research project, and the research project is aimed at two separate things. One is the use of I begain to treat traumatic brain injury TBI, and separately the use of I be again at a microdose level UH two for for battle readiness basically and morale.
And so let's let's run through these. How much do you know.
About ibogain just what I've heard from you?
Okay?
So I again is it derives from an African root and it is arguably the like the most potent hallucinogen you can think of. That is that is long lasting, similar to ayahuasca in some ways in that it sends you into I have never done ieb again. It's it sends you into this like dreamlike state for a deeply extended period of time. And is nobody I think would disc it as enjoyable like these are like haunting, a
haunting dream like state. It was used traditionally an African like initiation ceremonies, write a passage ceremonies, and has developed into a therapeutic uses, particularly for addiction. The most famous person to have benefited from it Hunter Biden.
It is illegal here in the United States. It's a schedule one drug.
Hunter Biden in his memoir talks about how he went to Mexico and got an iebe gain treatment and it just seems to have been effective so far.
You battle, you know, addiction battles are constant.
Wasn't the man.
Who was accused of and did attack Paul Pelosi mixed up.
And he had he had there was some interesting involvement with ibogain with him where because because IBA gain is so effective at at helping people kick addiction, uh, and because it's illegal, then now you have it. You know, you have people who are trying to like kind of black market use it in San Francisco for instance. So it's not it's not clear exactly. People were saying, well, maybe he was on ib again and knowing a little bit about ivan, like, there's no way he was on
ib again. You can't, right, you're like flat on your back. It's you're you can't go assault anybody. I mean that that's I wouldn't say that with one hundred percent certainty. Anything can happen, But for the most part, people are pretty immobilized.
Uh.
There is a risk of there's a cardiovascular risk associated with with IB again and some uh, some people with substance use disorders who are trying to overcome them and who are in you know, we pretty weakened conditions have died from like heart attacks or other cardiovascular issues. And so that's another reason that you would you want this to be you know, done clinically and with and with this, you know, with support systems in place in case, you know,
you do have some cardiovascular side effect. So there was recently a nature medicine actually, UH, a study showing that it was effective against traumatic brain injury. They used this Stanford developed protocol that introduces magnesium with with I begain to try to mitigate some of the cardiovascular issues. Okay,
setting So that that's the that's the background here. So when it comes to battle readiness, UH, militaries throughout the throughout history really have been giving soldiers stimulants basically for you know, you know, liquid courage, UH, A bunch of bunch of whiskey, a couple of shots of whiskey right before people would go over the trenches up to the Nazis using meth basically like you know, medical medical grade amphetamines.
UH.
The United States has used you know, plenty of meth amphetamines as as well with its with its soldiers. They're using that in UH in Ukraine as well. The Russians are on this like really kind of like low grade foul Syrian produced that sound. Yeah that uh, and that causes like any any amphetamine is is is uh is not basically healthy for you. But the trashy ones, the dirty ones, are much worse and cause premature aging, paranoias, psychosis, like all sorts of reasons that you would want some
type of an alternative. If you can't have peace, piece is a better alternative. But if you can't atpiece, some other type of alternative to it. You know, silos cybin is becoming mushrooms or you know that's becoming I've become a convert to that. I used to think that because this stuff came out of Slogan Valley, that it was faced and nonsense is something that tech pros just made up. It's not legal in Washington, DC, like there was a ballot initiative past.
You can walk into a.
Store and buy like microdosis of shrooms and and you use them instead of coffee, for instance. So the proposal here from the IPPI co founder who names Dana biel H and it's it's funded by John Lubecki actually partly funded it, who we've had on this show.
Before, as well as maps Rick Rick Doblin.
Multi multi multi association discipline or psychedelic studies something like that. It's like the biggest, it's the biggest kind of psychedelic research organization in the world.
So they came together. They're funding this project in Ukraine.
