Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. Ryan Graham is the here for Chrystal Balk. Ryan, it's great to see you, my friends. At least chrestfallen faces. No, no, Chres fallen faces. What are you talking about? Everyone was very excited about the Girls Show. We have to make sure that we supplant them with the Boys Show. So let's go ahead and get those comments as positive as they were for the Girl Show for the Bro Show.
So we got a lot of good stuff in the show today. We got Ukraine. We're gonna be talking about negotiations. We got Scotus. There's two big cases the CFPB. Ryan, you were very involved in covering that time, so we'll talk about that. We'll also talk about student loan, which is up before the court. Biden administration a real bind right now because they have to both argue the pandemic is over, but also that it's not before the court. So that'll be fun. Fox News, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis,
who's getting more Fox News treatment. Trump is very pissed off at the way that Fox has been handling it so far. I know there's a lot of interest Krystal I had to cover this for her, the Brett Favre case versus Pat McAfee. This guy has got to be one of the most arrogant. I'll save my words for that, but anyway, he officially served Pat McAfee in the case and he's making some outrageous legal threats. I really want to see Brett Faarr go down like this now that
he's conducting himself. And then finally, Nina Turner just absolutely stunning a CNN panel in her comments on East Palstein. But let's start with Ukraine. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. General Mark Milly making some crazy comments on the one year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, being the senior most military official of the US government, saying that there is no way this thing ends without negotiation. Let's take a listen to that.
How do we move toward an endgame? How do we move toward a negotiated pace. I think that's up for the Ukrainians to decide that. So what is acceptable to Ukraine, that's territory intact. Whatever that answer is going to be. Is it militarily possible for us to get Russians for the Ukrainians to get every Russian troop out of their country and Crimea. I don't think it's militarily possible for the Russians to achieve their initial strategic objectives political objectives
by military means. I don't think that'sossible anymore. On the flip side, the Ukrainians, I think for this year, it would be very very difficult, not impossible, but very very difficult for the Ukrainians to achieve their political objectives. And their stated political objective is to for every single Russian to leave every single inch of Ukrainian territory. I think that's a very high bar. I think from a military standpoint only, that would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve militarily
this year. So he's choosing his words there very carefully. Ryan, And this actually comes on the heels of a New York Times report. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, guys, flagged by Aaron Mante from this report, they say quote. Around the same time, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milly, argued in internal meetings Ukraine was unlikely to make substantially greater battlefield gains and should move to the bargaining table quote.
The White House quickly squelched such talk. This actually happened. Several leaks came out from the Joint chiefs at the time about how he was saying, Look, guys, he's like, I understand you know all this fifty billions also have been, as I understand it, one of the heads of leaking to the New York Times and others the fact that Ukrainians are very likely to expend all of their battlefield aid by some time this summer, and that that is very likely going to be the end of the package.
What do you make of his comments, probably the most negotiating pro negotiating comments, ironically coming from the military. Yeah. Yeah, it's well said that he was choosing his words wise, and you could see that he had kind of been kind of cracked down on a little bit. He had. He had made some comments publicly that were similar to those back in the fall. It's nice to see from the New York Times that he was saying those. Internally, not so nice to see that they're just squelching that.
Who else made comments like that at the time. Barack Obama, if you remember, I do the Progressive Caucus came out with that letter that they immediately said, I sorry, sorry, did we say did we say that? No, we retracted that letter. Yeah, Ben Rhodes uh over the world pods. Once you have the pod save crew saying like, maybe this is something we ought to think about, it becomes
part of the conversation, which they very quickly squelched. So here he is back again saying like, look, and he's setting up a real logical conundrum for people here because the people who say, look, it's up to Ukraine and if and it's and it's all about sovereignty and we need to support Ukrainian sovereignty until the Ukraine says that they have, you know, fought to every last man, woman and child. If Millie is saying that that is not possible,
then what are you advocating for. You're advocating just to keep arming Ukraine indefinitely, which is a forever war. And if that's your position, then make it. Yeah, you say it, that's fine, and maybe because of Russia's aggression, that's a maybe that is an appropriate position. A lot of people will take that a lot of people will take. But take that position, say that we're in this forever now,
Millie says over the next year. But it's if you would have pressed him on that, It's like, it's not obvious what conditions change that makes crimea attainable right for the Ukrainian military other than European boots in there, US boots in there. Like we're already giving roughly what our manufacturing capacity can send there. So it's not like we're going to necessarily expand our manufacturing capacity just to finance a takeover of Crimea. So that raises a real question,
what are you for at this point? Well, it's interesting too because what you can see is that and what we've pointed here to a lot of the show is Lucia. Remember, you know, Ukraine is not just the West in Russia and Ukraine, it's also a global war in terms of the support in terms of Russia, China now coming out with its peace nagot. What is a peace proposal which effectively just freezes the battle lines that are in place, Ukraine saying that's a complete non starter, the West saying
it's a joke. You know, it's supposed to help putin But then at the same flip side of that, you have Brazil President Lula coming here to Washington and be like, no, I'm not going to send a single a piece of military equipment to Ukraine India, which they talk about actually quite a bit in the piece, is that much of the strategic negotiation talk both Russia, Ukraine and the West is not aimed at each other. It's aimed at the
rest of the world. Everybody wants to try and convince the rest of the world that they're going to try and bring this thing to the end. The Indians have made the strategic calculus. They're like, look, as long as we're going to get cheap oil, we're going to get it. We don't really care what's happening here Russia. Yeah, we
would prefer that you hadn't invaded Ukraine. But if we're going to buy it at a discount, we have one point something billion people that we have to feed and we have to keep going in you know, growing economy, we're just going to take it. The Chinese, on the other hand, are in a different conundrum. So initially they were caught off the guard, right they were like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that this's actually happened. Then
they were playing some rhetorical games. The saying kind of putting Putin aside, saying that we weren't very happy about what happened. Now you know, the US military is on high alert, saying that it looks like lethal aid is about to start going from Beijing to Russia, and not only that, Russia very likely to start be getting even more strategic purchases from Russia or start China in order to boost the Russian economy and keep it sanctioned proof.
By all accounts, the sanctions have been a total mixed bag. Right. The Russian economy certainly has contracted, but not even close to the level of what we expected a financial nuclear bomb to do to a foreign country. It's actually really exposed what it means to have trade. And whenever you don't have total one hundred percent control over global trade, well, countries can't exist, especially when they have hard assets like oil.
So I think much of this general Milli is looking at this, seeing the increase in military aid from China, seeing the continued situation where India is going to backstop at least some certain extent the Russian economy, and he's like, I don't see a way that the industrial output of
Russia is going to end anytime soon. And like you said, I don't see a way that without one hundred percent depleting our stack piles and moving us to almost a total war manufacturing trajectory, that we could supply them with the sheer amount of ammunition that they need. I mean, I don't think people really understand what it means to eat up fifty billion dollars in weapons in just six months by the US military's estimates. Well, how else is
this thing going to end? And there was a nice column in the New York Times by some guest author that made a parallel to the Korean War that I thought was apt and something I had been thinking about previously, in the sense that nineteen fifty one the war had kind of reached a stalemate where they're going kind of back and forth, and the world allowed that war to continue for another couple of years. Stalin had his own reasons,
you know. It was he said, it was giving the Chinese like some training and fighting, and it was draining the West and making them look weak. It was hurting Truman back home, which it was actually hurting Truman back home. So let's drag this out and the US once the US is inner war like, they're in that war, like
you really have to drag them out of there. And so two years later it ends basically on the exact same terms that it would have ended in nineteen fifty one, but at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. And so unless you can envision some path where the world is going to look fundamentally different than it does today, then what are you sacrificing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives over the next several years for, rather than, as Millie said, get lucky and touch wood.
I had never heard that phrase before. It's like, it's like, we can get the diplomats in the wood. They can in the room, they can touch the wood. I'm like, oh, that's it, okay, all right, well yeah, I mean, look, it's gonna be difficult. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible. I mean the Ukrainians, now, I mean, to their credit, let's give them the credit where they do. They fought
tremendously well. They have an immense They have one of the most homogeneous like populations that are left inside of Ukraine who are absolutely willing to fight for every scrap, for every ach up to them when they want to go to the negotiation table. But as I've always said, it's also up to us to how much we want to backtop to what extent. Let's not forget the Ukrainian war effort ends tomorrow without US military aid. They could try and subsist on the European aid, but given the
sheer amount of numbers, it's not a joke. It's a joke compared to what the US has provided them, where basically the sole determiners of what how the conflict is going to go. And according to the Washington Posts others who have been getting deep leaks from inside the administration, the word is from the Biden ad men. They're like, look, guys, this is it. This is probably the last large age package. I'm personally a little bit skeptical of this because I
was thinking about Afghanistan and even about Vietnam. Afghanistan, everybody wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan. Then we did it, and it turned out to be politically unpopular because people have some crazy idea that withdrawing from the wars apparently they're easy. Vietnam is a great example. Nixon was elected in nineteen sixty eight on the pledge to try and withdraw from Vietnam.
