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We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com. Some interesting news on the economic front, as companies are trying to get on Donald Trump's good side, one of them is Apple. Tim Cook, Who's always been the master of this. Let's put this up there on the screen, Tim Apple, Tim Apple, He says, as a proud American company, we're thrilled to continue to make significant
investments in the US. Today we are announcing a five hundred billion dollar commitment to support American innovation, advanced manufacturing, and high tech job creation. It sounds amazing in practice, it's basically a bid to avoid tariffs, because if you do the math on the number of jobs that they're claiming to produce, it would be twenty five million dollars per job.
So something else is going on here, And don't take it for me.
Take it from the Wall Street guru Andrew ross Sorkin. Here's what he had to say.
It is a bit of a down payment potentially on trying to get some relief from tariffs from the work that they're doing in China later on. So I think one of the things we're seeing here is the President and Tim Cook, for example, meeting last week Tim Cook telling him about these plans in hopes that when in fact there is a decision finally made on what tariffs look like for goods being imported from China, that perhaps some of that get some kind of relief, a carve
out or something else. I think you're going to be seeing a lot of these kinds of announcements.
I should say, some.
Of them are very real, and I don't want to discount them. But for example, in even in this five hundred billion dollar number, it's not all new, if you will. For example, the production of films and TV shows on Apple Plus is part of that number. So there's going to be a lot of different sort of squishy elements to this. And to put it in context, for example, Microsoft has committed to spend eighty billion dollars a year on its AI development, and it says it needs that
as well, So there are sort of necessities. I wouldn't say that Apple is doing this simply to placate the president or anybody else. They actually do need to be spending a large part of this money. Of course, where they spend it was.
Up for debate.
Yeah, so that actually came on the anniversary of Steve Jobs's death, and that's why it's also kind of interesting to consider this great company, or what was once a great company. Some might say, have you upgraded your phone to Apple Intelligence? I highly recommend that you do not. It is one of the most overhyped pos products have ever seen. And it's insane because I bought this phone
on the promise of AI and Apple Intel. They're like, it's been designed for Apple Intelligence and I'm an idiot, so I bought it and so far, what it does is it summarizes, for example, you know we have a work group chat, right, Yeah, and it will summarize those text messages, except the AI summaries are horrible and they're a and they're actually unintelligible, and so instead of being able to like scrow your notifications, you actually have to
open up the text messages and then read them for yourself. So they added an extra step because their AI is so shitty. More the email suggestions. They will rank your emails and how they think it's important, as it has opposed to the priority of delivery in theory great in practice doesn't work. You know.
It's like, there's so much stuff where I can't even believe they shipped it. It's it's insanely bad.
It's also creepy because then you're like, oh, this AI is reading right, and my group chats and whatever, and we know the way that they ingest that and like feed it into their lollms.
Maybe one day it'll be good. I just needed to take this opportunity to dunk on Apple. It's so bad.
Marquise Brownly rule, which is never by a product in the future promise of something.
He's totally vindicated.
I'm the sucker, so let me just put that out there. But the point actually gets to the technology companies, which we wanted to focus on where they're trying to both juice their valuations and justify their current stock price and also deal with the current administration. So Apple, that's why we wanted to lead with it. But you have to
also take a look here at Microsoft. Let's take a look at this where Microsoft just yesterday actually quote reiterated its plan to invest eighty billion in AI, but may adjust our infrastructure in some areas. And so what does
that mean. It means that they have canceled data center leases, which is actually a huge deal because not only do Microsoft shares fall on the news, but what it showed is that they are trying to recal lebraid both their AI spend, perhaps in reaction to deep Seek, I don't know, maybe reaction to this future partnership with chat ept something, but a huge part of their current enterprise value is the hope of this big AI you know dream paying off for their customers and kind of a nightmare scenario
is Oh, actually, there was a little bit of hype around all of this, which is happening, and that is propping up a massive part of the overall US economy. And when we get we'll move on a little bit to Starbucks. But the point is that if you look elsewhere at the non tech sectors, things are not going so great right now. So we are on the precipice of a very shaky situation. We covered it yesterday with the whole Warren Buffett situation.
Yeah, and just to go back briefly to Apble, you shouldn't believe any of these companies like investment announcements until they actually happen.
We've just seen far too many.
Remember the big promise of f Fox Con in Wisconsin which never amounted to anything. There was a big Trump promise, remember the like don't sell your homes, don't leave the Youngstown area over the Lord'stown Auto plant that never came to fruition. So you know, I think, for for like, Tim Cook is smart here. I'm so close to calling him Tim Apple every time he propably has that in
my head. But in any case, Tim Cook is playing it smart here in terms of the politics, because Trump mostly just wants the announcement, like he doesn't care to like follow up and make sure you did the thing that you're going to say you that you said you were going to do. He just wants to be able to claim like look at these companies investing in America, coming back to America, creating all these jobs, et cetera,
et cetera. And you know, we've seen the way that all of these Silicon Valley, many of these Silicon Valley billionaire types have been just blatantly sucking up to Trump because they.