So what they're saying is we will, you know, supply some Ukrainian troops with microdoses of IBA gain for battle readiness, but then separately treat them uh for traumatic brain inagury and see if we can replicate the results that that they got in this Nature Medicine article. And you know, I tease this quote at the beginning, but here Dana Biale told me, we think that what we'll do is we'll get our side to live longer. It'll be the Ukrainians on IBA gain versus the Russians on meth.
It's incredible quote.
So, but it's still war, and it's still it's still awful.
But the hope is that I begain doesn't lead to as many kind of long term problems if people have. So I actually confirmed this with the with the Ukrainian military. I talked to a military psychologist who was was attached to the fifty seventh Motor Infantry Brigade Alexi skirt talk and he.
What he said.
He said, we really need as much i BE again as possible. Even if the war ends now, we'll have too many Rambos to come back home from the front line. It'll be a much more serious problem than the USA faced when thousands of veterans came home from the Vietnam War.
There.
There also has been a lot of work with MDMA when it comes to post traumatic stress syndrome.
MAPS.
Rick Doblin told me that because MDMA was flat out banned in Ukraine, they can't do any research projects there. So that's one reason that I begain was more appealing. MAPS has funded a lot of projects in Israel. Actually, Israel has been one of the leading kind of places to deploy md M A for PTSD among its troops there.
And so you're seeing this kind of just this.
You know what rose in the nineteen sixties with the kind of counterculture movement which Dana Biel was a central player in trying to bring about world peace, the kind of consolation prizes at least perhaps maybe the psychedelics can help people kind of clean up some of the psychic mess from our inability to end to bring about world peace.
Once you rested out of the hands of the CIA, maybe some good can come from all of it, you know. The other thing to think about is Russia. Obviously to your point about the Russians being on meth.
And it's called captagen.
What's it called off brand meth is.
The captive god, So what is called We're at what hundreds of thousands reporting at least hundreds of thousands of casualties between both sides here, and so Russia society reintegrating all of these deeply traumatized men who have just again they're literal trenches, like actual trench warfare, which is incredibly traumatizing thing. So Ukraine reintegrant, integrating these men from a
war that was instigated by Russia important. Also, it's not good for anyone to have hundreds of thousands of deeply traumatized Ukrainian and Russian men reintegrating back into society after all of this and getting no help.
Yeah, and it's also kind of appalling that the son of the President of the United States can get the benefit of this treatment, yes, but nobody else can. And lou backing his organization have been and others have been pushing to allow various psychedelic treatments, you know, at least for veterans to start with that it's obscene that they have to travel from the United States to a foreign country at the treatment that they need, right, Yeah.
And what paid tons of money? I'm sure too.
Yeah, you're not going to get the VA to reimburse you for your trip to the Mexican clinic for sure. And all this came about in a wild way, like Beale was bringing Eye again to a Mexican clinic, was stopped there because DHS had flagged him because of some of his previous like cannabis convictions, and he said he couldn't get into Mexico. As a result, they kicked him
back to Spain, where his flight had come from. And then he connected with Doblin and Lubecki, who then connected him with the Ukrainians.
And Ukrainians like, yes.
Absolutely interesting, we would love to run a project on this. Interesting And so he's like all right, and so then he took a flight to Bucharest and a bust into Kiev and now we've got a project.
Well, great reporting and good story of trusting story.
Seriously, our guest. Next, this is this assignment that Ryan set up. Fascinating study congressional districts.
Two corporate lobbyists did a did giant study on come and UH and caucus like representation. And so we're going to talk about you know which caucuses, the liberal, Moderate, Conservative, Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, Progressive Caucus, Freedom Caucus represent uh the richest to the poorest types of people. And I think you might be surprised by some of the results. Maybe not, but it's fascinating.
It's a good teaser. So we'll be right back with that, and.
We're going to be talking about a new report out on congressional members of Congress and the district the kind of economic uh distribution of resources in the district that districts that they represent. Are joined by Mike Williams and Sam Goodaldig of United by Interest. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining.
Us, Thank you thanks for having us.
We can put this first element up on the screen.
