3/6/23: Trump Dominates CPAC, Bannon Declares War on Fox News, New Norfolk Southern Train Derails, MSNBC Attacks Marianne, Russel Brand on Bill Maher, Amazon Bails On HQ2, Teenage Liberal Depression, Former Navy Pilot on UFOs

Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Let's to get to you this morning. We got all your seapack highlights for you, President Trump winning the straw poll there quite handily and making some noteworthy comments. We also had Steve Bannon sort of declaring war on Fox News and new revelations about exactly what went down there during the election and stuff to steal

in all that, which is pretty interesting. Also another train derailment in Ohio. This comes as Pete Boodhagge is kind of acknowledging that he screwed all of this this amazing headline in CNN. He's rethinking how he does his rethinking. Oh really, okay, we'll tell you about that DNC rigging over the top. They are kind of rejecting democracy in terms of the Democratic primary as Mary and Williamson declairs

for president. Some interesting comments there, interesting coverage on MSNBC will break all of that down for you, and Russell Brand getting a lot of attention with some comments about cable News himself on Bill Maher's show over on HBO. We're also excited to have Ryan Graves on the Show's Yeah, that's gonna be a good one. Absolutely. I think the UFO people in particular will enjoy. But anybody, he was a pilot and he saw a lot of interesting things. Well,

he's up in there. I'm excited to talk to him. Yes, let's start with the twenty twenty four President Trump returning to cpack in a marathon hour and forty minute long speech. We cut together some highlights for you. The main takeaway I am your retribute. You should. Let's take a list. We had a Republican party that was ruled by freaks, neo khons, globalists, open border zealots, and fools. But we are never going back to the Party of Paul Ryan,

Karl Rove, and Jeb Bush. We're not going back to people that want to destroy our great social security system, even some in our own party. I wonder who that might be that want to raise the minimum age of social security to seventy seventy five or even eighty in some cases, and that are out to cut medicare to a level that it will no longer be recognizable. If you look at Ukraine, and we all feel so badly about it, but why isn't NATO putting up dollar for

dollar with us? We put up one hundred and forty billion dollars and they put up just a tiny fraction of the China loving politicians, of which there are many. You're listening to this, Mitch McConnell a. You're listening. But I stand here today and I'm the only candidate who can make this promise. I will prevent and very easily, World War three, very easily. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution. I'm not gonna let this out. I am

your retribution. Powerful. I guess grievance message I mean fits a little bit with American carnage. But the reason the media was focusing in on a lot of that one Obviously that one's on stop the steal, but the previous one's crystal. A lot of that has vient to Trump. That is, I'm going to end world I'm going to end I'm going to what is it end the war in Ukraine in twenty four hours. I can't tell you how I'm going to do it. No World War three on my watch, something that Biden has not yet been

able to say publicly. And then really I think the most important one was the Medicare and Social Security, the flaying of Paul Ryan, calling out Mitch McConnell, the establishment, GOP, and just saying, look what these people want to do. They want to cut benefits for hard working earning seniors.

I Am not going to let them do that. So you put it all together, you have a very traditional America First speech that he gave there, sprinkled in with the likes a little stop to steel there at the end of a very vague reference to all of that. Not an accident, I think, though, in order to unite the hardcore Trumpers who feel like the election was stolen, with a broader economically populist message, which obviously one in

the White House in twenty sixteen. Overall, I mean, you put that together like I think that we did, and that's a solid message. It's a solid message in this primary. Another thing that I was thinking about, I mean that I am your retribution. That has always been the animating energy behind the Trump movement, right. It is smart, smart wordplay exactly so, even you know, in twenty sixteen, the policy pieces loomed a lot larger than at this point they do, even as I do think he is taking

out some important position. But what people really love about this guy is that all the people that hate you or that you hate, they are livid about Donald Trump and so leaning into that. I mean, that reminds people why they fell in love with this guy in the Republican base the first time around. So, I mean, this guy is back. He's much more effective than he was during twenty twenty, much more effective than he was in the office season. He's sort of back to form. He

is fully back into form. He's also gave an interview with Newsmax to news max is James Rosen right before, where he promised that even if he does get indicted, I am still running. For everybody who's maintaining a fantasy that he won't take a listen to that. Can you take this moment to assure your donors and your supporters that you're in this race to state no matter what happens with those investigations, if you are sure indicted one

