3/1/23 CounterPoints: SCOTUS Set to Kill Biden Student Debt Plan, Biden Pushes ESG World Bank, SF Debates Reparations, DeSantis Memo on Protests, Dilbert Creator Cancelled, Biden on Cartels, NSA Spying on US Congressman, Phil Wegmann on Gain of Function

Breakingpoints dot com. Hey everyone, welcome to Counterpoints. Ryan is back from his fish excursion down south. How are you doing? Ryan? Wonderful? I made it back. All's well, it was great and you're hanging out with Sager and he can probably still smell the smell the weed on you. Yeah, Saga would have had a great time. By the end. We have totally turned him out. We have an absolutely packed show today because of breaking news last night. Lori Lightfoot has

lost in the Chicago mayor's race. It's not going to a runoff. Going to talk about huge new reporting from the Intercept that just dropped, I believe. At six am we're going to talk about student debt. We're going to talk about changes at the World Bank reparations in San Francisco as they try to take care of that. We're talking about Ron DeSantis, We're talking about Dilbert, We're talking

about seven oh two and the border crisis. And White House reporter Philip Wegman from Real Core Politics, we'll be with us to talk about new revelations on this administration's approach towards gain a function research. Just huge news across the board this week. Ryan, Let's start with Ken's story in the Intercept just dropped. Tell us what Ken reported. If we can put that tear sheet up there. Basically,

I'll just read from the top. Ken reports the US military allocated spending for secret contingency operations pertaining to an Iran war plan. According to a classified Pentagon budget manual listing emergency and special programs reviewed by The Intercept, the contingency plan, code named Support Century, was funded in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, according to the manual, which was

produced for the twenty nineteen fiscal years. So Support century is it is a budget line which proves that at that time the Pentagon, which would be the Trump administration at the time, had decided that they needed to kind of ramp up their war planning for potential conflict with Iran, which Ken put in the context of the later move to put Israel in centcom, which Israel used to be in the kind of European considered in the European theater of war, and it was when it was moved into

sent com it became more central to the US war plans around the Middle East. And so right at January twenty twenty, kind of following this, you have Costum Solomani get assassinated by the Trump administration, which ratchets up tensions in a way that people worried would lead to a hot, if short war. It did not. Then after November twenty twenty, there were again tons of reports and now reporting in hindsight that we were extremely close to a strike on

Iran at that point. Now with the Biden administration, this is all continue to pace. As you have Iran supporting the Russia's war against Ukraine. You also have Israel getting

increasingly hawkish if you can believe that, towards Iran. And for the first time, and Ken talked about this in his story, for the first time, you have the United States saying essentially that if Israel does decide to do something offensive against Iran, then that's Israel's call, where in the past the US would say, you know, we encourage restraint. Where So all of these pieces are coming together to suggest that we're much closer to a hot war with

Iran than people might realize. And you know, actually it goes pretty well with something Walter Russell Mead wrote in The Wall Street Journal just this week where he said, also that we are closer to war in the Middle East than most observers probably realize. And then and that the political establishment here in Washington is at least willing to admit if they don't kind of understand it or

talk about it behind closed doors. One question I have is about the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration. So as the Biden administration takes over, what did Ken report about how they picked up where the Trump administration left off. I mean, essentially have kept it moving like that. And that's one of the concerns when it comes to foreign policy and aggressive executive action globally

is that it ratchets only one direction. And now the one exception that I can think of what might be the Biden administration's draw down of the drone war. That was like, you know, ramped up under you know, gun under Bush, really ramped up under Obama, accelerated under Trump, but then without much discussion and without much media commentary, kind of really rolled back. Yeah, it's basically not been used.

You hear Kate once in a while about a drone strike in Somalia or somewhere else like, but it's every couple of months. Whereas you know, they were they were, there were drone strikes flying constantly during the Trump administrations. But otherwise, you know, once once you heat up, it just gets moving. And uh, I was, I was thinking about the interesting parallels to kind of the Russian people and the Russian and Russian politics and the Russian invasion

of Ukraine. Because as the world watched Russia, you know, massing one hundred thousand plus troops on the Ukrainian border and then launched an actual evasion, invasion, and then watched the Russian people support that invasion, the world was just stunned, like, what, like,

what is going on here? But if you think about the fact that the Russian people had been hit with propaganda, you know, for years about the narrative wells over in Ukraine, just constant demonization of Ukrainians, that Ukrainians were terrorists, that they were that they were that they were in league with the United States, that they were fueling all kinds of instability in the in the Domebos, that that was actually, you know, Ukraine's fault, that they basically want death to

Russia because of some of the laws that Ukraine would pass about the Russian language or rights for rights for Russians. And so once it, once it ratcheted up to war, the Russian public it's like, we're behind this. And so you could imagine a case where the United States would it would launch an assault on Iran, and the entire world like what are you doing? Like why are you?

Why are you attacking a sovereign country, and you could see the American people support it, and I think because the American people have been fed a lot of similar propaganda, but all of it also rooted in kernels of truth. None of it's completely untrue, it's just how it's spun

and whips through the public imagination. And just my big picture thought on this is it's amazing how a custom we've become to doing this kind of extreme war mongering behind closed doors basically in the last century of American politics. That we're learning about this from Ken's report, and this had never been reported before, right, we really had no idea, let alone, was their public input via congressional action anything

like that. Nope, nope, right now I would expect Congress to be asking some questions about this now that now that this is public, I think, so let's move on to Chicago. Lori Lightfoot stunned. I think a lot of political observers by not even making the runoff last night Chicago mayoral election. In fact, Laurie Lightfoot came in third, which is pretty brutal for somebody who swept in I went back and actually looked at the coverage after she

won election. It was a lot of press gushing about the first black, female, openly gay Chicago mayor ever to be elected. Had so many problems during the pandemic, and then associated problems potentially associated problems with crime. Although some crime is associated with some associated with crime for sure, although some continues to go up, some crime is down. Homicides for instance, were down last year, but some sorry Carl Jackins, are down. Still a huge problem in Chicago.

But down right, but theft, robberies, burglery is still increasing in Chicago, and she had so many different fights. Just the style of Chicago politics, Lauria Lightfoot was getting into all kinds of she had initially. There's another interesting thing that I was reading in some retrospectives on her time

in the mayor's office. She had been. She had a great quote about how she was offended when somebody compared her to Rama Manuel back in the day, and then when she became mayor, was just as pugnacious, but perhaps not with the same rhyme or reason that Votanuel or other Chicago politicians were, and just seemed to be picking fights almost arbitralli left and right. You might remember the really long Chicago Teachers' union strike. Laurie Lightfoot, by the way,

came out of a background. She hadn't been an elected office before. She had experienced on the police board. Her opponent who won, actually who came in first, let alone second. The first place opponent of hers was endorsed by the

local police union. So, I mean, you have a good take on this, and I'm curious to hear it, But just what a fall from grace right, and so this is going to set up a general election that pitts a guy Paul Vallis has a support of the police and has called himself more a Republican than a Democrat, though he's technically registered as a Democrats basically as right wing as you can get in Chicago and still be considered viable against what arguably would be the most progressive

mayor of Chicago's ever had, perhaps going back to Harold Washington, which is an eerily similar situation in which there was a divided field that allowed Harold Washington, who was a DSA member and a powerful member of Congress, to sneak through with less than fifty percent of the vote, make it into the runoff, and then the Democratic machine and my book actually kind of starts out, my last book

actually starts out kind of with this race. The Democratic machine sides with the Republican, who in this case was an actual Republican, not just a sort of Republican. And he only ended up winning by a couple thousand votes, but he did win. And so the question then becomes, uh, you know, who do this? Where do the Centrists go? Wea we faced this question in Los Angeles with the Caruso versus Karen Bass race. Karen Bass is not quite as progressive as Brandon Johnson. Brandon Johnson kind of up

and down movement. Progressive comes from comes from a classroom. Uh, it comes from the kind of United Working Families, which is a WFP kind of branch out in Chicago, with the support of DSA out in Chicago, which is an which is an undertold story. Just like DSA has had and WFPF had a ton of success in New York City, they've had probably even more success in organizing constituencies in Chicago, and this is a direct product of that organizing work. And so the question will be do the Centrist go

with the Republican is Trump guy? Or do the Centrists say no, we're Team Blue and that we Brandon Johnson might be too progressive for us, but we'd rather have him than the Republican light. So you know it's going to be a real contest. This is not this is except Caruso collapse at the end. So you could have a tight race that totally breaks Johnson's way, or you

could have a tight race down to the wire. So there are so many votes on the table, About seventeen percent of people cast their bounce for Lori Lightfoot, So that's as opposed to twenty percent for Brandon Johnson in thirty three point eight, about thirty four percent for Paul Vallas. Now Cheuey Garcia, he's at thirteen percent. Willie Wilson is at nine point five percent. So you add those two up and that's more votes than Lori Lightfoot, but also

more than Brandon Johnson. So it's not even just the simple math of where the Lightfoot votes will go. There are a lot of candidates down ballid at least these two, and then you end up from the nine point five percent that Wilson got to two point one percent for Jamal Green, still significant in a tight race where those votes go. So my theory of the case is basically that Lori Lightfoot, interestingly was kind of elected as whatever people want to call it, wokeness cancel culture was starting

to peak in this country. She was a little high in her own supply, felt really good because got lots and lots of media coverage, and the way she governed was let's say, I'm trying to think of the right word or arrogant. Maybe there was a hubris to the way that she decided to govern. Then I think actually even surprised people and caught them off guard just the

fights that she would pick. It seems to have no clear political logic at raising behind them, fumbled even on race issues, and it did not go well for her. It's a tough Chicago's a really tough city to navigate obviously, let alone during a pandemic, and there are a lot of national problems that contributed to the tensions and issues she faced in Chicago. Certainly, there's no question about it.