So this this report that that you guys put out goes through basically every member of Congress and all of the different caucuses and coalitions and tries to figure out which ones have the kind of highest average median income and which ones have the lowest average meaning income and draw some lessons out of that. So, and first of all, just just be clear here, you know I have interest
this is you guys? Are you guys are Washington lobbyists like you represent like mostly corporate clients who have business before Congress and are trying to figure out that, you know, the smartest ways to navigate Congress in their interests. That an accurate description. How what would you guys say it is that you do here.
Now?
At its essence, yes, we are advocating on behalf of clients and yesterday are corporate, but we are trying to take a different approach relative to you know, your traditional lobby and firm.
We're trying to find out middle ground.
We're trying to find that common reality of interest between the two sides, right, and is there a way to have members to work cooperatively together. And what we have discerned is that there is right, there is a commonality of interest as it pertains to.
Economic inequality.
And I think that's the crux of this report where we wanted to demonstrate that there are more alignments of interest between Republicans and Democrats particularly on the sort of opposing side of the more polarized segments of the political spectrum.
Yeah, and Sam, let's get to the key finding of this report, what you found here, and to back up and as you guys say in your kind of a memo that is attached to this, it is the kind of wealthier liberal and moderate districts, swing districts that get almost all of the kind of pack money and political attention showered on them from K Street, with the rest of the districts kind of ignored because they're they don't face competitive elections for the most part, or they face
competitive primaries, but they don't face competitive partisan elections. But your most fascinating finding is that the two kind of poorest caucuses in Congress are the anti Woke Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus. Sam, can you talk a little bit about what you found here and whether it's surprised you or not.
I got to be honest, it didn't surprise me. You know, Mike and I have been going to meetings, fundraisers. You know, I kind of consider the people that live in Washington, d c. And make a living here for you know, ten plus years. Ryan, Emily, you guys are part of this thing. It's the political industrial complex, and we are whether whether you hate to love it, you know we're all part of it. We never leave members of Congress do.
And there's a lot of anger thrown at Congress. You know, they don't get it that you know, they're immature, their their hostile, their bomb throwers. You've heard all the names. The people that get to define those members of Congress is the political industrial complex. It's it's academia, it's think tanks, it's lobbyists, it's public affairs firms, it's law firms, it's journalists, it's cable news. And when when we call these people these names, you know, kind of it's almost like second
nature anymore. In my opinion, it just reeks of class bias. We love to hate members of Congress from the poorest congressional districts. We love to and if we're not hating them, we're dismissing them as not important, not not important to the debate, not important to you know, the final end result product of whatever it is that needs to happen or shouldn't happen.
And we just dismissed them so quickly, and in my opinion.
When we do that, we're just dismissing the constituencies that live in those congressional districts. Often almost one hundred percent of the time, they're poorer than the median average of the United States. And to the you know, to the other point here is the wealthier districts represent politicians. They're kind of showered with love. You know, they're responsible, reasonable, thoughtful, productive, you know, those are the members from the wealthier districts.
And to me, it just reeks of class bias.
I know, I'm not saying anything new to your viewers, but to d C it's like someone needs to grab them by the you know, the lapels, and like your classests, it's terrible, like wake up.
Yeah.
And so the average medium income you found, I think is so helpful to put numbers on this. The problem Solver's Caucus, which considers itself bipartisan, the average medium income is seventy nine thousand dollars a year Tuesday groups.
So that's the Republicans.
They're at seventy seven thousand, five hundred and fifty five thousand dollars a year. My favorite here is the Civility and Respect Caucus. There's seventy five thousand dollars for their average media and income. And what happens it's a denigration on class on class basis of populism in the House of Representatives, which are supposed to represent the people that.
Elect you into the office.
And Mike, one question I had for you is you talked earlier about how the numbers. The sort of end goal as you guys are putting these numbers together is to see where there's perhaps points of agreement, consensus, cooperation. And what's interesting about that project is it kind of
turns consensus in Washington on it's head. Whenever there is bipartisanship and cooperation, it's typically coming out of the Problem Solvers Caucus, which just represents centrists that happen to come from the Democratic Republican parties, but they're from wealthy districts and have a lot of their same takes on salt
and all that good stuff. So what would it look like actually to start targeting people those coalitions that come from you know, maybe it's anti woke and Congressional Black Caucus. Is there a way to find bipartisanship and cooperation among those different groups?