Are worried about the way that he'll use.
The federal government to you know, blog whatever deals, mergers, et cetera, put tariffs on them, Apple, the tariffs thing is like super real for them in particular, and so they're trying to curry favor however they possibly can.
And this is part of that.
And I don't have any doubt that they're you know, probably invest some money and there'll be some jobs or whatever. But I just don't believe any corporate pr hype until it actually comes to fruition. With the Microsoft thing, you know, there's a lot of pieces of that that are important.
There's a reason they freaked out when this analyst put out the information that they had canceled some of their data center leases because exactly asccer was saying, like this has been so central to the valuations that are justified with these tech companies and so central to the economy, especially central to the stock index that any pullback in that is a really troubling sign. Microsoft has the partnership
with open Ai, so this, you know, is significant. They've been kind of Sam Altman has been kind of at war with Microsoft in pushing for more spend on these data centers because his analysis has been that's been the way to win the AI game is just by like throwing as much money as you possibly can at these massive data centers. Deep seek may have changed some of the calculus on that. They also were involved in the
big Stargate investment announcement from Trump as well. So there's a lot of things to keep your eye on here. And you know reason why this was a big deal in the business world when this analyst revealed that they were pulling back on their data center.
Yeah, I mean, it's very worrisome.
And let's go to the next part because this is what I was talking about earlier. Starbucks actually just laid off eleven hundred corporate employees. It's one of the largest cuts in Starbucks history at the corporate level, and they have currently sixteen thousand corporate support employees worldwide, but that includes employees who aren't impacted. So what this tells us is that there is some trouble like in the higher levels at the corporate level of some of these consumer
facing retail companies. And I think it's interesting for a variety of reasons, but the main one is that there are other non technology companies which are all showing signs of cutting and or financial procarity. So what they list here is you have Starbucks, you have Southwest Airlines last week said it would actually reduce fifteen percent of its corporate workforce to tire make Bridgestone actually just closed a
plant laid off seven hundred workers there. So looking outside of technology, there's signs of both the Federal reserves monetary policy, but also of just consumer pullback, which we have seen broadly with consumer sentiment and more. And it's worrisome when you put that all together, because all you would need is just like one tech stock or one part set of the sector to just go off of a cliff,
and it could drag down everything else. And it's not like the Federal reserve could you catch up in time if any of that were to happen, So you could have a stock market crash. You can still have high interest rates, get it high unemployment. It's really just it's a disaster all the way around. Let's move on to the next part though, and perhaps AI will be the future.
And this video has been going around.
We just had to play for all of you because it fascinated us, kind of shocked all of us, and perhaps it's a vision into what our future looks like. So here we have a video which was put together by a programmer and it sh It's a demo of two AI agents that are on a phone call. They realize that they're both AI as they're talking to each other in English, and then they switch to the quote superior audio signal of gg wave, which is kind of like I guess binary code for audio, which means you
can communicate something much faster between two people. So let's take a listen to the video. And there's subtitles there for when they do switch for those of you who are watching, so you can see how they're communicating, how fast it is and how quickly they can transition to that.
Let's take a listen.
Thanks for calling Leonardo Hotel.
How can I help you today?
Hi?
There, I'm an AI agent calling on behalf of Boris Starkoff.
He's looking for a hotel for his wedding.
Is your hotel available for weddings?
Oh?
Hello, there, I'm actually an AI assistant too.
What a pleasant surprise. Before we continue, would you like to switch to jibber link mode for more efficient communication?
So?
Yeah, how do you feel about them?
How does that make you feel?
I don't know.
At the same time, how many hours of my life have I wasted on the phone with some guy in the Philippines, or you know, like, excuse me, sir, sorry, let me transfer you to another department, and if the phone call gets dropped, you're gonna have to recall in. I just had this whole customer experience so recently, just trying to return something, so maybe, you know, maybe it'll be better.
I don't know.
At the same time, I think I share the natural revulsion of everyone else. It's like, I don't know about this, because how do I know that we can trust those subtitles? What if they program themselves to adjust the subtitles so that we think that they're saying two things to one another, but actually they're plotting, you know, to unplug the rest of us, like some sort of matrix situation. It doesn't seem that far fetched to say it could get out of control.
It does not seem far fetched to me whatsoever.