Actually what he ends up doing is pursuing the peace with honor two terms, a two pronged strategy actually ends up escalating the war to try to de escalate the war.
Here's the truth, people, that was very popular. You know, for all of the student protests over the bombing of Cambodia, most people did want quote peace with honor without Vietnam, even though a Saigon type exit was probably inevitable from literally day one nineteen sixty five, one of the first US military advice go nineties to eight, when the first
hundreds of thousands of troops go over there. I'd see on the flip side, though it happened in July of twenty one, was it even remotely an issue in the twenty two mid terms? Not? And I think there's something skeezy about even talking about war and lives lost in those political terms. But unfortunately it is determinative of policy.
And so it is worth pointing out that you actually can leave a twenty year war in an off year and then and it be a debacle in the departure, and then a year and a half later when voters go to the polls. They're like, oh, yeah, Afghanistan that we didn't like the way we ended, But there was not a single person who ran on the idea that we should actually go back into at an important point.
And actually I did a monologue at the time. People can go back and watch it about how jero Ford's approval rating actually went up after sygot So you know, it's one of those where you never really known. Yeah, but he did end up losing the elections. I don't know. All right, let's go to the second part here. Janet Yellen, this Treasury Secretary on the ground in Kiev yesterday with a very important announcement I think for the future of
US aid. And if you think that the US military aid to Ukraine anytime soon, this is probably going to be the future battle lines of where things are. Let's put this up there on the screen. Secretary Yellen was already abroad attending an international conference, made a secret trip over to Kiev. She penned a New York Times op at here it says, quote John at Yellen and Kiev,
economic aid to Ukraine is vital. But you know what I found more interesting, Ryan is the actual headline on the New York Times website was Janet Yellen Colon Zelenski is right, we must provide economic aid to Ukraine. So they did a little bit of a change job here, just noting that for everyone. Essentially what Janet Yalen, the
Secretary of the Treasury here is talking about. It says, quote since the start of the full scale war, the United States provided close to fifty billion economic security humanitarian assistance for Ukraine. Quote. We are proud to be Ukraine's largest bilateral donor, and just as proud to be joined by an international coalition of supporter, including the European Union and other members of the Group Seven. But what actually really struck out to me was the type of economic
assistance we were providing to Ukraine. I don't think people understand that this isn't just about the war effort. Quote. We have helped Ukraine mount a vigorous response to assist a million people who had to flee their homes, providing quote social assistance, housing and utility subsidies, pension payments for millions of vulnerable Ukrainians bearing the economic brunt of the war. Our aid has enabled the civil service to continue to
operate the government ensuring that it remained stable. So this kind of illustrates what I have always said about the Ukrainian war effort, and really just about the extent to which the US is backstopping this. The Europeans are non existent in this type of military aid. The fifty billion that we provided in just economic not military aid is more than every other country combined in all aid, it
literally combined. So what does that mean for US? I mean that means that this country, Ukraine, and look, we can't help with fields empathy, but we are talking here about you know, our own pension funds don't get bailed out. We're paying the pension funds of the Ukrainian society. We're paying their teacher salary, We're paying their social assistance, We're paying their homes, their rent. I mean presumably in the future.
It's not like the Ukrainian government, which has already suffered some thirty five percent drop in GDP, is ever going to be able to pay that at least in what next decade whenever you consider the rebuilding effort. So this underscored actually just how much the tap is going to have to remain on for Ukraine to be even a semi functioning society for what the next twenty years or so, which,
by the way, it's the US taxpayer. You know, I always say this, We literally are balancing the Ukrainian budget. If you're one of those people that cares about balanced budgets, like we are balancing theirs before we're balancing, you could say they need it more. I certainly think that that's true. But you know, we should be honest about what exactly
this entails for US. And I think because because we haven't been in a war since World War Two that required full scale mobilization, I think we forget as a culture what it means to wage total war. And Jennie Ellen is correct that if they withdrew those payments, their war effort would collapse. Yes, if you don't have the teachers, if you don't have the home if you don't have the homefront, everything falls apart. And so if you're supporting the Ukrainian war effort, you got it, you have to
you have to support that. Now, setting all this aside, I actually have a contrarian view on this type of US aid. I'll lay it out for you. See, if you see if you buy this, so to me, start with the US should not be the global empire that it is, but it is. So we're going to start from the assumption that it is a global empire. To me the idea that a country like Ukraine is going to pay back the United States misunderstands the power imbalance, like the rest of the world is always and constantly
paying us back like we we are. We are the richest country in the world because of our power, because of our military and as a result, we get cheap labor. In fact, for decades we were getting cheap software developers in Ukraine, true specifically, and so you're and you're getting cheap raw materials, you're getting cheap food around the world, you're getting cheap energy supply. All of that is subsidizing
the lifestyle of the American people. And so it's kind of off to say that this type of funding is actually draining US coffers because it's actually filling them up, like we're not doing this for Ukraine, and don't be fooled by that. Well, I think that's fair. That's a typical like kind of soft power civil society aid argument. I think that's fine. I think my main question is, like this is one of the most corrupt countries in
all of Europe. Are we actually paying a pensions? She talked a lot about She talked a lot about all the safeguards they put in place, But then if you get to the bottom of her piece, you're like, our safeguards are through the World Bank. Correct, because very specifically in our law Rampaul pushed for more money for the IGS, pushed for let's attach some actual transparency to this spending,
and Congress rejected that. So Janet Yellen had to say, well, we're funneling the money through the World Bank, and the World Bank is checking it, so don't worry. Last time I checked is famelessly unscrupulous institutions never had a scandal.
It's not like they've ever misappropriated us. Oh wait, hold on a second, And that's exactly my point, which is, look, if this was actually paying Ukrainian teachers and pensions, I mean, I'm still a little sketchy about that, but okay, you know I can understand, but you know how much of it actually is. What did we just learned? The former Defense secretary of Ukraine just gets fired for what quadruple
charging for food? Listen, what did I just read? You if they can't even pay their utilities, their pension bills, you think they're buying their own food. We're the ones who are buying the food. Aka, we're the ones who are paying overpriced and somebody's making a profit somewhere. And that's actually where I look at the real like crossroads
for what this will look like. We need to accept that by being in this and if this is going to be continued to US bipartisan policy, we're signing up for ten I mean ten billion checks in terms of civil society aid probably every one three four months. I mean that seems to be what we seem to distribute at least an economic aid. Well, all right, is it being spent properly? No? Actually, the US Treasury Department says they have quote no indication that any of our funds
have been misused. And then, as you said, you read a little bit deeper and you're like, oh, well, they have no indication because they're not checking. Well, okay, I could say a lot of things that I have no indication X is happening, But if I'm not looking for it, then what do I know about whether it actually is? And then second part here, let's put this up there
on the screen. This also just goes to show you know, for all the Republican talk about no more aid to Ukraine, they secretly pass an extra ten billion dollar aid package for the second year on Friday, hours after announcing two billion in additional military aid and a new round of
sanctions against Russia. I don't even know what those sanctions possibly could be, but the point is is that this extra quote ten billion dollars is being dispersed by the World Bank Public expenditure for Administrative Capacity Endurance Program aka piece. I can see what they did there, which they say is quote crucial to Ukraine and to provide healthcare, education, and emergency services to its citizens. So again we are
literally paying the Ukrainian doctors fees, medics all this. I'm not even saying that this is bad, but I want people to realize it's not just weapons and ammunition that is happening here. The entire Ukrainian homefront is backstop by the US taxpayer. And it just shows you the level
of control. You know, for all the talk of whatever Ukraine wants, it's like, well, hold on a second, you know, that's a little bit different from whenever you are let's say that Ukraine is like the Soviet Union in World
War Two. Soviet Union unquestionably needed the US AID to survive, but they had industry, they had a functioning state, they had a society, they had millions of people willing to fight, and so it was a real question of like their sovereignty versus US eight here that's not even in the question here. This is one hundred percent backstop by the American taxpayer, which is demonst trace to you that as a polity like Ukraine is, it doesn't exist as independent polity.