But I also don't want to downplay I think the spectacular lack of political talent that Lori Lightfoot ultimately demonstrated representtive Chewiy Garcia actually Howard Washington supporter back in the day. So there's something generational too here, because you could have imagined a world where the progressives all coalesced behind Chewy, but instead Brandon kind of out organized him and out

energized them. I suspect almost all of Chewey's support goes to Brandon Johnson will get at least half Wilson half of Lori Lightfoot, so I think he has the kind of upper hand it's amazing. And last point that we'll move to the student debt thing. It's amazing to think about how much of our national politics kind of flows through and originates in Chicago, like Stephen Douglas, Lincoln, the Daily Machine, stealing it for John F. Kennedy, then Howard Washington,

Barack Obama, Rama manual like it. You know, Chicago gets overlooked a lot in our national politics, but it probably has more influence on our politics than any other city.

So that I think that makes this insurgency that we're witnessing much more relevant because we keep being told that now the left is in retreat, and he's like, well, what just that Brandon Johnson might become the next mayor of Chicago, especially if all those Garcia votes go to him, that puts him at the same literally would put him

at the exact same thirty three percent as ballas right. Well, student debt at the Supreme Court this week and the oral arguments transpired on Tuesday went pretty much as you would expect. Ryan, Yeah, let's put this first one up there. This is a challenge, and we talked about this, we

previewed this yesterday on the show. This is a challenge to the Biden plan to cancel ten thousand dollars in student debt for everybody making under one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars canceled twenty thousand for anybody who was getting PEL grants, which makes you know more in need of financial support. How much we how much we were able to listen to. I caught some of the arguments back and forth went on for a couple hours. It was basically exactly what I expected to hear from the

Supreme Court. Some you know, interesting questions from Amy Coney Barrett, who actually asked whether she seems to be questioning whether some of the Republican states who brought this challenge to the Biden law had the standing to bring the lawsuit. Which is a huge question at play here, and this is the Attorney's General of Nebraska and Missouri. They were arguing the law is meant to allow. This is the Heroes Act, which is kind of at the center of

all of this. The Biden administration argued the Heroes Act allowed them to do the debt forgiveness plan. Republican states are saying that's ridiculous and it rests on this word necessary and Republicans are saying to argue that it was necessary in a pandemic emergency to forgive student loan debt actually is absurd on its face because you could have taken X, Y, and Z other steps to mitigate the problems of student loan debt. So there's a lot hinging

on that word necessary. I did think Amy Cony Barrett was interesting that she questioned the standing issue. John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh seemed to be pretty opposed on the grounds that it was a spectacular use of power or would constitute an expansion of power. Kavanaugh had a great quote where he said some of the biggest mistakes in the Court's history were deferring to assertions of executive and

executive or emergency power. And I say that's a great quote because whether or not you agree with it, it really crystallizes I think where the conservative justices might be coming from on this issue. And I think this the White House Solicitor General did a good job of making the counter argument, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure it's going to matter because this might just come down

as a partisan ruling. But her point was if you read the statute and you can look at the Higher Education Act, which they could also justify it under, and the way that John Roberts did with ACA and kind of rewrote the justification for that, that's a good point.

You could do that, yes, But she also argued for it under the Heroes Act, which says, basically, international emergency, the executive is given by Congress the authority to modify, wave, cancel, etc. These benefit these particular benefit programs as a result of an emergency. So her point is that this is not

executive authority, this is congressional authority. And if you don't allow the administration to do this, then you're actually restricting congressional power because Congress very explicitly wanted to write into the law flexibility for the executive to operate in a time of crisis, and she, as she pointed out, precisely as President Trump did at the very beginning of the pandemic there was a crisis, he implemented a pause, which, as she also rightly pointed out, cost much more money

to the federal government than the Biden plan would. That one was hundreds of billions, maybe even a year. And nobody was suggesting that that was unconstitutional. Nobody took it to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court didn't pause it. And so her point is that now that you've done this, as you're coming out of the emergency, you have to find a way to kind of resolve and get back

into a state of normal affairs. So the idea that it would be completely legal and constitutional to pause all student loan payments, but not constitutional and not legal to figure out a way to kind of ease out of that as the crisis ends, would be telling Congress that they did that they don't have the power to grant the executive that that flexibility to fix something like that, which actually does then hamsterring Congress because then Congress has

to Congress can't write laws that the executive is able to follow if the Supreme Court can come in and say, well, this is actually a really big number. Because that was the thing that a lot of the justices were harvingtular, like, this is such a huge number. And as the White House was pointing out, yeah, we're like a twenty trillion dollar economy. When these agencies do something over a ten year window, it's going to cost in the billions of dollars.

And this is what Sonya said, mayor says. She says, quote it's an outrageous sum. It's not a question of money, it's a question of Congress's intent. Now, Ilia Shapiro in City Journal, I think broke down the argument the government is making. He disagrees with it, obviously, but he sort of walked through the logics he's saying. The governments lawyers now make the following assertions before the Supreme Court. The

pandemic is a national emergency. Every federal student loan borrower either lives in a COVID disaster area or has been otherwise financially affected by that emergency. As a result of that emergency, some borrowers will default on their loans once payments finally resume after a multi year pause, and then forgiving some or all of the borrowers principal balances will ensure their overall risk of default is no worse than

it was before the pandemic. Now Shapiro, who disagrees with this, Ilia Shapiro writes, that doesn't make a lot of sense, because a simpler and more direct that is available. If the government's purpose were truly to reduce the harm of more defaults, it could put borrowers on an income based repayment plans and even more simply waive some of the legal consequences of miss payments. And I do think that's a very difficult thing for the government to grapple with.

In the same way, I think your point makes a lot of sense. And Ilia writes here about how the Trump administration's plan for border wall construction and the Biden vaccine mandate via the Osha Act both run into the same problems here. And this Court has obviously shown a willingness to flex its muscles on executive power a little bit. The Heroes Act is from two thousand and three and it was passed after nine to eleven, and so there's a question as to the sort of level of emergency

power that's being utilized here. But I do think it Also here's a good question for you. The West Virginia v. EPA ruling comes into play here as well. Is there something to learn from the Supreme Court's ruling in that case, which I don't know of Barrett actually was on the

court for But where do you see it? If you see a point A to B from West Virginia b E p A to this, I think it sounds like if a democratic administration is enacting some type of executive action, then the Supreme Court, this, this particular Supreme Court is going to look askance at it is going to is going to argue that you that it's not within their power. Like I do, think it's showing the real, the real partisan nature of this system at this point. Uh So. Yeah.

By the way, we got Randy quine Garten who was out in front of the Supreme Court yesterday. Let's let's roll roll a little bit of her. President Biden said, we are going to deal with that as we deal with the end of the pandemic. We're going to deal with that. We're not going to start student debt again without actually making a down payment of it. And the Secretary of Education has the right to do it. And frankly,

and this is where it really pisses me up. During the pandemic, we understood it's fall businesses were hurting and we help them, and it didn't go to the Supreme Court to challenge it. Big businesses were hurting and we help them, and it didn't go to the Supreme Points to challenge it. All of a sudden, when it's about our students, they challenge it, the corporations challenge it, the student low leisures challenge it. That is not right, that is not fair, And that is what we are fighting

as well when we say it's also the dust. This is a donz of people, and it is a ton of people's future, and it isn't that all of your futures. I mean, it does feel to me like there's so much more nitpicking up democratic policies. Like for Shapiro to say, look, there are other ways that the administration could do this that would satisfy us constitutionally, it's like, okay, cool, Then you win the presidential election and you do it those

other ways. But just because there might be a way that you prefer to do it doesn't mean that the other way to do it is unconstitutional. And they also might be careful what they wish for, because instead now they're just going to go back to a pause for everybody. So his argument is unconstitutional in this case, particularly because the word necessary means that there are no other options that what is necessary to just get away with all

