Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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All right, Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints. You know, Emily, in a normal election year, the news from last night would dominate today's cycle, but instead I think we'll just give it a passing mention. Joe Biden clinched the Democratic nomination, Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination. Uncommitted, did extremely well in Washington State. We won't know how well until all
the vote the mail in votes are counted Thursday. Looks like they're going to get delegates to go to the DNC. But otherwise, an anticlimactic contest came to its anti climax last night.
I guess yeah, that's right, and more trouble for Biden. And actually here in Washington, d C. As Congress Robert Hurry Special counsel Robert Hurt testified in front of Congress. It was actually fairly explosive from both Republicans and Democrats. Nobody was happy with Robert Hurry yesterday. We'll get to that in just a moment. We will cover some developments out of Israel, including an especially galling video that we
will break down in just a bit. Here. The CPI numbers are out, Ryan, the inflation numbers are out that we're released yesterday. Some really I think depressing news.
Soft Landing is getting bumpy.
Soft He is getting bumpy. We're going to cover developments out of Haiti specifically, actually that not only has Ariel Andrie resigned as Soger and Crystal covered yesterday, but also now it looks.
Like you're going to do a little invasion.
Yeah, it looks like just to help them out again, just to help them a little more help from us.
It's all they need.
So we'll talk about the Kenyan troops situation, have a full breakdown of that. We are going to be talking about Ukraine and some reports from French media that basically nobody's paying attention to here in the States. Actually a new Putin comment as well to cover and then, oh, my goodness, what happened with.
Andrew Tate Man can't catch a break.
Looks like one of his streamer friends actually caused his arrest. So we'll get to that in just a moment. Remember, if you go to breakingpoints dot com, there's twenty five percent off right now, breakingpoints dot com. It's an election.
You not do that.
It's a great deal.
You got to do that great deal.
All right. Let's start with the testimony yesterday of Special Counsel Robert Herr, who was appointed to look into whether Joe bo Biden had willfully retained classified documents at various properties from his garage to his basement. Obviously, this is this happened after Donald Trump was investigated for classified documents
that were littered about Marlco. But let's start with Let's start with this quote, or this exchange between Republican Congressman Matt Gates and again Special Counsel Robert Hrr, who, by the way, it's worth mentioning, worked for Rod Rosenstein and was a lais on to Robert Mueller's special consul and investigation into Donald Trump, which put him off on the wrong foot with the sort of Trump allies right off the bat. Although he was a clerk for William Rynquist.
He was actually appointed by Donald Trump to one of his positions in one of his positions in twenty seventeen, but then obviously ended up working for Rod Rosenstein and working with the Muller investigation. So people like Matt Gates right out of the gate. We're not happy with that.
Gates out of the gate.
Kates out of the gate. So here's Matt Gates, and I think this again, this exchange. We're starting with it because I think it really encapsulated the point that Republicans wanted to drive home yesterday during her testimony.
February eighth, the White House question, mister President, why did you share classified information with your ghost writer? The president? I did not share classified information. I did not share it. I guarantee I did not. That's not true, is it, mister Herr.
That is inconsistent with the findings based on the evidence in my report.
Yes, so it's a lie.
It's just what regular people would say, right, Yeah, all right. So the next one, and all the stuff that was in my home was in filing cabinets that were either locked or able to be locked. That wasn't true either, was.
It that was inconsistent with the findings of our investigation?
Another lie? People might say, right, because what you've put in your report was among the places mister Biden's lawyers kind of classified documents in the garage was a damaged
open box. So here's what I'm what I'm understanding. Right, as mister Armstrong laid out, you find in your report that the elements of a federal criminal violation are met, but then you apply this senile cooperator theory that because Joe Biden cooperated and the elevator didn't go to the top floor, you don't think you can get a conviction.
So, of course her famously declined to bring charges infamously, Perhaps I should say against Joe Biden on that question that Matt Gates was just getting at the willful retention
of classified document. Robert Hurd declined to bring those charges because he said very similar echoed to James Comy's a treatment of Hillary Clinton back and I think this was twenty fifteen, saying that no jury would find beyond reasonable doubt that Biden was guilty of that crime because that question a wilful that Biden was I think this is the description of well intentioned elderly man. Robert Hurst said, a jury's not going to find him guilty of the
wilful retention of documents. Democrats Ryan yesterday seized on that question. They are upset with her for they, as they see it, littering his report with pejoratives and basically being an agist against Joe Biden. Being unnecessarily cruel is one way to put it. Perhaps here's Jerry Nadler absolutely laying into Robert Hurry yesterday in.
Short to borrow a phrase from the last administration represents the complete and total exoneration as an Ambiden And how does that record contrast with President Trump, the documents he retained, and the criminal charges pending against him in Florida. We know that Trump deliberately took large amounts of classified information.
From the White House.
He has admitted as much, occasionally pretending that he classified this information without telling anyone on his way out the door. We know that he stored that information around Mari Laco and the craziest of places on the ballroom stage, spilled across the floor of an unlocked closet next to the toilet. We know that he showed classified military plans to an author interviewing him at Bedminster. Quote, as president, I could
have declassified it, Trump says on an audio recording. Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret, still a secret.
Okay, bren What did you make of the dueling attacks on her from Republicans and Democrats.
I think what it really showed is what the public deserves is a duel trial of both Trump and Biden the same time.
Like, I think we have earned that.
They're both they're both charged with the same thing, you know, mishandling classified information. They've all they've both got it tossed about their their various properties. They're both clearly they both said things that are not true. Now Trump, uh like engaged in like a massive conspiracy to try to cover it up after he knew that they were going after these classified documents, whereas once Biden realized he'd screwed up, he basically just sit here, take take take everything. Like
that's the key difference. But I think it would be a lot of fun for the public just to have them both tried in front of the same jury, and you'd have them cross examine each other. No, I don't want that instead of a debate, and it can be moderated by the Presidential Debate Commission.
It's just bat all around, lovely.
Chris Wallace is in the courtroom moderating them, and then.
Frank Lunz can do a focus group with the jury afterwards.
The jury. Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. Well, so on.
The the whole thing in a diners.
So again, it seems like they're both I mean, it doesn't seem they both had classified documents. Donald Trump obviously was hesitant to turn them over because he believed.
That he can, and he told his groundskeeper to like destroy them and to flood the place, to try to destroy servers. Like just just clown car Cohen Brothers, although types of like cover up.
Speaking of clown Car Coen Brothers, the Biden's ghost writer, they touched on this yesterday in the exchange with her immediately started deleting stuff from his notes that showed that Biden had been sharing classified information with him and properly information that had not been properly declassified. And so again that is another thing that her was approached by approached by Republicans about yesterday. Also sort of like Coen brothers as not quite on the level of the mar A Lago shenanigans.
Yeah, it's more run in the mill criminality. It only becomes criminal when classified information is involved, when you are challenged state power, when you're going against the federal goblin.
Like if you're leaking about the federal government's crimes to the public as a public service, then you're going to get tried, and then you're going to get tortured and put into maximum security prison and put into isolation and driven insane, and even if you're an Australian citizen, they'll try to extradite you here to lock you up for that.
But if you're just writing a memoir that nobody's going to read and it's just a grift to get paid off by you know this super rich publishing houses in New York, then it's basically like you can just do whatever you want.
Yeah, But in news outlets including the Federalists, had transcripts obtained transcripts actually of her and Biden's full conversations on October eighth and ninth. So if those dates sound a little whild to this, because indeed it was October eighth and ninth, as Biden was dealing with the fallout from
the October seventh attacks and the conversations between them. Should basically that hers description was apt the sort of Biden did actually at one point, and people might remember that angry press conference immediately after hers report dropped that called Biden a confused elderly man or well intentioned elderly man. Biden had that weird press conference from the White House that night. Biden actually blamed her for bringing up Bo Biden and was just absolutely incensed, sort of indignant that
her had brought up Bo Biden. The testimony, if you read the transcripts, Biden is the one who brought up Bo Biden. So that entire exchange where Biden was again trying to prove how great his memory was and confused the presidents of Mexico in Egypt. Not only that he was actually remembering his conversation wrong, which again is totally fine. These are long conversations he went over the course of
multiple days. Biden sat for these very long interviews, picking up some painful scabs over the last decade of his life, if not a little longer than that. But again, as he was sort of indignant about a report that his memory wasn't great. His memory was not so great.