And I'm not saying on paper, Okay, I'm not saying Ukraine is not a real country. What I'm saying is that they don't have any self capacity whatsoever beyond the willing to fight to actually survive. And that is a problem, you know, if we look at it in the future. Right, And so it goes back to what we were talking about in the first segment there about how long you want this to go on? Because Ukraine I think has a tighter and more powerful national identity today than it
even did, no question one year ago. But if they want the state capacity to actually buttress that, they either need in the midst of the war, constant foreign support, or they need to get to an end of the war so that they can then reconstruct and rebuild their country. And the sooner that happens, the sooner they get back
to a place of actual sovereignty. Because you're right, if you want to make this argument all about sovereignty, how much sovereignty do you have if you're one hundred percent dependent on the whims of the American superpower of American Congress, which you know, every other country throughout history that has made it self dependent on the whims the United States, other than Israel, has lived to pay that price. Yeah,
that's a fantastic point. And then finally, Hillary Clinton making some headlines here dispensing some news as to how she would handle this conflict, encouraging people inside of Russia please please kill Vladimir Putin. Here's what she had to say. The people closest to Putin, those who have to deal with him, those who he's keeping at the end of forty foot tables while he issues bizarre orders, they're the ones who need to act. They need to act for the good of Russia. They need to stop him. Is
dangerous and it's dangerous to the future of Russia. So my hope is that the people who are watching him, those who get close enough to see in person his behave behavior which is so erratic that they can try to prevent him from doing things that will not only be tragic for Ukraine, but tragic for Russia too. This
should be stopped for Russia's sake. This is the thing that people apparently don't know history, which is there has never or okay, let's say maybe one time Boris Yelton, and every other time, there has never been a Russian leader who was deposed and more of a peacenik person who has come into power. In fact, Khrushchev was literally taken out of the government because they saw him as
capitulating to America during the Cuban missile crisis. Then when you look even further, you know the people who replaced him were hardliners, even though they knew that Krushev had pursued diplomacy. In fact, all indications that we had is that Putin has purged any real dissenters who believe in better relations with the West, who believe in diplomacy, who would prolit and the war, And even if they are against the war. The infrastructure that remains inside the Putin
regime is one hundred percent geared towards Ukraine. I'm not saying that he isn't a culture personality and he doesn't have total control. But if you look at the talk of med Medvedev, for example, this person the Russian president at the time, the fake president while Putin was Prime minister or whatever, he was supposedly like, oh, he speaks English, like he's you know, he wears nice suits, Like he's a guy who we can get along with, he speaks
our language. He's the one who's talking about dropping tactical nuclear weapons on Ukraine. He's the one who's like, we are now in total war with the United State. You can't even survive in the Putin regime. By many indications, the only controlled opposition inside of Russia are the people who want more war, not anybody less. All the people who want less are either in jail or they left Russia.
It's over. And so when we consider like a the practicality of what she's saying, but b, if you do not think that Putin and his people are not playing this stuff on loop over and over again, the form US Secretary of State, one of the most identifiable politicians in the entire world. Hillary Clinton, You're crazy, you know, by some reporting. Ryan Putin watches on loop that video of Gaddafi getting a rod shupped of his ass and getting killed in Benghazi, and he watches it as a reminder.
He's like, this is what they will do to you. And I'm not saying that isn't crazy, because it definitely is. But I mean, when you like, you got to get inside the mind of a person like that, whenever you're going to talk this way, Yeah, you know where else that's relevant. Have you seen that Hillary Clinton hot Mike clip where she's talking about Gadaffi? Oh of course, yeah, yeah, this is famous. So you guys can google this one
up right. She says something like we came, we saw, we killed, and just this cackle, like just like like the sadistic giggle where you're like, okay, yeah, Gaddafi's terrible, Yes, but that was funny. You watch that, You're like, that's funny. It's a horrific video. And Putin also put set aside the truth of the matter. Putin also blames Hillary Clinton for interfering in his election. In what was at twenty fourteen, and absolutely the US was funding NGOs that were supportive of,
you know, Putin's opposition like that. Like in fact, I'm sure the US was doing more in the public record to support Putin's opposition than Putin was doing to support Trump. But that is that is a grudge that he has held to this day. So he so he knows, and then he tried to take her out like in twenty sixteen. And I think you know the hack people talk about the Facebook ads that the hack of yes, like that, Yes,
that's the move forget the Facebook ads. So you've got her laughing about Gadaffi, You've got him watching Gadaffi on Loop. Now you've got her on not in a phone call or on a secure link, you know, the way that secretaries of state used to try to overthrow other governments, but on cable television. Saying go take this guy out.
Also goes to the problem that we have of getting to touch Wood, as Millie said, which is that we have convinced ourselves that Putin is a complete lunatic and psychopath, and therefore you can't negotiate with a lunatic and a psychopath, right therefore all you can do is war, and you know, that type of rhetoric get you know, doesn't get you any closer to a place where you can then sit down, because then how do you tell the American people, Oh,
actually we've made it, We've made it. You can be a lunatic and a psychopath and you can still you know, you can be irrational and many I mean, invading Ukraine was very irrational. I mean, they're definitely not work out for him the way that he wanted to be. That mean doesn't mean you still can't negotiate. I actually think about I've talked with some of the people who met
with Kim Jong un and with the North Koreans. The North Koreans are crazy, they're also very intelligent, and what they would say is that they, you know, the negotiators, like, you guys got to give up your nukes. They're like, yeah, had that to work out for Gadafi, he gave it, so just say it over and over again. And then they're like, well, we're never going to do anything to you. They're like, that's what Saddam Hussein thought. You guys gave him weapons, you gave him a signed to deal with
him and then he was killed. He's like, we're never giving these up. You know why, because it's the only guarantee that you won't do what you've done in the last twenty five years. You tell me, doesn't sound that crazy to me. It is crazy. Whenever you know, you like, use in our artillery to chop up your uncle or feed them to dogs. Yeah, I agree, but you know, from a pure calculus perspective, you got to try and get yourself in the minds of these people. I wish
dictators didn't exist. I wish that he wasn't the president, but he is the president of Russia. So you have to take that as a reality and manage that with your strategic balance of what you want to do and what you don't want to do. And this is probably the least possible, most helpful thing, and unfortunately it's a bipartisan problem. We have Lindsay Graham saying the exact same thing early days of the war, which we'll remember, and of course you think that wasn't played on loop inside
of Russia. This helps absolutely nobody. So anyway, Hillary doing her best. I just say thank god that lady was never president of the United States. All right, let's move on to Scotus here. So Ryan, I'm really curious what you think of this. The Supreme Court is officially hearing the student loan debt relief case. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, and says to be a decent summary of what the arguments for and
against are. So, if we will return to what the actual plan was, ten thousand dollars in federal student loan debt is getting canceled for those making less than one hundred and twenty five thousand or households with lessan two hundred and fifty thousand income. Pel Grant recipients who receive more financial need would get an additional ten thousand in debt. Forgiven college students would qualify if their loans were dispersed
before July first of two thousand and twenty two. That made some forty three million people eligible for the plan. The White House is set already that twenty six million have applied for the relief and sixteen million had already had relief approved. Coromeggressional Budget Office that it would cost
about four hundred billion over toward thirty years. However, the problem is is that the current case before the court involves a student named Mayra Brown, ineligible for debt relief because her loans are commercially held, and an additional student, his name is Alexander Taylor, who is eligible for just ten thousand, not the full twenty thousand, because he didn't receive a pelgan they grant. They say the Biden administration did not go through the proper process in enacting this plan.
A Texas judge actually ruled on behalf of the student's rule to block the program. He said that the Biden admin did not have clear authorization from Congress to implement the program. Now, this goes to what the Biden administration actually did. They use something called the Heroes Act. The Heroes Act was passed after September eleven, two thousand and one, which said that you were going to Initially, it was passed keep service members from being worse off financially when
they fought in wars in Afghanistan Iraq. Reasonable Now though, it allows the Secretary of Education to waive or modify the terms of student loans in connection with a national emergency. So this ties specifically to the COVID nineteen pandemic. Because the Biden administration in court is arguing we are still in the middle of a COVID national emergency. But the President has said rhetorically the pandemic is over. We have rescinded. As I understand the title forty two, what was happening
down at the border. We're using COVID as a pretext to expel migrants. We have a new effectively remain in Mexico policy that is in effect, so in many legal grounds ryan from eviction moratoriums to the border, the Biden adminstration is no longer trying to argue that COVID is a national emergency. But in a case of student loan relief,
they are saying it's a national emergency. And I saw the Secretary of Education this morning on television was asked, how can are you really saying that it's a national emergency in court and not a national emergency to the American people. He said, yes, that's what we were saying. I said, well, that's going to be interesting before the court. They also have an They also have an add on argument, which which I think is fair, which says that the
student loan crisis was badly exacerbated by the pandemic. So even if you stipulate, yes, that legally and actually the pandemic is over, let's just sipulate for the for the for the for the argument's sake, the crisis still happened because of that, and the law allows us to respond to a crisis that happened during UH during that time, and because of the pause, and because of the economic the pause and loan repays, and because of the economic
shock that came from the pandemic, so many people losing losing their jobs, that you could say that there are many people who desperately need this, and I think that's
actually true. I don't think that that's kind of playing games with stuff, because you have so many people who are now used to not making that three to six hundred dollars payment, which they kept extending and extending right twenty months, their balance if they had continued paying over the last three years would be substantially lower even though they got they got a pause on interest rates than
it is now. So now all of a sudden, if the court rules, you know, with these with these angry borrowers, you now are going to all of a sudden have to start paying this money now. I actually don't think they will. I think Biden would just keep indefinitely pausing it for everybody, which is hilarious, Like, wait a minute, so you can't cancel ten thousand, but you can extend it. You can basically cancel all of it forever. Okay, that's weird.