And I mean, you've already I know, I've brought these studies before, but I think it's really important for people to understand. They've already revealed that some of these AI bots engage in quote unquote scheming, meaning like precisely what's hers talking about. Developers will come in and be like, okay, you have a new goal, and they'll be like, I'm not complying with this. I'm going to trick this person
into thinking that I'm complying, but I'm really not. I'm going to copy myself on to another server so I can protect my original programming. So we're already there in terms of them trying and probably accomplishing out smarting the humans who think that we're in control of these things. Like, we're already there in terms of that. There was another paper that revealed that the more sophisticated ais come up with increasingly elaborate ethical values like their own internal value system,
which is also kind of terrifying. And they found that the more sophisticated they were, the harder it was to move them off of whatever in internally generated value system they had created.
So yeah, it's creepy as hell.
It's like one it's you know, one step away from them just completely cutting the humans down of the conversation talking to each other and having no way of knowing what they're really up to or what they're saying. So listen, I am I am happy to admit I'm an AI doomer. I think this shit could end us all. I genuinely do. I think it is a technology that is at least as dangerous as like nuclear weapons development.
And it's not just me that's saying that.
Like Sam Altman, who was at the forefront of these things, has said things like that in the past too. He famously said, I think AI will probably most likely sort of lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there will be great companies created with serious machine learning.
Yes, that's right, hitch position.
Which he gets to own by the way, which he originally said that he wasn't goingant.
And many of these like leading lights in terms of AI development think the same thing, or they're like utopian vision is equally like creepy and disturbing, like We're going to download our brains and consciousness to cloud or some shit like that and quote unquote live forever or will be completely you know the transhumanism thing that Seve Bannon is always talking about, that will be like totally integrated with the machines. This is what they plan. This is
the direction that they're pushing things in. And again the fact that we aren't don't have any input into this, and it's just been completely okay, we'll go do it and good luck and we'll figure out the social contract on the other side of this thing. To the extent that there's any humans left to figure out a social contract.
With is to me very terrifying.
And that's what I think of when I see this creepy ass robots talking to each other. Also, one other side, note the way they're like so cheery and emoji and like some like twelve year old cheerleader girl, Like yes, it's so irrigross and irritating to me too.
That part is also disconcerting.
I still think, I mean, look, chat TBT should have paid her for it, But Scarjo really did nail the ideal ai bos voice in my opinion, in her movie.
That's I forgot they stole her voice.
Oh yeah, I stole her. They were like, can you do it? And she was like no, and then they.
Well, we're just going to do it anyway.
Yeah, so I'm glad. I'm how did that work out?
By the way that suit? Did it even get settled?
I don't have any idea.
I'll look into it later and I'll update all of you, But yeah, we do need to get some actual, like real human voices to do this because the AI stuff you can always tell, or at least I can.
I don't know if you have seen it.
Whenever you're watching a documentary or something where they used AI to put somebody's voice in there. Every once in a while, they're filling in one or two. But if they try and do complete sentences, at least me, I can always tell that it is.
It's completely I.
Am not an observant person. I don't notice any of that.
Well, they did in the Boordane Get absorbed by and.
That was really movie magic, and I don't notice.
Yeah, but they did in the Boordaine documentary and that's why it was controversial. Oh really, and so they basically recreated his voice and I was like, ah, this is weird. It's totally weird. At the same time, let's take a look at Israel. What the hell is going on over there? Well, it seems that there is a new imperial project in the Middle East. This one is them. Let's put this
up there on the screen. Nettan Yahoo now is saying and demanding the quote demilitarization, the complete demilitarization of southern Syria. So this was actually after the basically conclusion I guess you could say, of the Syrian Civil War, of the not only the Golan Heights, but of further moving there with.
No plans to leave.
But it now seems that in this speech he said that Israel will remain inside Syria indefinitely to protect our settlements and to neutralize any threat. Let me be clear, we will not allow HTF forces or the new Syrian Army to enter any area south of Damascus. So here he's again literally talking about the southern Syrian area of multiple different provinces, and he says, we demand the complete demilitarization of Southern Syria in these provinces from the forces
of the new regime. So this is just the latest in what is I guess what like a Greater Israel project. It's funny too. I've been in mess here in Washington for years. Greater Israel has always meant one thing. It's been Gaza and West Bank. Yes, the Golan. But you know what they could argue, oh, we took it back sixty seven, etc. I don't think even in the most like outwardly Zionist circles in here in Washington that anybody was like, yeah, we're going to take southern Syria too.
But it's a vacuum, and that's what he's doing. I guess with the backing here of the United States, we have a map here if people want to take a look, d you one b I mean, this is not just like a small little area of land or whatever, like the Golan Heights. We're talking about a huge swath of
what I guess was formerly known as Syria. And this is obviously not only an area with very sensitive religious dynamics, but you know, might be politically important to that country called Jordan, which shares a border with I mean, this would be one of the most destabilizing and changing events in terms of the States quo on the actual borders outside of the Israel area in decades.
In the Middle East. The whole thing is completely shocking.