the debt. And again, like I think that's where justices are going to be asking whether or not necessary is the proper is it necessitates whether that word and of itself necessitates the action of sort of broadly canceling ten to twenty thousand, right, But that would suggest that any that is, if there's any other option, then the option that you chose is not necessary because you could have chosen another option. So he could actually make the same

argument way even if he had picked Shapiro's idea. What the necessary means is that it's necessary to do something like, it's a crisis. You've got trillions of dollars in student debt coming out of this pandemic that was paused. We have a giant crisis that we need. Then it's necessary for the administration to do something to fix it. What that something is is something that then the regulators they

work up they work up a plan. But if just because there are five different ways that you could do it, like he could have done fifteen thousand, or he could have done five thousand, so it wasn't necessary to do ten thousand, could have done fifteen and so would he then say, well, that's on constitution because it was it wasn't precisely necessary to do ten thousand. But yeah, so

maybe this ends up actually being good news. For all borrowers, because I find it very difficult to believe that the Biden administration is going to before the twenty twenty four election say okay, Supreme Court, fine, we're just we'll just reinstitute all all student loan payments. They'll just continue the

pause which began under Trump. And then they're the Supreme Court to say that, Okay, this was fine under Trump, but it's actually illegal under Biden, and then let publicans run in twenty twenty four on We're going to reinstitute all of your student debt payments by January twenty twenty five. Vote for US. Well, I think this is what's a general problem with Biden that would infuriate me if I had student loan debt on the table, because it's a cowardice.

It's just this milk toast halfway, third way, maybe I should say method of approaching student loan debt where there's no way that the Biden White House didn't think this was got did not realize this was going to get hung up in the courts, And so twenty five million people of an estimated forty million who would be eligible for this had already filled out the applications and signed

up before this pause hit twenty five million people. I think sixteen million got approved even I mean, it's amazing letters it said you're approved of an estimated forty million in the balance potential forty million beneficiaries of a law like this, and so it's he knew that that was going to happen, and there are other ways to do this Byonna Droy Gray has laid some of them out. Higher Education Act is pretty clear. He know, Yeah, the

executive power is on the table. It's the same thing with OSHA, Like that's why they found they used an obscure provision in the OSHA Establishing Act to do that, and it's the executive power is on the table. I

don't think it should be in many cases. But I think Joe Biden is a coward for doing the halfway route that would politically look good at the expense of all of these people who are now in the squeeze, whose futures are uncertain, and who have tens of thousands of dollars in some cases on the table just pending in the court system, with no idea where that's going to go and no way to plan. Moving on to

the World Bank, the World Bank. So David Malpus, the Trump appointed head of the World Bank, is out being replaced by the guy from MasterCard, who is it, longtime CEO of MasterCard, A Jay Banga. There he is. I actually think it's an amazing story because if we go to the second element, then you see some people on the right are actually coming out against this. Here's an opd from Daniel McCarthy in the New York Posts saying World Bank elites put climate policy over developing nations prosperity

and security. To your point about Malpus, Ryan, there was a huge amount of backlash among people in the World Bank sort of circles the political level in the United States, where an American is generally always in charge of the World Bank, that Malpus was not far left enough on climate policy, that he wasn't willing to go far enough on climate policy as head of the World Bank, and wasn't willing to steer their vast resources in that direction.

Banga is apparently going to be prepped for that. We can put the next element up because I think it's so hilarious. I went and looked at the website for his private equity firm. This is his bio, you can see his board affiliations there. He is a co chair of the Partnership for Central America, which is Kamala Harris's nonsense root causes organization that's supposed to be addressing those

quote root causes of our immigration crisis. The International Chamber of Commerce, he is the honorary chair over there, former board member of the Dow inc of Craft of other really big places, which I just think is so perfect in this case because it's just a great crystallization of

what it looks like at the World Bank. To come in with somebody more progressive, We're going to get a pe exec former CEO of MasterCard who is implicated in all of these different like the International Chamber of Commerce, et cetera, et cetera. It just kind of perfect, And like Daniel mccarthio is arguing, basically, he's making this kind of colonialism from the anti colonialists argument that the climate progressives are becoming colonizers of third world countries with these

kind of debt trap policies. Obviously, I think you can make debt trap arguments about the World Bank going back for a long time before they pivoted to climate. What do you make of this ring. And so the backstory on Malpus is that, you know, he was he was assumed to want a career in in Republican politics, a continuing career in Republican politics, whether it's a cabinet position, maybe it's a run for Senate, something along those lines. And so he was pressed at this forum I would

call a climate denier by Al Gore. And he was pressed at this forum, do you believe that greenhouse gases are contributing you know, man made greenhouse gases are contributing to climate change? And he wouldn't answer the question, like three or four times in a row. And the assumption from the people who around him was this is him playing gop politics at this point, because he feels like if he says this on a stage with a bunch

of global elites, then he's cooked. He'll be he'll be fried by Tucker Carlson and the whole You know, he's and he's done. And on the other hand, at that point was he was done internally because the idea that climate change exists and is a product of you know, man made greenhouse gases is no longer controversial, right, and for him to not be able to say that like really freaked a lot of people out and made them

really think about, like, what what's this? Is this guy here for the World Bank or what or is he here for some other resume building purpose. And so basically the writing was on the wall like at that at that point that he was he was not long for the World Bank World But you're you're right that it is.

It is fascinating that the World Bank, which can choose between well to be the most generous, choose between alleviating poverty and actually pursuing development, which throughout its history has gone hand in hand with you know, corporate profits and has propped up a lot of corruption around around the world, corruption that then kind of enriches and buttresses US hegemony.

But let's say it's it's about actually about development and alleviation that and or climate change, because it's also the case that the world's poor are the ones that are going to be the ones who suffer the most from the effects of climate change. So you can't completely disentangle the pursuit of a climate agenda with the alleviation of poverty and the support for people around the world. Because the number one cushion against climate change, the number one

mitigation as wealth. Yeah, and that's why this is such a particularly like this is an incredibly tough issue because the world's poor historically are also those who benefit the most from industrialization, which is exactly what And that's not an argument for just blanket industrialization, but it is to say, a lot of the climate policies and this is what the right objects to, would stop and halt industrializing progress in some of these I shouldn't even use the word

progress so flippantly, as it has been done throughout history. But the industrialization or if industrialists, let's use the word progress for the sake of argumentation in some of those countries.

And is that fair when it's coming from the World Bank, which built itself on you know, this is billions and billions of dollars from industrialized countries basically, who then want to come in and stop other countries from enjoying the fruits of the same technology and infrastructure that they benefited from. They amassed their world power on the back of industrialization, and now they're turning around and saying no. Basically, if it's implemented poorly, in the worst case scenario, it looks

a lot like that. Now that's not to say there isn't a best case scenario that should be strived for, but you know, this is extremely I'm surprised this hasn't gotten as much play in the media because the World Bank obviously is in charge of billions and billions of dollars of disbursements. This is their active portfolio as of

twenty twenty one. I'm looking at about ninety seven point six billion dollars to Africa, fifty seven point five billion of South Asia, essays in the Pacific thirty seven zero point five billion, Latin America and the Caribbean also around thirty billion. So obviously, obviously the new head of the World Bank is in charge of a ton, just a ton of money, and I can see his leadership there

becoming something of a lightning run. Yeah, And it's it's true that the global pore are generally, you know, the beneficiaries of development. As you know, if you if you bring in more projects and you make accessibility to electricity easier.

At the same time, they also always bear the brunt of those those projects, whether it was the massive coal plant in India that the that the World Banks kind of ombudsman found had been in violation all of all of their different compliance recommendations and destroyed fisheries, et cetera,

et cetera. Or it's they built this hydro electric dam and I forget, I forget which Latin American country it was in, but basically already and it's barely coming online and already it's it's running out of water because they just completely botched the whole thing, destroyed, destroyed an ecosystem and don't not even get going to get the electricity out of it. So you know that it had been proposed that, well, maybe another option for the World Bank is just to shut down, and maybe we'll get there

and maybe it won't be such a bad thing. I started the block by saying, it was interesting to see the McCarthy piece in the New York Post, But some segments of the right have been interested in this question about the World Bank for a long time, but it hasn't really gotten a lot of play. And I actually think that's about to change, especially to your point about

Malpas being hesitant to weigh in on climate change. I really want to run We're running a little along here, but I really want to run this clip of Ron Paul. I think this is from two thousand and seven, just laying into the Paul Wolfowitz era of the World Bank. Established and managed by a multitude of national governments. The World Bank promotes managed trade by which politically connected individuals and corporations enriched themselves at the expense of the poor

and the middle class. Western governments tax their citizens to fund the World Bank, lend US money to corrupt Third World dictators who obscound with the funds, and then demand repayment, which is extracted through taxation from the poor Third World citizens rather than from the government officials who responsible for the embezzlement. It is, in essence a global transfer of

wealth from the poor to the rich. So if if the right wants to start talking about the problems of elites, if they want to start talking about demos in the World Economic Forum and the World Bank, Seriously, you take a page out of Ron Paul's book here. Yeah, and I first got politicized during the air of anti Globalization, which was protesting the World Bank IMF wto so Ron Paul, no Liae's detected there. Moving on to a story that

you wanted to cover. San Francisco is debating reparations of five million dollars for each black resident, with a lot of caveats and requirements that you'd have to meet to get that. I don't think it's anywhere near being accomplished, but it's pretty far along the process, it seems. Yeah, they're debating it right now. This is from the Washington Post. Yeah, they're trying to figure out how much San Francisco, where, by the way, slavery was never actually legal, should pay

black residents for decades of discrimination. So there's a panel that was appointed by the government they're trying to come up with They're not looking at like a mathematical formula, as the Washington Post puts it, but they're just trying to come up with something that makes sense. Fifteen members of that panel. They've been doing this for about a year and a half. Here's an example from the Post.

