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Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have pristolla? Indeed we do first and foremost, Saga is back. Nice to have you that very nice to be back on the side of the Atlantic and congratulations are thank you as you appreciate it. Yes, we had fun eight Indian food the entire time and was London. No bangers in mash for me. Does Chilian like Indian food as much
as you do? No, But you know, while we're in London, you know, it's one of those things we just kind of have to go with that. Okay, we did the whole high tea thing all right, so you know she got her fill a very good deal. All right, there's a lot to get into this morning. First of all, tomorrow is the one year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine,
so there's a lot of news there. Also, we want to just take a look back at, you know, where we've been, where we are today, and especially we've got some maps, we've got some polling that can kind of assess how the American public feels about all of this, how the world feels about this, and just what has happened on the battlefield since the launch of that invasion a year ago. Also, potential Trump indictments coming down from that Grand Jury in Georgia and the fore Woman is
something else. We will show you a little bit of that and tell you what we know. Also, Trump visited East Palestine yesterday. Democrats continue to be sort of completely absent. The NTSB report is expected to come out today, and we're getting new revelations about that water testing that was conducted apparently by the railroad twenty twenty four news rumblings that isn't actually gonna run taking but you know, it's
important to report on it. At the same time, kind of I have to say, as we predicted sagar as Trump has been out there basically by himself running for president on the Republican side. His hand is strengthening, he is increasing in the polls, so you know he's still the one to beat ultimately. We also have Sean Hannity talking to Marjorie Taylor Green about her big national divorce idea.
I commented on this earlier this week with Emily, but interesting to wait, well, we had to make sure to bring it back for you, so everybody can hear your thoughts as well. But let's go ahead and start with what is going on in Ukraine? All right, So let's go ahe and put this up there on the screen. President Biden visiting Kiev and giving a major speech as well as another one in Warsaw after President Vladimir Putin
delivered one in Russia. I reiterating in the unending commitment both to NATO the Eastern Flank and specifically to Ukraine and ongoing continued military support. Here's what he had to say. He thought he'd get the fidelization of NATO. Instead he got the nataization of Finland and Sweden. You thought NATO would fracture and divide. Instead, NATO is more united and
more unified than ever. Our support you for grained, will not waiver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire so reiterating there that it's actually made NATO stronger. It actually has increased military dispending of course Finland and Sweden on the process of possibly being admitted. But since it's the one year, you know, we got to take a step back almost from the current developments and just
say what's happening and where will these things end? Obviously we've been covering the war almost for the entire year. Was a big moment for breaking points is when many are of our viewers and our listeners actually joined us. And it hasn't always been easy, been wrong a lot,
and I think that's fine. But one of the interviews here by respected historian at Princeton Stephen Kocken, I actually think did a fantastic job of just summing everything up in an interview in The New Yorker with David Remlock. Let's put this up on the screen. I'm gonna read from this one particular passage in particular, he says, David Remneck kind of challenging Stephen Kotkin. Last year, you told me that Ukraine was winning on Twitter, but that Russia
was winning on the battlefield. A lot has happened since then. Is that's still the case? He says, quote, Unfortunately. Let's think of a house. Let's say you own a house and it has ten rooms. Let's say I barge in and take two of those rooms away. I wreck those rooms. From those two rooms, I'm wrecking your other eight rooms. And you're trying to beat me back. You're trying to evict me from the two rooms. You push out a corner, you push out another corner, maybe, but I'm still there.
I'm still wrecking. The thing is, you need your house. That's where you live. It's your house. You don't have another house. Me. I have another house. My other house has a thousand rooms. So if I wreck your house, are you winning or am I winning? Unfortunately, that's the situation that we're in. Ukraine has beaten back the Russian attempt to conquer their country. They have defended their capital, They've pushed the Russians out of some of their land
that the Russians conquered. Since February twenty fourth, they've regained about half of it. And yet they need their house and the Russians are wrecking it. Putin's strategy could be described as I can't have it, then nobody can have it. Sadly, that is where the tragedy is right now. And I thought that was a fantastic way of kind of summing it all up. In terms of what absolute victory would look like on the Russian side, is that a defeat?
I mean, you know, on relative terms, yes, in terms of international prestige, however, you know, the ongoing attrition in the war against Ukraine is of course just making you know, is devastating the country, requiring hundreds of billions of dollars
untold amounts of ammunition. You know. While I was in the UK, I couldn't help but listen to some of the news, I mean, and in terms of what the revelations are about the NATO chiefs that were meeting in Europe while I was gone, was the cry for ammo, Ammo, ammo. The amount of AMMO that Ukraine is using right now on the battlefield is just unbelievable. And that's actually before
the Russian offensive has even kicked off. There are some rumblings today we may have, you know, have to do a breaking news segment or something, because right tomorrow is officially the one year anniversary of the war, that's why, or the invasion, that's why we're covering it this way. Right now Ukraine is saying that there are major signs of Russian offensive exactly tomorrow on February twenty fourth, which is only going to require even more bloodshed, ammunition, and
expenditure on their part. And the reason why I thought that interview was important is there is an ongoing recognition here in Washington amongst the elites. They're like, this is going to be a long one and total victory does not appear in sight for anybody. Let's put this up
there from Fiona Hill. She was writing in unheard So the reason why this is important is Fiona Hill is possibly one of the most hawkish elements of the Trump administration on Russia, very pro Ukraine and all that, and still writing a column which you know, frankly takes some courage at least by telling the truth in Washington saying quote, absolute victory over Russia just is not possible. The former
Trump advisor on the West mistakes in Ukraine. She says specifically within all of this interview that what she given her advice in the Bush administration and what happened with George W. Bush. She says that there is no possibility of quote, absolute victory for Russia of the idea that the Putin regime was going to fall of some sort of grand you know, some sort of grand idea that the Ukraine's are not only going to push Russia back through the February twenty four borders, but take back all
of CRIMEA. Yeah, if you combine Crystal, I think the cot Can view, the Fiona Hill view, that Washington Post article that we covered before I left, where there was basically a note from the Biden people who are like, look, this is it the blank check pretty much as dried up in Congress with Republicans, America's moving on and after this, however, you guys do in the offensive where you're going to have to try and figure out some sort of solution
because you know, your endless supply of ammunition and all that, it's just not sustainable. And we are already covered so many stories here about how the war in Ukraine has massively depleted American stockpiles of ammunition, our own defense readiness, and in the context of any other conflict. We're probably weaker right now than we have been in a long time in terms of our defense readiness, not that many of the hawks who care about that in Washington will
ever tell you. So it's a crazy situation look at it geopolitically, and just like what the actual state is in terms of where things can move from here. Yeah, there is a growing sort of elite awareness that absolute victory over Russia was a fantasy. And Katkin talks about the fact that everybody was hoping for these sort of shortcut solutions to the war, like, oh, maybe there'll be a domestic revolt in Russia that will topple the Putin regime.
Not happening, ain't happening, so that one's off the table. There were all of these rumors and fantasies that maybe Putin's really ill and maybe he's like an honest deathbed and he's about to die. No real sign that that is coming to pass either. So all of the shortcut hopes for ending this conflict have faded out of you,
and so then what are you left with. Well, if you're not going to achieve a total victory over Russia, which again is not our assessment, it's the assessment now of the Rand Corporation, it's reportedly, according to the Washington Post, the assessment of US intelligence agencies. It'spparently the assessment of Fiona Hill, an assessment of Stephen kak And who's a liberal historian. By the way of Russia and the Soviet Union, Well, then this is going to end at the negotiating table.
That's where we're ultimately headed. It's a question of who's in what position when you get to that negotiating table and what ultimately the terms are going to be. Because the other thing cock Can points out is right now, you're in a war of attrition, and the way that you win a war of attrition is by number one,
disrupting your enemy's ability to produce manufacture weapons. There was a thought that the sanctions that we levied on Russia, which were quite overwhelming and in concert with a lot of our allies, that that would effectively disrupt their manufacturing capability. That has come to not and at the same time, so one way is to disrupt their production, that's one thing you want to do. The other piece you want to do is ramp up your own production. Well, we're
not doing that. What we're doing is drawing down our stockpiles, and we're getting to a place where we're going to be limited in our ability to that. So okay, you're not going to win the war of attrition either. And I thought the way kat Kin talked about how do you think about victory? Because part of this is all right, well, what do you actually define as a win for Ukraine? And let me read to you what he ultimately says, because his conclusion is I'm in favor of a Ukrainian victory.
This isn't some like go Russia. Putin's actually right, dude, He's in favor of Ukrainian victory. I'm against the Russian victory, but I'm defining a Ukrainian victory within the circumstances in which we live now. He says, their definition of victory is expressed by President Salski, who has certainly more than risen to the occasion, is to regain every inch of territory, to have reparations, to have war crimes tribunals. So how would Ukraine enact that definition of victory? They would have
to take Moscow. Do you all think that that's likely? Do you think that would be good? How else can you get reparations and war crime tribunals. They're not that close to regaining every inch of their own territory, let alone those other aims. Here's a better definition of victory. Ukrainians rose up against their domestic tyrants. Why because they wanted to join Europe. It's the same goal they have now, and that has to be the definition of victory Ukraine
gets into the European Union. If Ukraine regains all of its territory and doesn't get into the EU, is that a victory as opposed to if Ukraine regains as much of a territory as it physically can on the battlefield, not all of it potentially, but does get EU a session. Would that be a definition of victory? Of course it
would be. And then he goes on to talk about those dynamics I was just mentioning before with the War of Attrition and how it is impossible that they're going to achieve this total victory that they have imagined and that the Biden administration has allowed to persist as some sort of logical endpoint to this, when in reality it's an impossible fantasy. YEA, So let's put the maps and I think this actually really hammers home Stephen Cootkin's point.