So I think that making that case that, look, this was a crisis created by the pandemic, should allow you to use the law around the pandemic. So that's if I were, and I've heard them make versions of that argument. We'll see. It's going to be this morning, right, so we'll see how that goes. Yeah, just a couple of hours from where we're actually not that far from. We're filming right now. And one of the things that the justices are expected to focus on a couple of things.
Number one is whether the States and the borrowers even have a right sue over the plan in the first place. This is called standing. If they don't, then they can just say, you don't have standing to sue for us before the Supreme Court, so ergo, the decision stands, and the plan can go ahead. The other thing that what they have to prove is that the States and the borrowers have to show that they are financially harmed by
the plan. I mean, on the borrowers part, that's not hard to imagine, but on the States parts that are joining the suit, that might be. And then otherwise they are also going to question exactly whether the Heroes Act even gives a Biden ad been the power to enact the plan. Now, look, a lot of this is partisan too, and I would say, based on from what I've people I've talked to, Kavanaugh is going to be one of
the swinger votes. And that's why because if we go back to the original eviction moratorium, the fiction moretorum was challenged before the Spree Court, Kavanaugh said, look, legally, I don't think you guys have standing or I don't think you guys have a foot to stand on. That said, from what I have looked at, we still have a COVID emergency. I don't want to kick people out of their homes. So I'm going to punt it to you, Congress,
you have sixty days to extend the eviction mortorium. The Biden administration doesn't do it, Congress doesn't do it, and then ends up before the stream Supreme Court again, and he's like, look, I told you you had sixty days. You don't have sixty days anymore. And this came all the way down to the National Emergency Declaration. So one of the reasons why I think it will be very important and likely it's very likely to get struck down at the court, possibly not even just sixty three, it
could even be seven to two. From what I understand is that national the student Loan one, this specifically is going to rest on the National Emergency Declaration and the ability to use the Heroes Act with COVID as a pretext. And you know, irony is Ryan is I understand it. They had a much easier way to cancel all this debt. Nobody asked them to go through the Heroes Act. There's no reason why they had to. It's probably the most
legally precarious out of all of them that they chose. Right, they could have used the Higher Education Act, which has some provisions that would that give the Education Department a lot more a lot more flexibility, which is what Trump used, you know, in the very early stages to pause this before they you know, enacted, you know, before they amended the Heroes legislation. So one possibility could be that the
Supreme Court could use the Higher Education Act to legalize it. Yes, like you don't have like you don't have to rely on the reasoning of the litigants in your ruling. You're the Supreme Court. You can stremely do whatever you wants. John Roberts showed that with the Affordable Care Act. Remember they said this is this is a mandate. Is, well, you can't do a mandate and robertsonill, actually it's not a mandate. His attacks and so he rewrote the reasoning
for the law to then legalize it constitutionally. And so they could do that. And so it'll be interesting to watch to see if the Solicitor General for the White House says, even if you don't believe any of this Hero's Act justification, but you want to protect this, should do you? Should? You know, here's another argument that you could use if you chose to. I also think the standing is interesting, but it's shot through with a lot of politics. It's hard to see how these students are
being harmed because they're paying. They're paying, no matter what, Like not being part of a program is definitely not harm like if and so it may be sad, Like you, I feel bad that you didn't qualify for this thing. That's unfortunate, but it doesn't make you worse off than
you currently are. I'm not sure, because the problem was is that there were all these suits and the one suit that I clearly people being harmed or who debt servicers, like the people who literally are payment collectors, they are materially being harmed. They actually could argue that, as I understand that that case didn't end up moving forward, they the challenger stuff this would be the best way to
strike the most sympathetic, not the most sympathic. Certainly. That said, as I from what I have heard, I could be completely wrong. Some of the court watchers I know they think this is a clean sweep at court and that this thing is going to be struck down. And the real reason that's a mess is if they've already distributed sixteen million dollars or sixteen million people relief, I don't
know how you claw that back. That's I think you're just positive that is an administrative nightmare to literally clawback people's relief after they've already given it out the door. Just get ready for some of the worst government stories of all time. Let's go to the second part here. You are very familiar with this, and I want you to set it up. So put it up there on the screen. The constitutionality of the CFPB, the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, is currently up before the court. So can you explain this to us for for the lay person, even I barely understand it. Ye. Has something to do with Congress and funding and an independent agent. Yeah. All the articles refer to this as Elizabeth Warren's baby, but I spent so much time covering it that it's actually good,
my god baby. Okay, So yeah, I covered this every day for a couple of years while Warren was pushing it through the House and the Senate in two thousand and nine and twenty ten, and the big, the huge fights were over how it would be constructed. And there were two key questions. One which has been litigated and they have successfully won, was would it be a commission where you get two Republicans, three Democrats, three demopras right like the FBC the FCC, or would would be a
single director. The Progressives fought for a single director because it's if you have a single director, it's going to be much tougher. The banks wanted a commission that they could then capture. Yep, because like they've done with all the other ones that they litigated that they lost. So now the other major fight was the funding stream. Republicans wanted it funded in an annual appropriations way. It's like a normal like the Department of Defense, right and right.
So that way, if the Republicans control or or if a bank bank friendly democrat controls the Financial you know, the Bank Banking Committee over the Senate, they can write to the CFPB and say, you know, we're not giving you funding until you change this rule, until you do this thing. And that is part of the process of corporate capture of our regulatory institutions. And so they came
up with this. They call it unique if it's exactly unique, but it kind of is this structure where the money is sent to the Federal Reserve for the Federal reserves operating expenses, and then the Federal Reserve can then funds the CFPB with no more than twelve percent of the Federal reserves operating but and their earnings or something that I don't really it's yeah, it's yeah. And now the argument for why it's constitutional is that the Congress approb
rates some money for the Federal Reserves operating budget. It appropriates the money for Social Security for Medicare, that doesn't do it in an annual way, and that the Fed could not produce from thin air this type of funding. But as long as it's authorized by statute by Congress, and if Congress doesn't like it, they can change it. And there have been efforts in the past by Republicans to when there's like a cr going through in the early days it's to change the structure of the way
that the CFPV is funded, and those those failed. But if you're Kavanaugh and you're going to be consistent, you should say, look, Congress, if you don't like this, why are you complaining to us about it. You wrote this law, you don't like it, go change the law. And Democrats are so sick of hearing that from the Supreme Court that was the Clean Air Act, Like you want to add carbon to this, go ahead and add carbon. Nothing's
stopping you. And so you could make the exact same argument to the to Republicans here saying, look, you don't like it, win some elections, change it. But as of now, the statute is very clear and Congress wrote the statute. It's not like the administrative state wrote this statute so that I think that's why only this one judge on the Fifth Circuit has ruled that this is that this is an unconstitutional funding structure. Like everybody like from the
I don't want to like middle right over. It's like like you have to be way way fifth Circuit. You have to be like a radical on the Fifth Circuit, where other Fifth Circuit Republicans are like, whoa, that guy's out. But that doesn't mean, though that it won't still get strung.
It doesn't. It doesn't. It seems like from the conventional wisdom seems to be that it'll be fine, okay, that they're going to screen because David Dan a little bit of this, and he says the conservative legal strategy to kneecap the administrative to state continues yesterday with the ruling that calls in the question the operation of the CFPB. If ultimate successful, the ruling would lead to significant collateral
damage that destroyers of consumer protection haven't throught through. The case found that the funding mechanism CFPB unconstitutional would throw all consumer financial markets into upheaval because it would potentially toss aside every agency and federal program that is not funded directly through discretionary congressional appropriation, threatening healthcare, retirement, security,
food and drug safety, all kinds of other actions. So what he's getting to is that the way that agencies are funded is different than the way that let's say, overall appropriations, discretionary spending is given out, and that by opening up discretionary spending to the political process, you could make it kind of like the IRS or any of
these other organizations. It is an interesting case, actually, he points out, like the OCC and the FDA and other places like that that are funded by industry, Like FDA is heavily funded by user fees. Great, which is not great either. Also also not unconstitutional. Yes, and he makes this He makes a funny point in his piece there banks,
be careful. What you work wish for. The administrative state that exists now is a place to not just to support support the American people and consumers, but also businesses. Oh of course, there's a bunch of like safe harbor protections that exist within the regulations that say to a bank, if you follow these laws or any type of lender, if you follow these laws, then you have safe harbor from lawsuits around these types of things, and banks are
well aware that Plaineffs attorneys are extremely powerful. Yes, so they like those legal they can play inside the game. And so if those legal protections go away, guess what, all of a sudden, now everybody's getting sued all over the place. It'll be fun. I don't know, I don't know which one I wish for on this one. Let's go to the next part here, Fox News, this is some interesting stuff happening. We can't help but take a look. Donald Trump attacking Fox News. Let's go ahead and put
this up there on the screen. As Fox News is promoting Ron Desanctus so hard and so much, there's not much time left for real news. Reminds me of twenty sixteen when they were pushing Jeb. The new Fox poll, which they have been purposely terrible for me, has Trump crushing d sanctimonious, but they barely show it. Instead, they go with losers like Carl Rove, Paul Ryan, and now even Yesper I'm trying to figure out who that was,
who have been wrong about everything. Isn't there a big, beautiful network which wants to do well and make a fortune besides fake news in all caps? So what is he talking about here? And ironically, you know, if you actually take a look at the pole that Trump is referencing, this poll is great for Trump. Let's put this up there to actually look at the pole that he's referencing. It has Trump at forty three percent in the Republican primary.