You think so?
Right?
I mean, we've had some projects in the past where we've actually gotten members that have Black Caucus and the Tricoccus quite frankly work in cooperatively with Republicans once they're aware of the alignment relative to their constituencies. We did this report just so, and this is not the first version of this, right so something we have done something like this in the past where we've sort of demonstrated it, but not in the more in the most fulsome nature
in which this report exists. But we want to share this with those members because they express these frustrations right. So on the right Sammy gets it, and he hears all of these things. I get it from the Black becus, the Hispanic Caucus, the you know, the entire Tricaucus and the ext it's there, but they just don't understand what is behind it, right because they feel like they're representing
their districts. They feel like they're expressing the views that their constituents express on a day and day out basis, but they don't understand what that limitter is. And so I think that this report represents the fact that you have more alignment than you think. And maybe if you take the politics out the sort of raw larger politics out of it. There are items that you can work
on together. In the past, we've pushed the funding mechanisms for infrastructure and UH and transportation spending and the methodology there was simply a sort of reallocation of you know, sort of government resources that would benefit by and large, and you know, we found the trillion worth a potential funding that wouldn't cost tax payers a dying. That was an idea that was quite frankly, well ahead of its time.
And essentially what we ended up with in the end as a mechanism that increased a federal deficit right and increase the.
Debt load in both.
The IRA and the bipart is an infrastructure deal. So that deal was not cut with the folks that we are talking about in this report. That deal was cut without them. It was cut by the folks that are in the middle, who were in leadership, who are making these determinations.
And yeah, I just wanted to add one more point.
Right, it's going to be interesting to see how that money is in fact allocated to these poor districts, and so far the scorecard is not good.
It's such a fascinating window into how Washington thinks when you when you understand the way that you and the way that Sam was describing the political industrial complex, basically producing an understanding among the among the public of who the people, who the adults are in the room, who the reasonable people are, and who the kind of crazies are.
Uh.
And then when you map that onto this income distribution,
the classism behind it becomes just extraordinarily apparent. Because you also look at the what you call the squad extended nine nine members of kind of an extended squad, and they're not the they don't represent the poorest districts, but but very close, like the numbers are almost equal to the Anti Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus, and it and it is, Yeah, it is those people that are told kind of by the broader system here in Washington that you're the crazy ones and the people we need
to listen to are the re ones. And yeah, it was just so perfect to me that this bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, which is a product of No Labels, which is this dark money group, and when they do release donors, it's hedge fund folks, it's private equity types, it's you know, it's billionaires. It's people who own you know, baseball and football teams, and they're the ones who you know, we're told we have to say, these are the ones who
are kind of the upstanding members. But Sam, I'm curious, like, why why do we have to Why did you guys have.
To be the ones to kind of point this out like that.
It's I think a lot of viewers are gonna be like, well, we agree with all of this, but where are they coming from.
Well, you know, Mike and I became business partners before Trump was inaugurated in twenty sixteen, and we knew the commonality between the Black Caucus and the Freedom Caucus or Anti Woe Caucus. I mean, you go up there every day, you kind of get a feeling for who represents what you know, and it's easy for the left to rip to shreds Marjorie Taylor Green, it's easy for the right
to rip to shreds. You know, AOC or some other dem kind of lightning Rod go to the district that ask them to, you know, nominate a different politician and see you're not going to get a reasonable member that's going to join the Civility and Respect Caucus.
It's just not going to happen.
So in our view, it's a little bit like just gas lighting America. You know, we keep calling the politicians that they represent, that they elect to represent them, nuts, insane, terrorists, whatever, whatever the you know, the slander is, but you're really calling the people that live in the congressional district that name. And you know, the poorer America gets after COVID, the wealthier getting wealthier, the poor getting poor, the middle class is wiped out.