Also going back to the sixties in San Francisco, they say city leaders demolished part of the Fillmore District, a neighborhood once done as the Harlem of the West, displacing eight hundred and eighty three businesses and twenty thousand people, most of them black. Decades later, thousands of people remain displaced and the neighborhood has turned into a predominantly white enclave of multi million dollar homes. That much is definitely true,

Which doesn't that point at the actual solution. The homes are there, Let the people who are run out of the neighborhood move into those homes, right redistribute the homes there. We go to see how Nancy Pelosi feels about that she's got other homes. That's true. The proposed this is more from the police reparations program, is not a recompense

for slavery, which was nover legal in San Francisco. But instead the committee's report says, this is what we're just talking about, quote for the public, policies explicitly created to subjugate black people in San Francisco by upholding and expanding the intent and legacy of chattel slavery. They say that black residents in the city of San Francisco have a

medium median income of about forty four thousand. That compares with eighty five thousand for Latinos, one hundred and five thousand for agents, and one hundred and thirteen thousand for white residents. According to twenty twenty one census data. So lest you think that this is sort of a redistribution from other minorities to black residents, the argument here is they actually have a median income that is much lower than other minorities the city of San Francisco, So there's

some justification to be found there. I think, you know, this is an incredibly difficult question because it's not a federal program of reparations for slavery. It's then expanding the definition of what constitutes reparation worthy policies. There's no doubt, there's no question that there's a history in just about every major American city of policies that were not explicitly racist,

but we're intentionally racist. And I think you know, there's there's a really obvious question of how we deal with that when it's still having effects that to borrow phrase trickle down into the community. But it's a I mean this, the precedent that San Francisco can set here is pretty big.

And speaking of trickle down, the problem that a lot of reparations advocates, you know, have with this type of approach is that they will say, and I agree with them, that if you don't if you don't fix the systemic abuses and systemic racism that that are producing the need to do this and to talk about this. Then it's then it's pointless. What it is is basically filling a bucket with a hole still on the bottom of it. It's like, aire, can you set into it? You get

out of it? Right? And so you would give out five million dollars, but if you didn't, but if you didn't kind of reorient your system into a into a social democracy in which everyone has opportunity, then you're ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, you're going to be back. You're going to be back in the same place. And so in some ways, I think talking about reparations gets elite

support because it doesn't touch the more fundamental structures. And also they're pretty sure that it's not going to happen. And I think this article is important and this this debate in San Francisco is important to understand in the context of this next story for you to put up C two, which is from NBC News where they say diversity roles disappear three years after George Floyd's murder inspired them.

In the article against diversity, equity and inclusion. Leaders who were hired in waves to help companies achieve an ethnically balanced workforce after George Floyd's murder in twenty twenty, are being phased out. Surveys indicate, leaving experts in the field concerned that corporations talk of affecting change was empty words.

They also point out an extraordinary irony that of the remaining uh DEI executives, many of them are white, because those were the folks that got in there first, because we because we do have the problems that people are pointing out, like why on earth would you have so many white diversity executives if we didn't, if we didn't have a structural, fundamental problem with racism and diversity in this country, Like there's no there's no better example of

it than that. And so as a result, it's the first in, first out kind of first in, last out situation, a last in, first out. If you're the last diverse the officer in. As soon as times get tough and nobody's watching you as closely anymore, and you've sort of suppressed a lot of your slack uprisings and you're not as concerned about the staff revolts anymore, you have more

freedom to maneuver. Then you're like, you know what this line item getting rid of this, And so now they're laying off a bunch of adversity officers with without necessarily, you know, solving the problem that they were brought in to solve, right, And it's kind of going to be interesting to see what those This is a good experiment in what those diversity officers were bringing to the table in the first place, because if they go I'm really

curious as to how that plays out. You know, is there any noticeable difference in workplace culture for the better or the worse. We're about to find that out in a fairly big way. And one of the problems, I think in general with this conversation, and that's one thing that the San Francisco policy discussion is testing, is how we define what is the sort of consensus definition of racism. And obviously that has been a problem throughout American history.

There are plenty of people who were just open overt racists. There were other people that acted like open overt racists

that did not see themselves as racists. Now, so that's not to say this is a new thing that's just suddenly happening, But in the last two decades or so, what we've kind of come to understand is, as obviously racial discrimination is obviously acting on this belief that people are inferior based on the color of their skin, and, to quote Martin Luther King, not the content of their character.

Then you get into a situation where we're asking whether certain policies, you know, some of these in San Francisco, for instance, the ones that the Washington Post sided obviously had racist consequences, no question about it. If you set a precedent that reparations are in order for policies that were not explicitly racist but had racist consequences, Man, is that going to open up the door and open up the floodgates to a really big conversation about where public

money is going. I just think that's you know, especially we're going to talk later in the show about Angela Davis who discovered she was related distantly to people who came over on the Mayflower. I think that kind of makes our ability to deal with some difficult realities very hard. And this reminds me of a recent article in The Intercept by Alice Sperry that uncovered that a top diversity executive if you saw this at this Quaker organization was actually white and was claiming to be I think a

combination of Arab and Latina. It's an amazing story which apparently shouldn't have to do though, because according to this NBC News stat it says another survey showed that black employees represent only three point eight percent of chief diversity officers overall, while white people, with white people making up seventy six percent of the roles, those of Hispanical Latina ethnicity make up seven point eight percent, in those of

Asian and ethnicity make up seven point seven percent. So the three quarters of the diversity executives in this country are white. Yeah, which just let's just sit with them. Yeah, and they're now firing their deputy they're black and brown deputies. Yeah, of course they are, and there's no surprise to that. But it is a good reminder to your point about how even reparations, let alone DEI, can be used as

a cop out or smoke screen. That's what a lot of this is, and a lot of these conversations are the most divisive and politically charged among everything that we talk about. They're the ones that have people at each other's throats. They're the ones that tear people apart and

definitely don't bring them together. And they're the ones that ultimately are basically like the little shiny things that powerful people want to dangle in front of the conversation rather than making structural changes or making real concessions in that because it's it's just easier for them and they don't suffer the consequences necessarily, right, and to me, the only the only real answer is a is a coalition of white, black, and brown working class people who overthrow those white diversity

officers and like and and recreate a social a social democracy based on their shared interests sees the means of diversity. Now there you go, there you go. All right, Well, let's talk speaking of die as She's let's talk about another story involving Governor Ron Desanta's down in Florida. We

can put up the first element for this one. Politico got Win that the basically de Santa's administration as it is required to or as it is its business and its responsibility to organize and oversee events at the Florida State Capitol, is requiring those events quote align with its mission. That can mean a lot of different things. That can mean a lot a lot of different things. I'm reading

from Politico here. I say, one material change to the rule is that events must align with state agency missions and applications must come from an agency sponsor. This is according to a Department of Management Services letter that political got from multiple groups that were trying to plan events at the Capitol. Then once a sponsorship has been obtained, according to this letter, the state agency shall submit the required application to DMS on behalf of the requester. There's

a couple of interesting things in the story. I'm going to give DeSantis' response. He was asked at a press conference here. He said, we've been very supportive of people being able to speak their mind. It's the right they should do it. But we've also said, you know, you don't have a rite to hijack and do like a Heckler's veto and stop the functioning of government. And so I think that's probably what it is. But our folks can follow up with you about more very quickly. My

take on this. The Politico article says that this has been an effect for a few months. There's no evidence that this was used to banner discriminate against anyone in those few months. And also on top of that, there's this idea that as Desanta's is saying, if it aligns with the mission, that can just be the sort of general mission of the state to host events and politics, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't know. I mean, it's possible that this can be used in nefarious ways.