Speaking of people not having a good memory about their own memory, Democrats took the opportunity to put together a little greatest hits of Donald Trump isms and just played them at the hearing kind of for no reason at all.
So well, here, for no reason, they're basically saying that Trump has his own memory lapses.
Yeah, so yeah, let's let's roll some Trump.
Bold like up here.
And it's called memory, and it's called other things.
So you don't remember saying one of the best I don't remember that and Putin.
You know, I have so little respect for Obama that he's starting to throw around the nuclear worter.
You've heard that nuclear We have to win in November or we're not going to have Pennsylvania. Don't change the name.
I talked to Putin a lot.
Did you ask him that?
I don't remember that, you know, I saw that this morning.
I don't remember asking him that place.
I have a good memory and all that stuff, like a great memory. For twenty years they were fighting ISIS. I feated ISIS in four weeks and we did with Obama. We want an election that everyone said couldn't be one. I'm not cognitively, and you know what what I am. You get in charge, You're gonna be the first weep. I know much. People you say, all right, Trump, you did a good job. Get the hell out of it.
The Pennsylvania one, I don't get. How do maybe he's right about that? Like, how do we know?
Maybe they will change the name, change the name because of whatever happens.
I was curious what you made of that one as a as a what erstwhile Pennsylvania?
Yeah, I mean it would be sad if Trump's right and they changed the name. It's a good name. There's no way to know, no way to know. But we will know when.
He's cognitively blah blah blah blah blah, and we'll and his people will tell.
Him, well no right away and said Trump, get the hell out of here.
Yeah, clearly not. Yeah. I'm surprised they didn't use the one where he called his wife Mercedes.
Did he do that?
Yeah?
Oh I had missed that one. So again, this is I think it is both. It is clear that both of them will fully entertain classified documents, although that question of Wulfo of her will fall is hard to prove in front of a jury. And I think most importantly even Biden gets at this in his lengthy testimony to Robert Herr. The transcript of the testimony to Robert Herr. We wildly overclassified documents. And that's the point Biden sort of strives to make repeatedly in that conversation with her,
and that's an entirely fair point. But then we get Ryan stuck in this ridiculous cycle. I mean, this might be one of the most ridiculous cycles of this election. We're going to talk about the inflation numbers in just
a bit, but it is. The world feels like it's on fire, hot conflicts in Eastern Europe, hot conflict in the Middle East, people struggling here at home, and we are now in this doom loop about our elderly leaders retaining classified information, which again wildly overclassifying our information, some of it we know in both cases actually was probably
legitimately classified. We have no evidence that this willfully retained classify information was used improperly by any foreign adversaries, that any other saw it that shouldn't have.
There's some suspicion with some of the Trump stuff, with.
The Trump stuff, that he may have retained.
It for nuclear fleet stuff and other it's dice.
Yeah, no, it's it's absolutely serious stuff, some of it, at least, I'm sure not all of it is. But all of that is to say, this is, of course what's happening when people leave office. There's actually, you know, interpretations of what was it called the National Archive Act or something like that National Archive Act that presidents can do this. And I'm not saying that's the correct interpretation, but this is just getting into a legal again doom
spiral over our elderly leaders. Just you have Democrats pretending that it's not a problem when it's Joe Biden. You have Republicans pretending it's not a problem when it's Donald Trump, even though Matt Gates is clearly getting at whether the DOJ has a double standard is like such a side show the problems because it's just about one upping each other and the double standard, like it's so meta. It's like a double standard about a double standard when you get to Jerry and Nadler.
Yeah, and we can put up the final element here from this tweet from Byron York and people can pause this and read this exchange if they want to. But curious for your take on this, because I think everybody agrees for the most part. Paul's show, ninety plus percent of people would roughly say that, yeah, that Matt Gates is right, that the elevator doesn't go all the way
to the top any anymore. However, separating all of that out, I think, but you know, bungling some of these dates here, to me is not the clean hit that people think it is.
And what I mean is that I do this too, and I'm not senile like it.
It's not easy to remember off the top of your head exactly what year things happened as far as I'm concerned, Like, did we start rising in twenty.
Twenty twenty twenty one? What year?
Oh, I never remember?
We jump over here twenty twenty two, probably maybe I don't.
I don't don't.
Proving your point live, I.
Don't actually know, but we could.
But if I was being interrogated and somebody had like calendars in front of me, like, oh, yeah, it was when this happened, and this happened, this happened, And that's sort of what he's doing. He's connecting things that happened at the same time he but he does remember that his son died on May thirtieth. Yes, and people people remember those dates that tragic events or celebratory events happened, but they often don't remember the year. Like I could
tell you the day I got married. My wife doesn't watch this show, so I can admit that I'd have to think for a while and be like, what year was it?
It was, it was a long time ago. I do remember the date, don't ask me.
The day any So that like, Okay, I think he's right generally, but I think the specifics I don't think he got him there.
So one point on that, though, I will say, is that when he's talking about twenty so, for instance, twenty seventeen, he's he missed. As Byron pointed out, that's when he's he's talking about whether he left the Senate in twenty seventeen, or he pinpoints twenty seventeen and then talks about it as broadly that era in which he left the Senate, And then he really does confuse the era between the sort of vice presidency and when he ends up actually running.
For talking about senate because he was thinking about running for president twice and conflates them and.
It's yeah, yeah, he does. So he talks about Obama obviously saying he doesn't think you should run a president in twenty sixteen, and that era he then confuses with when he decided to run for president and the twenty twenty election cycle. So I totally understanding the same, Like pinpointing years, especially when you're as old as he is, becomes impossible.
And he's also a liar, but he's a liar.
Yeah, And his staff and this is not just saying this, Like his the staff that I've talked to over the years, as well as books that have been written about him, talk about the fact that if he's cornered, he will just tell a straight up lie. And there's also like very the lies that he's told, like the time where he was he was going to bust Nelson Mandela.
Out of prison.
Yes, his involvement with the civil rights movement, which he when he dropped out of the presidential race he ended up like apologizing for some of that back in nineteen eighty eight, and then still tells a lie today, Like he tells lies about things that he apologized for previously lying about. And then you add on top of that it being difficult to keep years together.
Yeah, you can imagine how a Jerry be like.
I don't know, yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. Although yes, again that question of reasonable doubt and the willful retention, that's what this really comes down to, and that's where Republicans thought that they had and I think they did get a good clip with her yesterday saying when Matt Gates was saying, you know, reading Biden quotes about how he didn't do this, he didn't do this, and then going to her and her saying yes, that is inconsistent
with findings based on my report, and Matt Gates being like, yeah, that's a lie. Again, though my broad takeaway from this this is just we are in the partisan doom spiral. So welcome to the thunder Dome twenty twenty four.
Yeah, enjoy.
Let's move on to Israel. Ryan in this I twenty four report about the UAE and the land bridge for Gaza.
Aid right, So, if your behavior has managed to frustrate the United Arab Emirates, you've gone awfully far.
So.
Israel, because of the blockade of the Red Sea carried out by the Huthi's, has seen tremendous economic damage being done to its economy broadly, and so what they have been able to do is they teamed up with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UE and other Arab partners to create basically a land bridge that can help to keep goods flowing back and forth. The UAE is now saying that if Netanyahu doesn't start allowing in significant amounts of aid to Gaza, the UAE is going to pull out of this and bridge accord,
which could collapse the entire thing. The Amiradis have been probably the most loyal Arab state to the Israelis over the last decade or so. They have less of a population to worry about than Saudi Arabia, who has been kind of the second most loyal to Israel over the say, the last ten decades. The leadership of the UAE was extremely tight with Jared Kushner and basically helped to broker
the Abraham Accords across the entire region. To have them coming out this publicly and saying that if Israel doesn't change course, you know it's going to sever this crucial economic tie is something they really need to pay attention to.
