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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. Let's get to Tesla, shall we, Because this is in terms of some of the fallout overseas, and actually this is the curiosity of as.
Elon becomes more political.
Yes, as wealth is extraordinary and all of that, how much of it, if it declines, will affect his overall performance, his doge image and all of that. Yeah, I genuinely have no idea. I tend to think Tesla is still his baby. It's the center of gravity of all of his net worth and power. But maybe he just doesn't care anymore. He's realized in enough gains he doesn't care about the company.
So Tesla I was looking makes up about a third of his net worth, so it's certainly significant in terms of his wealth. And right now it really is struggling. I mean the stock price is way dounk. Put this up on the screen, and I mean, Tesla stock is really I saw someone describe it.
It's basically like a meme stock.
I mean, the valuation doesn't really comport with reality anyway. And now they have this huge drop in sales, and that's part of what is driving this drop in terms of the stock price. Let's put the next piece up on the screen so I can explain more of the numbers behind the drop in sales. In Europe in particular, Tesla sales have dropped almost by half forty five percent year over year, and if you just look at the EU,
it actually has dropped by half year over year. So back in January of twenty twenty four they sold some fifteen one and thirty Tesla's in the EU. This year it was only seven one thousand, five hundred and seventeen. Now you may say, okay, well, maybe EV sales overall are declining. Not so ev sales year over year are actually up. It's just Tesla sales which are way down. I do think a lot of it has to do with him becoming this very toxic partisan political figure.
And you have to remember he weighed in.
I mean, obviously he's like controlling our entire political system at this point, but he also intervened in Germany, and the sales in Germany are down something like sixty three percent, so it's an even greater drop. He also was meddling in the UK. There's been a drop there as well, and there's been sort of a general European rejection of this foreign billionaire, richest man on the planet trying to
meddle in their politics. And also you have to think about the kind of consumer who's typically buying an electric vehicle.
Most of them are liberal or lefties.
So to have someone who is so closely associated themselves with Trump and the AfD and you know, waiting in on the grooming Gang's debate in the UK or whatever, that's going to be problem for the Tesla brand. Now, there are some other factors that I think play into this that aren't just about Elon's politics, although, like I said, I do think that that is a significant part of what is going on here. One is, as we've been discussing, byd is selling fantastic evs and so that he's got
more competition in terms of the electric vehicle market. And then the other one is people are potentially waiting for there's like a new model of the car that's coming out in the spring. You probably know more about that than I do, so maybe they're just waiting and holding off for like the latest new thing to come out. But I don't think it's deniable at this point that
his brand is a big part of this drop. There's also a drop in China that I would probably attribute more to the semestic competition, yeah, market, and there's about a thirteen percent drop here in the US of Tesla sales. And of course they also have just become this very visible symbol of him. So you've had Tesla's Tesla owners putting those bumper stickers on that are like, I bought this before I knew Elon was crazy. You've had had
some instances of vandalism. I don't know how widespread that is, but like cyberdrucks getting spray painted with waswastikas and Tesla charging stations being spray painted with swastikas, et cetera. So it has become this kind of like touchstone of resistance, visible symbol of him, etc.
And it is.
Significant to his net worth. But I wish I thought that it would like matter and sort of check him and that this is like really going to hit him where it hurts. But the truth of the matter is, as long as he's in control of the federal government, he has all of our tax dollars backstopping his net worth. And I do think his primary at this point ideological goal and like company passion is more SpaceX and the
goal of getting to Mars. So I don't know if I don't know if this is going to mean anything.
To him or not very possible. I'm not sure.
We reached out to Doug Demiro, by the way, try and get him back on the show to talk about the Chinese evs, because I saw a video of him just talking about how good they are and about why he's like, without tariffs and if we have pure capitalism, he's like, we're going to get destroyed in this market. So I'm actually really curious see if we can try to talk to him about it. As you said, Look, obviously there's a new model, so there's some stuff going
on there. A Tesla strategy as well has changed significantly. They cut a lot of their prices for this this. If there is lessening demand, it could feed more into that they still have the production on their side as opposed to every other company. There's still big questions as to whether the Trump administration will continue some of the EV incentives.
That are there.
It's actually a big open question as to whether Elon we even want those.
Evns, wants them to go away, and in this.
Right because it would subsidize the competition, which, let's be honest, not as good and has way bigger production problems. So it's much more of a subsidy for Ford, GM and for the big three automakers than it is for Tesla, which has approven you know, it has factories, it has charging stations, It already has like the biggest market share out of all of it. So it would only make even more of a reason to invest to buy a Tesla.
No, I think he sees it as a benefit, yeah, which it mostly is EV.
Credits to go away.
That is hurting his competitors more than it hurts him. And you know, I do think it's important to remember, like Tesla benefited from huge amounts of government cash. They were really on the verge of going under, and Elan personally begged the Obama administration the elans the emails that he wants.
The emails have been.
Released of him really hat in hand, like we have to get this loan that enables them to be able to buy the factory in Fremont and live to fight another day and build up this you know, successful car company. The other thing I didn't realize, this is all from those Washington Post reporting. The other thing I didn't realize is a third of Tesla revenue actually comes from selling these like EV credits.
And it's not just federal.
A lot of that is state too, because California, of course has very stringent emission requirements, and so Tesla as an EV zero emissions. They can then sell their credits to other automakers who need to, you know, be able to lower their emissions, so they they sell and trade these credits on the market. That makes up about a third of their revenue. In fact, the first year that Tesla was profitable at all, it was all because of these state and federal credits that they were able to sell. So,
I mean, this is really the story of Elon. He benefited massively from government taxpayer subsidies, dollars, loans, contracts, et cetera. But now that he's made it into this post position, he wants to pull up the ladder and make sure that other companies can't also benefit from that kind of industrial policy, which is why he would be perfectly happy to see the EV tax credits go away, because he
thinks that will hobble his competitors here domestically. Now, I'm sure what he doesn't want to see the go away are the ban.