There's no question about it. That align word is obviously important here. At the same time, there's just no evidence that this has been used in nefarious ways yet. So, I mean, it's just an open question. And it does I guess it seems to fit a pattern of DeSantis really wanting control over so many aspects of Florida life, you know, from from the classroom to Disney, to the villages to what goes on you know, who's allowed to

have a luncheon at the capitol. It does seem like this this is a real driving focus for him, which should, at least on the surface, cut against his like kind

of free speech warrior thing. It's there's a I can see how a culture in the governor's office is actually kind of interesting could evolve from this idea that Republicans now need to be more aggressive about seizing government power and using it for their own ideological ends, because that's what the left has done for decades and decades, as many conservatives feel acutely, and Rondosantis is really the poster boy of somebody who's finally, after decades, conservatives say, acting

on that using government power to advance his own ideological ends, not just remaining sort of neutral and saying well, let the marketplace of ideas sort this all out, saying no, we have government power to advance the ideology. The left owns all of these different cultural institutions. So if you have the power, use the power, so I can see how something would develop from that. I highly doubt Rondosantis, even if even if this was nefarious, it had infarious

intentions behind this rule. I doubt Randasantis would have been involved in discussions about it. Maybe he would have, but you can see, and this is a general fear I think on the right that there's a something really dark that evolves from that kind of cultural shift about how we use government power. I do want to say, though I don't have any like in this case. I think it's just an open question if there were evidence that it had been used problematically, I'd be all about it.

I had a problem with his like stop woke act, even though I sort of generally like the thrust of it. I not you have no problems speaking out against DeSantis when I think he goes too far. But this is to me a giant open question. It doesn't seem like there's a problem yet, and the political article is quoting lobbyists, so it sounds like lobbyists fed this article to Politico. Politico didn't have any you know, reason or examples of problems,

but it's perfectly newsworthy in respect. There could be problems down the line. Does Dosantis ever back down or does he have kind of a bunker circle the wagons campaign mentality? Because I could I could see a case where it's

a good question. It might not actually be anything nefarious going on here, but if the lamestream media or the fake news media is accusing him of doing something, then he's going to dig in and just keep doing it, even if he's like, yeah, actually I wouldn't have done it that way if but now you've called me on it, I'm doing it that way. That's always a huge problem and one that I think gets overlooked I don't know.

I don't think I've really seen that happen with DeSantis because everything that's sort of sparked debate he's kind of doubled down on. I haven't really, but not in that sense like he's just said, he hasn't budged in either direction. He hasn't pushed up further or hasn't you know, gone closer towards the center. We should put up the second element here. He's making appearances in some interesting states, Davenport

and Des Moines, Nevada, Manchester, New Hampshire. An appearance in South Carolina is also being discussed, according to The New York Times, coincidence. Yeah, he likes the weather there. Yeah, loves the weather in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina just places this time of year. So obviously he hasn't announced anything. Donald Trump is announced, NICKI Haley is announced. There are other people exploring bids, potentially Tim Scott, potentially

Mike Pompeo. It looks like definitely Mike Pompeo, but nothing has has been formally announced. It seems like the writing is pretty much on the wall for DeSantis, although it's possible there was a poll the other day is showing him down like fifteen percent to Donald Trump. It's possible. He's sort of savvy enough, and I think he is

obviously very savvy. Whether or not you like him, he's made himself really popular on the right, coming from a position really of obscurity while he was here in the House, he was a Freedom Caucus member, and what Donald Trump made him? So Donald Trump? I mean there's but yeah. So he's a talented politician at the very least, and that could be a reason he sees the writing on the wall maybe backs out of a potential race if

he sees Donald Trump has pretty much consolidated everything. I doubt that that will be the case, but I think we'll probably find out sooner rather than later. Yeah, and last question for you, is he too short to run for president? How dare you? Is spoken as a band in the six foot range? Yeah, I mean, we haven't elected a short president basically, like ever. Do we know how short he is? Like five to seven? What do you think does he have does he have taller vibes?

I don't know. I would guess he's probably like five to ten. We'll have to investigate this, Yeah, we're on top of this. We will, we will get an update and bring it to you shortly. Let's move on to the continuing fallout for Scott Adams. Big news in Dilbert world are used. I used to read it, like in high school or whatever one when it was in the comics.

Sure I read Yeah, it's fine. I'm not. I've never understand I've never understood the appeal of Dilbert, honestly, but it's got like bosses suck, office life sucks, and it's funny like that that make funny jokes in the office, Like I haven't. I really haven't since high school. I don't think I've actually read it with any consistency. Yeah,

well that's big news though, because he does. Scott Adams does have a lot of He had a lot of money on the table, He had a lot of deals, and obviously it is true that some of those had already gone away before this most recent karfuffle, but he did say he was reacting to a poll and this is what just kicked off this most recent round of controversy that saw Andrews McNeill Universal, that's his syndication company.

They syndicate Dilbert totally cut time, publishers dumping his book, publishers dumping his book, and newspapers around the country dumping the strip. He basically said that black Americans were quote a hate group and that white people should quote get the hell away from them. And we can keep moving through the elements here because he was reacting to a RAS Music poll basically, and Elon musk Way did on this and said, basically, the media is racist because they dropped.

Yet you can see that tweet there. He was responding to the whole thing about the media weighing in on Scott Adams and said the media is racist. So he doesn't say whether or not he thinks Scott what Scott Adams said was racist, but says, you know the people here that are casting the stone. It's a clever way to signal support for Scott Adams without actually supporting him.

Maybe or maybe I read that maybe he's saying you shouldn't be casting stones from a glasshouse if you're also right, and we don't know, but I'll that's totally fair read on it too. But if we put up the rasp musen tear shoots here. Adams was responding to this poll and one thing I think is interesting. Look on the right of your screen. There. I'm going to read it

for people listening. Rasp Musen tweeted, the Anti Defamation League has labeled quote It's okay to be white as hate speech, but a majority of all Americans agree with the statement, including fifty three percent of Black adults and sixty nine percent of Democrats. Only twenty six percent of black adults disagree. So what Adams was saying is that chunk of black adults that disagree. So see where ras Musen frames it as glass half full right, that most Americans don't disagree

with this the statement. Even though the ADL says that's a hate speech it's okay to be white. Most Americans agree it's okay to be white, glass half full. Scott Adams comes in and makes his comments, which he sort of tried to soft pedal after the whole cancelation thing, but then said I want nothing to do with my cancellors, blah blah blah. He has a fairly popular podcast. He was saying that chunk of black Americans that disagrees it's okay to be white is a hate group and you

shouldn't live by them. If you're white, which is just a toxic and just a toxic and ridiculous thing to say. But I do think that contacts got lost in the media conversation about it. He was talking about this pole, right, but then he did broaden out, and most of the articles have included this quote. So he said, so, if nearly half of all blacks are not okay with white people according to this pole, not according to me, According to this pole, that's a hate group. I don't want

to have anything to do with them. So, okay, he's still talking about that group there, and then he says, and I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people. Just get the f away, because there is no fixing this. So he very quickly jumps to just quote, get the

hell away from black people. And this one is, you know, as somebody who's kind of skeptical of the cancel culture impulse, I also do believe that people have a fundamental right to be offended by someone and not want to, you know, spend money on them. And if companies believe that there are going to be millions of people who feel that way, they do have a right to to say, look, I'm done with your book. We're not going to distribute your cartoon. This is disgusting, and also it's going to be bad

for business. So I think, like the the arguments about cancel culture in general aren't really ever about the general idea. Like, I think everybody agrees with the idea that culture is created by setting boundaries around what is acceptable and not acceptable and that and that's gone on for thousands of years.

That's how we produce humanity and society. And so what we're really always debating is whether or not people are being too sensitive and this thing is on this side of the line, or this should be on this side of the line. But everybody pretty much agrees that there's that there's a line. It's it's and there should be and there should be. But it's all it's a question

where you draw the line. And basically, for this one close you know, close to got to be ninety five plus percent of the country, it is like, yeah, that's why that's not even close to the line. I can't even see the line from there. Yeah, and you're right. He goes from making the semantic argument about what constitutes a quote hate group and saying, you know, if you have twenty six percent of Black Americans thinking though with

those that make Black Americans hate group. First of all, no, if twenty six percent of people think something, it doesn't make the one hundred percent categorically a haterere And you can say, hey, that twenty six percent really hurts my feelings that you go ahead and say that, or there's some problem in our culture that is, you know, engendering this or making this increase. You know, if there's if you're seeing an increase in that number, then yeah, that's

not a good thing. But for him to make that jump, I think is a real, obviously real problem. And to your point about cancel culture, Yeah, we've we've always had sort of consensus, and sometimes in the wrong direction. If we're thinking about like academia during the McCarthy era, where there's sometimes been a consensus in the wrong direction about where those boundaries are. There has generally even the most free speech absolutists generally draw the line at incitement or

like actual cost to blind anything like that. So yes, I think we all do agree on that, and this is a good case study. I will say, I if what Elon Musk is saying that is that the media and the left are in no position to be casting stones because they're in a glass house. If that was his argument, which I don't know, it's sort of a

charitable reading of what he said. But if that's the case, I am one hundred percent on board with that, because it is very true that the media will latch onto these case studies that are objectionably and sort of we can come to consensus, as you were saying, like this

is obviously objectionable. Then again, the media is constantly promoting very divisive takes on race, and so is the left through some of these DEI programs that Ronda Santis, for instance, response to, and people may not agree with their responses, but there are a whole lot of parents, whether they're black or white or brown, that have a problem with what is being taught about race and what is being taught from DEI departments managers in corporate America, and a

lot of that was promoted by the left and by the media. And so it is always rich to me when we talk about a situation like this, much much more than we talk about the negatives of situations like those, And that was today's episode of Two White People about race. Point. You've got an immigration point, mane, what's your point today? Yeah, that's right. Well, there's important but underappreciated reasons. The media thinks completely the wrong way when it comes to immigration.