Mohammad Benzaiad, the head of the UAE, is in this article saying that he refused to meet with Netnyahu recently, which is and we had reported back in twenty seventeen that Kushner, net Nyahu, Mohammed Bin Sala when Mohammed Bin said, we're all texting each other on WhatsApp and like had this like real tight relationship that went around the state apparatus.
Uh.
And and was you know, one of the things that helped them, you know, build towards the Abraham Accords. That now MBZ wouldn't even meet with net Yahoo is uh. You know, I think shows you how far Israel's standing has fallen in the region in service of this starvation policy.
Uh.
And you know, what's what what's your what's your read on what type of pressure from around the world is going to have any influence on Israel's willingness or unwillingness to allow aid in.
I think it's also just an incredible statement on how poorly the United States has handled diplomatically the situation. And then even like obviously the substance of the policy, which is another question, but if we're just talking about pure diplomacy and how the United States has sort of like to see itself as the leader but.
These are our guys.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's a I think a pretty damning.
If we're losing the UE, we don't have anybody.
It's a very damning indictment of how the Biden administration has broken these negotiations. You know, Israel is furious with Biden, and you know, well, we'll see what happens in that relationship. But obviously Nanna who went on Fox and Friends this week to kind of talk a little smack about Biden and now, yeah, to your point about the UAE slipping.
Away, and let's talk about the context of this global revulsion at what Israel is doing when you put up this this new BBC investigation into something that we covered here previously on Breaking Points, which was the Israeli assault
on Nasser Hospital. You know, we talked about, you know, one particular doctor, you know, who went missing for many days now a number of now about a dozen medical workers from NASA Hospital, according to the BBC, are still missing and their family are deeply concerned about their their well being. But the ones who have been released, you know, spoke to Three of them spoke to the BBC independently
and told stories of their captivity. And the way that this type of journalism works where you don't have forensic evidence, you don't have video, you don't have photos, they actually do. The BBC has some video and photo from inside the hospital of pretty rough treatment of the of the medical staff, but not after they leave the hospital. The way you
do that reporting is you try to talk. You try to reach people independently, so that you don't say, all right, you talk to one doctor and then you ask that doctor, you know, who else can we talk to? That's that's fine, like if that's all you can do, that's all you can do. But it's better to find them independently so that you know for certain that they didn't communicate with each other. And then you hear the stories they told where were you taken? How long were you there? Were
the people look like you did this? What exactly did they do to you? And if you can pile up a bunch of different stories, uh, then you compare them, then you can then that is some level of corroboration. And that's what the BBC uh did here and it's report finding that the that the medical staff, including the doctors, were severe were severely beaten, were doused with cold water,
where one of them had their hands broken. The the the kind of abuse that you can imagine coupled with harsh and harsh interrogations, and the uncertainty if you're going to wind up in a whether you're gonna wind up in a mass graver, you're ever going to see your your family again, and so uh. The State Departments Matt Miller was asked about this BBC report yesterday at the briefing. Let's take a listen to his response here.
They've interviewed three doctors or three members of the staff at that hospital who've given like detailed accounts of the detention by Israeli authorities. They told the BBC there were humiliated, beaten, doused with cold water, forced to kneel in uncomfortable positions for hours. One was set upon by a dog. I'm wondering, is that is that a specific one of these specific cases that you would raise with the Israedy government.
I have only seen the report. I don't know that if we have raised it, but I would expect that we would. Is the type of cases that we often raise with them to seek more information and to make clear, as we always have, that any detainee should be treated in strict compliance with international humanitarian law.
Are you aware of any cases where as already troops have been disciplined for mistreating prisoners.
I am aware of cases. I don't know specifically with respect to prisoners, but I know that we recently raised with them an incident where Israeli soldiers where were filming themselves inside a mosque inappropriately, and the Idea told us that they were investigating and if appropriate, there would be accountability and discipline.
But that's the case where there's video evidence they the faces in the video.
Yeah, correct, but correct, But it doesn't change what we think the standard ought to be, which is, if there are allegations that are substantiated, there ought to be accountability. That's true for the Israeli militaries, it should be for the United States military and a military anywhere in the world.
You notice it, and the reporter says, that's a case where they were doing it on video. I thought it was interesting that Miller said, if appropriate, there will be disciplined. So even in that case, Israel wouldn't commit to the State Department even privately, Okay, we will discipline these soldiers because you can imagine a scenario where the State Department says, look, there's a video going around to these soldiers put up themselves on TikTok of themselves, you know, desecrating this mosque.
Here they are, and you could imagine a world in which you shared that with your partners, your allies, and the ally said, this is horrifying. We're going to find out exactly who these guys are and there's going to be disciplined. We apologize rather than you know, if we find something disturbing this video, we'll you know, at that point,
will take action. But Emily, the part that really struck me from his response was I'm not sure if we have talked to Israel yet about this, but it is the type of.
Thing that we do talk to them about.
We're five months in and the pattern is so recognizable that you can say, oh yeah, doctors being beaten and having dogs set upon them. Yep, that sounds familiar. That's the kind of thing, the type of thing, that's the type of thing we often do talk to our Israeli friends about.
And so the IDF has in the BBC story, they have said, quote, we emphasize that the hands of patients who were not suspective of involvement and terrorism were not tied. They deny some specific stuff, and then it looks like they declined to answer questions about other specific things. It was kind of an interesting response from the IDF.
Right, there was some right, There was some patients. That's the other thing that makes this the reporting so credible. They said some patients did not have their hands tied, right, some.
Right, and they said they don't perform They didn't answer questions about the doctor's cast. So that was one of the things I find interesting, just given that they were answering questions about others. You know, they were saying, for example, that they don't perform mock executions. The IDF does not perform mocks executions. They said it does not and has not carried out mock executions of detainees and rejects such claims, but then didn't answer the questions about the cast, and
it denied other things. So it was sort of a mixed response from the IDEF, which is always interesting because a categorical denial is what would be most common, right, and.
So then you're wondering, like, what did these medical personnel go through that they felt was a mock execution, yes, and the IDF and what is the IDF's definition here, Well, there's no paperwork, so it wasn't actually a mock execution. It was just we're threatening to put you up against the wall while you're blindfolded, and we might kill you. But they actually didn't even point their guns out. But if you're blindfolded, you don't know that.
And we have this video that Eric Tohler and colleagues at the New York Times reported on. This is a voiceover, so we can go ahead and roll it whenever. But Eric Toller posted this to Twitter and said, these really military published a drone video of their strike on two people, one of which was carrying and quote RPG. We asked them and the Idea of admitted that it was actually
a bicycle. So if you can stomach watching this video, what you are about to see is this gentleman not carrying an RPG but a bicycle.
Having his life snuffed out. He apparently was on his way to pick up flower delivery and was bringing and they were bringing flower back to their back to their families.
To me, when this video first circulated, it was always preposterous that this was an RPG. For people that weren't watching, It's two guys walking down the middle of a rubble strewn street and one of them has a long looking thing near his right hand.
The reason we have footage of at is that there was a drone overhead. Those drones.
If you've watched any video of Gaza or you've talked to people who've been in Gaza, make a buzzing sound. They know that there's a drone over top of them. If they are Hamas fighters with an RPG, they would not be sauntering casually down the middle of the street.
This is Mark stired in Gaza City.
It makes absolutely no sense that that would be an RPG. Is Israel not watching the telegram videos that Cassam Brigades are posting on a basically daily basis. The guys with the RPGs are crouched inside buildings, sneaking around looking for a window and launching them at tanks. They're not walking down the middle of the street.
So this is what this was.
Was a drone operator who found human beings and was looking for a kill.
So the IDF claims that the route part of this. The reason this happened is that the route had been used to transfer ammunition to fighters that were then attacking the IDF. Their response, this is actually a statement from the Idea of quote of the New York Times. They say, during the several days leading up to the documented strike, armed terrorists used their routschurn in the video in order
to transfer ammunition and attack IDEA forces. The strike took place after real time identification of the people as armed terrorists based on information gathered ahead of the strike. So actually, it sounds like they're standing by the contention, even though.
They were wrong about the amycle.
Classic RPG bicycle mix up tailors all this time. They they're standing by the contention that this was a combatant who was killed in that video.
Well, they're saying that they genuinely thought it was, is what they're saying. It sounds like, yeah, because he was in an area that had previously been used for transporting weapons.