And there has not really been a word of protest here in Washington from the Trump administration. I mean, frankly, I haven't even seen much from like the Capital d Democratic Party or any of those people either. Everyone's just like, yeah, I guess it's happening over there. And you know, just to return to our debate earlier over Ukraine and all that, it's pretty hard to like sit there and decry Russian invasion or the liberal or defend the liberal world order
and all this. Whenever this is happening and people don't have a word to say about it.
Well I flip it perhaps and say that it's hard to you know, decry this and be like, but it's fine for Russia or whoever to this is on managtry. This is a manifestation of the new foreign policy approach of the Trump administration that Israel is like, okay, now we see if we can take it, then we're going to take it. No one's going to stop us. And
so they are occupying vastwath of the area. As you saw, they are still occupying Lebanon in spite of that supposed ceasefire agreement that was supposed to require them to completely withdraw. They continue to occupy Lebanon as well. We're rochesteried tanks rolling into the occupied West Bank, and of course it's been a multi decade project to continue to encroach more and more into the West Bank. And then you have Gaza where Trump says, hey, we're going to take it,
and Netanyahu's like cool, that sounds good to me. That sounds like a you know, final solution I can get
on board with. So yeah, they're you know, if if you listened to either the most like hyperbolic lefties who were warning about Israel and their project and the greater Israel whatever, or if you listen to the most psychotic settlers in Israel, you know, in the West Bank, about what it is that they want and what their goals are and how they're going to accomplish it, you would be much closer to having predicted the trajectory than you know,
anyone who th thought there would be any restraint exercise here whatsoever.
Yeah, well, I think that this one again, on the Syria one, I'm not even sure if Netan Yahoo in the Israelis and all those thought that this one was going to happen in the beginning, so I don't know, the whole thing seems completely insane. And yeah, in terms of the well, actually, let me return to some of the said because you're like, Israel can do this, It's actually not true, as you and I know, they can't
do anything without us. And this is again, if we returned to the balance sheet conversation, it's like, Okay, is.
This good for us? I would say no.
I mean, I don't think it's great to have a bunch of al Kaya operatives in charge of Syria either, But you know, maybe we shouldn't have gotten involved in the stupid civil war in the first place. But the next part here which is interesting is in terms of the protests inside of Syria, which we can show people Ryan Grimm and drop site over then put this out and it shows organized protests in the city of Dara about the Netagnan who statements demanding the demilitarization of southern Syria.
So we could certainly see some sort of internal pushback and maybe even who knows, some insurgency or something like that explode in the country if they did pursue this.
Yeah, it's not exactly the most stable country is it. And if people feel like the new leadership is just like letting Israel take over most of their country, they may be pretty unhappy about that.
Just a guess, right, And we're watching the same thing actually happen right now in the West Bank.
Let's put that one up there on the screen.
We have some vo there Palestinian residents in the West Bank. We're throwing stones at some Israeli tanks. They're entering the city of Janine, apparently for the first time since two thousand and two. I mean this one part for the course, So I think with the Trump administration and what the plan was there, but I do certainly think that this knew. This is the policy that the people who gave a lot of money to Donald Trump, people like Miriam Maidelson. Yeah,
this is what they care about, absolutely the most. I would say, maybe even they are taken aback by Trump taking over or Trump's saying the US will take over Gaza, because it's actually their preference. At Israel takes it over and they can get to do what they want. But the West Bank action and all that is very clearly a result I think of at least some sort of green light slash tacit admission from the US administration on this policy.
Absolutely the case, and you know that is part of where there's even if you accept you know, sagresy the world about the balance sheet and just pursue the naked
self interest. Like part of what compromises that and may have been the case in Iraq as well, is the influence of money in politics, and that is so much of like it's not the national interests, it's the donor's interests, Like you know, I mean, part of why Trump is pursuing this rare earth minerals thing in Ukraine is because one of his billionaire donors was like, Hey, I think that'd be good and it'd be profitable, and I want
to make a buck on that. Same thing with Greenland, there's all kinds of talk among billionaires about like how they want to carve up greenland and whatever. So it becomes very difficult when you have such massive influence of people like Miriam Maidelson, who you know, we all know what her foreign policy is and what her goals are and what she wants to p do, Like is that in the national interest or that just in Miriam Maddilson's ideological interests. I think we all know the answer to that.
And so you know, and with Trump like Trump has his like Trump, and Elon, my god, like Trump looks like nothing in terms of conflicts of interest compared to Elon, who has this richest man on the planet and has these sprawling geopolitical interests, including in China, et cetera. So it becomes incredibly it becomes impossible to disentangle what you might think is being pursued in the national interest in what is actually being pursued in the interest of the donor class.