These are four maps. So right there you could see on February twenty third, exactly twenty twenty two, a year ago, where the occupied region where the Russian backed separatists. And then you have Crimea. So then we have March thirtieth, twenty twenty two, we have occupation in the north all basically along the Russian Belarussian border up from Crimea into eastern Ukraine, so significant gains. Then you have the August thirty first lines where you had the Russian controlled areas.
That's the third map for those who are watching. And then finally you kind of have the November thirtieth, twenty twenty two map, which shows some of the massive gains that were made by the Ukrainians in their offensive and have put things to where we are right now with the currently fluctuating front line. But the point that I think we should really look at is when we look
at retaken territory, that's fantastic. You still see a hell of a lot of red on that map cours and that's exactly what he's pointing to, is that with all the red in that map, you know, for all of the one hundred billion dollars from now that we've appropriated to Ukraine, I think we've dispensed about half of that. We have indications from the Biden administration that Ukraine by the end of the summer is going to expend all of the aid that the US military has given them.
It would require even more acts of Congress to appropriate that. That doesn't look very likely. Republican coalition, and one of the things we're about to talk about too is, look, we have been the staunchest, most hawkish allies, and we are bankrolling this war ten times more than any other nation in all of Europe, simply because of capacity, and because we basically underwrite the Europeans. Well, we already know
they're not going to step up. They have crippling inflation, and they don't have the capacity even if they wanted to. I mean, you look at the UK and you know, for all the tanks and all that, most of what Ukraine is using on the battlefield are bullets and artillery and missiles, and for all the intelligence and all that, that requires a tremendous amount of raw industrial production. We
also have major meeting that's happening today. President putin meeting with China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, and in that we are searing rumblings from the US intelligence community that they are quickly going to declassify in indications that the Chinese are considering sending lethal aid to Russia, something they have not thought about before. Let's think about it from their perspective, this is the greatest thing that China could ever wish for.
Why because the more that this conflict goes on, the more American weapons that pour into Ukraine and from the NATO alliance. This is taking a tremendous amount of expenditure. Furthermore, you know, the economic cost of the war has got to be in the trillions of dollars. Whenever you consider the energy impact of the disruption to the global supply
chain wheat. I mean, who even knows the one day the eventual accounting will we made one hundred years from now when you can write about it this passionately, and you are never going to you will barely be able to believe, you know what the chicanery that's probably gone from the global financial system. Obviously we survived here in the West, but you know, there's a lot of poverty actually that was written across the world. So when you
consider all that, China's got no incentive. But you know, initially it was like, oh, China's got egg on its face all of that. Just yesterday, what do they do. They put out a statement and they were like, yeah, it's the US's fault. This is entire happening. This is
the usagemony. When Ye's visit to Moscow is no accident, especially after all this balloon stuff and more of the frosty relations, and it wouldn't be a surprise, for a shock at all for them to contain you start or just start shipping lethal weapons to and if that happens, I mean, then look, what have we done. We've this is the nightmare that Nixon and Kissinger went out of their way to stop, which is a total alliance between
communist China and then the Soviet Union. We always recognize that having split between the two is to the strategic benefit of the United States. So anyway, I think that's
a grand picture of where things are. It's very possible there can be some breaking news tomorrow in the one year anniversary, but going forward, it just looks like things are relatively stuck and brutal fighting ahead in the months to come, and the summer very likely to be a major decision point for the West, for Ukraine, and for Russia.
At the same time, as you alluded to, and as I did as well, polling is showing softening support here in the US, especially among Republicans, but not only among Republicans. It's going to put this up on the screen. Forty eight percent, according to the AP, now say that they favor the US providing weapons to Ukraine, with twenty nine percent opposed, in twenty two percent saying they're neither in favor nor opposed. Back in May of twenty twenty two, less than three months into the war, it was not
forty eight percent. It was sixty percent of US adults who said they were in favor of sending Ukraine weapons. So you've seen significant erosion to now it's below majority support. You have Americans about evenly divided on sending government funds directly to Ukraine, so not shipping weapons, but actually just sending aid and support, thirty seven percent in favor and thirty eight percent opposed, with twenty three percent saying neither.
And you also have dismal views of Biden's handling. At this point, only nineteen percent of Americans say they have a great deal of confidence in Biden's ability to handle the situation. Thirty seven percent say they have some confidence, forty three percent say they have hardly any And also, by the way, you know, at the beginning of this conflict, IgA remember we were covering with some credulity the polling saying that Americans will, like, we will pay higher gas
prices if it means supporting Ukraine. They're not quite feeling the same way to those days. Fifty nine percent now say limiting damage to the US economy is more important than effectively sanctioning Russia, even if that means sanctions are less effective. Back in March of twenty two, the situation was reverse. A majority fifty five percent said it was
a bigger priority to sanction Russia effectively. And you can see we're going to talk more about Trump in this show, but you can see this guy's sniffed down where the wins are heading. He can see not only a clear divide on Ukraine that he can capitalize in the GOP primary, but also it's a smart bet for the general election.
In terms, this is increasingly going to become a partisan issue, which I actually think is really unfortunate because there's no reason why the line should be drawn in a clearly partisan way. But you can see independence in particular, moving more to Ukraine, skepticism and wondering, hey, how does this end? How does this end? Which I have never heard Joe Biden be able to articulate, not even that, just because look, this is only February twenty third, this is before even
the heavy fighting season. What's going to happen in the summer When look, Biden says no more a to Ukraine, we all know that they're going to at least ask Congress and try and blame the Republicans when they're like, no, actually we need another fifty billion for an extra six months, and then that would bring the total to one hundred and fifty billion, more than we've ever spent on any foreign military aid ever in American history, going all the
way back to the beginning of the Republic. Really, I mean, just consider what that will look like, and then think about it a year later. Let's say there's some miracle that that path, or not even a miracle, you know, sas there's a lot of bipartis to support. Let's say that extra fifty billion, put it a year from now, or even a year and a half in the midst of the twenty twenty for election, and you can just
sniff out exactly where the trends here are all going. Now, I wouldn't say, you know, I wouldn't bank on it saying that there's no more aid or you know that the conflict. Look, the conflict could even be over by that. We may not even be talking about it. I highly doubt it, but it's certainly a possibility politically though. Trump is clearly on the moving side of this issue, and support has eroding exactly as I think we both predicted this entire time. Another really important one is how is
the rest of the world feeling? And this is where look, you know, global public opinion is also always difficult, So take some of these with a grain of salt, but I think we could take from this at least something. So let's put this up there on the screen. It shows various different countries, not only the United States, but
many others. So we have and we can go ahead, guys and put up a six please, is you have India, which has a fifty four percent, saying that the ConFlat between Russian and Ukraine needs to stop as soon as possible, even if it means Ukraine giving up control of territory Turkey, and I'll remind you Turkey is a NATO ally saying forty forty eight percent. Russia say say forty four percent, China they say forty two the EU, Great Britain, in
the United States with the much lowest. But you also see a major approval of this statement, of course in Russia, saying Western dominance of the world needs to be pushed backed, even if it means accepting Russian territorial aggression. Thirty percent of RUSSI apparently supporting that. Very minimal numbers in India and in Turkey, but at least twelve percent there in China.
And then finally you have Ukraine needs to regain all of its territory, with some moderate support there from India and Turkey, zero support in Russia, moderate support in China, but then significant support or the most significant really in the EU, in Great Britain and here in the US. So I think looking at that and then also really just considering the way that people look at Russia and
also with the United States. There's a separate part here where they ask whether they which best best reflects your view on Russia as it pertains to your country. In the US, fifty five percent say it's an adversary, in the EU fifty four percent. In Great Britain they say sixty five percent. But in India fifty one percent say it's a necessary partner which we must strategically cooperate, and some say it's even an ally that shares our interest
and values. China and Russia is the same way, and significantly also in Turkey, fifty five and fourteen percent, respectively, both say that Russia is a necessary partner and an ally reflecting, you know, the difference of how Turkey, which is a key NATO member, has behaved in all of this, and part of the reason why the initial talks between Ukraine and Russia, some of it was being broken in Istanbul.
So how Istanbul and Erdowan specifically navigate future NATO expansion that's still not a guarantee with Finland and with Sweden from what I've read so far, but also what the future looks like in terms of a NATO participatory who might be able to speak, you know, with both sides of the conflict and bring things to an end. You can see some inclination of what that all would look like.