But Gaz is a very small area. Everywhere is an area where there was recently fighting for the most part.
Yeah. So the other thing I wanted to highlight from the So, by the way, this is in the New York Times. It says the Idea of still defended the strike asserting that the two people were combatants without providing its evidence. So they're still standing.
By Oh okay, so the well, it's there men in somewhere between like fifteen and sixty five. And that has become another disturbing part of this coverage that any that any man basically is considered to be a fair target. And as a dude, I kind of I reject that premise.
The Times also notes that at one point in the video you can actually see the wheel of.
The park can be so clearly a bike.
So yeah, I mean there's another of the mounting problems for the IDEF. This is sort of a small potatoes compared to the whole the all of the problems for the IDEF, but this one is so clear, of all of the all of the deaths that are sadly stacking up, this one is so clear that it will be a problem for them going forward.
And it's for them to not be able to say.
We made a mistake. It looked from our perspective like it was an RPG.
This is war.
Things happen, you know, our sympathies are with the family, like that would be I think would not would not be sufficient because it was so obviously not an RPG, but it would be at least acknowledging the humanity of the person, and that the two people that you killed, the grief that you caused their loved ones, that they won't even do that raises a question of.
Like what on earth would they ever acknowledge.
I think that's a great point that actually gets at this entire conflict, that you know, the sort of propaganda efforts. We've talked about this many times, the propaganda efforts, which is what happens in war. Obviously Hamas is engaged in propaganda efforts. Obviously that's part of war, but the propaganda efforts on behalf of the IDF and some times, as you point out in that Matt Miller clip, it's difficult for the United States as an ally to even defend
how bad some of the propaganda has been. But it is true that when you are attacked and you're engaging in war, there's going to be the fog of war that's actually tales all this time. And I think it would behoove is real to have more transparency about some of these things instead of the show of transparency which ultimately ends up to be just pure propaganda.
So often, Yeah, stop doing these things.
When you do them, apologize and actually not just for the bop the starvation.
Don't just apologize for mistaking the RPG, taking a bike.
For an Yeah, or you're going to lose the UAE. And that's like, that's good.
That's what they don't understand or don't care about, it seems like.
And the American like potentially support of the American people, which is absolutely crucial to their effort YEP, which is probably why you have not Yahoo going on Fox and Friends.
Well, let's get back to the American people. Let's talk about the American economy for a minute. So yesterday we had new inflation data which is shaking up people's thinking about what the Federal Reserve is going to do when it comes to interest rates going forward, which that has a just reverberates all throughout the rest of the economy.
So we can put up this first element here.
So consumer prices rose basically a little faster than they were expected zero point four percent in February, which was three point three point two percent rates slightly higher than expected.
You know, year year over year.
You saw rent and housing continue to be continue its surge you saw gas prices contributing to this inflation spike.
Even if you take gas prices out, you started seeing this.
And so over the last roughly year in wages, wage growth and particularly wage growth at the bottom, has been outpacing inflation. That's a good thing, like, that's the direction that you want to go. The several years before that, coming out of the pandemic, inflation was rising faster than wages. So basically you need several years of wages growing faster than inflation to catch back up. And so people aren't pulling prices down except eggs.
Actually, well, I was saying. Also with high interest rates, you have a lot of people, especially in lower income brackets, who went into debt because they were laid off during the pandemic, so many service workers people in that position paying high interest rates. So not only does wage growth have to be steady for years, you then also have these high interest rates that are compounding the debt. I mean, it's making the debt worse and worse and a deeper
and deeper hole to climb out of. So even if your wages are climbing, you still are going to have a steep hill ahead of you to get out of the debt.
And one thing I think people aren't quite realizing when it comes to how rough this part of the economy feels like, is how kind of good it was in twenty twenty. And it's hard to say good in twenty twenty the same sentence, because you had the lockdowns, you had had the pandemic. It was it was a difficult time kind of socially and culturally. But when it came to finances, people were doing a lot better because you
got all of these direct checks. You had this what they called the super doll the six hundred dollars a week in unemployment.
You had you know, multiple checks rolling out.
You had checks in March twenty twenty, you had checks again in December twenty twenty, then you had checks again.
In February, March twenty twenty one. Just your bank account one day like this, don't do any work and boop, all of a sudden, thousands of dollars in your bank account, like.
Help to your business.
And interest rates were down under three not a mortgage interest rates under three percent. And what that did is it allowed basically everybody had a home at the time refinanced and they so there their monthly nut went down and they a lot of people cashed out, so they
had more cash in their pockets month to month. And you know, they had taken say, let's say ten fifteen thousand dollars out and they did and either that padded their savings account for the you know, the problems that are you know that that always come up in life, or they did the thing that they needed to do for so long, you know, the you know, repair repaired the leaky bathtub, you know, got got the.
House painted, whatever.
And so to go from that to then prices spiking at nine percent back in twenty twenty one and then come coming down but not coming but not having enough time to recover is you know, sucks for sucks for this economy because you need more time for wages to outpace inflation. A year is not enough, like you need like five years actually, I mean to get back to a like humane economy, you would need like one hundred years of wages outpacing inflation.
So let's put this next element up on the screen from Jason Furman because ryand I'm curious what you made of Jason Furman's analysis. He puts some of these numbers into Basically he was looking at core services, core goods, and what you're seeing, and this is important if you're watching this, You go back to about twenty ten, and the core goods prices are actually all the way to
where they are around right now. They have this huge spike around twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, and then they've dipped now down to where they were almost in like twenty fourteen, which is similar to where things were before the pandemic around twenty twenty. Core services spikes right around twenty twenty. It was on kind of a steady climb from twenty twelve, roughly around twenty ten twenty twelve, but then where it is now is so much higher
than where it has been for core services. So that's things like shelter, and Furman specifically calls out shelter, So the cost of rent, the cost of housing, that is way higher than it has been in anyone's recent memory. And that is that's why some of this is so uneven. So when you're seeing Paul Krugman's analysis that actually everything's fine, it depends, I mean, it just really depends on who you are, what kind of life you live, if you if you own if you're in what your finances look like.
This is a really really tough economy for a lot of people, and for many people specifically because of that core services mark that is not anywhere near where it used to be, right, and that is it is significantly higher.
And there was this big debate is inflation transitory? Is it? Is it endemic?
The transitory crowd looking at that core goods I think can argue, like from a cane's in old school perspective, was absolutely correct. That was obviously transitory, Like you had you had a stimulus, and you had you had some greedflation, and you had an opening up of the economy after the pandemic. The price of goods popped and then the price of goods came back down. That was to be expected and transitory. The services inflation is an endemic problem.
That is that is going to need to be sorted out. You've also got uh home insurance, auto insurance, health insurance, those all those other costs you know that are just utilities that are just part of your something.
Some utilities are in.
Core goods that are just kind of part of daily life and they're just more expensive. And what that does is you know, you you just feel that by the middle of every month, it's that that amount of money is coming out of your paycheck, and your paycheck is just isn't going as as far as it used to. Even as you know, wages did grow for the last year faster, faster than inflation, but you need a lot more than that.
So I actually want to play this clip of Gary Cohene, who is one of Trump's Goldman Boys, is on I think this is on CBS Face the Nation the week because I think he made a pretty good point in the context of why people are feeling as though the economy isn't great. So Biden is not polling very well in the economy again, despite people like Paul Krugman and many many others actually who have said, you know why, aren't this optimism or this pessimism that the public is
experiencing is not backed up by data. The media is telling way too negative a story about the economy. Listen to Gary Khane here.
Inflation has a compounding effect, meaning is you look at inflation year over year, you're adding up those numbers. You're not starting at zero every year. So if we had six percent inflation last year, seven percent inflation, and now
we have four percent inflation. That's ten percent inflation. So if you take a basket of groceries at the beginning of twenty twenty, just a simple basic basket that cost one hundred dollars, it costs well over one hundred and twenty five dollars today because those four percent one year and seven percent one year and seven percent the next year, they add up the cumultive so there's a huge cumulative effect inflation.
So when people are being told consumers, you're wrong inflations.
Had no, they're right.
They're completely right. Actually they're completely right.