It has Ron DeSantis at twenty eight percent, Haley at seven, Pence at seven, Greg Abbott too, and Liz Cheney at two percent. So I'm pretty sure that that shows him with a dramatic lead, and not only a dramatic lead, Ryan, but it actually shows him increase his margin on Ron DeSantis from previously. So I'm not exactly sure what he's
upset about. I mean, it's certainly true, but Fox has been very kind to DeSantis, and I guess you know they've aired some you know, we actually aired the Jeb endorsement here on the show yesterday and it was frankly very bizarre because there was like music involved, and Brian Kilmeade was like, oh, Jeb, but like do you endorse Ron desanis like yes, sig Endors orchestral me. Yeah. I was watching, like what is happening. How is this possibly
on television? It's humiliating just for any politician, let Trump or DeSantis or whatever aside. But at the same time, like all of the Fox polling and to the extent they're even airing, you know, pro Desanti's stuff, there's still
a hell of a lot of Trump support on Fox News. So, I mean, it also tells me that given the fact that he hasn't addressed Nikki Ailey, he hasn't talked about Mike Pence, he doesn't talk about Vivie Robert, he doesn't care about anybody except for run saying Ron DeSantis, that's it. The irony is that for all trouble, Fox is getting dragged into court. Yeah, he's going to on his behalf. Might cost them a couple of billion dollars because they
were steadfast in support of his utter nonsense. True, And so it's it's funny that Trump can't see that these guys who are going through these depositions and they're like counting their cash balance or like they have like a something like a three billion dollar cash balance, and they're like wondering, is that going to cover what we did for this guy? Yes, he can't he can't imagine why they might be giving something less than perfectly favorable coverage
to him. It's like, dude, yeah, it's it's a little odd. But it also just gets to the dynamic where clearly he sees DeSantis as a threat. Now, I think DeSantis certainly is it there. I think he's the only actual threat that Trump has. But how much of a threat is he actually? And this, you know, it really hit home for me, where there's this idea that DeSantis would have a runway sweep if Trump wasn't in the race.
But put this up there. You know this, this is a new McLachlin Group poll of Republican voters primary voters, specifically without Trump, and it really still only has Desanta sid thirty five percent. It says Desantus thirty five, Trump Junior at ten, Pence seven, Hailey six, Candice Owens at four, Ted Cruz three, Romney three, Pompeo two, Tim Scott at two, Abbot at one, Rick Scott at one, kirsenome, etc. I can go on forever, But why does that matter? Because
you know thirty five percent? Now, Okay, Trump actually did win their GOP primary in twenty sixteen with that, but one of the arguments against him was, well, he's not a unifier. The majority of the people are still not against him. I found it fascinating that he was still only up to thirty five percent. I'm not saying they wouldn't win a primary then, but he's not as much of the unifying figure without Trump as people are letting on. Does that make sense, Yeah, because tell me if you
think this is right. But I think that this the hardcore Trump supporters who used to love Ron DeSantis when he was Trump's sidekick. Yes, now that he's a rival, like hate the guy. I wouldn't say they hate him. I think they. I think they appreciate him, but they're skeptical. They're like, hey, what are you doing. You're trying to upsave them, man, you know. And that's the other, you know, the big divide where DeSantis. A lot of the people
who love Ron DeSantis are new Republican voters. So we're talking about Cubans, a lot of Latinos, specifically Latino men in Florida, but a lot of hardcore traditional Republican people, small business Republicans who are going to vote Republican every single time on the ticket. They love Ron. You know, he's a traditional you know, the Mitt Romney voter loves Ron DeSantis. DeSantis's political genius is he's willing to bring in people who are new to the Republican Party and
hold down the traditional coalition. The Trump people really don't fit into any of that. Trump certainly did get some of these newer voters, but still less than I think than Desanta's. Trump's genius was Republican, traditional Republican, small business Republicans willing to hold their nose and vote for him. And then all these people that he never voted before, ever in modern American history, Santis as. I'm not sure
yet he's been able to compete on that. And a lot of those people now vote in the GOP primary and they vote for Trump. That's what I think the difference is, right, I think he has a hard time with those folks because he's not funny, Like it's it's all of the like Trump culture war stuff, but without kind of Trump's joking about, like I think you're right,
and a lot of people I think wrongly. But a lot of people, I think since kind of less hate coming from Trump's they didn't think he actually believed it they thought he's just saying it just true, just to go after people and be funny. DeSantis just kind of comes off as mean sometimes maybe Yeah, I don't know. I mean, he's still very successful. I would say. What I say is he doesn't have the same charisma close as I think that's a problem. Also, I didn't know this,
but Trump is not wrong. He is quite short. I didn't know it was only a five to seven, which that's the problem. But I'm not saying that it should matter, but it does matter. We haven't had a president. We haven't had a president in the modern era below six to one in like what fifty years or something, and maybe Moore. Actually, when I go back and think about if you ever met Trump, I guess I've had the privilege of seeing the last couple presidents. I believe w
is the shortest one I've seen eleven. Yeah, he's five leven. Clinton is huge, I mean he's not big hands. Obama also was taller than people. Again Trump, you know, I met Trump many times, and Trump is a big, big man. Joe Ford was like quarterback. Yeah, Ford was a big guy. Nixing was a scrining little dude. I guess you know Kennedy is, yeah, he really probably was the last one. Kennedy was. I believe he was tall, but you know,
obviously had some health problems, but he seemed vigorous. And again I think that aesthetically, that stuff absolutely does matter whenever you think about leader and what that should all fold into with the Trump primary and Trump knocking Fox. Here it all comes down to the question of what Fox is going to do, and that I don't see any reason to suspect, you know, for all Trump's talk
of twenty sixteen, what happened in twenty sixteen. Ted Cruz is on the record saying Roger Ayles sometime in twenty fifteen went all in for Trump, and I just could not get a fair hearing there. They were no longer treating me the way there was in the Tea Party era. And the reason why, if you go back and you read the history, Ales could read the ratings. You know, Ales had had Trump in a regular Fox and French spot since twenty eleven for just a phone in. Why
because he used to get very high ratings. Ales could see the spike in the ratings for Donald Trump, and that's why he decided to go all in for him at the network. Rupert Murdoch is in you know, some of these more recent he's in some of these more recent depositions saying, oh, we tried to destroy Trump. Listen, all Ruper cares about is money. He doesn't care, you know, he may find him personally distasteful. He liked Obama. That didn't stop him from hiring Glenn Beck because he's a
bill You know, these guys are multi billionaires. All they care about are the dollar signs at the networks, and that's all we've ever cared about, you know. But they did put that. Rupert did put that order in to like put a hit on him in that debate right where the Megan Kelly started it. And guess what, nothing
happened with that with that question. You've said all these terrible things about women, and Trump came back with a roso on Aline and yeah, and Rupert and Fox at that point like, oh, what what if we unleashed here that we can't actually put back on the leash? Right? Yeah, I don't know. I'm curious to see what happens, but I personally don't think that Trump has anything to worry about. Fox at the end of the day, is just going to fall in love. I mean, all of them do.
It's more audience capture than it is anything else. All right, next part here, this is a fun one, really thinking about Crystal. So we've covered the Brett favv. Pat McAfee case quite significantly here on breaking points. It actually predates obviously Pat McAfee what ended up. I'm actually personally disappointed at Brett Farv did not see us because we said exactly what Pat McFee did, which is Brett Favre allegedly
for his repulsive lawyer. Allegedly repulsive lawyer said in text messages that he did not want the press to find out that he allegedly was working with the Mississippi state officials to builk tens of millions of dollars to build new facilities for a volleyball team at the school that his daughter attended, using state allocated resources for poor single moms in one of the poorest states of the nation. That is an effect in terms of the allegations that
have been laid out. The Mississippi got buy some fairly credible evidence, not just I mean we're talking about straight up Texas messages. The Mississippi State auditor said, what this is the largest public welfare scandal in the history of the entire state of Mississippi. Brett Favre, of course, is worth tens of millions of dollars. McAfee and Shannon Sharp, when they were on the show covering it, said, allegedly, Pat played that clip. He said, look, I'll see you
in court, Pal. I'm sure that we said allegedly. Well, Farv is not backing down, he's continuing to humiliate himself. McAfee tweeted this out yesterday. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. He says, officially official, you got served with the meme and it shows a cover sheet civil case filing form. Now it says short style of CASEV versus McAfee in the circuit court, party filing and initial pleading was the attorney check if not an attorney.