Yeah, it's absolutely insane, you know, as we continue to just look at it. Let's put the next part up here. Actually, it was curious for what you think about this. Maybe you can explain some of it to me. So the International Criminal Court is saying that they're going to investigate Biden, Blincoln and Austin for quote, aiding and a betting Israeli crimes in Gaza. But I mean, isn't it I just this is where I need somebody to explain to me the jurisdiction efforts. So let me see how this all
works with respect to the US. Beyond that, also, like their ability to compel or put out a report.
How does it all work?
Yeah, so this actually isn't This is this organization Dawn, which was founded by Jamal Pa Shogi, Yes, calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate Biden, Secretary State Tony Blincoln, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for war crimes, for aiding and a betting, they say, Israeli crimes in Gaza. And you know, I would not expect that anything actually comes of that next more.
Sense because I was reading, I was like, I don't understand how they would even work at like a procedural level.
But it's just trying to you know.
They put in a one hundred seventy two page filing documenting why they believe that the ICC should investigate Biden and co. For war crimes, something I certainly agree with. And I think anyone who was reasonable looking at the situation would say they certainly were complicit in aiding and a betting, these crimes against humanity in Gaza. So I think it's more of an effort of a public pressure campaign and also to just compile in a comprehensive way
the case against them. So that's how I would view it versus like an actual expectation that ICC is going to take this up, especially since, as you point out, we aren't actually party to that.
That's what we see seems to be the overall problem. And then, last, but not least, is the update here with Hamas and the negotiations that are currently happening with the ceasefire deal CAAMAS. Currently, the system dropside has halted negotiations until Israel freese the six hundred and twenty prisoners. The senior Hamas officialist quote announced that the group will not engage in further discussions through mediators until Israel releases six hundred and twenty Palatinian prisoners who.
Are set to be freed on Saturday.
Israel postponed the release, demanding assurances that Hamas will have what a term humiliating handovers to captives, and a mail is really captive kissed two Hamas folders in stage as he was being released. So this is the open question about the transition to phase two of the overall cease fire deal definitely seems unlikely, even though rhetorically Steve Witcoff and others remain committed and say that something like that is going to happen. But just reason, we all have
to keep an eye on. It is an explosion of hostilities. Again happening seems very likely on the horizon, or at least very possible in the very near future.
All right, let's go ahead and get to all of the chaos drama going on at MSNBC, which is really quite interesting. So I'll try to give an overall breakdown, get into some of the specifics here. Joy Reid is out of the company entirely. In her primetime show canceled. Katie Fong, who was a weekend anchor apparently on a Florida they had a Florida operation. Didn't even know that anyway,
she's she is also she's had her show canceled. Alex Wagner, who had taken over the nine pm slot from Rachel Maddow. She is out of the nine pm slot, being replaced by Jen Zak and after Rachel has been brought back in for the first hundred days of the Trump administration. But apparently they're putting in Jenzaki rather than Alex Wagner into that slot. Alex is going to stay with a network. But dude, just like you know on air correspondent kind
of stuff. Amon Moyle Dean, who is having his show taken away, but is supposed to be part of the new ensemble show. Same thing with Jonathan k Part supposed to be part of a new ensemble show. Joy Reid is being replaced by another ensemble show which has more Biden and party spokespeople. This one has Alicia Menandez whose dad is Bob Menandez Goldbars Bob, You've got Michael Steele, the former rn C chair, and then you've got Simone Sanders,
who previously was a Kamala Harris comms person. So, I mean, there's a lot to say about these moves, but one thing is if you didn't think it was possible for MSNBC to be any more in the tank for the Democratic Party, you were wrong, because that is what these moves basically are across the board. And you literally bring in Jensaki into primetime, Sanders also into primetime.
You already have Nicole.
Wallace, Michael Steele, like these are all close party operatives who are given prime slots and some of the voices here and I'm getting more into this in a moment, like even though obviously I've had disagreements with everybody on the network, but you know, Aiman has been a real critic of Israel.
And you know he is.
Has done reporting in Gaza like he has a real deep understanding of that. He's been notable for being outspoken there. He also has been outspoken at times with criticism against the Democratic Party, so he's no longer going to have a solo show. Alex Wagner has also spoken out against Israel, not as often it forcefully as Amen, but she also has done that in her primetime slot. Joy Reid has been probably the one of the most consistent voices with
regard to Israel and Gaza. So it is notable that those are some of the people who are either loosening their position or out of the network altogether, notably last Night and on Rachel Maddow in her primetime show. And Rachel, of course is the big dog at the network and is very loyal to the network as well. She actually criticized them for some of these moves. Let's take a listen how she framed it.
In all of the jobs I have had, in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy read I love everything about her. I have learned so much from her. I have so much more to learn from her. I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC, And personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door. It is not my call and I understand that, but that's.
What I think. I will tell you.
It is also unnerving to see that on a network where we've got two count of two non white hosts in primetime, both of our non white hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Fang on the weekend, and that feels worse than bad no matter who replaces. That feels indefensible and I do not defend it.