And what they're more right about is we at least finally have gotten to the position where wage growth is faster than inflation. But we had not been there till the last few months, so people were losing purchasing power and that's why people were angry. And then take on top of that the high interest rate environment where if you thought you might have been in a position to buy a house because you save money, you go out to get a mortgage at seven or eight percent, you can't afford a house.
So Conor's non executive at IBM, after leading the Trump National Economic Council. But that is completely accurate.
Ryan, Yeah, right, And as he says, wages finally were growing faster than inflation, which as somebody who you know advocated for robust government spending you know, throughout the Panda, throughout the pandemic, to see wages growing faster than inflation is extremely satisfying, vindicating.
And to see.
Unemployment below four percent, which is driving all of this labor militancy and could you know, is helping to reshape the political economy, giving more power to workers rather than bosses, like all of all of that is a good thing. But tying it in with the the UH, with the greedflation, which was these you know, corporations, you know, seeing the opportunity to raise prices and just taking profits and walking
away with it. Plus the obvious inflation you were going to get from the supply chains and the open just the opening up of the economy after a pandemic, UH, you know, has left people you know, way behind. And he and you know, so often we economists and the news talk about inflation either in month to month terms or year over year terms.
But he's right, like we're all we're all adults, Like we remember what it costs to go to the grocery store three or four years ago. Yeah, and we now know what it costs today.
And as he's saying, one hundred dollars bag is now one hundred and twenty five dollars bag. And that's a that's a huge problem.
One of the reasons I think we talk about it in that context is because, like this report, so this is the BLS data, that's what we're talking about. We started with the CNBC sterarisheet about that. They put out the monthly data, they put out the year over year
data on inflation. And so that's what the media caused like the hook, and that's economists or in the weeds analyzing changes in specific aspects of the baskets on the month to month basis, because that's what's relevant every single month.
When sometimes you get a bird, you get a bird flu and eggs are super expensive. But well that's not it's not a macroeconomic issue, right, that's all the birds got killed, right, right.
But if you're just a consumer, if you're not a member of the media or an economist, so ninety nine percent of the population, the year over year is what really matters to you because you're comparing it to what you were paying before and what your wages were before, and so yeah, I mean it's it's obvious. That's how people think about it normally.
And also, yes, and inflation for the most part, and price growth is pretty steady across everybody's everybody gets gas, everybody's got car insurance.
I mean not everybody's car insurance, but a lot of people do not.
I guess not everybody buys gasoline, but a lot of people do. Everybody eats, so everybody feels those price increases. You know, wage growth depends on the company you work, depends if you switch jobs, depends depends where you live, uh, depends on all sorts of other factors. And so for lots of people, you know, they're seeing significantly better wage growth than inflation over the last several years. For other people they're making less, they're not doing you know, for
others they're right in the middle. There, we've got the we've got this trade publication, the COBC letter that actually dug even deeper into these numbers. If we can pull this up. They say they they dug in on super core inflation, and what they're what they found is even more disturbing than and so they say on a three month annualized basis, super core inflation jumped six point nine percent in February, which is huge. That's pushing back to
twenty twenty two levels. Core services less shelter inflation is a key metric that the FED follows, So in January the metric jumped zero point seven percent month over month, the biggest jumps in September twenty twenty two. In February is up another half point month over month after multiple increases in twenty three. They say, all while real wage growth is turning negative again and the fight against inflation is far from over.
So inflation is one thing.
If wages are going faster than inflation, if wages are losing purchasing power to inflation, that's that's when things turn deeply ugly again.
Right, Yeah, So a lot of positive signs, but also could potentially be some really negative stuff. And I mean there is really negative stuff if you're looking under the hood. But trends, of course, could continue to go into a frightening direction for a whole lot of people.
Ryan, All right, let's move on to Haiti and let's talk about what's really going on over there.
Let's put up this first element here.
So the big news is that Kenya, which have been pressured by the United States to send a thousand police officers as basically an invasion force under the auspices of the United Nations, has now said that it's hitting pause on whether it's actually going to do that.
As the de facto.
Fake prime minister has said that he will resign his fake position once the United States and its allies has created a new fake government in Jamaica to take its place. The Kenyans are using this opportunity to say, you know what, I don't think so not so.
Sure we're actually going to go along with this.
So to back things up, in twenty twenty two, there was a extraordinarily contentious and contested and not very widely credited election in Kenya.
We're president William rot To was elected.
Since his election in the US was very clearly backing him, the entire way celebrated his very shady victory. Since then, Kenya has taken all sorts of odd international positions. If you look at that giant green board in the United Nations and you see the weird countries that are like siding with the United States and Israel in these like you know, two hundred and fifty to five votes, Kenya
is always right there with them. Keny one of the only countries in the Quasi region that joined with the US in this operation Prosperity Guardian going after the going after the Houthis, and they're guard guarding the prosperity the Hoothies with their blockade of the Red Sea. And then all of a sudden, Kenya is like, sure, we'll send troops to Haiti.
That sounds like something we'd love to do.
The Kenyan population obviously, is wildly against the idea that the Kenyans would go and occupy Haiti.
Well, there's money in it for ken obviously.
That's we're paying for it.
Yes, So not only are we paying for that, yes, So the US on a State Department said yesterday that yes, it's they confirmed we're going to pick up the tab for this entire invasion and occupation, although we're hoping that the French and some others you know, kick in, the Canadians might kick in here and there. Meanwhile, we're also facilitating billions in World Bank loans to Kenya that are effectively facilitating kind of an ethnic cleansing campaign.
That that that the Kenyan government is operating in rural parts, which which we'll talk about later in the show. This is about Haiti. We'll talk about Haiti here. Uh.
The context of this is this US created government. So the US has been creating governments for Haiti, you know, for more than one hundred years. Sometimes they're just actual US governments they're occupying Haiti. Other times, Uh, they are US allied governments that we installed after a coup. Other times, the Haitians rise up managed for a while to have some type of self determination, which we then undermine and come in and replace.
And we do this every five years or so, and.
Then we keep wondering what's wrong with the Haitians, Why can't they get their act together, rather than saying maybe it's us who've been doing this for more than one hundred years and and continue to make things.
Worse for them.
Maybe it's us, but maybe not. So they're going to try again. So they met in Jamaica. Matt Miller said that the state's department spokesperson said that there were some Haitian civil society representatives who zoomed in to the meeting in Jamaica to form the new government. The condition for being part of this new government created by the US and its core group allies is that, well, a, you can't be any people that the United States doesn't like. We can get into that a minute, but you have
to support Kenyon troops coming into your country. Then they come around and say, well, the Haitian government is requesting the international troops from Kenya to come occupy its country. Except okay, yes, we just made this government in Jamaica, and we insist that a condition for joining the government was that you agree with this policy ahead of time. It's like absolutely crazy making. Meanwhile, the actual power in Haiti is our man friend of the show, Jimmy Barbecue Shirazier.
Let's roll a little bit of barbecue here. Go ahead, Emily Dusk, describe what people are seeing here.
So you're seeing barbecue. You're seeing a barbecue saying that it's important to tell the international community to give Haiti a chance because what is happening in Haiti now, and he's speaking in French. We Haitians have to decide who is going to lead the country. So that's to the point Ryan just made, And what kind of model of government that we want. We are going to figure it out how to get Haiti out of the misery it
is in now. If the international community, he continues, continues on the oh you are on now, it will plunge Haiti into further chaos. And again, we as soon as the assassination of juvenal moys happened, it was very clear that we would end up exactly where we're ending up with people. In fact, like Barbecue gangs basically control eighty percent of Haiti. That's the estimate. It's kind of impossible to get that estimate anyway, but that's a sessiment from the UN and other groups.
Right.
And so here's the interesting question, is that still a gang? I wish we should interview our old libertarian buddy Robbi Suave about this, because a gang, what is a government except a gang that was successful in taking power and monopolizing violence.
Because whoever is installed by the core group is going to have to negotiate with Barbecue. There's no other question about it. And I don't know you were in I found this sort of US fixation on Barbecue to be in some ways like incredibly distasteful because it's almost it's patronizing in a really gross way, like, oh, what a mess Haiti is. It's led by a man named Barbecue, right.