I think what is really clear when you look at all of these polls, and they have a lot of interesting breakdowns here, is that the West, and especially the US and the UK have one view of this conflict and one view of Russia, and the rest of the
world has a very different view. And if you'll recall Soger, when Lula was here from Bill and there was a lot of shock over his comments about the war and about his desire to remain neutral so that he could potentially serve in some sort of a diplomatic war role to ultimately broker a piece. There was a lot of shock about those comments, but in reality, he's reflecting what most of the rest of the world thinks about this conflict.
And the one that stood out to me the most is they ask this question, Okay, what do you think is the main reason the US stands behind Ukraine? And the only people who are really buying the like it's about democracy is the US. The other even the other European countries, they see it more as either to defend Western dominance or to defend our own security. So they don't see it as much of this big conflict over democratic values. They see it as more of a classic
geopolitical strategic interest kind of a conflict. And certainly, you know, China, Russia, Turkey, and India see it more that way as well. Russia and China say this is we're involved with Ukraine to defend Western dominance, and Turkey says predominantly to defend our own security. So the rest of the world is not viewing this as this grand conflict over values in the gloss that we put on it. They're seeing it in a much more sort of realism or realist way perspective,
which I think is interesting as well. Absolutely, So that's where it is in terms of Ukraine right now. It gave you the first top kind of a summary of where things might be headed, and second with global public opinion and where things are. And just keep in mind, you know, the longer this thing goes on, the trend is only going in one direction and the ain going
the other way. Even if Russian attacks have actually increased, as possible a new renewed Russian offensive could change things, but I don't see how that would ever change the shock of the initial bombing of Kiev and much of the brutality that we saw in those early days. Now is really just you know, battle of attrition and then the air war in terms of bombings and all that that been going on so absent that it's very likely that this all will move in a similar direction going.
I mean, sadly, that's probably the best case scenario, because certainly Russia has other tools and other weapons that they could deploy, not just in Ukraine but around the world. So a grinding, horrifying war of attrition that involves much more economic destruction and many more deaths, including civilian deaths, is probably in the short term like the best case scenario,
which is absolutely horrifying. Okay, big domestic news this broke just yesterday that grand jury in Georgia in that Trump inquiry about the fake elector schemes specifically in that state, they recommended multiple indictments. This is according to the Fore Women. Fore Women has had a lot to say. Let me
read a little bit of details from the article. They say, a special grand jury that investigated election interference by former President Trump and his allies in Georgia recommended indictments for multiple people on a range of charges in their final report, most of which remains sealed. Special grand juries. This is important to note in Georgia do not have indictment powers themselves. Fanny t Willis, who's the District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia.
She's led the investigation and she will ultimately decide what charges to bring before a regular grand jury. So this group can recommend and then Fanny t Willis will make the decision what to then take to a regular grand jury. So that's important to note. Now, let's talk about this jury for a woman, because she made a number of cryptic comments and then made a number of strange cable news TV appearances that have just not been great in
terms of this whole situation. So she initially was asked by The New York Times whether the jurors had recommended indicting Trump. She would not answer directly, but said, quote, you're not going to be shocked. It's not rocket science, adding you won't be too surprised. I will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it's not going to be some giant plot twist. You probably have a fair idea of what may be in there. I'm trying
very hard to say that delicately. First, let me get your reaction to that, because it feels to me like she is very strongly suggesting that Trump is going to
be indicted. But then I mean, I don't really know, and nobody really knows other than these people, but it seems like she really wants to come all the way up to the edge of saying Trump's going to be indicted without technically violating like whatever secrecy she's supposed to keep if she was a rational person, And I'll show you a little bit why I think she might be irrational.
That's the way I would have read it. But also, you can't probably underestimate the fact this is clearly a person who's enjoying fifteen minutes of fame, teasing the media her, you know, a little time in the spotlight, and it's possible that she could be ginning everybody up and trying to give out some right. So I'm actually on the mind that this all could just be a fake media
side show for Edigut on TV. True, because what I kept asking me is like, she says, Okay, you're not going to be surprised, Well, what would be more surprising Trump doesn't get indicted or Trump is indicted, right, it would be more indicting former president of the United States is pretty shocking development. I don't know if you call it surprising at this point, but maybe I don't know. So that's why I find it surprising. I don't know
what to make of all of this. But she also, as I mentioned before she went on CNN, it was a strange appearance. Let's take a little and how that went. Our indictment's recommended, of course, is it more than twelve people? Is it more than twenty people? I think if you look at the page numbers of the report, there's about six pages in the middle that got cut out allow for spacing. It's not a short list, not a short list.
More personally, we want to hear from the former I wanted to hear from the former president, but honestly, I kind of wanted to disappeared the former president because I got to swear everybody in, and so I thought it'd be really cool to get sixty seconds with President Trump of me looking at him and being like, do you solemnly swear I'm beginning to swear him in. I just I kind of just thought that would be an awesome moment. And if it was just a perjury charge or perjury charges,
would that be acceptable too. That's fine. I will be happy as long as something happens. I mean, I see what I'm talking about, and she seems stone cold crazy. I'm gonna be honesk you like. I mean, listen, it's never been on TV before. Nervous laughter. I don't know, but here's what I'll say. Go and put this next
piece up on the screen. So there's already news from Robert Costa that CBS News has learned lawyers close to several Goop witnesses in Fulton County investigation were preparing to move to quash any possible indictments by the DA based on the public statements by the fore one of the special grand jury, per two people familiar with the discussion. So the lawyers for the people who could be accused here or indicted here are seizing on this to say
this is all improper. We want this all you nullified because of her public statements. I don't know that that will work, but she's certainly not doing anyone any favors in terms of inspiring confidence in the process. Listen, I mean, the nature of juris is it's a group of your peers. It's regular citizens who have, in many times instances not done this before, who come to it with whatever their personality quirks and traits and biases happen to be. So
that is not unusual. But even you know her talking about, Oh, I really wanted to swear in President Trump, and that's why I wanted to subpoena him. Like, that's not a good reason to subpoena someone because you personally when I have some face to face time with them. So it definitely gives if Trump is indicted out of this, it definitely gives him a lot to work with in terms of trying to make the argument to the public that this was all unfair, that this was, you know, kangaroo court.
I think he's already used that word, that this was all ridiculous and unserious. And even Maggie Haberman is saying, put this up on the screen. She thinks that Trump indictment is probably likely based on these comments, but the Georgia jury blabbermouth is not helpful. So that's kind of where things stand. Yeah, I mean, Anderson Cooper actually did
an entire reaction to this last night on CNN. So I was looking at all the establishment press, the smart ones like Maggie Haberman and Anderson coop A I geest smart in this context, are like, hey, this is probably not good and how can you look if Trump calls it a political witch hun all you gotta do is play that lady on Loop who was on national television divulging all of these details. Also, look, I don't know, I'm not a a lawyer, you know, I don't know all
of the exact you know, maneuvering and all that. But clearly the costa news about filing and saying that it was politically motivated and some sort of challenge and even in a future appellate court seems very like he's made the prosecutor's job incredibly difficult, actually, because now this is going to be materially important in terms of the trial
and bringing the charges in the first place. And then look in the realm that's the most important, the realm of public opinion, this is now effectively I think, been negated. I mean, I don't think that you can walk away from the fact that you have a fore woman who's clearly politically motivated on national television before a charge even drops talking about all of this, and then you know, indictment and all that. I've always looked at it as fifty to fifty as to how all of this would
actually yeah proceed. So you know, public opinion, I think is and legitimacy is probably the most important one through all of this. I think they've given a lot. You know, I didn't necessarily get full motivated on her comments. I just got unseerious, and that damages the credibility of the process as well. I mean again, like I said, on any jury, you're going to have people who are come from a wide variety of views, perspectives, backgrounds, levels of competence,
et cetera. But you would like to keep a sort of cloak of secrecy around so you can imagine that this is like a group of very serious, very credible people who aren't making decisions about, you know, something as serious dis obpoenion the president based on their own desire to be face to face with him and like have their little sixty second moment with him. Now, maybe that's
a joke, Maybe she's just kidding. Maybe this is all you know what I just like her awkward desire to get in front of the cameras, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, I keep coming back to what you said Saga originally with the whole classified document situation being revealed that Biden had classified documents too, Like this man is so lucky, He is so lucky. And I think that I increasingly feel confident in our early assessment and prediction that if he does get indicted, it should have
a political impact. But I don't really think it's going to and not just not only with the Republican base, Like the longer this goes on, and the more distance there is from January sixth and from Stop the Steal, and the more he talks about Ukraine and social security instead of like obsessing over election conspiracies, which I'm shocked to see the somewhat intelligent maneuvers he's making in his campaign right now, you know, the more that some of
this the bite is taken out of a potential indictment. So so I don't know, it's a crazy situation we're in where it's never been more clear that he is probably pretty likely to get indicted, and I just don't think it's going to be the blockbuster or shattering political world overturning moment that it once seemed possible to be at this point. They built it up for seven years. It never ends up happening. And now even if it does, it's going to be in a manner in a case
where you know, even the details are very unclear. Maybe it might help the Democratic Party. I think it will only solidify Trump support within the GOP, just like after the mar A Lago Grade when everybody came behind him and ultimately, you know, that sense of persecution. You know, Trump is an identification of a lot of Republicans as a man who embodies like there want to like say
screw you to the cultural left. Well that only makes it even better, you know, so from a fighting perspective, and then he would actually have to get convicted, which you know, look it is Georgia. It's still a fifty to fifty state last time I checked, you know, so Electro you know how how that would all play out too, Like it's not a foregone conclusion on any of this. Yeah, absolutely, all right, guy. Speaking of Trump, he traveled to East Palestine, Ohio.