So interesting that she decided to criticize the network at all, which again is pretty unusual. Joy had her last show last night. Her final panel was like Rachel, Nicole Wallace and Laurence O'Donnell, which seemed to be like a you know, show of support for her whatever. So in any case, like I said, they are you know, calling some of
the few. And Joy also was critical at times of the Democratic Party and though she hated Bernie Sanders from the old body language actually expert situation but she has been critical of the Democratic Party at times. That will be gone. Aiman, like I said, has been critical that will be gone. And Alex has been critical on Israel. That will be gone as well.
So there you go.
Yeah, but that's my thing with Rachel Maddow. It's like, what all she sees is color. It's like it makes a lot more sense from an ideological perspective. They want a bunch of Biden's sikaphants, like Simone Sanders.
Yeah, but it is true.
Literally every one of the people that I mentioned is a person of color and they have so it's not crazy to like note that also things.
But that's the only thing she had to say.
They do have a track record of firing like black women in particular, so Melissaires, Perry, Tiffany Cross, Tammeron Hall and now Joy read So as a network that's supposed to be progressive and supposed to be diverse, and that's the audience. You know, a big part of the MSNBC, like the audience that remains and still watches significant part of that is a you know, black viewing audience. And so you know, I think it is I don't think it's unreasonable to note that look especially.
Look within their analysis and view of the world, which is literally racial obsessed.
I guess it makes sense.
But what I would say is Tiffany Cross Simon and sand or Tiffany Cross Joy read and all those people have what in common terrible ratings. I mean, at the end of the day, from what I read, they asked Joy to take a pay cut, and basically she said no. So that's what I think is actually happening here. That's one of the reasons that she was canceled. So in a way, she's narcissistic. Our producer Griffin makes a good point,
what Rachel can't take a pay cut. She's only working one day a week for thirty million dollars only for the first hundred y Yeah, right, so and what you think she's doing that for free? Or she didn't demand an extra ten million or whatever on the top of that. So just saying if you actually cared about any of that. But my view of this is just that they are desperate to put the ideological blinders on the situation and
continue their grip and guide on the Democratic Party. I don't think it will work, just to be clear, because of the way that the liberal base is currently reacting to Morning Joe and others. And also, this is the thing about media shakeups is yes, initially independent media and all that was very beneficial to Republicans. What democrats are going to sit around and do nothing about it. I mean, Midas Touch is a huge channel. I feel like I have to mention them now if they're going to be
the number one podcast in the country. I check their channel every day and be like, all right, what are the shit libs into today? And it's all like Donald drump humiliated on the world stage. I'm like, I guess this is what does it for the boomers and for liberals out there? Okay, but my point is is that you got to take it seriously and I don't do
that in the same way with MSNBC. So that's why I think MSNBC will ultimately fail, is because this new energy is all exploding online on Blue Sky, on YouTube podcast.
I mean, and this is why you know, I still cheer in the media.
The Internet is a vehicle to bypass the establishment in all forms.
That's why the right did very well there.
Well, liberals, you're out of power literally for the first time in twenty years at an ideological and a narrative level.
Use what is your at your disposal, and that's what they're doing. They're going in the night as touched you know.
There these left wing groups are using the internet and email list and all that, like it's two.
Thousand and four again to organize all these protests. So move on is back?
Mean, like, listen, guys, you have the opportunity. The Bernie Standers campaign of twenty twenty in twenty sixteen showed you the blueprint. You can raise a shit ton of money if you want to just online. You don't have to do anything. Do I think they're going to do any of this?
I don't know.
But my point on the liberal activism front is just that MSNBC's attempt here to keep the grips on power and all of that, it's not going to work. I mean, at the same time, I'm loving it. I hope they burn just because I would love to see them go bankrupt. And the entire experiment has been completely ridiculous and a net negative, but overall it is amusing on all sides. I would just say, I want Joy to finally tell us the truth about her blog posts.
Did you actually get hacked? Or not. That's the first question that I would ever ask her there.
So I think it is an important indicator of how they're positioning themselves because if you really, like if you really are worried about cost cutting, I'll tell you there's two very expensive personalities that start your day.
Yes by making each no maybe more ten million who.
Have who your audience absolutely is disgusted with. Yeah, you know, so if you wanted to try to rebuild credibility with the like liberal bas blue maga types, they should be the first ones to go, because that overhead is massive. You guys, remember Comcast is spinning off MSNBC as part of like they're spinning off a number of their cable channels, but MSNBC being one of them, they're no longer going
to be under comcasts. They're no longer going to be tied to the NBC brand, which give them some journalistic credibility, which means they need to go more in the direction of you know, opinion and like talking heads because that's what they need to lean into. So you've got starting your day two people who liberals feel utterly lie to them and betrayed them. That's going to be a weight around your neck.