or more times. Sure well they did two of phony impeachments, and we won that, and the Republicans stuck together and we want as you know, we went up very substantially in the polls. These are witch hunts. Hees have been going on for a long time. They've weaponized justice in our country. It's a disgrace, and I think people are very angry about it. Even Democrats are very angry about it. So he's absolutely I wouldn't even think about leaving. So there you go, he says he'll he's going to run

even if he does get indicted. For those who are wondering, as we have previously shown, Eugene Debs, the socialist candidate for president in nineteen twenty while imprisoned in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, actually received almost a million votes for candidate. So there is a precedent. One that you can be in prison in a federal prisident actually and still run and receive votes for federal office. I guess that would be a fun one if it ever came down to precedent.

But so many indications here about the strength of Trump. Put this next one up there on the screen. Trump overwhelmingly winning the Seapack primary Strawphole. Now does the Seapack primary Straphole matter? I mean not really. Rand Paul has won it at certain points. You know other politicians who've

never ended up having a chance in hell. But when I look at this, what I'm looking at are these are not only republic These are the faithful, you know, the people who will fly from all over the country and attend every single one of these And sixty two percent in the poll. Crystal DeSantis comes in second at twenty percent, and the third place pick at five percent was Perry Johnson, a businessman. Yeah, I know, he tried

to run for the governor of Michigan. I knew his name, but I had to go back and look it up. Carrie Lake actually received the most support for vice presidential candidate with twenty percent DeSantis. He actually beat DeSantis for the VP slot once again, does seapac matter? Does a primary pole matter? It is not indicative of anything other than what the people at Seapack feel. But I can't help but parrot with that clip that we played in our previous show of Brian kill Me to Fox News

going to the people in the diner in Florida. Yeah, and it's like, hey, guys, who are you all going to vote for? All but one says that they're going to vote for Trump? And even that one was like Trump and Nikki Nikki Haley for vice president. There was and she was wearing a Disanta's T shirt. Yeah, and

she wouldn't put disant she was saying. She was saying Trump or Dessanta's right, because kill mean came over and was like, you've got a Disanta shirt on, you must be for Disantas and she was like Trump for DeSantis. She ro like cornered into it because she was wearing the T shirt. But I mean, listen, I think it's pretty clear this is the guy to beat at this point.

And you know, with regards to him saying he's going to run regardless of indictment, I mean, this was always obvious, but I think there was a lot of elite Republican wish casting that maybe he would just like melt away and sort of like implode and self destruct. That's obviously not happening, and that's why you see all of this cast of characters lining up to try to jockey to be the number two choice. Well, number two doesn't count for anything if number one is still in there and

still holding strong. You also, with regard to that, the thing from the Trump presidency that Americans really viscerally reacted against was uysicks and Stop the Stealer. And I think that was really clear in the midterms. Republicans right afterwards, they took a shot at criticizing him over it. You know, Fox News did, some of his allies did. Mitch McConnell did, Nikki Haley did, And then they kind of backed away

from that. And since they were not able to get the Republican base on their side with regard to January six and Stop the steal they really aren't armed with the most effective potent attack they could possibly have against Trump. I mean, that is the thing that the American people really viscerally rejected about his administration, and so they've taken

that off the table. If he gets indicted, they're going to have to defend him or at least say nothing about it and sort of like, you know, be jamiro about it. And I think it leads them in a really difficult position because other than that, he's in a better position vis a vis the base than they ultimately are with regard to the positions that he's staking out from an issue a perspective. That's why I don't have

any sympathy for them. It's like, okay, then don't you're going to cut social Security and pump hundreds of millions of dollars into Ukraine. It's actually not difficult to get on the right side of the base, but you know, okay, they would rather have their elite positions. Well, then you're basically guaranteeing yourself. Trump Trump having some fun with Nicki Haley' speech. Just put this out there on the screen, putting it out saying congratulations to Nicky Haley on drawing such a large,

crowded seapack. As I told her, Nikki, follow your heart. For those who are just listening, it shows not even half empty as generous. I'm looking at maybe one quarter. Haley also is that she's got to be one of the dumbest politicians I've ever seen, because she gave a speech immediately after Seapack at the Club for Growth. For those who don't know, it's the tea party group. They got into a big fight with Trump over the Ohio primary when they backed Josh Mandel over jd Vance and

they were actually attacking President Trump. They want to return to a more economically libertarian candidacy primary, etc. Okay, Well, she spoke at the conference. At the Club for Growth conference, She's like, I take great pride in being one of the politicians that was invited here. There were some other people that weren't invited here as a veiled attack at Trump.