They take the narrative of the Chamber of Commerce and far left Democrats an interesting marriage as gospel. This is really great for businesses and cartels, it is terrible for migrants. Why are journalists and Democrats not in absolute uproar over this video of AHHS secretary Javier Bessara comparing migrant children to car parts. If Henry Ford had seen this in his plan, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not the way you do an assembly line.

And okay, and kids aren't wait just I get it. But we could do far better than this. It's not the way you do an assembly line. Well, it's true. This video from last summer was leaked to The New York Times, a media outlet, and published as part of an excellent expose. The paper ran on migrant children working in violation of labor laws by major corporations. But if Bisarah worked for Trump, that quote would be blanketing the airwaves.

It has not to say the least. I think it got one question in a White House press briefing, and that is wrong because even the most charitable reading of Bessara's quote exposes the most fundamental problem with this administration's immigration policy. If we're being charitable, Bisarah is arguing that kids need to be moved out of detention facilities efficiently for their own safety. This is already a dubious argument, though, because that efficiency, as the Time story shows, is making

children less safe. As Hannah Dryer reported, quote, while HHS checks on all miners by call calling them a month after they began living with their sponsors, data obtained by the Time showed that over the last two years, the agency could not reach more than eighty five thousand children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children.

Dryer added, quote, the federal government hires child welfare agencies to track some miners who are deemed to be at high risk, but caseworkers at those agencies said that HHS regularly ignored obvious signs of labor exploitation. That's a characterization the agency disputed. According to Drier, children calling an HHS hotline to report labor violations were never getting responses from

the agency. Of course, there's plenty of blame to go around heartside, a company that supplied contract manufacturers for major food companies conceded to the Times that it didn't verify worker ages through a national Social Security check at just this grand rapids plant implicated in child labor and the Time story. But think about that. The two biggest benefic beneficiaries of HHS's policy are major American corporations in native

cheap labor and cartels in Mexico. Well, why the cartels, As the Times reported, the children quote send cash back to their families while often being in debt to their sponsors for smuggling fees, rent, and then living expenses. Every single unaccompanied minor that crosses our border pays a cartel smuggling fee. This is really really simple. More migration leads to more money for cartels. In most cases, they aren't

sneaking kids across the border either. They're trafficking them up through Central America and Mexico, where they turn themselves into authorities and begin the legal asylum process. So legalizing this migration would not automatically solve the problem, because migrants from Central America would still need to travel through cartel controlled Mexico unless they could afford flights, and even if they could, you can bet cartels would try to make them pay

for access to those too. This is now human trafficking, as big business and cartels will not give it up easily. The time story is also clear that most of the two hundred fifty thousand unaccompanied minors we know have crossed in the last two years are economic migrants. Central American politics were not magically more stable under Donald Trump. The surgeon economic migration, as Todd Bensman says, it's like a faucet. The water is always there, but it doesn't flow from

the tap until you turn it on. Joe Biden's policies turned it on. This is what the media misses. Biden has incrementally expanded humanitarian parole, most recently via the CBP one app to reduce the bad optics of illegal crossing numbers. So Bensman estimates about thirty five percent of one hundred and fifty monthly paroleees get sent back. Those odds are strong enough to draw economic migrants up to our border. In staggering numbers. That's why we're seeing increases. We believe

that CBP one has encouraged migration. That is a quote from a Tijuana migration official to Telemundo in February quote, it looks easier to have an appointment. Yes, we have seen people who arrive with that expectation. There you go. Shelters report being flooded, and as they will say, it's not just because of the pandemic economy in these countries, it's because of this administration. So it's no wonder HHS

is completely incapable of handling these kids safely. These are impossible numbers for any country to handle with respect and dignity, both to the migrants and to their own citizens. We do need immigration for economic reasons. We should absolutely offer as much political asylum as we safely can. For moral reasons, and yes, the US historically destabilized Central American Mexico with drugs and coups. We should help these countries, we should

help their people. But what's happening now is a moral disaster fueled by the cowardice of American politicians and the ignorance of American media. They are the useful idiots of big business in cartels. Thousands of kids every single month are being abused on their journeys north, some of them dying then entering a country where their legal future is completely uncertain and unstable. Also, Democrats can claim some faux moral high ground, the ignorant media is more than happy

to give them. Our policies need to be clear, lawful, and uniform. Asylum needs to be enforced, not preemptively assumed for people whose claims are obviously dubious at the expense of those who are real. That's the only way to reduce the wave of economic migration that's fueling cartel power, hurting desperate people, and devastating our bureaucracy's ability to handle this with humanity and fairness. Ryan, what is your point today?

So I wanted to talk a little bit about the Section seven oh two controversy that we've been that I hope people have been following, because it's the seven oh two, as people may or may not know, is referred to as kind of the crown jewel of the surveillance state.

It is the authority that gives the NSA what they call a legal rationale to do their most intensive spying and surveillance, but it is supposed to bar them from uh spying on Americans essentially, And so there was a big report in Wired and we could put this up.

This is a post from Warren Davidson, a Republican congressman who has been very good on this issue, sharing sharing this this Wired report that that found that, according to a declassified audit of the of the Section seven oh two authority execution, the government had searched the name of a US congressman attempting to find some type of connection

to foreign influence. This is within the within the kind of surveillance world, an explosive revelation because it goes beyond just an example of them actually searching, you know, and surveilling an American citizen, but actually an American congressman. We don't know, you know who that who that congressman is, We don't know what the context is. But the FBI and the Department of Justice has finally responded. So yesterday the Assistant Attorney General, Matthew Olsen spoke at the Brookings

Institution and he addressed this. So I'll just read this and do this for the podcast people too, so if they can't read it on screen. So he said, every compliance incident matters, of course, but incidents involving US person information are especially damaging to public trust. Congress authorized the government to collect foreign intelligence under section seven oh two without obtaining individual court orders because seven oh two targets

non US persons who are outside the United States. While the intelligence community has collected the foreign intelligence information because of the need to protect national security, we still need strong guard rails when the intelligence community searches this data for information about Americans. He goes on to be clear, it is critically important that the government is able to

do exactly that. When we examine seven oh two information using query terms associated with US persons, we're often trying to identify US person victims of foreign hacking or spying. That's what lets us warn and protect them. If we are to keep protecting Americans from escalating cyber and espionage threats, we need to maintain the capacity to conduct US person queries.

This is especially true for the FBI, which is responsible for protecting the homeland from national security threats emanating from overseas. So what Olsen is suggesting to the public here is that they were actually spying on this member of Congress

for their own good to protect them. If that were the case, you would expect that they would have you would say, perhaps they would have leaked this to the media because they're always you know, looking for you know, positive coverage of this surveillance authority so that when it comes back up for reauthorization, they can point, hey, look look what we were able to do. There was this spying operation. They were even coming after this hapless member

of Congress, and we busted it up. We let them know we solved this problem, or they would have at least brief Congress and said, hey, look, just so you're not, you know, freaked out here, like we ran a query on a member of Congress. But here is exactly why we did it, Like here is the spir ring, here's the country that we suspected was spying on them. Here is here's what they were trying to get out of them, and we uncovered it. This is this was the result

of it. But we just wanted to be transparent about it because it did involve not just a US person but a US member of Congress. No evidence that they

carried out that briefing. Instead, it got found in this audit wound up in this report which was declassified, which Wired uncovered and wrote about, and so now now we know about it, and now after the fact they're saying, well, oh, actually that was for the round good while acknowledging in the report they say, Okay, this was actually illegal, and they claim it was based on a quote misunderstanding of

the law. So there's nothing wrong with the law, they just kind of misunderstood it in all of their good intentions to try to help this member of Congress. I can't imagine that there's anybody listening that finds any of any of that explanation credible. You know, at least they're feeling enough pressure that they've had to go to Brookings

and talk about it. But this is this is going to heat up over the next several months, you know, as as this as this authority expires, because if it expires, it it then throws into question the nssay's entire surveillance program. And then and then it requires the NSA to come back to Congress, which they often do and say, well, we actually have these other authorities, we can continue our