And on TikTok and elsewhere, you're seeing this these claims that he's a cannibal, which you're like, is it twenty twenty four and you're still calling like, like Haitian figures like cannibals.
The US backed de Valiers had plenty of WE backed the Devaliers had plenty of interests in voodoo and all of that. I mean, it's it's not like I'm not talking about cannibalism specifically, but the things that people are now finding to be very amusing about Haiti. It's just it is. It's grouse.
Yeah, And hey, is Barbecue a rough dude.
He's a rough dude, but he gets the name barbecue comes from the fact that his dad like sold barbecue chicken on the side of the road, right, Like that's like it's he's not called barbecue because he barbecues people and eats them.
So, right, And you asked Matt Miller questions just yesterday at the State Department briefing and pushed him on this question of Haiti.
Yeah, let's watch that follow up on his point about the resignation of arryel on Ree after Moy's assassination. Henri was plausibly linked to it via phone calls and others, and was not in line to take power, But it was the US and the core Group that kind of recognized him and pressured Claude Joseph's power. He was seen as illegitimate at the time, called it the fact of
Prime Minister. In retrospect, was it a mistake to have pushed Joseph aside or pushed anybody aside for Onrie, given that Onried now a couple of years later, is out after a failed.
So ultimately that wasn't a decision for the United States, and what happens now is not a decision.
For the United States.
The US and the Core Group made the decision by recognizing it.
We will continue our goal all along has been a transition to democracy and trying to achieve a stable security situation on the ground so that Haitian political leaders have the room to make the to make the tough choices they need to make.
But then why endorset foreign inner mention of troops from outside of Haiti to come in like in twenty and four twenty ten, twenty twenty one, the State's Department, the Core group got their way when it came to who would form the Haitian government. That's setting aside the occupations and invasions of the past, what makes you confident that this time it's going to work so all the other times.
So first of all, I'd say that the Multi National Security Support Mission will be there at the invitation of the Haitian government. That is a key prerequisite for their deployment.
And it's what the guys just made that government age to make.
But it's what the hold on. It's what the Kenyan government said in their statement. They have to have a government that has invited them with which they can collaborate, and it's why they're looking for the appointment of this Presidential Transition Council and ultimately a new Prime Minister and
ultimately a new government. But when it comes to what just happened in Jamaica, again, this was a collaboration of CARACOM leaders, Haitian civil society, the United States, Canada, France, Mexico, Brazil, all of whom have an interest in seeing stability and all of whom have the same goal.
That was actually kind of funny and in a really dark and twisted way where you're interrupting him to say, you guys made that decision, and where he says it was not the decision of the US to recognize Ario Henri or basically to back Onnrey, you were like, well, you recognized him, the core group recognized him.
When he wasn't the Prime minister.
No, he was in this like the cloud you mentioned Claude Joseph. There's a huge power struggle that people memory hold.
Yeah, And then he said, well that the Haitian the troops are there at the request of the Haitian government, the Haitian government that we just made in a hotel room yesterday zoom in Jamaica. Afterwards, I asked him a question that I think will be important down the road. I said, is there any particular Haitian that the US would not want to see come to power? And he said, no,
that's again, that's that's for the Haitian people. And I have two people in mind, and let's let's talk about stuff you can't talk about on the normal, normal news program. When I asked question one is one is g Philippe, who is super controversial figure because he was involved in the two thousand and four coup. So this is a this was at a US stooge who helped overthrow Aristeid, but has since become something of a kind of revolutionary figure, and the US locked him up from twenty seventeen until
just recently. He's now back in Haiti and is widely considered to be as a politician because he's served in the Senate before the US threw him in prison for drug smuggling. And the way you know he's probably innocent is that they actually convicted him of drug smuggling. Like if you're a real drug smuggler in Haiti, they're not going to touch you. Like that's just that's that's like how that works over there. So he's extremely popular, but
the US hates him. The other one, though, Barbecue Barbecue, is the guy who's kind of running the show at this point. And we call him, we call him a gang leader, we call him a criminal, we call him a cannibal, and the cannibal.
Thing is obviously absurd.
Criminal sure, but like we said, what is a state and states sometimes are formed through revolution. You know, he calls himself the actual name, like he is the revolutionary forces of the G nine family and allies. So that's that's an alliance of basically nine gangs that have that have gotten together and they've made him kind of their their leader and their spokesperson. He basically had an alliance with juvenile moys who comes from outside of quarter of
friends had the rural rural support. Yeah, and and Moy's Moyes's deal with UH with the G nine was basically, as long as you are keeping the peace in your neighborhood, there's and there's peace and justice, then we're not going like then that's fine.
Like then you're basically the government in this area. Uh. Barbecue is no.
In his areas to have extremely low crime outside of Barbecue crime. Some of the other gangs not so much. Some of the other gangs take advantage of their situation, just the same way that police forces around the world, if they're corrupted, take advantage of their position to extract bribes, kickbacks, use extortion, blackmail, you use their monopoly on violence to
you know, to enrich themselves. No reason to think that a quote unquote legitimate police force that the US installs, which troops, is.
Going to do any differently.
Yeah, that's the joke.
So to me, I think you should. I think you should actually do what Matt Miller is saying, like, let the Haitian people work this out. And if that means that they get behind geth Philip and Barbecue. Why do we know so much better than them. If they need help with logistics, with financing, with credit, fine, but troops, they don't need troops.
It's not need international troops.
It's not even just this idea that we know better. It's this idea that Haiti is like a playground for us to control the hemisphere, which is obviously not a new thing at all. I mean, it goes throughout time, throughout the Cold War in particular. But one of the people who's been saying exactly what Barbecue is saying is someone that we had on the show. Biden appointed Daniel Foote a special envoy to Haiti right after the assassination of Jovenial Moys, which, by the way, a man was
just convicted of. He was an ex DEA informant. The DEA claims he was not acting on behalf of the United States government. He and others identified themselves as DEA agents when they stormed Jovenil Moys's compound in all the way back during the assassination itself, Moys had the support of the United State. At the back of the United States, people questioned whether that was there were cracks in that foundation. He had sort of appointed Ril and Rai as a successor.
Two days later he was assassinated by people purporting to be dee A agents. It's how insane and twisted the story is. But Daniel Foot has been saying exactly what Barbecue is saying that you need to let the people of Haiti determine who their next leader is and break the cycle of US control. And you know what, I think this is one of the least covered stories. We can put the next next element up on the screen.
One of the main reasons, according to Foot, perhaps the chief reason this is he called it when he was in an interview with us here on this show. He said, the straw that broke the camel's back for him when he resigned just two months after he was appointed to that post, was that a huge priority of the Biden administration that he was representing in these negotiations with Haiti was the ability to deport Haitian migrants back to port All prints. Even in that picture, if you're watching this,
you see a Haitian migrant. That's a picture that I took in Matamoros and the Haitian migrants there, every single one of them. They came from Argentina, Chile, Brazil. A lot of people know that by now, they do not. They all wanted to across the border legally because the last thing that they wanted was to go back to Portal Prince. Most of them hadn't lived there since the earthquake in twenty ten, some of them twenty fourteen, maybe
the last five years. But the Biden administration, and this is from my perspective, I think Ryan and I disagree on this, but my perspective is that Joe Biden is too cowardly to actually make tough changes to our asylum policy. So what he does instead are these band aid policies that are just a patchwork that end up incentivizing the flow of people Haitians. Every single Haitian I talked to was an economic migrant. Doesn't mean their life was great
in Chile or Argentina. It was they wanted a better life in the United States. They'll openly say that it's not qualify under our That does not qualify you for asylum under a law in the most for the most part, but you can get into the United States. You can get entry into the United States, make some money, maybe you get kicked out in two years. I've talked to Haitians at a shelter in Texas. I saw their papers physically,
their hearings were two years done. The road is just an absolute abject disaster, and once again the Biden administration sees Haiti as a pawn. One of the reasons, according to Daniel Foot, that they were continuing to back Henri as he was not calling for elections. That was a huge part of the reason the back Henri was We're going to get onto this on ramp towards democracy. But even as Henri was not calling for elections, haven't been elections in Haiti since twenty sixteen. The last terms for
people in their Senate expired last year. All through all of that, one of the reasons is that Ariel Henri, one of the top reasons, would accept migrant flights back to Port au Prince to in the tens of thousands. Tens of thousands. Horrible, Bryan, do you remember the stories, the horrible, heart wrenching stories of Haitians, like trying to get off the planes before they were in the air because they found out they were going to Port af Prince. That is the last thing they ever wanted.