On importing BYD's.
I think that he will make sure that that restriction on the market stays in place.
For me, it's out about this, It's just it's true. We just can't allow that if we're going to destroy our entire car market. I mean, if you and this is one of those where the car industry in America is maddening and yet necessary, both from a job's perspective but just from the ability to manufacture. I personally, if I had the choice, there's no question in my mind, I'm buying Jaumi or byd but I'm not going to like as an American consumer. And this is where I'll
even argue against my own freedom. I shouldn't be allowed to because our manufacturing sector, those jobs, it's just too important to the United States and to our future defense capacity. And I don't begrudge the Chinese, you know good. If anything, I admire you your ability to prop that up in a fifteen year period.
We can learn from it.
We should absolutely study it and see what we can do to copy it. But yeah, I mean, this is not even about Tesla. I'm just like, we cannot let these companies go bankrupt. Like World War Two is often overused, but you know, if you look back in the day, the ability for those GM factories to overnight go switch
to war production is super important. And when you lose that, then you become the country that we are right now, which is a husk of what it used to be, that produces nothing and has twenty five percent of its g riding on Jensen Wang's motorcycle jacket, which I don't want to lift in that world.
Yeah right, No, I don't even I don't disagree with you. I don't even disagree with elon getting that loan at Tesla aut a time when he needed it, because I no, I think it should have come with requirements for like sure workers.
Do you unionize? And things like that.
What I object to is that the industrial policy he benefited from he wants to now shut off the tap and spigot when it comes to his competitors. So in any case, there's another piece of this that is really important, which is Ryan and Dropsite did a fantastic job breaking the story about this supposed four hundred million dollar contract
for armored Tesla's coming out of the State Department. So you know, they just looked at like the list of procurements whatever, they see this contract the largest line item and lo and behold it is for Tesla's four in a million dollars, the largest contract coming out of the State Department. So let's put the story up on the screen. This was Ryan's original story, now updated. It says armored Tesla was forecast to win four hundred million dollar State Department contract after Trump's election.
So after this was discovered.
Then they went in and changed the language so no longer said Tesla, it said armored electric vehicles.
Then the story was.
That, oh, actually this was initiated during the Biden administration, and the number wasn't four hundred million, it's really four hundred eight thousand something like that. So that was their story as like, oh, actually this started under the Biden administration and we didn't have anything to do with it, and this isn't going to happen anyway.
Now we have another piece of the story.
But NPR did this reporting up on the screen, so they were able to obtain the original State Department document that shows the Biden administration was not awarding a four hundred million dollar contract. They were awarding only four hundred eighty three thousand, and sometime after Trump was inaugurated, that amount got boosted from four hundred and eighty three thousd
thousand to four hundred million. So either this is an extraordinary clerical era error that just happened to anore to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars to the dude who is currently running the federal government, or they intentionally went in to try to funnel hundreds of millions
of dollars into Tesla and basically got caught. Now, this amount of money, by the way, just so you understand how much this is in the context of these State Department armored vehicles, and this would be to like armor
up cyber trucks. A bunch of experts said, this may not even make sense to use cyber trucks for this purpose anyway, but putting that aside, this would mean that they were replacing all three thousand armored cars and SUVs around the world that are used to transport diplomats, VIPs other officials working for the State Department, replacing all of them with cyber trucks, which are expensive, and then armoring them, which is also you know another let's say eighty thousand
dollars to armor these things up.
You have to like go at that incredibly.
Maximum approach to even come close to the four hundred million dollars that Elon was set to be, you know, set to have sent to him. So it really looks like a potentially massive scandal and very clear example of self dealing and just you know, theft and robberies effectively of the American taxpayer to take this four hundred eighty three thousand dollars contract and just secretly boost it to
four hundred million dollars. So worth a lot more investigation here because Like I said, it's either a very convenient clerical error or naked robbing of the public purse by the dude who is running the government right now.
I'm going to go with the job for DOGE. That sounds like a good job for Doge, doesn't it.
Well, Ryan's reporting seems to spike the deal.
So and this is another thing, Ryan's journals a matter.
Ryan really is the goat in terms of his ability to sniff some of this stuff out. And if you think about his track record, I've been seeing it recently, it's not only stuff like this, but the Romanian election, I mean huge amounts of drop site reporting is responsible for Elon himself and Mike Ben's digging into the Romanian usaid.
And it's a mention, So it's a news brand news thing are essentially it's just incredible.
So anyway, that's what we stand Ryan here over it.
Ryan Grimm may have single handedly saved the government more than the entire no I'm talking about here.
He could save the government here, and he could save the government of Romania.
I'm talking about.
He's probably saved more money, like actual money, but for the federal government than the entire DOGE must project, et cetera.
I'd be possible.
Let's blow this last one up here from USAID. This was flagged by Pedro Gonzalez. He's always an interesting figure. I'm not so sure though what to make this. So he says, do you think Musk went after USAID because of its wo it's woke or because his rival had just recently scored its first federal contract. Is it possible
as using culture war stuff to mask an agenda? So apparently in August of twenty twenty four, or open AI had revealed its first agency customer for chat GPT enterprise, which was USAID, would use the tool, and then apparently it was canceled by the USAID cuts that were there.
I'm not so sure if that one is or is not, you know, the agenda that Pedro flags, But it does get to the whole idea of like conflict of interest, you know, in the first place, it's like, if you're going to have like personal agendas and stargate and all this other stuff, then how can you be sure that
this is being done, you know, for correct purposes. As I said, I'm a cloud guy, I'm not a chat GPT person, but I would just you know ask that we would try to reward a contract based on some sort of competitive bid or not even have open questions.
In our mind. This isn't the biggest scandal, but it is still important. It's still important.
It's just important to realize how many whether this was the motivating factor for Elon going after USAID or not, the fact that we have to question that, that's the point. And with USAID in particular, you have that. I mean, we know he despises Sam Altman, they're locked in legal battles. He goes after him, they're you know, fighting over the
origin and the development of open AI, et cetera. So there's certainly convenient for him that this contract is I'm sure at this point completely spiked, dealing a blow to not only someone that he has personal animus towards, but also.