spying legally without seven or two. And then then you're like, I'm not so sure about that let's show me those authorities. Let's let's let's examine those too. So what do you think of the potential for this to have some genuine policy and cations when it comes to surveillance or I also sometimes get the feeling that the public has just kind of moved on. They're like, they're just listening to

everything all the time, and who cares. Yeah, although at the same time, I think people are hyper aware of the kind of expansion of government post COVID. But to your point about policy implications, you can see when this is affecting a member of Congress who was sort of had that nanny state approach from the from the surveillance for their own good, how members of Congress might then

get freaked out. And I'm sure they assume, or they should assume, if they're not stupid, that their communication is basically all compromised, whether by a foreign government or by our own government. That's probably a safe assumption, whether or not it's true. In every case, you should probably assume

it because you're just so vulnerable in that situation. But to see the government citing it in the way that you framed it, or in the way that they framed it, and you point out is powerful because that's going to make members of Congress feel undermined. I have absolutely no opimism that they'll fail to reauthorize seven oh two, because you mentioned they love to trot out anytime it's in jeopardy,

they trot out all of these case studies. They say without seven oh two, we never could have stopped this was the Times Square bombing is one that they point to. I think we've never They all fall apart under scrutiny, like you peel them back a little bit and you're like, no, actually,

none of this is true. And if you couldn't prevent it through other means, develop other means, find other means, be better instead of just taking the shortcut of creating the seven oh two database, which is basically like, if I'm not mistaken, they tap into servers like Google and like to create this massive, massive database that's encrypted until

they search it. Basically, it's just the most obscene and they say it's not mass collection because it's not collection until they search, right right, outrageous, plugging into underground cables exactly like that sort of thing, yeah, like the literal wires. Yeah, yeah, So I'm not optimistic at all that they'll decline to reauthorize it, because even if a situation like this comes up that I think does probably incense members of Congress, I can't see them building momentum to end Section seven

oh two. When you're going to have a full court press from the intelligence community that has all of its buddies at the New York Times and MSNBC doing their bidding, that's going to say there's no way we can get rid of this. Everyone is going to be an immediate risk for a terrorist attack if we do. Good for Warren Davidson, you know, and other both Democrats and Republicans who are pushing on this, it's one of the rare kind of bipartisan efforts, but it's still a minority of

the House. But up up next, we got Friend of the Show Philip Wegman, Is that right? That's right, Friend of the Show Philip Wegman, to talk about gain, a function, research and pretty big new discussion out of the White House this week. He asked a question to them. We're going to ask him about the question he asked the

White House coming up next. The corporate press doesn't want to talk very much about gain of function research, but we will not stop covering it here, especially on the heels of the Department of Energies determination that there's a good probability the pandemic originated from a lab leak. Now Philip Wegman joins us. He is the White House reporter for Real Clear Politics, and he actually pressed the White House on that question this week and wrote about it

for Real Clear Politics. We can put the story up on the screen. This is our first element. The White House told Philip that the Biden administration supports quote safe and secure gain of function research. Ryan over at the Intercept has been covering extensively whether gain of function research can ever be done safely and securely. Let's play the clip of phil pushing the White House on this question.

Without weighing in one way or the other on orsion of the virus, you might clear that there's no consensus. Does the President believe though, that the reward out weighs the risk when it comes to gain of function research? Does a reward outweigh the risk when it comes to gain You're going to have to say that again. Does the President believe that this type of gain of functional

research is proven? He believes that it's important to help prevent future pandemics, which means he understands that there has to be legitimate scientific research into the sources or potential sources of pandemics so that we understand it, so that we can prevent them and we can prevent them from happening. Obviously, but he also believes, and this is why he wants the whole of government effort here to understand it, that

that research has to be done. It must be done in a safe and secure manners and as transparent as possible to the rest of the world, so people know what's going on. All right, Philip, you also reported this out with interviews. You got quotes from Marco Rubio. We can put the third element up with you got quotes from Rand Paul. You've been talking to the White House about safe and secure gain of function research. What does that mean for how this could be affecting where money goes,

where money is steered in this administration. So, even as there's more evidence coming out from the US Energy Department and also the FBI that points in the direction of a potential lab laque scenario, the White House is agnostic on the origins of COVID. They say that there's no consensus, but meanwhile they still believe that in some cases gain

of function research can be prudent. And the reason why I found this answer from Kirby so interesting is because it comes at a moment when the National Science Advisory Board has actually put forward new rules and regulations for how gain of function would be handled here in the United States, and essentially those rules and regulations they're sitting on the President's desk. We haven't heard from him yet,

and Kirby's answer gives us the answer. Biden thinks that on occasion it can be worthwhile, and so it sounds like that means the new guidelines will probably be passed through and then money will be steered in that direction. Yeah, we'll see what the new rules actually entail. There's new regulations in terms of which type of labs can handle

this sort of thing. There's reporting regulations currently. Though what's alarming is that there's generally a patchwork of regulations in this country when it comes to how labs handle this type of research. And that's one of the reasons why in twenty fourteen, the Obama administration, because of some concerns over avian flu, said wait a minute, we're just gonna have a moratorium or taxpayer funding for this sort of thing.

Three years later, it's the Trump administration that lifts that moratorium. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that twenty fourteen ban, because that pause was implemented in the face of stiff opposition from doctor Anthony Fauci, who argued publicly and privately that the pause was inappropriate and it would harm future pandemic prevention efforts. It was it's then lifted Faucu was able to move money to this lab and to other

gain of function research. So you have an entire set of officials, many of whom were there in twenty fourteen when that I think correct decision was made. So you ever talk to them about why it was the right decision in twenty fourteen to pause gain and function research, and now it's the right decision to allow it. And in the interim we at minimum we may have had a gain of function related pandemic produced by a lab

doing that kind of work. So what's fascinated about this is that you see a lot of the same names and organizations pop up again and again. In twenty seventeen, when Francis Collins, who is the acting director of NIH lifts the moratorium, Who does he think the National Science Advisory Board, who is putting together the new rules and regulations that are currently in the White House Office of

Science and Technology. Oh, it's the same folks. And now that the moratorium, you know, looks like it's going to be lifted, looks like there's going to be more money steered in this direction. Even then, with increased rules and regulations that it seems the White House to signal they're on board with, you still have some of these scientists saying, wait a minute, this is going to stand in the way of free inquiry, This is going to hurt our research efforts. We need this so that we can prevent

the next outbreak. But the fundamental question here is how much risk are we willing to take when it comes to this. Is it ten percent chance, five percent chance of a once in a century global pandemic, a one percent chance of killing more than a million Americans, you know, if things get out of hand. And the answer that we got from the administration is that they think that, you know, this can be done safely. It can be done securely here in the United States. Of course, though

you know that's the United States. Our moves create, you know, a impetus for other nations with you know, more lax regulation to go forward with their own. And I think that's one of the most stunning revelations from the pandemic and looking into the origins of it, is how byzantine the system of you US dollar allocation is in other countries. As you say, it's a patchwork, but it's a patrick

in our country, let alone other countries. And so giving an okay to gain a function from the Biden administration, we like to say here, you have not earned reprieve from another pandemic. We have not earned time off from pandemics. This could happen again at any time if the Lablik theory is correct, as the Department of Energy recently said was likely the case, and they're in conjunction with the FBI, which we're going to get to in just a second.

If you have that, that means that you haven't earned any time off from pandemics. This could potentially be happening any day, even though we feel like we've earned the time off from it. So what did Republican senators say when you took this question? To them after getting that response from the Administration. Their critique is much of what

you said. They are of the opinion that the White House doesn't earn any authority to sign off on new rules and regulations until they actually give a reasoned account for where the pandemic came from. Senator Marco Rubio tells me that the White House would have a lot more credibility on the question of regulation. We can pushed Marco Rubio's quote up there, if you know they had been

more forthright about you know, where this came from. Obviously, Republicans, they've made an assessment in their mind, and more or less at this point, Senator, Republicans are saying that they want a complete and total moratorium on any funding to a university or institution that does this type of research. To go back to the point that Kirby's making about the need to prevent future pandemics, because I think that is that's the most powerful argument on the other side

of the question. But it always strikes me that the case of Wuhan, because let's imagine that we were the NIH is funding research in Wuhan in order to detect a pandemic early so that it could stop the spread of that pandemic. A pandemic can start anywhere in the world. It happened to start within just a few miles of this lab. And if they did not accidentally produce this pandemic, it happened right underneath their noses, walking distance from their lab,

and they weren't able to prevent it. So if even in that scenario, that funding doesn't prevent a pandemic, how is it going to stop a pandemic? If if it's if there's some natural origin somewhere else. And so I'm curious when you're in the White House press room with other White House reporters whether or not they see that contradiction, and they and they're concerned about, you know, whether or not the White House is kind of slow walking into a into another one. Ryan's getting a call from Eco

Health Alliances right now. Peter, doesA just come first of all, Ryan, I mean, it sounds a lot to me like you're questioning science and that's not something that you should do. No, in all seriousness, Look, one would expect that there would be more of a broad conversation about the prudence of doing this type of research. And that's why I actually really appreciate the straight answer to a straightforward question that

Kirby gave me. He's laid out the administration's argument on that, and you know, because of that, people on both sides of this can either agree or disagree. But other than some of the really emotionally charged arguments that we've seen during the pandemic, no one has said, all right, you know, let's actually take a moment and show why this does matter, going back to that fundamental question of how much risk

are we willing to accept. You know, if this in fact did come from you know, that lab in Wuhan, then it would seem all right, show me the counterfactual, show me the pandemics that perhaps you stopped, or or the illnesses that you somehow lessened. And I think that as a result of you know, first the FBI analysis, now the Department of Energy, there is more of a willingness by the press to take these questions seriously. And frankly,

you know your show has the receipts on this. A number of corporate media outlets they said, all right, you know, we have our we have our our narrative here, we're not strained from it. And uh, you know, I think that that's a tremendous disservice because some of the things that we've seen come out of reporting of the interception and BuzzFeed is that a lot of these scientists who said, uh, you know this is this is naturally occurring in private.