And if we keep calling the.
Politicians of the people that elect them in these districts nuts, you're really just calling half of America nuts at this point.
And you know, Mike.
And I joined up together talked about you know, the similarities between the two caucuses. And caucuses are important to lobbyists because they vote in blocks. So if you can get the entire Black caucus to vote yes, you know Nancy Pelosi or Hakeem Jefferies is going to take that very seriously, just like you know Kevin Kevin McCarthy or Mike Johnson would take the Freedom Caucus or Anti Wolcox
voting in block. They take that extremely seriously. So if you can align the anti Woke Caucus and the Black Caucus on issues involving.
The terrible poverty.
You know, we looked at a bunch of statistics too, children living living in you know, below the poverty, the poverty line, with with with food issues, uh, military service life expectancy, average income on employment. It's all terrible. Like the stats are exactly what you'd expect. The poor districts have it worse, the wealthier districts have it better. We're not knocking the wealthier districts. It's just time to look at like who the poor the poorer districts are being represented by.
Why are we calling them crazy?
And how are we not figuring out a way to find some type of bipartisan win in this whole thing?
And you're right, we do represent corporate interests, and a.
Lot of the ideas that come out of you know, the Center are regressive in nature and they really hurt these districts. So Mike and I, you know, kind of became business partners with the idea that we could align Black Caucus members anti woke Caucus members on the principle that you know, you're both getting screwed your skin colors.
The only only statistic that's different. Everything else is the same.
You're living less long, you're less healthy, you're you're less wealthy. It's it's really tough in these districts, and it's time someone kind of paid attention to that.
I think no.
It reminds me of how John McCain famously derided the then Tea Party members as wacko birds, and that was the media absolutely loved that. And when we go back and look at the Tea Party era, we see that some of the denigration on a class basis of Tea Party activists gave way to Donald Trump.
People were so sick of it.
And to your guys's point, the less tolerance there is for Descent, the wilder that descent is going to get. It's going to take all kinds of crazy forms that the media hates more and more and Ratchet's subtensions in the country without solving the very real problem that people are taking different sort of forms of expression to address.
And you'll often hear AOC in particular, but also some other members of the squad when they're getting criticized by fellow Democrats say look, what do you want me to say? Like, I'm representing my district yeah. Yeah, like this's what you.
Don't like it.
I'm sorry, Like this is like and I think Sam, your point is good. When if you get rid of them, who do you think is going to replace them? Somebody who's saying, you know, the same things, or or being even more aggressive about it.
Yeah.
So but anyway, feels weird to say. But I wish you corporate lobbyists good luck in this project.
No, thank you so much.
It's such interesting research. It'd be interesting to qualitatively map it onto or quantitatively map it on a media coverage too, because I think you would find what we all know to be true.
Yeah, but very interesting stuff.
So the beautiful industrial complex.
There you go.
We'll put a link to the report in the in the show notes here so people can check it out.
But Sam and Mike thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you all right, Well that does it for us today on common points.
No, we'll see you guys next Wednesday, then, I guess right, nothing special going on between now and then, right, no shows or anything.
Well, the Eagles aren't playing.
They are definitely not. That was that was the easiest money anybody could have made. You keep saying you better.
Get I never bet against the Eagles, but it was such easy money, like they were favored to win that game, which was utterly absurd. I think I would have taken the Bucks even if like they were giving like fifteen points.
Such a principled stand thoughts. Never bet against this.
It's crazy. I can't do that.
My dad does that sometimes, and I understand it because then he feels better. He hasn't done it in a long time. Actually he did pretty recently now I think of it. But his rationale was, then the pain of the loss is offset by the fact that you made a little money.
Off of it.
We'll feel free to bet on the packers.
There you go.
It's a good bet right now.
But there is of course results coming out of New Hampshire next week, so we will be all over that as well, heading into South Carolina and then Super Tuesday, because damn it, it's an election year, all right, all right, Well, we'll see you next week on Counterpoints. Make sure to like, subscribe comment. We appreciate all of it.