To a significant competitor.
And I think Elon cares a lot about winning the AI race himself.
So you've got that, You've got Apparently.
Usaidea was also investigating the like Starlink Ukraine situation that was going on, so you have that as a potential motivating factor as well. And then also, as I mentioned to USAID was involved in like backing the end of a party. He may hold a grudge over that as well. We don't know, And maybe it was none of those. Maybe none of those factored in the fact that we have to ask and we don't know, and he has so many personal interests intertwined in almost all of these
agencies is a problem. It's a big problem in and of itself, and especially because Trump has just given him free rein to really do whatever he wants. Some of the moves do seem just naked self deal. I mean, the four and a million dollar Tasla contract obviously nakedly self dealing. If that was intentionally changed, that's insane, right,
insane levels of corruption. You also have attacks on very specific offices within agencies that happen to be the ones that were going after Tesla or going after SpaceX and investigating them for alleged infractions and violations. So some of it just seems very difficult to deny, especially when you look at the overall picture.
All right, let's get to the Golden Visa. I felt compelled to weigh on this. I did not realize that that Ryan and Emily were going to be so supportive of what I think is such a trash program. So let's go ahead and play Trump's words first about how this is all going to work, and then.
I will give you some analysis. Let's take a listen.
Does this reflect a view on your port that the American immigration system has never been properly monetized as you feel should.
Well, not so much monetized, it hasn't been properly run. I get calls from as an example of companies where they want to hire the number one student at a school. A person comes from India, China, Japan, lots of different places, and they go to Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance, they go to Yale, they go to all great schools, and they graduate number one on their class and they're
made job offers. But the offers immediately rescinded because you have no idea whether or not that person can stay in the country. I want to be able to have that person stay in the country. These companies can go and buy a gold card and they can use it as a matter of recruitment. At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt. We're going to pay down a lot of debt with that, and I think the gold card is going to be used by not only for that, I mean they'll be
used by companies. I mean I could see Apple. I've spoken with Tim Cook and by the way, he's going to make a five hundred billion dollar investment in the country only because of the results of the election. And I will tell you the people that can pay five men and they're going to create jobs, they're going to spend a lot of money on jobs. They're going to have to pay taxes on that too, So they're going to be hiring people, They're going to be bringing people in and companies in.
Okay, So let me just go off on this a little bit. So let me give you guys a list.
Of the company the countries that currently have so called golden visas.
This is not a novel idea.
It already exists across Europe and most Caribbean nations. So we've got Portugal, Spain, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Ireland, Italy, we have Saint Kitts and Nevitz, Dominica, Grenada, Antigua, Barbuda, Saint Lucia, and then there are a few other countries kind of like in America where we have something called investment programs and others in Australia and New Zealand in Singapore as well. Now what do all of these countries have in common.
They are either failing European nations with massively high unemployment rate which are selling access to Russian oligarchs and or rich businessmen across the world to the Shanngan area and to the protection of the European Union. Or they are tiny little Caribbean nations which are basically selling citizenship for tax haven purposes. For it's mostly used by crypto people
and or others who want to escape the grid. Now, why would you auction off the most powerful passport in the world for five million dollars to a global elite class whose only purpose of buying the so called Golden Visa would be to use the United States as a tax haven for their ill gotten gains and or to launder money in our country. Now maybe you could justify that, but we already have a massive problem here of specifically, these types of global individuals who rape their country's economies
bring it here for what purpose? To park money in the world's greatest and safest economy. So let me give you guys some figures in Miami. Today, twenty to twenty five percent of Miami's real estate market is owned by foreign nationals. In New York City, it's ten to fifteen percent of the overall market. In Los Angeles it's five to ten percent. In luxury areas, it's actually more like fifteen to twenty percent.
All of these are held.
Specifically by the types of shady characters that we don't want in our country. So this is part of the problem that we have in terms of our amazing cities, places like San Diego, Los Angeles, you know, Miami, New York City, places Americans maybe should be allowed to live, are dominantly you know, driven especially at the luxury level,
by these filthy rich foreign nationals. It's not fair both to the Americans who you know, make this country and or hold this citizenship, but worse, the type of person who buys the Golden visa is the exact opposite of like who you would want, and it also perverts the idea of citizenship itself. Citizenship is not supposed to be bought and sold like an auctioneer's passport. The purpose of a citizen is to have obligation to the country, not
just to look at it as some sort of tax purpose. Now, if the Caribbean nations and all that want to do that, fine, you know that you guys got to make money somehow. We are the world's richest and most powerful nation. So that's my long screed. The Golden Visa is a preposterous and stupid idea. The current Investment Visa is plenty fine because it actually requires business investment, which would allow job creation and all of that to happen. That's the way
that Australia and a few other countries do it. But even then again, I have seen this program so perverted by the ultra rich, like Olive art class.
And in America.
If we're going to sell our passport, this is my final thing, we need to be a much bigger number than five. It needs to be like a hundred, and that money needs to have a proven track record of actually going to its citizens. And they shouldn't be allowed to buy up a shit ton of real estate. So that's the end of my long runt. I just think it's disaster. It will massively if this were to go
into effect. Can you imagine the real estate markets in Los Angeles, in Chicago, in Miami, here in Washington, d C. What do you think these people are going to do? American real estate is the gold standard market of the world. That's why they already parked their cash here through all these shady LLCs. We don't need your money, you know, we don't need you you know at all. You guys can stay in cibrists or wherever the hell you're from.
Yeah, I mean, this is another This is like sort of an extractive parasite class of global elites. And to your point, I'll just add this. In Spain they actually have rolled back their Golden visa program, which was initially put into place in like twenty thirteen. And the reason that it became really unpopular and they rolled it back is because of exactly what you said. It was associated with like criminality and money laundering, and it helped you
drive up the already high prices of housing in major cities. So, I mean, this has already been somewhat of a problem in places like Miami and New York, where so many of the condos are just permanently vacant because they're owned by these various oligarch like billionaires from around the world who are never there. So it really does sort of you know, strip the vitality out of communities. It drives housing prices up and encourages and facilitates illegal activity.