We have of course been covering the aftermath of that train derailment and their decision to do a quote unquote controlled release which was a giant fireball of toxic chemicals that has had lingering impacts on the community and that politicians have been very slow to react to. All right,
so backdraw is, remember we tracked this very close. Lever News has done the best coverage of detailing the way that industry corruption has consistently stripped safety regulations, starting with the Obama administration, who sort of buckled under pressure and limited the scope of the new safety regulations that they were putting in place. Then Trump arguably did the most damage by completely rolling back even some of the safety recks that the Obama administration had put in place, in
particular with regards to this breaking system you have. Biden administration maintains that status quo and of course joins with Republicans to crush the worker's movement that was trying to raise concerns safety concerns, specifically about potential incidents like this. So Trump's hands are not clean on this issue whatsoever. Quite the opposite, However, man knows how to spot a political opportunity, and while Joe Biden was in Ukraine, Trump
traveled to East Palestine. Here's what he had to say. We're bringing thousands of bottle of water, Trump water, actually most of it. Some of it we had to go to a much lesser quality water. You want to get those Trump bottles, I think more than anybody else. But we're bringing a lot of what are thousands of bottles, and we have it in trucks. So we brought some on my plane today. And Norfolk Southern needs to fulfill
its responsibilities and obligations. And I see that they're starting to come here now too, because they also were saying they're not coming. But it means that the affected community is beyond the borders of Palestine are going to be taken care of. And they've said so, and they've said it loud and clear, and I think they probably mean it. I sincerely hope that when your representatives and all of the politicians get here, including Biden, they get back from
touring Ukraine, that he's got some money left over. Biden and FEMA said they would not send federal a to East Palestine under any circumstance, and so not going to send eight. I thought that was a strange statement because I've been working with FEMA for a long time, four years, and they were great with us with the tornadoes, the hurricanes and things like this. What's your specialty? Hello, everybody, that's a nice, beautiful So I know this menu better
than you do. I probably know it better than anybody here. We're going to take care of the we're going to take So that last piece there was him at McDonald's with those and those, which is like, I know the McDonald's menu better than we could actually, given how much the man loves McDonald's, you know. And there's a couple there's a lot to say about this actually. First of all, clearly his political instincts still on point. Democrats handed him
an absolute lay up. There's such morons pete not going there yet. By not going there yet, I mean allowing opening up this space to make that talking, that talking point of hey, he's in Ukraine, we're here and I hope they still have some money for you guys when
they get back. Brutal. And then the other pieces of media story, which is, you know, he wouldn't be able to get away with going there and pretending like, oh, this has nothing to do with me, and I'm just here to try to help if the media had done their job of explaining that backstory of corruption and how his hands are very dirty in terms of caving to industry pressure. But since they don't do that, he can just ride in like a hero and distribute as Trump
bottles of water. Look Trump is back. I mean I can feel it. I can sense it. I've novin't seen he's fun again in a way that McDonald's, you know. And look, I'm not saying this gives me pleasure to say this. My whole monologue is really about his own record with respect to Ford policy. All I'm saying is pure politically for him to waltz into a town clearly neglected force the media to cover it. It's just like exactly what he did with Flint in twenty sixteen. You
remember that Trump and he actually won Flint. If we'll recall, there's that good documentary about the Flint police department and how they also so much supported him in twenty sixteen, and it caused like a big political stir at the time. And then the deadliest talking point of all he's in Ukraine. I'm over here. I hope he has some money that is left over for you. And you know, the moment. Actually,
while the ptin of Biden speech was happening. I texted them while I was abroad, and I was like, hey, immediately, what popped in my head? Keeve before East Palestine and then Secretary of budhaj Edge is visiting today after Donald Trump? What is the guy doing? I remain you know, It's like, how can you possibly have not immediately gotten on a plane? You know? Now the President Biden has yet to put out any full like comments or anything on East Palestine.
There's no announced visit. Where is Kamala Harr I mean sends somebody like at the very least Buddha Jedge was supposed to mean. He should have been there a week ago, if you think about it, maybe nine ten days ago. He should have been one of the very first people on the ground with a FEMA director. She should have had the Ohio governor and all those people right next one and be like I'm taking charge. I'm not leaving East Palestine until this is all done. Where is he? Oh?
I know where he is. He's here in Washington taking personal time. We'll tell you a little yeah, I'll tell you about later. He got mad at a reporter for actually asking him when he was going to visit East Palestine. Well, and here's here's another piece, is the Republican governor of the state, Mike DeWine, does not come out looking good in any of this either. He admitted before that like the White House had called him and he just didn't call them back to ask for aid for the area.
He also, you know, he was asked a question. We've been tracking the water test results that were used to give the all cleared residents to say it's all good, you can drink the water, no problem here, and it has increasingly become clear that the EPA relied predominantly on a contractor that was paid for by Norfolk Southern themselves, So the polluters paid for these water tests that the
Ohio EPA was predominantly relying on. Dwine got asked a question by this I believe it was by our friend Rich McHugh, News Nation Now investigative reporter who we've known for quite a while, fantastic journalists who's been there on the ground, who we had on the show earlier in the week. In any case, DeWine reveals he really doesn't have a clue what's going on. Hands it off to the Ohio EPA director, who basically confirms the outlines of that storylist way to listen to that. As the EPA
tested the water independently, Yes, we're testing it independently. Was it initially tested in conjunction? I ask my director? The Norfolk Southern contractor did a com They did their own testing that same sample at the same time. It's collected by the county and sent to a separate lab. The Ohio EPA confirming to News Nation it was done in conjunction at first, but will now begin its own independent
testing starting today and keep boddah judge and bouncing. He will finally come here to the crash site, responding to criticism he did not visit sooner. To be clear, our department was on the ground within hours. I could have spoken out sooner, and I'm making sure that we are focused on the actions that are going to make a difference. So de Wine there's a oh, yeah, we're doing my own independent testing, and he's like, well, I don't really know.
Let me get to the EPA director who's like, well, not actually, now we're starting to do our own independent testing after they've already told people it's all safe and fine, it's a desil Biden administration and the Republican governor here have left the greatest political opening of all time, and with buddhaj Edge at this point, I don't know how in the hell that this guy continues to have a job and Biden himself, I mean, you know, Biden, you
could always say his political instincts were at least better than a lot of the people in the media, right, a lot of the elites in the party. He has lost it, you know, clearly, some of that the idea of visiting a foreign country while you're dispensing hundreds of billions of dollars to them and literally giving the greatest talking point of all time that he cares about another country and another country's borders more than he cares about your own. That is all you're going to hear from
the Republican Party. And why shouldn't you, because now it's creating the political pressure on the Biden administration where they feel on the backfoot. And Chrystal clearly the Democrats they know they screwed up. Now at this point, the National Democratic Party is silent, but they're looking at this and it is a total twenty sixteen replay. I think, I really think Trump, you know, tweeted this earlier today. Trump's power levels are higher than I've seen him in years.
He hasn't been talking about to stop the steal on Twitter. He's honestly pretty funny or truth. Sorry, meatball Ron is fantastic. I'm sorry, it's just the best. One of the best nicknames I've heard in a lot. Says that's fake Newscimer. He would never call me. He's going to say, you're right, I've never called me ball meetball Ron, meatball Ron. Just devastating him publicly looking at Mickey Haley and just brushing her aside, just you know, almost smirking at her candidacy.
And then the political genius of just swaltzing into East Palestine while Biden is in Ohio the Trump water and making the joke about all of that. That is vintage two thousand. He seems more unshackled right now than ever. Now. Look, Trump is always his own worst enemy. He hasn't been talking about stop the steel all that much lately. If he does get into guided in Georgia, clearly you know that's going to come back to the fourth. So he's one of those where he has immense political talent and
immense political baggage. Right now you're seeing the talent aspect, I think, and as look, if he continues, it's only going to work out even Yeah, and no talk about abortion from him, No, not one word about it. He's not a stupid man. I always say that. The last thing I want to point out, which I raised yesterday,
go and put this up on the screen. I think we had covered before how Libby Montana has Medicare for All because of this provision that got put into Obamacare, where if you have an area that's deemed a public health disaster and that town had been poisoned basically because of the result of mining operation there, but you can, if you're deemed public health disaster, you can actually invoke
this provision of Obamacare to get Medicare for life. Now, listen, in my opinion, everybody deserves Medicare for all, but at the very least, these residents who we know were exposed to a known carcinogen deserve to have health care coverage for themselves and for their children for life, because after the TV cameras go away, and after the immediate symptoms and the smell of chemical contaminants. After that all fades, it's years down the road when we will really know
the true health impacts of what ultimately happened here. And to lend myself some credibility, David Dayan sort of second the idea because he's the one who flagged for me originally back previously that Libby Montana had this ability and that this was something that the Biden administration could potentially use, and he said he was warming to the idea. It requires a Public Health Emergency Declaration. EPA has already said to Norfolk Southern that the situation fits under a circle.