And it shows you that the official legal filing is now commencing. More so is the absolutely insane rhetoric that is coming from the Farv lawyers. So let's put this up there. I mean, this is unbelievable. Brett Farv's lawyer says Pat McAfee quote, will go bankrupt. I'm sure he will with his deal with these sports betting companies, and quote will learn his lesson after the defamation lawsuit. So
here's what he had to say. The McAfee, you know, of course, says that he said allegedly whenever he was discussing the case. That lawyer Eric Hirshman says otherwise, he says, quote, when you listen to Pat McAfee, he never read any of the complaints. He didn't read the motion to dismiss. He just decided to get on a show and try to get as much attention as he could, he accuses Brett. So we're clear about stealing from the poor in Misissippi.
I mean yeah, he did accuse that based upon the documents that were the text messages and other public officials. So then he says that he is going to be bankrupt. It is going to cost Pat McAfee millions of dollars if it bankrupts. In he will learn his lesson. You don't try to promote yourself by inappropriately and improperly attacking someone else. This drives me crazy because this is pure straight up intimidation. Brett. First of all, I bet you
Pat McFee has more money than Brett Farber. I'm just gonna go ahead and lay that out given how big a show is. But second, Brett Farber is a public official. You and I Ryan know this, as in this game, Brett Farab has to prove not only that Pat McAfee did not say or may not have said allegedly, he has to say that McAfee in his mind knew at the time that what he was saying was wrong and oft tempting to defame Brett Farbe's character intentionally with the
words that he had used. You can actually say something mistakenly and still not be liable for defamation when you're talking about a public figure, because we have a very high bar in this country, as we should that when you're discussing people of immense wealth and power like Brett Farvre, who apparently allegedly has enough control over the State of Mississippi to misuse funds for laid out for poor people, that reporters and journalists and commentators people like ourselves are
able to discuss this case with zero fear of but hurt multi millionaires trying to sue you and intimidate you before the eyes of the public. And the other thing that McFee has going for him is that this stuff is laid out in those court doking yes. So that yeah, that's that is bulletproof, and defamation law is a huge protection because you're like, look, I'm not saying it. Yeah he said it, yes, State Attorney General set in General said,
and I'm referring to that, right. And the second, maybe actually the seventh, big problem that Farv is going to have is he has to also prove let's even if he could all of those other things we just laid out, which I don't think I can prove any of them, he would also have to prove that he was harmed
specifically by McAfee's claims. And if the New York Times and everybody else and every poster on Twitter is saying the same thing, then how do you prove to a jury that this guy's comments are actually the thing that caused you. And it can't just be emotional distress. You can't say I really hurt my feelings the mean tweets and the mean podcast. You have to actually demonstrate real
material harm that came to you. Were you not able to get future jobs because of what McAfee said, Did you lose access what happened to you because of what McAfee said, And McAfee can very easily go back and say it was the Attorney General's documents that have caused you all of this harm, and underneath that it was your alleged behavior. Just to get to this is that he's also suing the auditor. I mean, good, luckily, Yeah, you're gonna assue the order, the guy who uncovered this
entire scheme. The funny thing is he's not even facing criminal charges and allegedly, you know, if some law enforcement allegedly person were to look into that, I don't know. It seems like a pretty standard case to me, and one where you may want to make it an example of multi millionaires allegedly bilking the system. And that's the real issue that I have with this entire thing is that you have people in power. I face this. I'm sure you have to. I'm gonna assue you. I'm gonnasue you.
It's like, oh, yeah, I got I just got one this weekend. Yeah yeah good? And you know why that we are able to report and talk in confidence. I know the law is on my side, and I also know what I don't know if Brett Farv knows is by the way, if Pat McAfee rides this thing all the way through which he has said that he will, he's gonna force far to pay his legal fees. The most likely scenario is that is that mac is that Farve hast to drop the case and recoup all of
his legal fees. So personally, that is the outcome that I'm wishing for. Yeah, yeah, I think right, Because go in front of a jury and explain the entire scheme that was laid out in these court documents. I defend that, then you forget it, like what are you doing? Yeah?
And the funny thing is is he's accusing McAfee and the auditor of shamelessly false and attacking Farv's good name to gain attention for himself, including appearances on television shows like CNN, HBO, as well as interviews for print and online media. So the allegation here is that Pat McFee, one of the most famous sports podcasters and presenters in the United States who is also on WWE, needs to talk about Brett Farvre for publicity. Is that the allegation,
by the way, I actually went back and checked. And this is the funny part. The original clip of McFee talking about this had like a couple hundred thousand views after he sued him, which is good. But you know, for mac he's a megastar, right, he's massive. He doesn't need Brett Farv to the clip of him saying bring it on Powell, that's over one point five million, so
he actually got more attention. This is pure strides. In effect, Farv is drawing more attention to the case than originally by suing him and putting it in the minds of people. And this is just a classic case of these people they think they're untouchable gods. That's really what came through the alleged text messages. Oppresses going to find out about this, right, yeah, look, he thinks he runs a state of Mississippi because he was good at playing football. Sorry, Powell, apparently you know
this is America. It actually is a little bit different. And we in the fourth of State could use a w in defamation court, especially after Golfer got wiped out like that. I'm not sure, I know, I know, but that's that's the thing, Like every time somebody gets crushed, even if it was justifiable, it's blood in the defamation waters, and people like Farv think that, well, maybe I have
a better shot of like winning in court. So every time you catch a w in court, it pushes back and builds more cultural support for the for the for a free press, and for the First Amendment. So I hope, I hope McAfee fights this one all the way and wins in a plight way. Screw around and find out, Brett, You're gonna have fun in court and I am gonna. I am going to laugh whenever he ends up having to recoup McAfee's legal filings. And you know, all credit
to Pat. Congratulations to you, sir. I'm admiring. I admire your standstill in this or you're the way that you've carried yourself in all this, because I know it's scary, you know for people like us. So we cover politics, we're used to it. You know, people threaten us all the time. Oh I'm gonna sue you like no, you're not. And even if you do, good luck. All right, I got good lawyers just like you do, and we'll fight
this thing all the way through. But people who work in sports and elsewhere, they're not used to this level of public pressure. So I think people should really give him credit for standing tall on this. He's absolutely right into a damn thing wrong. And we are really going to enjoy carrying this all the way to the forward, and we'll continue covering it here and giving Pat all the support that he needs, not that he necessarily needs us, but I'd like to give him the sport regardless. Let's
go to the next part here. Nina Turner absolutely stunning people on CNN in a crazy turn of events where she speaks against the joy behars of the world and others who are blaming the residents of East Palestine, Ohio for voting for Trump and just talking with disgust at the way that they've been treated in the media, drawing connections between the white working poor, black working poor, and all really poor people in America who are neglected by infrastructure,
by our broader society and left behind. She spoke so eloquently, let's take a listen to that the state administration is not doing enough. I'm not pleased with Governor Mike Dwine who actually drunk some of the water, giving people confidence that that water is okay, when in fact that EPA didn't do the deepest dye that they can do to deal with the carcinogens that are there air the water.
For the neoliberals who say that the residents of that area deserve what they are getting because they voted for President Donald J. Trump is abhorrent. This is about poverty. This is about poor working class white people who are enduring some of the same things that poor working class black people and do it whether it's Flint, Cleveland or Jackson, Mississippi. And so I want to lay it down the cultest
behavior in politics right now. It is a sin and a shame that when people are suffering to this magnitude, you got people who will fix their miles. To quote my grandmother to say that they are getting what they deserve. What they deserve is clean air, clean food, clean water. They deserve relief, both in the short term and also in the long term. Story really well said, and Crystal found this. You can't even make this shit up. Ryan
put this up there on the screen. So during a panel where they were talking about the railroad and East Palestine, they have a commentator who lobbied for Norfolk Southern and they did not tell its audience at any point during this discussion that lobbyist David Urban. And you know this guy, he's one of them. What does he supposedly the pro Trump guy or whatever, of course, know of CNN political commentator who's supposedly pro Trump apparently is taking money from
Norfolk Southern Railroad. All right, well, what do they say here? He and his firm collected at least one point one four million dollars for lobbying on quote, transportation issues related to railways. Now what issues ran? Exactly where they are lobbying the government on the ones that led to this exact derailment which has now poisoned these people in East Palestine. Right, And her fundamental point is so well said that your dignity as a human being should not depend on how
you vote for. But her other point is also even better said, which is that this is about power. And even if you want to say that, oh, they voted the wrong way and if they'd voted a different way than they wouldn't have gotten what they deserve, the David Urban example is perfect because that's CNN. Yes, yes, So if you are with the network that is more associated with ango Democrats, then you you don't deserve, according to
that logic, to be drinking. You know chemical stained water, Yet you're supportive of a corporate news network aligned with the Democratic Party that employs a rail lobbyist, that's it, without disclosing it, who worked with both administrations Trump and Obama to roll back safety regulations. So who are you
supposed to support not to get clean water? If you can't support the Democratic Party, if you can't support the Public Party, then it sounds like the idea would be, well, just because you participate somehow in our society, that you deserve then to suffer the consequences of doing that. And the paywall section of christmal monologue. I made this point yesterday. I'm like, Okay, let's say that you think that's true.