So not a great direction.
Yeah, I just can't stand it, you know, I was thinking about it if you want to now I don't.
I'm not saying everybody should be able to retire or whatever.
But in the most beautiful place in America, I acknowledge supply and command. But when you look at the most at the Crown jewel places in the United States, places like La Joya in San Diego, and the average home price is like seven.
Million dollars, You're like, okay, so who the fuck are you?
You know, it's like and you start digging into it, yeah, and you're like, oh, so a bunch of Saudi's own this, this and this same thing.
In Beverly Hills.
They literally make a joke about it over there about all the people there are from Saudi Arabia or who are foreign nationals who'd use it as some sort of plaything.
Do you think it should be a plaything? My modest ask is it should be.
A plaything at least of American entrepreneurs, okay, and not necessarily of the global elite class.
We've basically same with Miami. I love Miami. I think it's a cool place. Wouldn't want to live there, but it's nice.
Should it really just be the playground of South American criminals and or like oligarchs who are afraid that the Argentinian or Brazilian government could fall and seize their money at any time.
No, yeah, it's not right. And then people what happens.
You start to get pushed out more and more and more, and your city just becomes like a haven and extractive place where people drive in from the burbs to serve some Chilean oligarch.
It's like, that's not how America is.
Not a thing works, it's not a real city, has no character and that or it becomes like ultra segregated and in some sort what's that movie I'm thinking of the Matt Damonfield Elysium, Elysium, it becomes some sort of elysium type place. That's already the case in my opinion for all of America's gray cities. They're completely unaccessible to even people in the top five percent, let alone the top two percent of wealth.
It's outrageous.
So that's my my modest proposal is America should be a place that Americans can afford and or have, like somewhat aspirations to Beverly Hills, San Diego, all these other places.
Good luck. You know, it's like it's it's not going to happen.
You could be filthy rich and you're still competing against some Saudi prints.
I just don't think it's right.
And that's the problem I have with this Golden Visa program. And as you said, a lot of the places that have implemented them, they hate the type of people that end up buying this.
It's been Portugal hasn't liked it either. The EU is really discouraging it because.
Right because you're selling access to the European Union.
I mean, you're just basically selling out your country. And then it also has not like raised that if Trump's all it's going to raise trili I No, it's not like that has also not panned out in any of the countries that I've tried it.
What's about so I don't need some Russian oligarch or whatever coming over here and buying even more property in Williamsburg or Tribeca or Manhattan. Those places are plenty expensive. As it is anyway, all right, So that my rant is over. Screw the Golden visa. We don't need it. You guys can stay wherever you are. Let's get to Southwest.
Yeah.
So, air travel has been obviously a consistent concern over the past several months and even going back years, we've been tracking how the decline and air safety and how nervous people are now to fly. And this image I'm about to show you is not going to make you any less nervous.
Let's put this up on the screen.
This is a near collision as the Southwest plane is landing at Chicago Midway Airport and just as it's about to touch on the ground, it has to pull back up to avoid this frickin private jet that then is taxiing down the runway in front of it. So quick thinking and quick acting by this Southwest pilot.
Kudos to them.
You can see it here in slow mo just how close they are to a horrific collision. But that was not the only incident where this occurred. Within ninety minutes, and we could put this next piece up on the screen with some of the details here. Within the span
of ninety minutes on Tuesday, morning. Two airplanes, one at Reagan National which was just the site of that horrific deadly passenger plane crash just a couple weeks ago, and the one we just showed you at Chicago's Midway International Airport. Both were forced to abort landings to avoid collisions, according
to Federal aviation officials. So an American Airlines flight that was arriving at National Airport from Boston was making its final descent, suddenly had to cancel its landing, climbed toward the skies, accelerated away from the airport. The last minute move allowed it to avoid colliding with another plane that was about to take off from the same runway, And that's according to the FAA. The airplanes pilots were told to scrap the landing by an air traffic controller to
ensure separation was maintained. And then the incident that you just saw around eight fifty am Central time, the pilots of suth West Airlines flight two five oh four, traveling from Omaha had to cancel the planes landing at Chicago Midway after a business gent entered the runway without authorization. So two insane and terrifying incidents like I said, kudos to both of those pilots for being able to make
those maneuvers. My understanding is the one that you saw in midway was a bit of a closer call than the other one, but both of them, it's like, what the hell is going on here? And in addition, Katie Pavlich, who can put this up on the screen, She was on a flight headed to some conference and she says her flight was just about to take off and the pilot slammed on the brakes upon departure. We were secreents
from being off the ground. Terrifying incident, apparently, Saga. She updated and said this was some sort of a mechanical issue or failure. I don't know what the hell is going on. Of course, you know this comes amid the backdrop.
Of air traffic.
The FAA has not been immune from DOGE cuts. They say that they aren't firing any air traffic controllers, but a lot of the support staff, it's been reported, have been some of the support staff have been let go. You've got now DOGE engineers are sorry, Yeah, SpaceX engineers affiliated with elon running around this place and continuing to have terrifying incidents like this. The air trave There are has been a shortage of thousands of air traffic controllers
for years now. You know, I have no doubt that there are some federal government agencies that should and could be trimmed down and you know, too much staff or whatever. The FAA is not one of them. This is one where you really need to staff up, you really need to invest because air travel safety matters to people, and all of these incidents are horrifying.
Well, what's interesting about air travel is, if you think about it, it's got the it's got a very different permission structure than almost everything else.
The number of acceptable accidents is what zero.
It's so even with a failure rate of like minute percentile, it's still too high.
And it's one of the those where you need to have the hundreds of.
Billions of dollars that flow through the airlines, and that the bedrock of like international travel and all is built on is when you get on a plane, it's not a problem.