I don't know what that is. HHS would then have to create a specific pilot program for East Palestine based on potential exposure. So and he goes on to add five thousand new people on the MEDICA roles as a rounding error. Government would have to admit the potential for harm from chemical exposure, though, which would seem to be the main hurdle, as nobody really wants to say that
right now. So that's the barrier is they don't want to admit that there was potentially damaging, long term chemical exposure here that could make them eligible for this provision and when they admit it, they have to admit their own role in not going and trying to fix it as soon as possible. So these people, look, they've been screwed from day one. We're not going to let this
go and we can't. It's unfortunate that the Biden administration really a media leftist open for Republicans and for independent journalism. But we're going to take it because you know, you can't just forget these people. Yeah, it's just really not right. That's absolutely right. And to that point, we have been
partnering with Status KU on the ground. They have a journalist there who has been talking to residents over days, if not weeks at this point, talking to them about their symptoms and doing some digging, in particular into those water tests. So let's get right to it. Louis de Angelus of Status qu joins us now, Grace c. Lewis,
just man, thanks for having me. So I understand you have some new reporting about the water tests which were conducted, in which we're used as the basis for telling residents it's all good. You can drink the water, there's going to be no problems. Tell us what you've learned yeah, absolutely so in you know, reporting from several other folks
as well up until this point. You know, I actually ran into the governor the other day, asked him a couple of tough questions that he was not necessarily excited to have asked, and did his best to dodge them. And basically the tests that have been done initially up until basically the last forty eight hours were all from contractors hired by either Norfolk Southern or contractors hired by the EPA. These two contractors are companies called Tetra Tech
and CTEH. Both of these companies have histories of mishandling results and information they've you know, some of in some cases falsifying test results. This you know, these companies were being used. One of them was during the deep Water Horizon incident. I don't know if you remember back in twenty ten. The New York Times reported on that one and the other one. Let me pull it up here just because I want to make sure I have it
all accurate for you all. The other incident as well was from the let's see, the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. So both of these companies are giving residents more reason to question the results and the answers that their government officials are giving them or frankly, you
know more realistically not giving them. So with that information, you know up until forty eight hours ago, again, these tests are being provided by these two companies, one of them being hired directly by the railroad, which has no incentive here to necessarily put out the accurate information. Right, these guys are trying to cover their butts in a
lot of this stuff. And it gets a little bit worse because as we looked into this, I've been on the ground talking with residents since over the last weekend, establishing trusts with these folks and actually giving them the time of day to talk to them and build trust. And the children of one of the parents that I've established a good relationship with asked if he could do an interview. Some of his friends wanted to as well.
We got permission to do this interview with the children, and one of the kids mentioned that the water fountains in their school, so not the part that you can go down and get a sip from, but the part that you can fill up your water bottle in is actually open to use inside of their school, and I mean, my heart just dropped when I heard that. I mean, I've got little nieces. You know. The kids did say there is bottled water in school, But again, these are children.
We're talking about the fact that they can go fill up their water bottle in the school because officials are telling them that the water is fine when we're relying on again predominantly tests that are being contracted out by the railroad. It's unconscionable to me to hear that happen, and it you know, it's it's a it's a tough it's a tough story. And I mean, these folks are going through so much here. It's it's tough to talk about. These conversations that I'm having with residents are are hard
ones to have. These folks are being put in absolutely impossible positions. Lewis the piece about these contractors, it's the first time learning about it. Can you give us a little bit more detail about their involvement that was you know, revealed to be fraudulent in the past, falsifying records. What was uncovered there, just so we know some of the specifics. Yeah, so I know more of a deepwater horizon incident. And in the article from the New York Times. Essentially they
do a good job with this. I encourage folks to find it. We can get you all the link to post in the description or something like that. But in that incident, the New York Times essentially found that the Deepwater Horizon incident, the company had every incentive to essentially make these folks be feeling okay and getting them back to work and all this sort of thing. So it's really the incentives that were being placed. We're obviously incorrect
in all of these instances. There should be independent testing being done. And again, if you want residents here in East Palestine or in any other incidents, you know, across the country where this to happen. Again, let's make sure that we're using a company that does not have a
history of any of this kind of fraudulent information. Yeah, so, can you expand then in the context of the general kind of corporate influence and cover up that's been going on here that you've been able to witness on the ground, because it just seems like the latest in a series of things that's been happening. No, it is, and you know, everything from initially, you know, the railroad varying contaminants underneath
the railroad tracks, right. Residents have been very unhappy about that, and essentially, even even with the evacuations, right, there's a lot of speculation. Again, I can't confirm any of this necessarily, but there's a lot of speculation that the reason the town was deemed safe again was because the railroad is not able to run trains through the town while there's
still an evacuation notice ordered. If no one's allowed back into town, why you know, railroad conductors that sort of thing aren't going to be able to be going through this area because it's unsafe. So there's added pressure to get folks back into town. Tell them everything is fine, everything is safe, so that they can get the railroad moving again. And I can tell you after being here for several days, that railroad is busy. I mean, in some times a day, it's every ten minutes a train
going by. Oftentimes right now, the trains are actually being double stacked the shipping container ones. Residents tell me that that was not the case beforehand, but it's just mostly single stacked. They're trying to catch up on the railroad being closed from before with these double stack trains, which I don't need to tell you this. The double stack trains are going to be heavier than singles, tracked one
tracked ones. It's it's uncomfortable again, Lewis. We actually have you interviewed residents who voiced exactly the fear and suspicion you were laying out that basically the all clear call was rushed in order to get back to business as usual. Guys, this is the second stot that we have. I believe it's labeled to see five Control room. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. They had that thing cleaned up and the train running through within forty eight hours.
They laid those tracks right over top of that, and there is no way that they hauled any of it out. They laid it right over top. And you know the fire department when when this initially happened, it's a fire, they're trying to put it out. There's brain what where'd that water go? You know, it's right in the ground, in the soil. And they laid those were tracks people. And the thing is they weren't allowed to run the
train through an evacuated area. So as soon as them train tracks were done, the evacuations lifted people that came home the night day. We didn't come up to the next morning, but there were people that came home that night. They had videos they had to wait on the train because the train was already up and running before they
could get back in their houses. Now, is that a coincidence that they weren't allowed to run through an evacuated area and all of a sudden, the train's ready to go and the evacuate evac you know, the evacuation was lifted. You know, I think not so. Residents very fearful that their health and safety was put at risk in order to make sure that the rail companies could get back to operating a maximum capacity and get back to making the profit margins they're used to. Absolutely, and I mean again,
Stella and Darren there. I talked to them for forty five minutes. They've got foster children, young kids, some of them with pre existing conditions. And you know that house that we were interviewing them in there, that's been their family for one hundred years. This is you know, they're like, what are we going to pass on to our kids? Our house is worth nothing. Now that's a major concern from a lot of folks in town. Is you know, there's folks who are looking to retire, they want to
sell their house. What are they going to do now? Norfolk Southern's not talking about buying people's houses at the value that they were beforehand, and I'm you know, I'm sure they're not looking into doing that at any point. But again, even for renters, I mean I mentioned earlier on in this parents are being put in an absolutely impossible situation here, right, I'm talking to people with I'll give you some of the symptoms that we're hearing. And
this isn't just from like one or two people. I'd say roughly half of the people I'm talking to are
dealing with some of these symptoms here. So we've got rashes, bloody noses, the bloody noses, especially with kids like every night in some cases right, sore throats, dry and stinging eyes, vomiting, breathing problems, diarrhea, and again, some of this stuff is hard to necessarily show on camp, but I can tell you from being invited into many of these people's homes, going into some of the businesses here, these people are not bsing you into trying to believe this sort of
thing it's frustrating to see, you know, folks online saying, oh, you know, folks are looking for a handout. These people are in the most impossible situation ever. You walk into some of these places and you can feel it in your eyes, you can smell it's it's an absolute shame that this is going on. And as a result of this, to talk a little bit more about some of the you know, corruption, gaslighting, whatever you want to call it going on here, the State of Ohio set up a
clinic in the town for folks to go to. I asked Governor DeWine. I was like, you know, I talked to all of these people on this street last night. We ran into them on the street because the local resident tipped me off that he was there. I was like, I talked to all these folks on this street. They're experiencing all of these symptoms that I just listed off for you. Where should they go? He goes, they should go to the clinic that the State of Ohio is set up. So we went to the Ohio State you know,
the clinic that they set up in town. And this clinic isn't even providing actual medical services here right. The clinic is essentially providing folks to talk to. Right, so you go, you get you you you know, can can talk to an expert, I guess, and then they'll refer you to go to your doctor. Hopefully you've got health insurance. Hopefully you have a plan that doesn't have a high deductible or else you're on the hook or emergency room bills.