Yeah, and reminded me of this nineteen ninety four famous Joe Biden quote where he said, if Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up three hundred feet, it wouldn't matter a whole lot in terms of our interests.
And so, yeah, Biden, I forgot that was a Biden quote. Yeah, that's a Joe Biden quote.
Yeah, and it's just yeah, Haiti is just once again a pawn on the Great Chess Board. It's not the Cold War anymore, but Haiti is upon on the chess board. And the problem with this is it's again we were talking about doom spirals earlier in the show. This is
a doom spiral. And that's one of the things that Daniel Foot he made this argument with us, he said, that is quote counterproductive, and it is because Portop Prince is in shambles right now, and you're going to send tens of thousands of people who desperately don't want to be there, who haven't lived there in years, back onto the streets. If you continue appointing your stooges to lead Haiti,
you're going to continue into the cycle of despair. You're going to have more people leaving, You're going to have a completely destabilized region. Countries like on Duras and dr and other places are actually having their own border cross issues with Haitian migrants right now because people are fleeing in desperation. So it's not even productive. It's not constructive
in the long term for stability in the region. But all that matters is the short term goals of whoever is in power here in the United States and Trump, by the way back Noys.
As well, and exactly what foot warned about. We invited him onto the show today, he couldn't make it. He's actually going to be here tomorrow. I'm filling in for Crystal. So stick around tomorrow for the former envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, who resigned in protest, and he'll talk about
his fired uptake on how things are unfolding. Now, speaking of debacles, let's move on to the war in Ukraine and we can put up this first element here Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a fascinating interview which follows on his Tucker Carlson interview where he hinted that he was open strongly hinted that he was open to serious negotiations about bringing the war to an end.
Now, in an interview that our.
Friend of the show, Jegor Katkin, says that the Kremlin is kind of blasting all over to the world, which shows that this is not a gap. This was a very kind of calculated message that he is now sending out.
He says Russia is ready for peace negotiations with Ukraine based on the realities that have developed on the ground, and the latter part of that is clearly an indication that he's saying, We're going to keep the territory that we have conquered, but we will, you know, reach an agreement, an enforceable agreement that will that would end this war. The question for Ukraine would have to be is this the best deal that they can get?
Uh?
And can they get a better deal if the.
United let's let's say the United States aside that we are going to actually send hundreds of billions of dollars more for this war.
Effort.
Is there a world in which, with hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands more Ukrainian lives, and several years of time, Ukraine can conquer back territory that Russia has seized and then go to the negotiating table having having reconquered this territory. Because if that is a possibility, you're going to have people within the Ukrainian government, You're going to say that, and the Ukrainian popularity is say we need to do this, you know, not one inch to the Russian invaders.
But that's where we get to this new.
Report in a French investigative magazine called Marianne, which is not getting picked up here in the United States at all, but they obtained a cash of intelligence documents basically that include the French assessment of the Ukrainian capabilities. We can put up this this article right here. People can go check it out. You could just click the English you just go ahead and click the English translate button and
you can get the gist of it. But essentially, what they're saying is some of what we already know, and but they put it in starker terms that that we that that's some that some here in the US may realize are appropriate. First of all, it talks about the absolute depletion of manpower on on the Ukrainian side. That you know, Zelenski needs thirty thousand conscripts a month, he's getting he's he's getting less than half of that, Whereas Russia is able to pull in thirty thirty thousand volunteers
every month. Russia is able to cycle in and out it's its reserves and its fresh recruits, with its with its veterans, whereas Ukraine is relying oftentimes on entire units that have three weeks of training. They say that in the twenty twenty three counter offensive that that was debilitating for the for the Ukrainian troops that they were that they were up against much better trained and equipped troops.
And also defense is easier than offense.
That and it also says that the Russians have gotten in sanely good at communications jamming. The Ukrainian reliance on drones then relies on communications, and if you can jam the communications between the drone operator and the drone, your drone is now just a flying rock.
At that point.
One of the big questions I think going forward to for people who want to continue the sort of neo conservative argument that this incentivizes Putin to just take back all of the former Soviet territory. If you concede one into the Dambas to Putin, he's next going to immediately invade what Finland, and then he's going to take Sweden,
and he is going to reconquer Europe. One of the big questions I think for that is, if I'm Putin right now, is willing to sit down on the table and discuss these terms and ends up, let's just say, hypothetically, ends up getting some territory in the Dombas, and that comes after two years of grueling, bloody war where he loses hundreds of thousands of Russian men and reclaims some small amount of territory in the Dombas that was already in many cases contested, that was already a war zone
in many cases, and he doesn't get to Kiev. That initial sort of that initial expedition that the Russian military took was stopped by Western forces, was stopped by it was halted by Ukraine, and then they get into this long stalemate for more than two years. Is that really granting Putin a permission slip to conquer the rest of Europe? Is that really your argument as to why we can't sit down and negotiate right now, because any negotiation would just give Putin license to take all of Ukraine and
then take Poland and then take Fitland. That's really your argument at this point, that's really the only good, the only possible logic that you can cling to as a reason not to negotiate. But it's stupid.
Yeah, And let's say you're a diehard supporter of Ukraine and you believe that the invasion was fundamentally evil and needs to be rolled back.
The question though, which it was?
It was fundamentally evil, And let's say, but the question then becomes what is the risk and what is the cost of not entering into negotiations at this point? And the risk is losing further territory, and so yeah, the the Marianne Report has an entire section underneath the risk of a Russian breakthrough is real and they talk about how, you know, in mid February, Ukraine abandoned the city of Avdivka. We covered that here. That was a huge it was a huge collapse. But what they they but they zero
in on kind of the how of that happened. One was that the kind of Russian advance had found innovative ways to target the Ukrainian positions and was able to break through despite them sending an elite brigade, the third as of aerosol brigade to kind of buttress that their
their line, and the line collapsed. The line collapsed anyway, they write, the decision to retreat by the Ukrainian armed forces was a surprise its suddenness and lack of preparation, fearing that this choice was more endured than decided by the Ukrainian command, which was suggesting a possible onset of
quote disarray. In other words, it wasn't It's not obvious that the Ukrainian military command ordered a retreat so much as that the troops just said we're out of here, and the Ukrainian command was then forced to accept that retreat.
That goes on the Ukrainian and this is key.
The Ukrainian armed forces have tactically shown that they do not possess the human and material capabilities to hold a sector of the front that is subjected to the assailant's effort. The Ukrainian failure in Avdivka shows that despite the emergency deployment of an elite brigade, KIV is not capable of
locally restoring a sector of the front that collapses. So what does that mean, Like, if the Ukrainians are not capable of holding a sector of a front that is specifically targeted by the Russians, that means a breakthrough is is either imminent or possible, and that gives the Putin's serious leverage and negotiations because if you have shown that you cannot, even with your elite brigade, maintain your line, you're you're at risk of complete collapse.
He so Putin also in an interview with State media, since I mean, I guess it's ahead of the election, is how it's being framed, Like I'm on Artie right now, Yeah.
After he jailed and killed navalney.
Yeah, he has a subheading or Artie has a subheading here that says Russia ready for nuclear war. The quote from Putin is for us, the Ukraine conflict is a matter of life and death. For them, it's a matter of improving their tactical position globally and in Europe. He said that put An insisted that Russia is if the US tries to quote play chicken, Moscow is prepared to use nuclear weapons and considers its arsenal quote more advanced than anyone else's. He also, I mean, he had some
other comments about the war. Putin said, for example, that when Macrone said the West should have quote no red lines when it comes to Russia, Putin replied, that is Western politicians fantasizing and riling themselves up. So when he says, and this is very clear, it should have been very close since the beginning. For US, the Ukraine conflict is a matter of life and death, and for them, for the West, it's a matter of improving their tactical position
globally and in Europe. He has more men available to him to fight this war than Ukraine does. The Wall Street Journal report that Ukraine is essentially plucking war age men off the street, not even not even actually war age men, people that are considered older than you would consider war age men off the streets, military age men off the streets because they can't locate men. They don't have enough people to fight the way there was.