And so that's why even events like this.
Or like nine to eleven for example, can wipe out an entire sector of the economy. And it's one of those it's just fundamentally different. I mean, you and I are a business, like we operate on a very different risk profile, right, Like we can absorb various different hits, or we can think and take risks, et cetera. You can even do that in a car. As a society, we've just taken and accepted like we're going to have like X amount of fatalities a year, and like that
is what it is. But it's different for airlines just because it's like control thing in terms of who's in power, but also just because if you started to see like cascading events and all that, it would remove and stuck complete.
Trust out of the system. So that's where I worry about the most.
And I just think, what we're watching here, it's not a doze issue, because this is like a decade long thing. It's about lack of prioritization by the government. It is also a lot of privatization and financialization in the airline sector, a lack of oversight in over the probably the last twenty years, like when we talk about mechanical failure and all that, and it just culminates where it's kind of
like the Chinese EV thing. One day you just wake up and you're like, oh shit, like maybe these planes are not nearly as safe as they used to be. So it both happened over a long period of time. But it also wasn't that, you know, it wasn't that long ago that we didn't have incidents or questions like this all the time. It could be a matter of information, but I do still think it's unacceptable to have things where they are.
Right now, of course, and you know, the way it relates to DOGE is because the whole ethos of DOGE is privatization, is stripping the government down and outsourcing everything, and that is the ideology that has led to the FAA being so bare bones that you have that you're
short thousands of air traffic controllers. That is the mentality that led the fa to basically outsource their own like safety regulations to the industry where they're effectively like regulating themselves and oh yeah, this plane is safe, no problem, don't worry about it. That's the mentality and the ideology that led us to that place. And now Dog has put that ideology on steroids.
That's why it matters. And it's also you know, I mean, this is.
A perfect emblem of as you were saying, soccer like when you're running Twitter and you cut a huge proportion of the staff, and the Twitter spaces with Ronda Santis fails like, that's really bad for Rondo Santis and it didn't did not help him. It was embarrassing for Elon. It was really pathetic.
And then you know Trump does spaces as well, and it also.
Didn't go all that well. But no one's going to die, right. Some functions of government are absolutely critical. They're critical for life and death. They're critical for food safety, they're critical for veterans benefits. They're critical for you know, elderly people who are relying on that Social Security check. They're critical for moms who are shown up at the hospital have a baby in horror on Medicaid. It shouldn't be run like a business because sometimes the results of failure are
truly truly catastrophic. And so you know, this is a primary emblem of that where the core ideology of privatization and strip the government down that is being pushed by Doge is exactly how we got to this place where people are now second guessing air travel in a way that has never been the case in my life. I mean, I can speak for myself like I don't want to get on a plane right now.
Well, because it's not just this, it's near misses, it's the Boeing shit like blowout. It's like, I'm.
Not going to discribe it.
I still think people should get on a plane.
It's good for you. Get on a plane and go and travel. I've flown plenty since all of these crazy things.
Am I clutching the thing a little bit more?
Am I looking over in the window just making sure and be like, all right, you know what's going on here? Every time we land even not.
Just makes it so much less of a pleasant experience.
Yeah.
I used to get on a plane not think about anything.
And they actually interviewed a dude who was on this plane that had to quickly like take back off, the one at Reagan National, and he was like, I was already really nervous because of the crash that just happened to here, and I was feeling the sense of like, Okay, we're only we're two minutes to landing, Like we're almost there, it's going to be fine.
He's kind of white white knuckling it.
And then just before they touched down, this sharp, you know, ascent, and he's freaking out freaking out. I'm sure everybody on that plane was absolutely freaking out, like what the hell is going on? So yeah, it makes you so that if you're on the fence, you're like, I don't really want to sit there in terror for several hours.
I'm not really in the mood for that. I'm not asdrennaline junkie.
It doesn't help that every single day I drive past sixty six crosses or whatever, which is for all of the people who died on that Reagan and flight. So if you live in the DMV area, there's yeah, it's it's like a literal I mean, it's a good thing, you know, obviously, remember, Yeah, it's just every day I'm like, oh, man, just see that there were actually planes come in.
There were actually a bunch of people from my little town that have been coming back from a hunting trip.
Really that read about that, Yeah.
A hunting trip.
They were they were like contractors, like, you know, working in the construction industry, and so yeah, that that hit close to home.
For sure for a whole lot of people.
But you know, it just it gets into your head and even though you could tell yourself the statistics, oh it's safer than you know, you're more you're safer there than you are driving in your car to get to the airport or whatever.
But when you're up in the air, it's a different kind of a vibe.
You want to know that, like, Okay, everything is locked in and they got this under control.
Let's get onto Joe Biden. So this just had to put this one on the show because it's like a little bit too perfect in terms of the way that this all works. So obviously, what was the greatest scandal of the Biden administration. If you're a Republican, you're gonna be like, oh, Hunter Biden, It's like no, it was the fact that this senile, dementia ridden old man was
basically given a free pass up until six months before election. Yeah, up until you melt it down in front of all of our eyes, and that we basically had like some shadow morons like Jake Sullivan and others run the entire United States government. It was like, it was genuinely like a Republican fever dream of reality. And yet now we're allowed to talk about it, and that's perfect. In terms of a new book that's being released has put this up there on the screen. It was announced yesterday from
CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson. It's called original sin, President Biden's decline, its cover up, and his disastrous choice to run again. Okay, and actually, if you read the book Jacket, it's even more shocking because they talked specifically on the back of the book where they're like, it wasn't a bad debate, it wasn't a cold. It was a systematic campaign to cover up. Yeah, here I have it in front of me. What the world saw in the twenty twenty four debate was not an anomaly. It
was not a cold. It was not someone who was under or over prepared. It was not someone who was just a little tired. It was the natural result of an eighty one year old man whose capabilities had been diminished for years. Biden, his family, and his team let their self interest in fear of another Trump term justify an attempt to put, at times an old man in.