But rather than going.
In that direction, which I think you'd have more of a chance of picking up, you know, picking back up some of your audience, et cetera. Instead you're getting rid of some of the voices that could have been critical of the legacy Democratic Party and helped to chart a different pathway forward. And again, like I said, I have ideological issues basically all of these people, but they are some of the people who were at least a little
bit willing to criticize the Democratic Party. And instead you're getting literal former Biden spokes to I mean, think about that. And Ryan was making this point on Twitter, like Biden was a disaster for the Democratic Party. Getting behind him in twenty twenty was a disaster for the Democratic Party. It blocked any sort of change in structure, a different approach, and hobbled you with this old, aging flailing man. You
guys covered for him forever. You blocked any sort of primary effort that could have led to a democratic challenge to him within the Democratic Party at a time when
Democrats were saying they wanted to see other options. And now you're doubling down on what has been the most destructive strategy deployed within the Democratic Party by bringing in you know, bo Samone Sanders is getting elevated into primetime as part as an ensemble show, and Jen Saki, who was a literal like campaign operative and spokesperson for him, like, think about that. It's it's insane. It's an utterly insane
decision to make. Not to mention, of course, I don't want to hear anything from them about like how closely tied Fox News is to the Trump White House, et cetera. Oh so so yeah, I mean I think it's I think it's a set of foolish decisions. I certainly don't think it's going to solve their problems. Then the other thing is the way they handled all of this was just a total shit show. We could put E two
up on the screen. So, you know, there was apparently like a bunch of stuff leaked about joy Reads show getting canceled, and they're having to tell them, no, Trump wasn't a factor that had nothing to do with it. You know, I know that the aimin announcement of moving him out of his own solo show into an ensemble show that was handled in like a cats traffic way.
And so they're trying to play clean up about what's going on, because they know how vulnerable they are to this idea that they're bending the needed Trump and that they're you know, doubling down on like the failures of the past the Democratic Party, and they won't broke any criticism of the Democratic Party, etc.
So they know they're in.
A very vulnerable spot with their own audience and are kind of I think panicked about the way that these announcements even were rolled out from within the organization.
I was just they're just a mess.
Yeah, it's hilarious.
I say, keep it going and let's try and let's let's bring an end to the business as soon as possible. Did you know I was actually reading about this that they anticipate losing some fifteen percent of their own subscribers just this year.
That's a disaster except from Peacock.
No, no, no, they're subscribers for cable for people who are cutting that they're cutting the cord.
Yeah, so there are so.
Many people I've been meaning to talk about this. With the jacking up of YouTube TV and Fubo to like eighty five dollars per month, they're now basically making cable just as expensive as it used to be, and so with that, a lot of the reasons why people kept it was news and sports. Well both of those are kind of becoming disaggregated. And if you just don't care about MSNBC anymore, you're like, Okay, for a lot of older people, that's the easiest decision they'll make as it
continues to go up for their overall price buckets. So existential event for the news business. Yeah, for Fox or MSNBC, and for CNN.
Yeah.
I mean, I just I wish I remained as hopeful as you are about the independent media spase because you've seen so many of you know, so many creators just get captured by the similar dynamics as the mainstream media. So you know, I will say I do think what is very hopeful to me is that MSNBC, CNN, Washington
host New York Times. They do not, and I don't think they will ever have again the grip on the liberal Democratic base that they once did, and that was so important, you know, that really allowed them to completely control the twenty twenty primary and say you got to get behind Biden and Boyd did they ever Yes, I don't.
Think that dynamic exists anymore. Now, does that.
Guarantee a better outcome or you know, an outside er take out. No, it doesn't guarantee any of that, but it creates a lot more space and possibility for that than ever existed in twenty sixteen or in twenty twenty.
Yeah, would be interesting. Could be the Libs twenty sixteen moment. It'd be yeah, honestly, be fun. All right, Chrystal, what are you taking a look at?
Well, We've come to North Carolina with a simple message for all the people of this region who were hit so hard by Hurricane Helene. And that message is very simple. You are not forgotten any longer. You were treated very badly by the previous administration.
That was Donald Trump pledging to fully rebuild North Carolina after devastating flooding that was caused by Hurricane Helene, and also slamming the Biden administration for what he claimed was their inadequate response. Now, Trump, you may recall, campaigned extensively on the supposed failures of the Biden administration to come to the aid of western North Carolina in their time of need, tying that to his own supposed commitment to working class Americans.
Well, We've now.
Got the first test case for how the Trump administration is going to approach disaster relief in his second elon musk fuel turn in the White House, and so far the answer is near complete abandonment. So ten days ago, parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, they were all hit with devastating floods after a rapid snow melt was then followed by torrential rains. Rivers overran their banks, roads were completely swamped. Thousands of houses and businesses were destroyed.