I'm like, yeah, lady, winning the Club for Growth primary invitation, that's definitely how you win a GOP primary, because it's not like they haven't lost all the ones where they've backed somebody against Trump. Just complete and total idiocy. I mean, all, I guess it will show crystals. Yeah, she's gonna have a hell of a lot of money. I mean, I don't remember a time when a hell of a lot of money in a Republican primary with Trump has ever

mattered at all. And maybe because you know, it's not like she was the only candidate who was invited to Yes, well, it's not like the DeSantis was there as well, and I think maybe, I don't know, some of the other ones were there too, but Trump didn't get an invite because they have this rift like congratulations you went over, you know, a group of wealthy elites within the Republican Party. Maybe maybe they're auditioning you. Potentially you're going to get

their support. But yeah, obviously all of these other contenders they have at least one billionaire who's willing to back them, and so you know, they've convinced themselves that they really have a shot. I think they have been imagining somehow the Trump problem would just solve itself and they wouldn't have to say anything, wouldn't have to do anything, and he would just go away. And I don't know what fantasy world they were ultimately living in when they came

up with that notion. Yeah, look, it's a total fantasy. As you can see from that speech, Trump is fully back. Party faithful at the very least remain with him, and it really remains his race to lose. Okay, let's go to this second part here, this is some other very interesting stuff with Ron DeSantis. DeSantis increasingly has been in a tough position. How do I differentiate myself from Trump? First, he said, quote it's silly season, which might be the

lamest possible comeback that I've ever seen. But I actually thought this was a revealing one. He is asked what whether or not a Trump endorsement matters for him, and you can just see him contort and become extremely uncomfortable. He blinks like sixty one times in thirty seconds. As the person who flags this for us, everybody, just take a listen. For those who are are those who are listening, We're going to describe it to you on the other side in twenty twenty three. How much do you believe

a Trump endorsement matters in American Republican politics today? You know, I don't know. I mean, I think our voters always make their own decisions, and they consider obviously endorsements, and at that time when he was president, was the big Enchilada. But our voters want to look at you and size you up, and they take this the responsibility very very seriously. So look he's blinking there, He's like uh uh, and clearly did not take well to ask answering that question

very Also, body language is very uncomfortable. I've been claimed paying close attention to DeSantis and look, he does not open himself up for a lot of interviews. Rupert Murdoch apparently loves Ron DeSantis and so he's been calling him all the time and convincing him to do interviews. So Desanta's did this print interview with the Times of London. It's like a conservative paper that Murdock owns, and he gets real testing whenever you press him on the specifics.

One of them was on Ukraine and they were asking him like, okay, do you agree with the Trump position on Ukraine? And he basically cut him off and was like, okay, let's go ahead and move on here now. To one extent, look all politicians do that whenever they get uncomfortable. But also is showing a little bit that whenever it gets

into the weeds, he's not comfortable just passing these things around. Now. Look, he is a governor, so he doesn't necessarily have to have an answer on these but you know, you need to show a little bit more of a backbone whenever you're in these interviews. If you're going to want to be a presidential candidate and have a real lane outside of where Trump is right now, He's just trying to have it all both ways. I'm not comparing Ronda Santis

to the political capabilities of Kamala Harris. However, I will say that prior to her running for president, the word in political circles was that she was very cautious and even with potentially friendly media personalities, she was very careful about what interviews she did. She had to be fully prepared. She's one of these that always the aids would be like, all right, what specifically are you going to ask her

about before she got in there. And I think in part because she didn't get that practice of mixing it up with the press or was incapable, I think really of being able to mix it up with more adversarial questioning. It made her a very brittle political figure where the only thing she could really do was if she had like a set piece that she'd practiced and talking points

that she'd practiced, she could deliver them. But outside of that, if you had an actual give and take where you have to think on your feet, which is a skill that you develop like any other skill. She is very, very, very bad, and we've seen that particularly on display during this presidency e A. Lester Hold interview ors she's talking about,