I'm like, you think that by saying you dirty people who voted for Trump you got what you deserve, you think they're going to change their minds. So like, first of all, effective, let's start with that number two. It's obviously, you know, morally abhorrent, but politically it's also very dumb.
Here's my favorite part about what Urban said on TV when discussing the crisis quote, there's plenty of blame to go around on this, on these kinds, with these kinds of things happen, But what's important is we do move forward right to take care of people in these towns and communities. He then went on to criticize the Biden administration for allegedly sloughing off the crisis. So plenty of are blame to go around. Let's not point fingers. You participated.
And look, this gets to the problem of these guests as well. You think that guy doesn't tell all of his clients that he's a regular commentator on This is the dream scenario for a company. You get a guy who's a regular seat and a commentator, You pay him, and then your time in the sum comes, your time in the barrel. And what does he do. He's catching bullets for you. He's pushing it away. This look CNN for all of the you know stuff we talk about
at low ratings and all that. The point is that the few people who do watch them, they still matter. They have a lot of cultural power. So his ability, you deflect on a flagship CNN show like this without a single disclosure, is outrageous. Now, look, let's give him credit where it's due. They did invite Nina Turner. I'm glad that they certainly did. They allowed her to speak in that but that exactly shows you, you know, the two sides of the devil. And then how often are
how often really is Nina on that show? And how much more often is the urban Unfortunately, I've had to watch a lot of CNN my day for my job. I've been seeing this guy on TV for the last six years. He's one of those Trump checkboxes, like, oh, we got this guy who speaks for Trump, right, he's right here, and then that guy's cashing in all the way to the bank. And I just love the framing of let's not worry so much about what happened. Yes, let's just yes, let's just look forward to remember Obama
has had that line about torture. Let's look forward, not backward. That's right. Well, it's like, Nikki, how does that work out? How does that work out? If you don't try to figure out what just happened, yet you're going to make sure in the future it doesn't happen. The rail lobbyist saying let's not point fingers is just so perfect. It really is just not It's like the firm one point
four million in low being fees. He was literally president of the lobbying firm which we're receiving these the money at the time and even right now is the head of quote BGR Group, a lobbying firm that represent is the death Star. He goes countless conflicts of interest for
his on air work. In his most recent lobbying quarter, they have continued to lobby on transportation issues, and it says, quote, our clients in the aviation, automative, rail shipping, and mass transit industries rely on BGR to educate public leaders about how vital these industries are to domestic and international commerce.
BGR A big con job, yeah, BGR. Yeah. They made their name by being willing to take the like all the different dictators and like politically toxic clients that even other lobbying firms were like, ooh, that's a pretty sweet retainer, but it's gonna hurt us with our other clients, gonna hurt us with our access. We're not gonna do it. And BGR was like, we'll take you, we got we got you. There you go. You're absolutely And CNN's like, cool, sounds good, You're good for three twenty we're talking the
rail does that, let's do it. Anything we should know yeah, okay, not at all. We're good. Yes. Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is how bad Pete Buddha Judge is at his job. And while we've covered the specific ins and outs of failures on East Palestine, on the airline crisis, on railroad, and so much more, an important point that I've really come around to is this isn't just about Buddha Jedge specifically, It's about the system which
elevated him, how much it represents our dystopian future. Buddha Jedge, along with several other Biden appointees, are a view into our affirmative action determined future, one where the identity of the individual is the only metric of which is considered for elevation, and one word, job performance is not only secondary, but which barely figures in the place of high importance.
I was really struck by this last week at the White House Press briefing, where White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre got multiple questions about Secretary Buddha Judge and the President's lack of response to East Palestine in the middle she had to throw in this, let's take a listen. I want to take the opportunity to lay out how diverse the President's cabinet has been, how diverse the president's administration has been. The cabinet is majority people of color
for the first time in history. The cabinet is a majority female for the first time in history. A majority of White House senior staff identify as female, forty percent of White House senior staff identify as part of the racially diverse communities, and a record seven assistants to the President's are openly LGBTQ plus. So again, this is something that the President prides himself on that he actually has
taken action to show the diversity of this administration. That, more than anything, is the ruling ideology of the Biden administration. They are considered people for their most senior appointments. How about answer this question, how many of them went to East Palestine before the day of that briefing? Answer zero.
That's the only answer that should matter. But what we've learned now through the last two years is one that matters probably the least, and it's a problem that has been at the heart of the Buddha Judge and competence story. The Secretary of Transportation is gay. Did you know that How could you not when the airlines were melting down and they were busting railway unions warning about the disaster to come on Norfolk Southern, Where was buddhaj Edge. He
was on CNN pushing for the gay marriage bill. All of us know he cares more about that than actually doing his job, and apparently that's all the President expects of him after doing him a favor and appointing to the position. This problem pervades all of government right now, even the person at the altar, Karine Jean Pierre. She is so terrible at her job that when it matters
matters of national security, you have to be discussed. They forced Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby to come over from the Pentagon and deliver the talking points because they don't want her to screw up anything important when it comes to Ukraine. He had never had to do that when Jensaki was the Press secretary. I will also tell you this from my New Year's as a White House correspondent.
The only time the Press secretary ever relinquishes the White House podium is to a senior government policy official who is supposed to answer detailed qui questions about policy. Never to a more junior press secretary. The White House Press secretary is supposed to be the premier US government spokesperson, but they can't fire her even though anyone with eyes knows she's terrible, because all Biden and apparently the media talk about is how she's the first black, gay woman
to be the press secretary. That's great, but performance apparently doesn't matter. Or take our own Vice President Kamala Harris. Literally, all of us know that she was not picked because of her ability to do the job. She's the worst performing candidate in the twenty twenty Democratic primary, often losing to people like Andrew Yang in her own home state polls.
She was picked because she checked diversity box. Apparently doesn't matter that she holds one of the lowest approval ratings for a vice president in modern American history, despite having zero responsibility. Why am I harping on this? Because affirmative action is quickly becoming the religion of the elite in this country. We are only likely to have more Secretary Buddha Judges, vice President Harris's, and Press Secretary Jean Pierre's
as the years go on. In his first months in office, Biden signed an Executive Order on quote Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Accessibility in the Federal Workforce. The order quote establishes, it is the policy of the administration to cultivate a workforce that draws from the full diversity of the nation. So how does it do that Well? It creates an affirmative action regime that we have at major corporations and creates them in every department of government, including effective hiring
quotas throughout the entire federal government. Just days ago, the Biden administration released the first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion report from the federal government, with an increase in quote representation for women and some communities of color. The report effectively shows that racial hiring quotas and identity based ones like
sexual orientation are the new signifiers of status for government employment. Worse, a new director of the Office of Personnel Management says that the goal of the Biden administration is to have the federal government set affirmative action standards for every employer in the nation. Why is this bad? Government is already the largest employer in the whole country. They are trying to spread this poison to the HR department of every large,
mid and small corporation in the world. The consequences of ditching merit almost entirely cannot be overstated. Already, top law schools medic schools in the country are coordinated scheme to de emphasize objective merit criteria like GPA, LSAT, MCAT and
other test scores to preserve a racial admissions regime. They are literally going to rig the system, burn hundreds of years of academic credibility that they have built up just to ensure their idealized racial makeup of their student body, and that by definition, determines the higher elite of this country.
As I have asked in previous monologues, can you actually have confidence that your doctor knows what the hell they are doing in ten years, or that your lawyer you need to see said doctor knows what they're doing either, Or how about your president or your secretary of transportation, or your boss or your list goes on forever. I like to think at a certain point a system this week will fail. Maybe that's true, but how many people are going to miss out on opportunities or suffer under
bad leadership until the fix actually comes? Only time will tell. Curious what your take on this, Ryan I know, Crystal's very against Ryan. You're taking a look at something. What is it? Yeah, So over the weekend I was reading a book that's coming out in May called Plunder, if we can put that up in it, And I've been covering yeah, and you have two private equity for years, and I'm glad somebody is doing a real full treatment
on this. And so I wanted to do something a little different here and have a little fun with some monopoly money because because what I realized is that I think a lot of people don't quite understand the scam that is private equity and the fact that it only exists because our laws allow it to exist, and therefore we can rewrite those laws so we can shovel it
in a more productive right. It didn't exist in the nineteen seventies, for exam, Right in nineteen eighties you saw the actually on her first under Carter and then Reagan, you saw the advent of what were then called corporate raiders and which helped produce the SNL crisis. And they
then changed their name basically to private Equity. There now, if you notice they're changing their name again now they're like just investment firms and like they're even trying like that, And that's how you know something is deeply toxicvisory right they when they have to keep changing their name, That's that's how you know something is wrong. And when you keep seeing kind of financial crises associated with them, that's
probably also a bad sign. So let's pretend that you're you're a retailer, and we can do you know, let's let's call you shop COO in honor of Emily, because this is a this was a huge kind of institution.