The Oval office for four more years. What was the extent of it? Who knew?
Was it a conspiracy? We will let the facts speak for themselves. They say it was based on two hundred interviews with Biden, officials. So I want to split the difference here for Alex Thompson, as people know, we had Alex Thompson on the show Legit Dude. Now, did he call out the Biden stuff as much as I would have liked?
No?
But was he ever denying the reality of Joe Biden being an adult old man?
Also? No, he took it seriously.
He did a lot of reporting about it, and actually he was one of the only critical Biden reporters the entire time about how shit was really going on in the inside and about how people were terrified really of Biden's age. And so when Biden dropped out of the race, he was a go to for here on this show for a lot of other people. Tapper, though, is a whole other story in terms of CNN and how they treated the Biden age allegations until it became undeniable.
We're gonna show people a clip in a little bit.
But I just think it's ridiculous that Tapper is acting as if he was some sort of like lone voice out there trying to tell the truth when he was just as complicit in attacking people who were bringing up Biden's age as all these other idiots in the mainstream media. So I'm gonna read the book. I'll be honest and honestly.
Jake's gonna be a blockbuster.
Jake, please still come on the show.
I want to talk to you that we could talk about this base to face Alex.
I know it'll come on. Well, I at least I hope so after all of this, But I don't.
I just feel like if it's a little too cute right now to put something like this out there and just act like you.
Had no idea the whole time.
Jake, You're one of the best source reporters in Washington, man, Like, if you wanted to, you could have, but you just decided not to.
Yeah, I think that's for me the biggest question, because we're going to show a clip that is really bad about him being oh he has a stutter, like, oh my god.
Anyone who engaged in that is like.
Yes, you're done if you believe that you're an idiot.
Well, in fairness, that was back in like twenty twenty stupid early it was. I mean, obviously we know how we covered the time, right we see, like it was so obvious if you looked even in twenty twenty if you compared him then to when he was vice president, it was very clear this was not about a stutter. This was about this is an old man. And guess what, aging only goes in one direction. You're not going to get younger over the course of your time in the presidency.
So anyone who wanted to see the signs could see the signs. But even beyond that, because he wasn't the worst of the mainstream press in terms of you know, covering up even into the you know, his presidency and running for reelection whatever, there are some clips floating around of him challenging Korean Jumpierre on his age and concerns around that, et cetera. But I I think your point is a really important one, which is that like you are deeply entrenched in the firmament of DC, you are
very well sourced. You keep those relationships like did they trick you?
Did you? Were you part of the cover up?
Like how did this get by you to the extent that it did? When you know, the just regular Americans across the country, Democrat, Republican, independent alike, were able to more accurately understand the extent of his decline than the Washington Press corps and Jake Tapper being one of them. So that's that's my question here. Like you said that being said, I'm going to read the book. I have
no doubt it's going to be a blockbuster. I know probably Alex wanted to have Jake on it because it will also like they'll get every media appearance like possibly want to with this, and it's an extraord's it's kind of amazing to me that it still is not seen as it's the massive scandal that it truly was.
I mean, this was a gigantic cover up.
And if you're someone like me who's very upset about Donald Trump being back in the White House, like you should care the most deeply because I think if there had been a democratic primary process that people have been allowed to run and they've been voters have been allowed to truly make a choice, Democrats would have been a much better position going into this election, and given the closeness of the election, I think it's reasonable to say
it's very likely they would have prevailed. So yeah, it's you know, it's going to be interesting to read. It's going to be interesting to see who knew what and when. But I have some questions for Jake Tapper, like, for you, what did you know and when? Why weren't you ask them questions? Why weren't you really taking it seriously? Were
they just able to trick you? Or were you, you know, part of sort of intentionally intentionally hiding just how bad the extent of the decline truly was absolutely so.
With all that, let's take a listen to the tap Equipment's from twenty twenty.
But this is him on Biden's age.
How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that.
First and foremost, I had no idea that Joe Biden ever suffered from a stutter. I think what we see on stage with Joe Biden Jake is very clearly a cognitive decline.
That's what I'm referring to.
It makes me uncomfortable.
You are, No, that's so amazing. It's so amazing to me that.
Try and figure out an answer a cognitive decline.
You're trying to.
Tell me that what I was suggesting was I think.
That you were mocking his stutter. Yeah, I think you were mocking his stutter. And I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline. I would think that somebody in the prompt family would be more sensitive to people who do do not have medical licenses diagnosing politicians from Afar. Plenty of people have diagnosed your father from Afar, and I'm sure it offends you, your father in law from a far I'm sure it defends you. You don't have any standing to say.
Noticing how what I'm saying just talking about a cognitive the clusid.
I have one last question.
Feel are times on stage and it's very concerning to a lot of people that this could be the leader of the free world.
That is all I'm saying.
I genuinely sorry for Joe.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, how do those kids, those persons inflicted with stuttering feel? But I just this is the sanctimony, the attitude that pray it was. That's the problem is that people like us and others, any reasonable person was able to just be like, yeah, I don't think so. He's like he miraculously had a stutter that materialized in twenty twenty, even though he's been on a camera for forty five years. And you know, I personally saw Joe Biden at a
campaign rally in twenty twelve. I remember that is the Biden in my head, and I remember seeing him in twenty nineteen. Just be like, oh man, I attended Joe Biden's as a journalist, very last speech as vice president in twenty and sixteen, which again is in my head three years later, and I was like, dude, this is totally the different person back then, and you as he was president. It was the most openly discussed thing by
anyone who was not connected to institutional media. And this is the type of bullshit that they used to basically silence and to smear people who were bringing up the most obvious. So like, as you said, I'll buy the book, Okay.
Sorry, but I will buy it.
You got it all right, reew cops some of us, Yeah, that's true, since we're since we're since, yeah, we can probably get a free review cop. But maybe honestly, at this point, I should just buy it after this point of talking about it. But the point I guess of all of it is just to say you had the opportunity to know, you did definitely participate in all of this, and don't be coming around here acting like here's some
you know. So you're Seymour hirsh or whatever sniffing out the greatest story in the world, like you're not and it's fine.