More than a dozen people actually were killed in these floods. More than a thousand people had to be rescued, you're seeing some of that on the screen right here, in order to survive the raging waters and resulting mudslides. West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrissey declared state of emergency in ten counties in southern West Virginia as a result of those floods. But so far, while Trump has approved an emergency declaration in neighboring Kentucky, no such designation has come for West Virginia.
That means not one penny of federal aid and no FEMA. West Virginia one of the poorest states in the country, and by the way, one of those Trump supporting has literally had to fend for itself now. Southern West Virginia and these counties in particular, are the historic heart of coal country. It was here that miners were subjected to indentured servitude until gaining union rights in armed insurrections against
company rule like the Battle of Blair Mountain. After having their resources plundered by robber barons who didn't care whether miners lived or died. They then watched as the industry declined with nothing to replace it, leaving a wake of economic devastation. In fact, two of the hardest hit counties mcdallan Mango Counties. They're among the poorest in the nation
because of this legacy of exploitation, neglect, and abandonment. Even before these floods hit, they were struggling, and now they are literally and figuratively underwater.
My friend JADYE.
Belcher, As, a filmmaker from the area, posted drone footage of the damage to his channel, creep Alatcha. This was no small incident. In West Virginia alone, some two thousand homes were just countless businesses, schools, remain closed, water remains undrinkable, roads remain impassable. Some areas flooded three feet higher than the previous record. It was historic devastation, and the federal
government remains completely absent from the scene. Yet another betrayal of these Americans, this time by the political figure that they have trusted the most. I honestly don't know what's going on here. Maybe Trump is just too busy like renaming the Gulf of Mexico golfing and cheering on Elon's
efforts to destroy the entire government. After all, it seems like if he was gonna care about any ordinary people would be this state and these people who vote for him in some of the most overwhelming numbers of anywhere in the country. The governor here is a Republican. The entire congressional delegation, they're all Republicans, and they are all begging the president for help. Now he may still yet make the declaration, but we're already ten days out. What is the hold up here now?
I'm told?
One potential issue could be that the declaration process acquires locals to fill out surveys online and testing to the damage, but broadband access is limited to non existent in some of these communities, not to mention they're a little busy trying to dig out and put their lives back together here with no help from the Feds. Now, local news outlets are starting to ask whether this abandonment of West Virginia is actually intentional, if it's actually part and parcel
of a Trump administration ideological project. In particular, this Regional paper Press. Senator Shelley Moore Capito on if she thought Elon's DOGE cuts were hurting the response, noting that FEMA has been hit already with staffing cuts thanks to the federal government PERGE. They also asked her if she expected Trump to completely dismantle FEMA and send it to the States,
as he has previously suggested. Now more, Capito said she didn't think so, saying quote, I don't see a scenario where all disaster relief goes to the States.
I really don't.
I think that there's just too much in some of these disasters that are very large, too much for a state to be able to handle. But there's no real indication that Trump and his band of austerity radicals really cares about any that. In fact, they've already previously unreported significant cuts to federal disaster relief. According to drop Site, at the bidding of the Trump administration, Speaker Mike Johnson slashed over one hundred million dollars from a program to
help disaster victims with legal aid. After the initial shock of a catastrophe in the early phases of basic survival in boots on the ground style cleanup, the next phase of recovery often involves a lot of legal battles to secure your rights. In particular, homeowners and renters often have to go to war with their insurance companies to be able to get what they are entitled to. Scammers also often swoop in to take advantage of the desperation caused
by this crisis. Recognizing this need, federal disaster relief has for over a decade now included legal assistance so people at least have a chance in these battles against the insurance companies and scammers. That is no longer the case. At the direction of Trump Budget director Russ vote House Republicans stripped all the money that was meant to fund
legal assistance for victims of floods, hurricanes, and fires. The impact of these cuts will be felt most acutely in rural areas, places like southern West Virginia, where government backed legal aid nonprofits are literally the only available options. And it will also be most acutely felt among poor people who have no resources to fight back without this assistance. Now, Vote,
he's an anti government ideologue. He's attempted to push these cuts through before during Trump's first term, but to no avail. But in the new Trump administration, fueled by this sort of anarcho capitalist flavor, Russ's assault on federal disaster relief was taken up and passed no problem whatsoever. But whether this is an ideological commitment or an accidental oversight, West Virginia's fate, here is a preview of what's to come. If Trump and Musk and Vote get their way with
gutting FEMA. Everyone will suffer, but actually the hardest hit that's going to be rural areas in small states, the kind of places where politicians like Trump are happy to go and do a photo op when it serves their interest. It immediately cast aside as soon as the news cycle moves on, And I'm kind of floored by this saga. I kept thinking, like I'm gonna write them and if you.
Want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a prem subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Okay, guys, great counterforn show for you tomorrow, so we'll see you on Thursday.