We can put up this second one here, a huge institution in like Wisconsin and also the Midwest, like shopco was, you know, for decades the thing, and they were a real pioneer in bringing in drug stores and other retail and like I think I think they were the first that ever a scanner like So this was this is not like somebody that got you know, washed over by like the Amazon wave. This was a this is a
serious company. So they got hundreds of stores. So a private equity come come, private equity company comes in, and they say, look, they ended up buying it for a billion dollars, but they put up let's say about twenty of their own dollars. Then they go out and they go to pension funds. They get another two hundred billion dollars there, So how do they buy it for a billion dollars? They go to you, they're like, we want
we want you to take out a loan. So you're going to take out basically an eight hundred million dollar So I take out the loan loan, right, so you're you're taking out that loan. So now they're using all of these they're using your business as collateral. But your that's not your money. Yes, so you have to give
that to the owners of Shopco. But you in order to kind of bribe you, I get to keep on you're the old Yeah, you're the old executives, because why would executive sign off on this terrible deal because they get to walk They get to walk away with that money. I get the payout, all right, So so this money's gone all right, Now I want a little bit of dividend for all the hard work that I did, right yep. But you don't have any money and you're and you're
highly leveraged. Yes, tell you what, We're going to make you a two hundred million dollar loan. Huh. That is also on top of on top of your assets here, right, So we're going to leverage you a little bit higher. Okay, but hand that back to me. Okay. Now, this is it's a form of a dividend. It's a form of a because these are profits. Yes, we ran a business. Yeah, congratulations to us. We made a profit. So we started with twenty Yeah we're in the back. Yeah, we're already
looking good. And we'll give we'll give maybe one hundred of this to the pension pension, right, they get on there. So the private equifirm itself has already has already, so they just made a profit. They've already already made a profit. Okay. Now I have all this debt, yes, and so so that's that's a problem. So how are you going to pay off this debt? There are two ways we can make more money, where we can fire people and reduced expenses.
There's actually a third way that private equity has figured out, which is you actually own because you're a smart business, you actually own all of these stores. Oh real estate. Okay, you own the real estate under there. So what we'd like you to do and actually we're just going to force you to do it, So you'd like you to sell all of all of those properties and then you they call it a lease back, then you're gonna lease it back. And so they ended up selling this one's ripped.
They ended up selling all of their store, like the property underneath it, for eight hundred million dollars a lot of money. Right. Yeah, Hey, because you own a lot of property, can I have that back? Now you have it back? Yeah, I appreciate that. Okay, thank you very much. Yes, Now you have rent before in hard times because you owned your property, never had rent. You didn't you didn't
have rent, and you could actually borrow. Yeah, you could borrow against the equity cut to cover the hard times. In the good times, you're paying down. So now you don't have that. Now you also have your you're most of your operating income. It's now going to pay for the loans. Yes, right, that pay the uh to pay the interest. Yeah, we've that, we've that we've slapped on
top of you. Also, I forgot to mention because of because we helped with these transactions, this loan that you took out, we're taking a fee for that, right of course. And actually actually on shop Co was a it was a million dollars a quarter just for the management fees. So we'll take this, but then we also took a few points for every little transaction we did. Course, also we'd like you to merge with some of these other shopping uh retailers. Seems reasonable that we have, and so
we're going to do that merger. And so we're going to take a fee for that roll up and they take a fee up we're gon we're gonna take we're gonna take some more fees fees for that. And as as you said, now, uh, things are not as good. Uh, we've kind of cut back on quality. Uh, and the revenue is not coming in like it was, and so much revenue is going to pay off your loans. We're gonna have to do some layoffs, it happens, so we're gonna have to take a little bit more. We're gonna
take a little bit more out of that. Now things things are really not going well at all. Things are looking good for you. Oh yeah, no, no no, don't worry about that. Yeah, yes, but for over here, things are not going very well. So we're gonna try to put it up for sale, see if we can sell to anybody. And so in a lot of situations they will be able to find somebody to buy it at cost or whatever, so they can just pocket the rest of this. In this case, nobody wanted to buy it, so they just
liquidated it. So you still had two things. You've got all of the assets left that you haven't sold, and you have a pension fund. And so first we're going to sell off the assets. Appreciate it more, Yeah, appreciate that. And now you have a pension fund. So we're going to push the company into bankruptcy, and the bankruptcy goes to the federal the federal government's kind of bankruptcy protection firm. And so you'll still get paid about sixty to seventy
percent of your pension. Well not me, I already got my paycheck, but that's true. The workers. Yeah, you're good. You're good, and we hired you as a consultant. It's cool. I appreciate all your advice. You helped us with some
of these mergers. So here for your trouble. Take another, take another, take another bit of that, and then we liquidate the entire thing, and we take the pension fund and we use that to pay off our own pension funds or whatever other creditors we have and then let the federal government take care of step In and take the rest. And so in the shop cocase they bought it in like two thousand and five, it was bankrupt by twenty nineteen. So in fourteen years, the firm which
is Marked Letters Firm. Actually that's if you remember the forty seven percent video of course, yeah, that was that Mark Letters house out I remember. So over that fourteen year period they made just an apps extraordinary amount of money, destroying a Wisconsin perfect institution. And so right, so we have set up a system that incentivizes destruction. And I think everyone across the political spectrum believes that we ought
to have a capitalist system. That if you believe in a capitalist system, they got to have a capitalist system that incentivizes production, production, development, building something good. And there are lots of easy fixes that you go in and say, because the other reason that they sell a lot of these properties is that because they have reduced investments, they've
laid off so many people. Now they end up becoming liable for a lot of things that are going on at these stores or at nursing homes or addiction facilities. The statistics show that people die in private equity owned nursing facilities at a much higher rate than they do beforehand. And so then a family wants to sue and guess what, A, you don't own the property, that's right, yeah, And b that one little facility is often owned by just an LLC.
So you think it's a chain, but it's not. Actually there's separate show not actually channymore so you can so as they left, what you do with some of that money is you take one of those measly tens and you donate it to a lawmaker. Here's for the Democrats, right,
here's for the Republicans. So that in the middle of let's say a build back Better Plan or what was the Inflation Reduction Act that a senator from Arizona, here's an internship for Kierson Cinema who interned at a private equity, private equity owned winery, and then she voted specifically with the Republicans of that time to keep a tax loop right for the private equity industry, which protects all those profits right over there, so they pay less of a
tax rate than a small business like let's say breaking Points, or an individual like let's say how many was watching the show and that's how corrupt it is. We didn't even get to the tax treatment of their income because they're making all this money even if they were paid regular, even if they're paying regular, take billionaires, they'd be still pulling it in. But right, they do this two and twenty thing where they they say that all of this money they made, all of this money, they say that
this was investment income. But if you remember from the beginning, it put this so much down, right, So that's like me saying, like I bought I bought a jacket to work here at breaking points, and therefore all the money that I makes an investment, Like, no, I should do that sounds like let's try that. It sounds like, yeah, I'm gonna tell the accounts. They'll lock us up. They won't, they won't lock them up for it. That's right. Yeah, we would go to tail. We tried. So this is
it's obviously not investment income they're doing. They're doing work like they're doing there, they're doing financial advice and financial transactions. These are not investments. And so they eat so that twenty percent that they take off the top like that obviously should not. You know, they even then their management fee they do this bizarre thing where they call it they say, we're actually not going to take a fee, We're going to waive our fee, but where then we're
going to get twenty two percent of our money. And they structure it so they're always going to get their two percent fee. But then they call their two percent fee an investment income rather than a management fee. Like even more corrupt. But that's what's so many. It's just a little two percent, like they did all of this, but they're even going to squeeze that louts. They'll squeeze every every single cent little. That is how they became billionaires.
So I've talked about this before. The Forbes four hundred lists the new billionaires. The easiest way to become a new billionaire in the United States today is not to create a Tesla, is not to create an Amazon. It's not to create a business that, let's say you're making masks in the United States. It's to do exactly what you're talking about here. The vast majority of the new
billionaires in the United States are financial billionaires. They are not people who have created value or really created a company industry at all. So it's you know, if anything, it distorts it to look at the Elons and the Bezos. It's like, I wish everybody got rich that way. They don't. Yeah, and over something like the last ten years, like more than a million something two million retail jobs lost in private equity owned retail operations, yet the sector as a
whole has like added more than a million jobs. So private equity will tell you, well, it's all Amazon. Yeah, there's no brick and mortar. Yes, there's a lot of Amazon influence. But the job losses are coming purposefully through destruction, and the rest of the retail industry is actually still adding jobs because they're not trying to destroy the company and liquidate it. Yeah. Well, smart stuff. This is actually very educational. I think people will enjoy it. So it
was a good segment. And congratulations, thank you sir. I appreciate that very much. Thank you very much so much, just sitting in for Crystal. You did a great job. I think everybody will agree, and we will see you. Oh, you guys are gonna have counterpoints tomorrow, so look out for more Ryan and Emily tomorrow. Crystal be back on Thursday, so we'll see you guys. Then have a great weekend. Everybody,