That's unbelievable. And that's one more point on this, if I can make it. A lot of the other you know, local journalist in town, and obviously there's exceptions to the rule, and even some of the national media. We were there reporting from in front of the medical center. Uh, and they're out there essentially reading the press release saying this medical clinic is now open. Members of the public should come here for for you know, services and whatnot. Meanwhile,
I've got residents texting me saying this is ridiculous. This is no real services here. There's no real services. And fortunately, you know, we're able to actually be here to do it because nobody you know, again, there is exceptions to the rule, no doubt about it. But you know, I'm not an expert journalist. I don't have a journalism degree, right, but I feel like I'm out here asking the questions that a lot of these other folks aren't, which is a shame that I have to be in that position
to try to do it well. We find ourselves in that position sometime. We're very happy to help support your work down there. So yeah, we appreciate you being there and let us know continue if you ever need any more resources or anything. Yeah, thanks, lewis great to have you. If we're able to as well, folks, we're going to be posting a lot of content on status QUP. If you're not a Status qu subscriber already, that would be fantastic if you can come follow some of our work there. Yeah,
they've been done. That's from the beginning. Thanks, guys, appreciate it. At the same time, there's some rumblings here in Washington, very interesting rumblings. I'm not sure quite yet how to take it serious. Let's put it up there on the screen from Politico headline Biden may not run. Top Dems are quietly preparing for it. The president no longer seems absolutely certain to go for a second term, leaving the
party's top aids and potential candidates unsure. About twenty four and very quietly mulling whatever a plan be would look like. Now I'm not quite yet sure what to make of this crystal, because previously the reporting was he is ironclad, it's totally good to go. The closest advisors President Biden, all the people the president President seeks, they break the schedule, brig the DNC primary South Carolina and all of that, all of the launch. It was supposed to happen sometime
in April, but now the definitive date is moving. Nobody's quite yet said when the hard deadline or the formal process were actually arriving at the launch date. Decision will be the final call was pushed aside. They continue to blame Kiev or the holiday weekend trip more recently that he had taken, and he seems to be dithering as to what exactly he wants to do. And there's a lot of questions as to why exactly that is. We know that Joe Biden is one of the people that
he takes most seriously and her advice. It could be a concern over his age. We've talked about before. It be eighty six years old. He may not admit in public that his age is a problem, But clearly everybody else in the world is like, I can't even believe that anyone that old would ever seek reelection, let alone you know, current continue to be in the Oval office.
But actually, what really struck home for me was a part of the piece where they say Biden is famously indecisive, a habit exacerbated by decades in the Senate, and it actually hearkens back to the Hillary time. Well, remember in twenty sixteen, he was a serious possible candidate for president.
He almost came close, had some advisors and people who were assembled behind him and couldn't say yes no. Obama famously kind of put the squeeze on him Hillary and the DNC says no, no no, no, it's all Hillary's turn. He basically just eventually the last minute, after Hillary's already announced, comes to the decisions Okay, I'm not going to do it. Step Aside continues to say it's one of the biggest regrets of his life in public. But he's now and
now he's kind of displaying that same attitude. My personal opinion is I think he eventually will run, but having the just because they have no other option, you know, as long as he's he could still speak like, not even semi coherently, like they're still going to do it just because there's too much at stake here. But this does demonstrate so I'm one of the biggest personal problems.
He's always had, the deliberation, the indecisiveness, and then he gets snappy whenever people try and actually point it out to him. He's a micro manager who can't make a decision. Yeah, and it's a disastrous combination of traits for someone in terms of being in a like management position. So you know, he's got all kinds of staffers who are ready to
go for a presidential campaign. But you know, if he's not even making the first decision of Okay, I'm definitely doing it, well, then think of how they're paralyzed in terms of, Okay, where do we do the headquarters, what does our launch look like, what themes are we running? Are we leaning into, Let's get some polling going, let's think about the Republican field. All of those sort of down the road decisions get paralyzed by an inability to make that very first decision. Now, do I think that
Joe Biden is ultimately going to run again? Yes, I always have I agree with you, Sager. The calculus remains the same. You know, they have a Kamala Harris problem. Maybe if he felt like he could easily hand the baton to somebody else, I don't know that would be Pete at this point, but to somebody else that he felt confident about, then maybe it would be different. But because it would be so hard to get around Kamala Harris, first black woman vice president, I think he ends up
getting pushed back into this again. And the other piece is the longer that he waits if he does decide, all right, I'm just too old. I'm not going to do it. Well, you have now really put all of the other contenders on the back foot, who haven't had time to fundraise and make their moves, etc. And so you really have privileged Kamala Harris in this process. I mean, right now, if you look at the polls, she's the person who is in the lead, just sort of by default.
So the longer you wait, the more you make Kamala Harris inevitable. And I think Biden and everybody else in DC is at least intelligent to note enough to know that that could be a complete disaster. So I do think ultimately this is just him being his classic decisive self. He'll probably ultimately come around to running again. But it's interesting that this sort of chatter is going on right now. Right So, in terms of the contenders, everybody wants to know.
So here's the list that Politico has put together. You've got Pritzker, the governor of Ohio. I think he comes from a billionaire family or sorry Illinois, but comes from a billionaire family that can't hurt in terms of putting together an instant campaign room. What was it recently that he did where he was having some macho moments where the press was liking Pritzker. Printzker captured like leftist imagination for a moment. First of all, everybody loves a big boy,
so there's that. That's true. Number two, it was just like almost on gun control, he actually did a few things as governor that he promised he was going to do, and people were like amazed by that. Okay, there was something too of like he cut the gasoline tax when energy prices were really sky high, and then he had all the forced all the convenience stores to put on the sign like this is because of Prince Kerst I
would do it too smart. Yeah, good. I think it lifted the middle of a wage, some things like that. So anyway, that's JB. Pritzker. Okay, so we got Pritzker. That's one person. Apparently, Phil Murphy, the governor of New Jersey, is taking a look. Amy Klobachar plans to seek reelection to her Senate seat. Crystal's famous. I'm taking a hard look at Amy Klobuchar. I guess the hard look continues for people in the media. Elizabeth Warren apparently is another list,
although she's getting up there in age herself. Bernie, they put the list ro Kana, so somebody who's been here on the show but keeping his options open obviously, So that's a list that they've put together. I think it's remarkable that Buddha, Judge Kamla were our. I guess those are just so obvious that they're saying that there are
other people better. Yeah. So, anyway, we don't know exactly, but at the very least these pieces are good because they either cause anger or silence from the White House, so inevitably they will be asked about it, they will be asked for comment, and then their own way that they handle it and what it will spur in the future. If it continues to see in action, then there's still a possibility. If it's spurs action or gets Biden moving, then it'll go in the different direction. But regardless, it
is important. It's one of the widely read places here in Washington where everybody keeps an eye on, and we thought it was absolutely worth covering. Yeah. Meanwhile, the Republican side is, I don't know, it's kind of shaping up a little bit. We've got some some polling here showing Trump taking a bit more of a lead in this race. Well, he's certainly doing much better than I think a lot of people are willing to admit. And let's go and
put this up there. So January second, the Republican poll from Morning Console had Trump at forty five percent, up by eleven points on Ron DeSantis who had thirty four percent, Mike Pence at eight, Nikki Haley at three. February nineteenth. Keep in mind this is after the Haley announcement. Trump is now up to fifty percent. He's actually gained on Ron DeSantis. Much of that is directly from DeSantis's support at thirty percent, Mike Pence at six, Nicki Haley at six,
what can you kind of surmise from that? Haley by simply announcing, was able to get three percent of the anti Trump vote, but by creating the contrast without DeSantis and Mike Pence technically in the race, Trump's own support of people who are contrasting him with potential others has actually gone up to the outright fifty. Now, listen, a lot can change, of course, of course, right, and we have not yet seen any actual attack on Trump. But hey,
maybe that's a problem when you're running against him. Nikki Haley continues with they're idiotic. I'm not kicking sideways, I'm kicking forth. First of all, what does it mean? Second? Why are we kicking? We're continuing to kick national tell I Heals and all that. But it's not just her, it's all of the other potential contenders. Mike Pence has not said a damn word about Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis
hasn't said it. Don Tim Scott, who apparently wants to throw his hat in the ring too, well, he was on TV just last night. What is Sean Hannity ask him? He said, well, okay, what makes you different from Trump in any way? He's basically like nothing. Let's take a listen. What are the differences in terms of of policy positions that, for example, you may have with President Trump. Probably not very many at all. I am so thankful that we
have President Trump in office. Frankly, the policies that we were able to pass from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty were monumental, all right, So I happen to think that the policy things were monumental, we were better off for Trump. So if you're better off for Trump being president, and why shouldn't you be president again? This is the problem with all of these people. They're not willing to take any real shots, even in terms of the formative message.
You know, I have thought that DeSantis could make a very powerful general election argument as to why we should move away from Trump. A lot of people don't like Trump. Maybe two thirds of the country. E's either ambivalent thinks negatively him. Half of those ambivalent people willing to hold their nose and vote for him, but they're not technically excited.