Did he engage in any cheap fakes?
I don't know, surely I'm not.
I'm not one of those Twitter discourse guys who goes back and you know, checks everybody's past posting history.
And all that. But on this one, I just think.
It's egregious to act as if you were a forward facing person with credibility. And I actually feel bad for Thompson because he genuinely was on the story at the time as opposed to Tapper.
But I get it. It's Washington. You need to make some money, so we wish you the best.
All right, we got one more media story for you, guys that this is actually pretty significant. So Jeff Bezos yesterday puts out this tweet indicating that he is going to end the Washington Post tradition of publishing a range of viewpoints on their opinion page and is only going to basically push a pro Oligarch agenda exclusively. Not that it's a surprise that that's Jeff Bezos's preference, but pretty interesting to make it just completely brazen. So let's go
ahead and put this up on the screen. This is the message that he sent to all the staff and journalists at the Washington Posts, which of course he owns, but also he put this out on Twitter. He says, I'm learning to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be
published by others. There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad based opinion section that sought to cover all views. But today the Internet does that job. I am of America and for America, proud to be so. Our country do not get here by being typical. Big part of America's success has been freedom and economic realm
and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical, It minimizes coercion and practical. It drives creativity, invention, and prosperity. I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admired, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him. If the answer wasn't hell, yes, then it had to be no. After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift. It won't be easy. It will require one hundred percent commitment. I respect his decision. We'll be searching for a new
opinion editor to own this new direction. I am confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I'm excited for us together to fill that void.
This makes me.
Basically short circuit, because what I want you to understand is when Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, talks about free markets and personal liberty, he doesn't mean, like you know, for example, the freedom of his workers to be able to form a union, or to go to the bathroom when they need to, his drivers to have enough of a break to not have to pee in a bottle while they're delivering packages. When he talks about free markets, he does not mean the type of free markets that
would lead to Amazon being broken up. Because it's a gigantic monopoly that has rigged its own algorithms. That's not the kind of free markets that he's talking about. What he's talking about is for the ability of him and oligarch to have unbridled power and freedom for himself in
unlimited coercion and exploitation. When it comes to you, that is the agenda that he is talking about pushing here, and it is you know, also quite noteworthy coming after he blought the endorsement of Kamala to try to curry favor with Trump. Is it Trump's inauguration. Its completely trying
to suck up to him. And you know, Trump has obviously handed his administration over to the richest man on the entire planet, the preeminent oligarch of all oligarchs, and Bezos is basically saying, I'm going to get rid of any of these hippies and liberals who might criticize that direction and make sure that when the CFPB is gutted, they're.
On board with it.
When the National Labor Relations Board can't issue rulings as has been done, they're going to be on board with it. That's what this is actually all about.
I completely agree. And the thing is with Bezos is I also just think there's a lot of elon envy going on here in terms of his personal jail, My analysis of Bezos is that he is humiliated by the whole democracy dies in the darkness stuff previously and or didn't pay attention either. Or he wants to fire many of the people who work for him who think he
thinks are too woke or are embarrassing or whatever. But the problem is is he doesn't just come out and say it, and so he invents all of this kakamemi.
Bullshit that we're all supposed to believe.
So, for example, we're no longer going to endorse any candidates miraculously in twenty twenty four, right, so we're going to create this principle standard when everyone's like, dude, we all know what you're doing here.
Same thing. Personal liberty and free markets.
Okay, sheerly from a business perspective, If I want personal liberty and free market opinion page, who am I going to the Wall Street Journal or sorry, Jeff Bezos at the New Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal, which has a century of standing up and literally carving out this niche for itself, or the Financial Times. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go for the latter, just as a consumer. So what in an office space, meme Euan Way, what
do you do here? What is your purpose here? It's like, the purpose here is to serve your own personal end. And okay, that's fine, it's your right. You own the paper, you can do as you would like. But spare us your sanctimony, Spare us all this fakery, Spare us this idea that you care about personal liberty and free markets.
You don't care about personal liberty. You're the second largest employer in the United States who routinely cycles through all of these people and discards them as trash, you know, as completely realigned our markets, lobbied against free market like true free market principles. I mean, just you know, stop, just stop this idea that you believe in free speech. Do you know how many conservative books and others were banned on Amazon remain banned actually up until I think
two weeks ago. There was a Ryan Anderson, who is a guy who wrote a book about some transgender issues. His book was banned on Amazon for five years and only recently was reversed. Obviously as a result of this somebody, I'm just saying, like it's capricious. It's done in a nature where it's all up to his own personal whims, So just Sparris, dude, Please let's stop pretending.
Also, many people pointed out the irony of backing supposed personal liberty and free speech at a time when you're censoring your own on your own platform, saying those view points aren't going to be allowed here.
Yeah, I mean this is.
Where I gets where cost you can employ who you want. Is that censorship?
Like?
No, not really, But the point is is that you're doing it out originally, which what do you believe?
That's what I come back to.
Was it democracy died in the darkness, which you did under your leadership? Was it reversing the editorial direction and hiring a British tabloid guy to rebuild your business? Because if you want a new business, let me tell it, take it from somebody who owns a media company with you. Uh, don't do this. This is really stupid. Who's signing up for it? Anybody who wants this viewpoint subscribes to the
Wall Street Journal, and why would they trust you? Anybody who wants this Democracy dies in the Darkness stuff has already canceled and has decimated your subscription business. So you're using this effectively as a propagandistic tool to bolster your own net worth and to curry favor. Okay, fine, you know you're actually just in the right tradition of William Randolphurst and all these other people from the days of old.
But they were a lot more explicit about it, whereas you're trying to dress it up in all of this principle and I'm, you know.
Holier than now. We will never just endorse one candidate or another. It's like, oh my.
God, like to shut up for how after we don't do enforcements anymore, people can decide for themselves.