Did you see the viral video of like thirty four Ukrainians who were trying to sneak into Romania and they were caught at the border, and the Ukrainian border guards are just like beating the hell out of them, and they're going to take them and then they're going to push them to the front, to the front lines where they're going to have to fight and get killed. And
that's what it means to continue this war. Yeah, like you're you're at bayonet point, marching people to a front that they are not willingly signing up to go.
And fight on.
Well. And one thing that so the neo conservative crowd or the foreign policy establishment is argued over the course of the last two years is that, you know, Boris Johnson wasn't scuttling any real talks or the US. You know too, what Israel had said wasn't scuttling any real talks because Putin had not been serious about actually negotiating on serious terms. That when Putin was saying he was ready to negotiate with the United States and with the
West and Zelensky, he wasn't actually serious about that. You know, whether or not that's a good excuse not to sit down with him as a different debate, but at this point, Ryan, I think it's hard to dismiss Putin's overtures here as unserious.
Yeah, and also I found this Marianne report from the Twitter account of our nobertrand which I recommend everybody follow if you're not he's on Twitter, he's at r n A U d b E r t r A N d uh Off. He's often finding and then translating, you know, really interesting stuff from around around the world.
So I h highly recommend that one. Again. Let's just read this Putin quote one more time.
Russia is ready for peace negotiations with Ukraine based on the realities that have developed on the ground. Now, this has been a pretty dark show, so let's finish with something light and fun. Yes, Andrew Tate back in prison.
Yes, light and fun, although I don't know that it actually is let in front Ryan because the allegations against Andrew taite.
Okay, yes, the allegations against him less. Look, it's not fun, not like the fact that he's locked up fun.
Well, the way he ended up getting locked up again, that is deeply fun. This story is I was going to say unbelievable, was actually perfectly believable. How this transpired just yesterday. We can put this first hair sheet up on the screen. This is from USA Today. I was just going to read the top part of the USA Today report. Influencer Andrew Tatan's brother Tristan Tate were detained in Romania on a British arrest warrant and could be
extradited later on. Multiple outlets reported the brothers were detained Monday evening. So okay, this actually broke Monday evening for up to twenty four hours. Well, the Booker's Court of Appeal decided whether or not to execute the warrants. That's according to the Tate spokesperson. Now, the court decided Tuesday then to grant the extradition request, but only after Romanian Romanian legal press are finished. According to the AP. The
court order also ordered them to be released immediately. The two brothers, as many people remember, were indicted by Romanian officials in June of twenty twenty three on charges of rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal criminal gang to exploit women. They were released from house arrest August twenty twenty three
while awaiting a trial. Now it's since been I don't know if confirmed is that might be too strong of a word, but the legal team for some of Andrew Tates's accusers have said that a live stream by one of Andrew Tate's influencer friends directly triggered NBC News even confirmed this with the legal team directly triggered his arrest. And let's just roll this clip F three.
This is we'll jump to F three first.
Yes, so if you watch, well, actually even we can just put F two up.
Control room's choice. Yeah, deals true, there's choice, whichever one's.
We'll just start here with F two and then we'll move to F three.
Fortunately, I don't think many people in Romania understand, but in the West and the countries are owned by.
The safeness in which are certain couple of things or put on a.
Dresser and go to jail.
And I'm happy to make my choice, which is every single time my soul was not for sale, neither or my principles. We are a lot of men, We're very innocent men, and in time, everybody's going to see that, and we're very excited to finish the judicial.
Process in there on. Ever, so that was Andrew Jaate and his brother Tristan Tate rebudding the allegations in similar terms as they have for the last year or so after this whole situation transpired. But F three that we we've previewed, we've kept you in suspense long enough. F three is what led to, according to actually the legal teams of his accusers, what led to Andrew Tate's arrest. Let's roll this.
Andrew had hit me up. He said, Hey, I'm going to be uh leaving Romania soon and probably never coming back. If you want to come over and do a week of long streams and content before I leave, I think it'll be big. And it's never it's I'm sorry, he said, it's not. It's basically now or never, So you know, you know, and this is just I told you guys
this year. You know it's a week of content, right and again guys, it might be the last time we ever do this, so it's kind of like we got to take advantage of it now because he bro it's it's it's just it's basically like, yeah, it's like that.
So he was arrested on suspicion that he was about to flee Romania because again said he was about to flavor me. Uh that is do you think do you think it's in trouble?
Yeah? Pro tip I guess, you know, be a little bit more discreet about your your getaway plan.
I don't know. I mean that's so that was Aiden Ross obviously popular Andrew tain ally but yeah, yeah, formerly popular to be formally popular. But it does seem like incredibly almost unbelievably stupid to read that on air. But it's also just I feel like part of the part of the gig is not scripting things. So you're popular, right, you just you just aren't necessarily thinking things through like highly produced shows where you have your own mug break it's a mug but you know not that we actually
don't have any scripts on this show. That's that's a little inside baseball. We don't we did.
We think people can probably tell that we don't have scripts.
I think it's probably not a secret to anybody that we don't have scripts. But all that is to say, that's sort of the draw for Ross is that nothing is scripted. But of course when you're not scripting, you're thinking things out, sometimes you do accidentally read out your friends. I will not do that to you, Ryan.
I appreciate it if you for me. Remember if I'm ever fleeing Romania.
The last time it seemed like Reda Thurnberg's beef with him online had seemed to had gotten him arrested. Turned out that maybe that wasn't totally true, although it was fun to believe. This one though, does actually seem to be the reason he got pinched.
Yeah, the law firm that's representing for British women, that's a civil suit by the way, The law firm that's representing them is called the Q Law said that this is what they have information that this is they believe this is what triggered the arrest. But they also said
though it's a separate these are new allegations. Apparently he's being arrested on charges or on new allegations, fleeing suspicion and potentially fleeing new allegations fleeing romania amid new allegations that could be criminal because again that's those four women. Are we you a civil suit against Andrew Tait? So more to come on this story for sure. Maybe stay tuned to the Influencer Universe, the Andrew Tate Influencer Universe for any breaking up dates about was whereabouts.
Bronds you that's South Florida couple that they did the true crime series about where they're they were dentists and they did you follow this one? They killed the guy in Tallahassee who was their son in law over a custody dispute. And then on the phone, we're like talking about on like a prison flowing phone, We're like talking about fleeing to Vietnam where there's no extradition, and then the grandma got arrested, like in line at the airport
on our way to Vietnam. Don't don't talk to your streamer friends or on a prison phone about your plans to flee.
The prison phone seems even somehow dumber than the influencer. You just assume your influencer friend's not going to read your text on air. But that's also not a great dist.
And you're on the prison phone, it's like this call is being monitored. Yes, so cool.
Anyway, So I'm going to Vietnam because I don't think they have extradition with the United States according to my Google search, and then also used tour for your Google search when you're searching does the United States have an extradition treaty with X?
Because that might get in trouble too.
Yes, that's just generally These are pro tips from Ryan Grim who apparently has never fled.
Never fled the law, well not yet anyway.
We don't need to get into that, all right. That does it for us on today's edition of Counterpoints Rain. You'll be back here with Sager tomorrow for a Bro Show.
Bro Show tomorrow morning Breakingpoints dot Com. Remember, you get your twenty five percent off discount that's been going on a while, but we can't tell you how long it's gonna last, so you better snap that sucker up.
And we could probably preview here. We have some interesting stuff in the works. If you're a premium subscriber, you get all of Counterpoints right to your inbox. You don't just right, you've.
Been kicking around this Friday show. Yeah, and if you go to Breakingpoints dot com, but it come as the subscriber there, that just encourage us to encourages us to bring you more, including a Friday show.
Yeah, so stay tuned for more information on that. Stay tuned for Ryan and Sager back here with the Bro Show tomorrow, and we will be back with Counterpoints next Wednesday. Hope everyone has a great week.
All I see you later.
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