It's really only the MAGA people that are. For those people, that would be a critical way, but you got to win the primary, and to win the primary, you have to care, you have to speak to the issues that they really care about. For a lot of the Republican base right now, it is very clear it's culture war. But here's the thing. On culture war, how do you outflank Donald Trump on that he invented the model. You're
not going to culture harder than Donald Trump. He's the He's the king of own the troll king from day one and always kind of has been then. And he'll also, by the way, he'll always up the ante, right. You know, everybody with Obama they were like willing to play footsie with else. He's like he wasn't born here at all,
you know, He's like he knew it was bs. He just didn't care because and I remember there's private reporting where Romney apparently was like, hey, man, like maybe don't say any of this, and Trump was like, you have no idea how much it gets the crowd going. He's a performer, like he knows exactly what he's doing and he doesn't care about what the red lines are in yeah,
always every single time. So first of all, you can't do that, yeah, And second, you know, in terms of in terms of the Republican base right now on economics, the Republican Party nationally has never been more out of step with them and their desire to preserve social security and medical Sure. They might buy that Biden spending or whatever has led to inflation and generally blame him for that, but they still want their entitlements and they're really loving
the rays that they got on social security. So to put that contrast, I think with the two of them, fundamentally, I'm watching all these would be Republican candidates. They're either completely behind him on the issues that matter the most, or in the case of Nikki Haley, she's trying to basically be like a liberal left Democrat on Ukraine policy, saying no actually to send even more weapons her and people like Mike Pompeio. So he's got it, he's got
it dialed in, I think to where things are right. Yeah, I mean, listen, the two issues he's really leaning into are Ukraine, yeah, and social security. And he's smart, it's very intelligent. And on social security. On Ukraine, you're going to get a mix of answers. DeSantis is trying to like move into a position to at least signal like he's a Ukraine skeptic, although again. Like the thing Trump will do is he'll just again come out and say it like no tanks, and I will solve this on
day one. It's so easy to do, right, whereas others a little craft, little talking points and try to play to the bass. But he just comes out and says it. And then on Social Security, every one of these people, including Nicky Haley and Mike Pence, have already Mike Pence wants to privatize Social Security. Okay, do good luck with that. Nicki Haley is already out there saying like, oh, we got to put him on the table, and which means cuts.
And then I don't know how Ronda Santis is going to handle it, but he has a lot of comments in his past backing up Paul Ryan's Medicare cuts, saying we need to do the same thing with Social Security, saying we need to look to increase the eligibility age,
which of course means cuts as well. So he now either has to flip flop on those comments, which obviously Trump is not going to let him get away with and look kind of weak, or he has to stand by them and be dramatically at odds with the rest of the Republican base, So you know, he is doing an effective job of grabbing the attention, of shaping the battlefield as he ultimately wants it, and forcing everyone else
to respond. And if you can't even find a single person in the Republican Party who's going to tell you why we should, why you should move on Trump, what issues they're different on, I don't know what to tell you, because that's not the way politics works. If this guy was so great while he was in office, then you should just reelect him again, because I mean, and you know, with Mike Pence, he actually does have some policy differences on Ukraine and on abortion in particular, and on social
securities I just mentioned. Now, do I think those are winning positions for him? Not particularly, although on abortion with the Republican base he might be able to do something there, But he doesn't even want to talk about those actual, real, measurable policy differences that he has. So it's just, honestly, it's kind of embarrassing. Oh, absolutely, and I think it will only continue to be so. Yes, speaking of embarrassing, Sager missed out on our coverage of Marjorie Taylor Green's
national divorce comments. So initially she was just like, we need a national divorce. Everybody I say says this because our differences are so irreconcilable. She kind of softened it to be like, well, we'd stay together as a country, but this would just limit the federal garb at something like that. Because she got so much backlash across the House. So Sean Hannity decided, is our second handity appearance here.
He's becoming very central apparently decided to have her on his show and effectively back her up in this idea. Take a listen. Green is saying that a national divorce would empower individual states to form a smaller government, reduce the federal debt, set their own environmental standards. And the congresswoman has another idea as well, banning people who move from blue states to red states from voting for five years so they don't bring their bad politics with them.
I mean, I look at topics, for example, how do you reconcile defund the police and nobail laws with law and order. How do you reconcile secure borders and wide open borders. How do you reconcile energy independence with energy dependence and New Green dealism? How do you reconcile peace through strength with people that want to gut our defense. I don't see middle ground on a lot of these issues.
So what is the other answer if it's not a divorce? So, Sager, since you haven't reacted to all of this, let me get your thoughts. I don't know. I mean, it's just so pathetic, to be honest. First of all, Marjorie's whole turn towards the establishment. I guess that one took a hard right. Yes, not exactly what happened there. She's like
returning right back to the kukery. I mean, I just find these so pathetic and only the most cringe grifting right wing Twitter personalities would ever think that this is actually going to happen. And you know, let's put on the historical hat. We have had many periods in our history which were full of far more domestic strife than this. And guess what, there was no war. The period after
the American Civil War was far more contentious politically. Here, the period in the nineteenth maybe like the progressive area, but like nineteen hundred to let's say, like nineteen twenty, just an immense amount of fighting over internally over like civil rights race, the economy, the progressive era combination, okay, and then the nineteen sixties, which for all the talk of how bad things are, we are nowhere even close to what things and how bad they were in nineteen
sixty eight. So I just this is all just a fantasy, and honestly it's just getting people ginned up. The part of the reason I recognize it as such as, look, I'm from Texas, and there is a cringe annoying element of like the most mid baseline Texas take of like, well, technically we were our own country and we could secede in you know, the war between the States and all that type of discussion with you know, the Confederate belt buckle holding onto something even though their parents are from
like Ohio. Look, my point is that this is a larp. It's one where a lot of people online like love to get in these idiotic discussions, but fundamentally a it's not going to happen. But it's also a dumb idea. See, we actually fought an entire war to called the American Civil War, to resolve the question of whether this could ever be allowed to have happened, and three hundred some people died in the Union Army to make sure that it wasn't going to and preserve that. Then in the
Constitution are out the right to secede. So there are so many fundamental levels as to why this is done. But for her, it's smart if you want to make money. You know, the most cringe elements of these people, they're loving this. Well. The thing that is funny to me is she keeps on insisting, like, I'm just talking to regular people, and that's what they tell me. This is the most online check of all time, which she demonstrates what idiot like exactly, and she's like, that's why it's
got so many likes and retweets. It's like, no, this is the most twitter brained dumb ass thing ever. But yeah, does it serve her interests? Sure sure it does. Sure absolutely. And as I'm only pointed out, which I think is an important fact to remember, Marjorie Taylor Green lives in Georgia. What do you do with the state like Georgia it's a blue state? Yes, is it a red state? You know, two Democratic senators went for Joe Biden, but you got
a Republican governor. So how's that one going to work out? And her new idea is if Democrats move into red states, they should be banned from voting for five years. So yeah, just very very open, like small d democratic instinct here to do. Like the people you don't like and disagree with, just don't let them vote. That's actually an old carpetbagging
sentiment from the old South after the American Civil War. Yeah, why would anyone from the state which got burned to the ground during the last Civil War want to have another one like it? Ask people in Atlanta how that worked out for them. So anyway, it pissed me off. I find there's so many right wing personalities who are always you know, who are always leaning into this, and it's just try and get people like all these you know, like feeding the gun paranoia. Look, I support gun ownership
always will. I mean, I'm people here know I'm not even for many restrictions I've seen. But I want to say I've seen a liberal version of this too. We support more taxes and support more so let them go, et cetera, et cetera. So I mean there is a liberal version of this, but I don't know that a member of Congress on the Democratic side has articulated it, and I don't know that it's been given a serious platform on a liberal talk show either. Yeah, and nor
should it. You know, this type of koukary like you should just keep it out to where it is. But congratulations. I'm sure it helped in terms of increasing serioence Twitter followers and in terms of your fundraised numbers. I personally find it disgusting. All right, Zacher, We're looking at it well. Foreign President trumpson making a lot of waves in recent
days in his stance on Ukraine. Unquestionably, the pressure on the GOP base has forced his only serious potential rival, Ron DeSantis, to rhetorically adopt the same framing as him on Ukraine. After Biden's most recent Kiev. By a mile, it could be the most consequential stance of the entire campaign. A lot of this came together in the most recent video that Trump put out about Ukraine. Let's take a listen to some of it. World War III has never
been closer than it is right now. We need to clean house of all of the warmongers and america last globalist in the deep State, the Pentagon, the State Apartment, and the National Security Industrial Complex. One of the reasons I was the only president in generations who didn't start
a war? Is that I was the only president who rejected the catastrophic advice of many of Washington's generals, bureaucrats, and the so called diplomats who only know how to get us into conflict, but they don't know how to get us out. Okay, I'm really liking what I'm hearing so far. But is it true? The thing about Trump in twenty sixteen is we had no idea what he was going to do. That was kind of the fun part.
But with Trump in twenty twenty three, we actually do know when what he might do because he literally served in office. Is it true he rejected the advice of generals and warmongering diplomats. Well, in some cases yes, and arguably the most important theater of conflict at the time, though he did not, he actually did the opposite. Let's take Afghanistan. Trump made a big deal about withdrawing from Afghanistan.