Uh you know, the authors of the Nature magazine letter, they were saying, wellether, it's a fifty to fifty chance whether or not it was the product of a of a lab. And they were getting tax per dollars for making that discrepancy in public and private, which is just shameful in and of itself. Let's move on to a new interview that Brett Behar conducted with FBI Director Christopher

Ray where this came up. We can play the clip now an energy study that says it's likely to have come from a lab leak, although the confidence slow it cites the FBI. What is the determination by the FBI? So, as you note, Brett, the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are

most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan. That aired on Tuesday night, Philip is there, do you have any sense as you're talking to people in the White House that there's tension between the FBI and the White House, which is continuing to use this line that there is no consensus, which is true, there is no consensus that it was a lab leak, despite the fact that there does seem to be a fact pattern in one direction.

Is there at tension between the White House and the FBI the Department of Energy this week on this question or are they sort of working together and dealing with it. Yeah, I'm not certain why the Department of Energy decided to leak that report right the Wall Street Journal at this moment. Later during that same interview, Ray says flat out though, that the Chinese are being less than helpful, less than forthright in you know, their analysis of the initial situation.

You know, they're not helping investigators get to the bottom of this. And I think that that is hugely significant because the administration has said, you know, we're not going to be able to really have a clear sense of where this started until the Chinese began cooperating. And when you used to press them on this question of you know, did the President actually bring this up personally with g did he press him to be more transparent, they wouldn't answer.

What we heard from the White House last you know, just this week though, is that Kirby said that President Biden actually pressed g personally when they were in Bali to be more transparent, to cooperate more. I think the fact of the matter is, though we have a good sense of what the Chinese motivation is here, and they're

probably not going to cooperate. And so I think that as the question remains open, I think that tension will also remain within the administration and as many as the researcher many of the research will tell you too that the US is still not being completely transparent about that. There are still things know that the that the n i H is holding and other research laboratories are holding that could shed some light on it. So so the blaming China at this point does strike me as related

to the timing. I mean, do you think that this is just all right, Well, this whole balloon thing was embarrassing, uh and we're annoyed at the way that the Chinese did this, uh egg all over our face. We can't

even find their balloons after we shot them down. So the depths of Huron like we get let the let the Energy Department put their thing out there as it was in CNN, which you know, it was a CNN report that the Energy Department, right, but I think they I think pretty sure they had the scoop on that one. I believe the Wall Street Journal is the one that that got all of us. I think got it first. But I mean the journal got it first in in

in what I've seen. But you're right, I mean the political motivations here, obvious Republicans are always going to want to tie bad things around the neck of Beijing and the Biden administration after they were humiliated with balloon Gate. I think that they also, you know, perhaps face the

same temptation. We've seen a confluence of both Republican and democratic concerns when it comes to China, and perhaps that's one of the reasons why what was verboten just a couple of years ago to talk about is now seen as you know, a very real possibility. Well, and if there is a lab lak, if that, let's just say that that's true, we're implicated in that, and the gain of function is implicated in that. And so it sounded to me like John Kirby didn't really want to answer

the question that you asked. He did, though to your point, he did ultimately give that answer. He said, you know, basically, it's a fancy way of saying, yes, we believe that gain of function can be done safely and securely, but they don't seem to really want to confront that head on. Yeah, even before the pandemic, this was massively controversial among scientists and academics that are that this is going to be even more charged now that you have a million Americans

dead as a result. I mean that goes without saying. And Chris Ray talked about that, and what's troublesome is how quickly the nonsense propaganda works. It's works its way into this and moving away from a genuine kind of intellectual exploration of of how this happens that we can

prevent it from happening again. Chris Ray goes on to say in that in that clip, he says, and you know there there was you know, there was a Chinese military operation with the end it killed ended up killing millions of Americans, as as it is the intent of that kind of an operations. You know, some quote along

those lines. It's like, so immediately going in this uber hawkish direction without raising without asking the question of Okay, well, you're saying that this lab was a Chinese military operational the intent of killing millions of Americans? Why were why was the US funding it? Right? Like that? Yeah, that'd be kind of a basic follow up question if was it our intent then to kill millions of Americans? Right?

And even even as more information has has been released as a result of Foyas and that we've been able to review some of these leaked emails, doctor Anthony Fauci continues to stand by what he told UH lawmakers, which is the NIH has not ever funded gain a function research at the woe Hunds student virology. Certainly, you know, there's a lot of new information that counters that, but he's fudging the definition. Yes, yeah, that the definition. There's been a lot of games that have been played UH

in in the last couple of months and years. But I think that even before we get to the question of intent, of whether or not this was some science experiment that you know, was designed to harm people, I think that, you know, we should be able to have a more basic conversation, which is, even in the best case scenario, is this prudent and that's why, you know, I'm fascinated to see the answer that the Biden administration

comes up with. Yeah. Yeah. And the problem with kind of lying about this and and suppressing an honest investigation into it is because then it does open the door

for other people to then push it even further. Because now if you say, now, if you say, well, the FBI, Department of Energy, there's the other intelligence agencies say it actually may have come from this lab, then you're going to have people even further out who are like, okay, well, then I think it was actually intentional and this was a bioweapons program and it was released it was released intentionally.

And then and then the you know, people don't have an authority to come in and say, well, no, we okay, we were wrong the last two or three years about what we were saying, but now believe us when we tell you that we believe that this was an accident, which is which is my belief. I believe it was. It was released accidentally. There's I don't see any evidence that that it was done purposefully. But when you have no when there's no credibility left, it opens the door

for people to believe that. And then might move us closer to some type of hostility, which and how many times do we have to relive this episode that we have during the pandemic. Right, obviously all of our bias is towards more transparency, But when you were not forthright with the American public, and if you hedge, whether it's a noble lie or it's an insidious one, that creates space for individuals to assume the worst case scenario, to

pump things up to more than they actually are. And that is, you know, the enemy of reasonable discourse, and it doesn't serve anyone. Well, that's why I think that you know, if you give a straight answer, even to a controversial question, that provides, you know, the framework for an honest discussion rather than something that gets taken away

by both the left and the right. My last question is just in terms of the funding, whether it's domestically or internationally, because it is the point you made earlier to pick up on the safe and secure designation that Kirby says. We're able to make and do this safely and securely gain a function research, but do it in a contained and responsible way. Would any of that involve

foreign funding? Still, you know diverting in this byzantine way to this grantee that then some contracts this lab overseas. Are there safeguards for where this work can be done in the Biden administration's opinion, does that involve like keeping this domestic or banning foreign funding in any way. So the new recommendations that are in front of the White House Office of Science and Technology, we're going to see which ones they actually sign off on and what makes

the final cut. I'm absolutely interested to see whether or not there are any prohibitions on domestic versus international funding. Certainly, you know that Republicans are going to raise a stink over this based off of what we've been learning about EcoHealth potentially being used as an intermediary for some of

this type of research. But I think that at the end of the day, there's going to be a strong incentive for the administration not to do anything that all looks like it could contribute again to a potential once in a central pandemic. I think that they are going to be much more cautious, not only when it comes to research here in this country, but certainly cautious about sending an American dollars elsewhere at least that's what I would hope. Well, you can read Philip's story in Real

Claire Politics. You can follow his work there as well. Philip Wegman, White House Reporter for RCP, thank you so much for joining Counterpoints, Thank you for having me, Thanks for coming by. See you in the White House press er. I've been there a while and start coming back their buds in the pressure right. Well, that does it for today's edition of Counterpoints. We're on the super fun two shot here in the tight camera. There you go, Ryan that you still have a little bit of a fish hangover,

I imagine, But I hope that feels great. Well ever felt better, I believe that. Actually, we'll be back next Wednesday with more Counterpoints. Thanks so much for tuning in. I see you guys in