Then they weighe in with.
Dustment exactly every cabinet You're exactly right, the cabinet texts.
It's like what and miraculously picked all the Washington choices and then we're like, oh, no, RFK Junior or whatever. Just so happens that Amazon it wants to be a huge player in the healthcare space. Right, It's like this in the same way we can talk about with Elon. I mean, remember, also, the problem is the press always comes to their defense and in a sense, like their
crocodile tears today are useless. I'm not talking about Jeff Stein, but I mean you and I remember when Bernie Sanders pointed out the Washington Post ownership by Bezos.
They were furious with him.
They have never acknowledged oligarchy whenever it was used as a tool for the Capital D Democratic Party. It's only now that they're willing to talk about a part the reason a lot of people don't even take them seriously and think they're full of shit, which I think is fine, But can we all just like come together now and be like this is ridiculous. You know, this whole Bezos project, the way that he uses the op ed page and all, there's no noble you know, idea or any of this.
And if anything, Zuckerberg's contortia and Elon's like actions and bays us and all that.
Just it tells us what they're all about. So like, let's just be honest.
That's the only soil lining is that it's no longer deniable. It's like, you know, I mean, because yeah, that Bernie thing really sticks in my craw because their coverage of Bernie Sanders was so negative and so dishonest, the like total smears and fake fact checks and all this stuff. And he said like, hey, maybe the fact that it's owned by this very wealthy oligarch, maybe that has something to do with their perspective on my democratic socialist approach.
How dare you, sir, suggest that the one of the wealthiest people on the planet who owns the newspaper would have any say over the nature of their coverage. It's like, okay, all right, well, now we see, we see what the reality is, we see what is entailed when you have oligarch owned media, and he's just effectively coming out and saying it. So yeah, I think that is the one silver lining is it is no longer in any way deniable whatsoever. And you asked, what does Jeff Bezos actually believe?
We know what he believes.
He believes in hisself, his own self interest, Like whatever's good for him, that's what he believes in. That's why when he thought it was good for him to be part of the resistance and democracy dies in darkness, that's how he positioned things. And now that he feels this vibe shift and he wants to career favor with the Trump administration, like he doesn't give a shit about the
Washington Post as a business venture. He cares about it as a tool for his own power, and that has always That is not new, that has always been the case. So same with Zuckerberg. You know when it's b but it was cool to be woke.
He was woke.
Now he's moving his content moderation to Texas and he's wearing his chain and hanging out with Joe Rogan. What like. These people are shameless in service of their own power and their own self interest, and that is what's going on here. Absolutely, let me just roll through the rest of these elements. We mentioned Jeff Stein, who you know,
fantastic economics reporter there. He says, massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos in the Washington Post opinion section today makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there.
I still have not felt.
Encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side, I will be quitting immediately. And letting you know, Marty Baron had weighed in before, previous editor in chief of the Washington Post, very well known. We put this up on
the screen from the Daily Beast. He says, there is no doubt in my mind that Bezos is doing this on a fear of the consequences for his other business interests, Amazon source of his wealth, and Blue Origin, which represents his lifelong passion for space exploration. Baron wrote Wednesday, he has prioritized those commercial interests over the Post, and he is betraying the post long standing principles in order to do so. I think that is fairly undeniable at this point.
And he also points out which I didn't even realize. He says, it was only weeks ago the Post described itself as providing coverage for quote all of America. Now its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, though,
who think exactly as he does. Also worth noting soccer Amazon had floated that what forty million dollar Millennia documentary, So also, you know, funneling cash into the First Ladies Bank account to the Trump and the Trump family bank account there as well as one more way of careering favor the Trump administration. Pretty happy with this. You can put this tweet up on the screen. So this is Stephen Chung's assistant is the President and White House Director
of Communications with the Little Grinch evil smile. In reply to Jeff Bezos's note that he sent out here and last piece I'll put up on the screen. This is from Sarabamari, who actually writes a newsletter.
With Emily over at Unheard Ryan.
Emily had him on the show recently, and he says, Jeff Bezos rebrands a Washington Post as the Billionaires think Tank. And he says, one of the world's richest men once his newspaper push policies that favor the rich. That's the upshot of Jeff Bezos's announcement today. Henceforth, the Amazon boss decreed his paper's comment pages will promote libertarianism, quote free markets and personal liberty, and will not publish opinions contradicting
these central principles. While the story has a dog bites man quality breaking tycoon prefers low taxes and weak unions, it's still a dismaying turn since the Wall Street Journal comment pages, where I cut my teeth, are also strictly committed to free market libertarianism. It leaves the New York Times opinion page as the only national print outlet where writers can argue for greater union density and more robust antitrust enforcement, say or against Wall streets following out of
the real economy. And I'm sure Stoler could spend hours regaling us with tales of how Jeff Bezos is the antithesis of someone who was committed to actual free market competition. So just coming out and overtly backing this pro alergarch agenda and also signaling like a right word shift for the paper in the era of.
That's what I mean, though it's actually it's not right word in a sense. It's just the most naked like when you say personal liberty and free markets, it's really just a libertarian like mask off.
Actually it's not even libertarian.
It's what corporate capture libertarians, and it's like corporate libertarian.
And just openly saying it.
You don't believe in personal liberty, dude, Like you don't believe in free markets. It's just the worshiping of those ideals and frankly tricking a bunch of idiots into backing it so that you continue to get your tax benefit cuts, your you know, all preferential treatment, making sure that you don't face even like modest workforce concessions.
That's what this whole thing is.
And look, I mean, in a way, thank you for telling us the truth. Finally, it was obvious for some of us. Perhaps it will be obvious to the rest of you, and maybe the corporate pressure will stop defending them, although I highly doobt that because they're subject to.
Many of the same pressures. All Right, we will see you guys later.
Make sure you guys subscribe so you can watch the row Hit Choprah interview. Really looking forward personally to taking a look at it. Supporting that type of work. Here we do a breaking points otherwise, we'll see you later.