He pledged to end the war, and the most consequential thing that he did in his first months in office was instead to accept the advice of the National Security Council, the generals, and the warmongers who he hired to send four thousand more troops to Afghanistan. That move alone bought US five more years in Afghanistan. It eventually collapsed as a strategy when doing the exact same thing over and over it didn't work, and then eventually negotiated the peace
deal with the Taliban. Look better late than never, I guess, but it's an important indicator. Then consider the theater of conflict that's most important today. Ukraine. President Obama took an immense amount of heat from hawkish Republicans for refusing to send Javelin and Ti tank missiles to the Ukraine for their war against rus Russian militias in the East. This is before the invasion. Obama refused to do it because he thought it would make relations with Russia worse and
it wouldn't actually do that much on the battlefield. It was a key litmus test for Russian policy at the time. Well, Trump actually reversed the Obama policy in his first year in office, accepted the neocon advice of the Pentagon in the State Department, and greenlit anti tank missiles to Ukraine. If you'll remember, one of the reasons Democrats impeached him was for implying that those exact missile deliveries might be connected to trying to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden.
Belying it, though, is the fact that Trump actually did what Obama refused to do. He escalated the conflict in Ukraine on the advice of the generals. This is peer policy. It doesn't even mention that Trump consistently hired national security advisors like hr McMaster, Nikki Haley, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, dozens of other neocons who outright disagreed with him completely, and in almost all cases he deferred to their judgment
while in office. Personnel is policy, That's the saying in Washington. But okay, let's continue listening to the video. The State Department, Pentagon, and National Security establishment will be a very different place by the end of my administration. In fact, just into my administration, and it'll be a very different place, and it'll get things done. Okay, again, I really like the
sound of what I'm hearing, but doesn't match reality. The first Secretary of Defense that Trump hired was whom General James Mattis, who consistently pushed for escalated in conflict in Syria, not withdrawing from Afghanistan, continued support for Ukraine, more kind of confrontation with Iran. Eventually, Mattis actually quit the administration and resigned because Trump wanted to withdraw from Syria and he didn't agree with that. So let's keep watching the
video because there's even more irony. We'll also stop the lobbyists and the big defense contractors from going in and pushing our senior military and national security officials toward conflict, only to reward them when they retire with lucrative jobs getting paid millions and millions of dollars. That's a fantastic idea. There's just one problem. The person he literally hired to
replace Mattis, well, it's got bad news. It was actually Mark Esper, who, at the time he was chosen was literally the top lobbyist for Raytheon in Washington, DC, one of the largest defense contractors in the world. And lo and behold, Esper did exactly what Trump is accusing people like him of doing. He consistently refused and stopped any efforts by Trump to actually withdraw from Afghanistan. In fact, his only criticism of Biden on Ukraine so far has
been he hasn't sent enough weapons to Ukraine. Are you sensing a pattern here? If you're a Trump bootlicker, you can always find an excuse. Oh he tried, so what he hired these people, He's a grown man. Why did he hire them? His whole thing was hiring and firing people. In fact, two of the people posturing against him, Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo, literally worked for him and have both been beating the war drum on Ukraine. I get that if you're a Trump person, this is hard to hear.
I guess I'm just one of those people who likes to see some of these things actually done. A hard and a tough lesson that I learned through the Trump years is almost all of it is just talk. Trump does and never has had the inclination or the follow through to be a competent commander and she or an effective vessel for policy priorities. Now, to be fair, it's possible he has changed many people around him, like Johnny DeStefano.
They said it will never happen again, that there's a new plan where they're going to fire the federal bureaucracy and bring in people who have displayed total policy alignment with Trump. We'll see I've heard it all before. You should remember Trump was literally so incompetent. He couldn't get the travel ban done, he couldn't get Daca rescinded. He lost his census battle over the illegal immigrants at the Supreme Court, all because the people who work for him
messed up the basic legal filings. Keep that in mind when you hear him talk. I was excited once too, some of this could come reality. Unfortunately, almost all of it did not happen. Here's the thing with Trump, I think the only effective case. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagres's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Cristal, what are you taking a look at it? Well, guys, I got a little mystery for you today. Take a look at this map.
So this was recently published in Economics. Paper was analyzed here by the Washington Post. This it shows the nation's average credit scores by county. Dark blue is bad, mustard brown. I guess you'll call that is good and an obvious trend leaves off the page. The South as a region has abysmal credit scores starting in southern Virginia and in Appalachia, and creeping all the way down the Panhandle in Florida and over to Texas. You see a whole lot of
people who are struggling with a lot of debt. Now you might think this is a really simple story of class, and in a sense it is. Overall, places with higher poverty do have lower credit scores, but this dynamic did not come close to accounting for this highly regional and very specific phenomena. Even in wealthy areas in the South, people had lower FICO scores than their Midwestern counterparts. Now
that's a terrible situation for Southerners. There are few things as pernicious as debt for constraining your life choices and crippling you with stress and anxiety. Throughout history, debt has actually been used as a tool of control. You can think of the company store in mining towns where workers would end up with debts they could not pay and
effectively working as indentured servants. Or you can think about the IMF in the World Bank, which lend developing countries money and then they use that debt as leveraged to four shock doctrine neoliberal policies onto them. When a person is in debt, their freedom is constrained. Now, debt and bad credit can quickly mount into financial ruin and personal disaster. How are you going to finance a car when yours dies?
How are you going to get an apartment? And for those who are already behind financially, a low credit score means you will be plant paying brutally high interest rates, helping to feed a cycle where you just get further and further behind. So what is causing this regional crisis of debt and of bad credit? Let me show you another map that is going to make it pretty clear. This one is too, also courtesy of the Washington Post here,
and it's a map of medical debt. According to credit data from the Urban Institute that's quoted in this article, ninety two of the one hundred counties with the highest share of adults struggling with medical debt, they're all in the South. The remainder are neighboring states Oklahoma and Missouri. Now, when you think about it, it makes total sense. Medical debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy in America, and the total size this crushing debt burden, it's actually
even bigger than we had previously imagined. Recent research found that one hundred and forty billion dollars in medical debt is now in collections. That's nearly double previous estimates from back in twenty sixteen. Between twenty nine and twenty twenty, medical debt actually became the single largest source of debt
that is currently held by collections agencies. Now, I once you understand other wealthy nations would look at this as utter insanity, at a moral atrocity, because it is we ruin people, We destroy their lives because they happen to get sick. And there's a very specific reason why Southern states are the ones with the highest levels of medical debt and the worst attendant credit scores. It's not an accident. It's not about overall poverty. It is a specific political choice.
These are the states where governors decided they would rather virtue signal about how much they hate Obama than expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act. Now, look, I am not a big fan of Obamacare, as that left the statusquo system largely unchanged, with health and jurors, hospitals, every other part of the crop for profit healthcare system feeding like pigs at the trough while patients continue to get screwed. But Obamacare was an improvement over the previous corrupt,
discussing and moral system. And now, after having been law for over a decade, states that went forward with the full medicaid expansion have significantly separated from states that did not on that metric of medical debt. According to The New York Times, the states that have declined to expand medicaid, particularly in the South, started out having more medical debt before Obamacare passed, and since other states have expanded Medicaid,
that chasm has grown wider. In twenty twenty, americans living in states that did not expand medicaid owed an average of three hundred and seventy five dollars more than those in states that participated in the program. That is roughly a thirty percent increase from the gap that existed the year before enactment. Now you could see on that chart, how the sooner you expanded medicaid to cover working class people, the better as a state you're faring on medical debt.
But let's not forget the existence of such a chart at all is a total failure. It's not just in the South where politicians have made political choices that have miserated their constituents. It's the entire nation debt and the poor credit scores that come along with it are real constraints on freedom and the ability to pursue happiness. We all deserve the freedom to go to the doctor when we need to, to be able to take off work to recover, and to not have our lives ruined because
we happen to get sick. Nearly everyone accepts this, yet nothing changes, not because we can't make other choices, but because political elites, bankrolled by those who profit off the current system, do everything in their power to block change and convince you that it's all impossible. These regional disparities highlighted so graphically on that map, they are a sharp reminder that we are not just powerless as a nation to improve the condition of our people's lives. Different policy
choices lead to starkly measurably different outcomes. And the different outcome I want to see is zero medical debt for anyone anywhere. And I thought this was really fascinating. I wouldn't have put the pieces together, oh, I asked, And if you want to hear my reaction to Christ's monologue become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. All Right, guys, great having you back, Soger, thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks for holding down the ford. Emily did a fantastic job.
I really did, sir. I miss being here on the show. I gotta say it. It's like it's like your baby that you're like, oh man, he was so like five am. I was like, cover this, take this out. Yeah. Making sure you guys were all amazing. Thank you all so much for your support and for everything. I'm really glad that we have counterpoints, you know, that we can lean on, and we've got great partner content continuing for the weekend. Spencer, by the way, doing a fantastic job. We're gonna have
him and talk to him on the show. I really enjoyed his latest video. It's always a privilege developments for moving on the studio, on the logo, on all the new developments. Will reveal all of that to you as soon as we can. But it's great to be back. We're gonna hit the ground running. Twenty twenty four is finally here. Things are heating up. It's gonna be a hell of a lot of fun and it's always a privilege to do it with you and with everybody who
is here. So we love you and we will see you all later