you know, the border situation, et cetera. So I think that Ron DeSantis is doing himself a disservice by not taking some calculated risks here of getting the practice of mixing it up with more media figures, including some who may be more adversarial, because it's better to have some flubs and some screw ups. Now when the stakes are a little bit less high, you think you're going to be able to mix it up with Donald Trump if

you can't handle a Fox News question here. So the fact that he is so careful and cautious and pre planned and selective about the interviews that he does, I think it's a telling sign. And it also, like I said, I think does him a disservice in terms of the practice that he needs to be able to handle a presidential primary. Absolutely right, And at the same time, you've got one of the other potential rivals. I'm putting rivals in quotes here because it would have been more of

a Meati creation. But honestly, I want to give the man props. Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, saying I will not be a candidate in the GOP primary. Let's take a listen to what he said. I think I can continue to contribute toward getting the Republican Party back to a more traditional, big tent party that can win elections again without causing being part of a train wreck that might repeat history, and just allow us to nominate Donald Trump as our nominee, because I think that would

be bad for the party and bad for the country. Really, I just don't believe that he was the right person to lead the party, and we've proven that and we've lost the last three elections in a row. So look, it gives a case there on why, hey, entering would just make it more likely that Trump would win. And you know what, let's respect the man. You know, I don't agree with Larry Hogan on a lot, but I

think that his calculus is correct. You know, one of those where he's not letting his own narcissism get the better of him. He's like, I think there's probably another candidate we could probably all unify around him visa v. Trump, and then that person has a more realistic chance of taking him down. If you don't want Trump to win,

that's the best possible case that you could make. Unfortunately, we have seen that narcissism is pretty significant of a personality disorder amongst the Mike Pompeo's and the nicky Hales and them of the world. I don't get it, you know, I don't see their case. This is so obvious to anyone with the brain. And so I actually think we should take time to praise the politicians who are realistic.

Thank you, you know you won in Maryland. Congratulations. The idea though, that you would ever win a GOP primary, it's a complete and total fantasy. So let's give them props whenever they step out. Listen, it's very clear that the chance they have of defeating Trump as if everybody who's in the Trump skeptical or never Trump faction of

the party unites behind one candidate. And if you have you know, if Larry Hogan drop jumped in and he got let's say five percent of the vote, that's five percent that's not going to Ron DeSantis that he could potentially pick up. And all of that is going to be absolutely critical when you are mounting at this point a real come from behind campaign to try to take out the guy who is the former president and the current clear leader of the Republican Party. He wrote an

obed about this too. Let's go and put this up on the screen. From the New York Times. He said, in part, Larry Hogan, I'm not seeking the Republican nomination for president. I believe the tides are finally turning. Republican voters are growing tie of the drama, are open to new leadership. And while I'm optimistic about the future of the Republican Party, I'm deeply concerned about this next election. We cannot afford to have mister Trump as our nominee

and suffer defeat for the fourth consecutive election cycle. To once again be a successful governing party, we must move on from mister Trump. There are several competent Republican leaders who have the potential to step up and lead, but the stakes are too high for me to risk being part of another multi car pile up that could potentially help mister Trump recapture the domination. I think all of that is very well. I would say I think the I believe the tides are finally turning part is maybe

a little bit of wishful thinking. But in terms of the strategic calculus here, it's very clearly thought out and I think very obvious that you know, the best chance that they have is to night behind one person. Yes, I just in favor of people being realistic here, Like with all of these you know politicians, they all everybody tries to look at the Obama campaign of two thousand and eight has come from behind. Obama, first of all, was an hour ady sitting senator. He was coming up

against Hillary. He had a a lot of money and also an organic actual base of the party that wanted him to run. He used that to differentiate himself from Hillary and able to win those come from behind campaigns. But he was starting off almost from a dessantist level of support before he ended up winning that primary. You have to have much more name recognition. You can't be

one of these one percenters. In fact, I went back and looked, there is not a single candidate who's won a major party nomination who started off at one or two percent. Almost every single one of them had massive name id The only example you might be able to point to is a Bill Clinton. But even Bill Clinton had been a governor for twelve years, he was the head of the committee, He'd given major speeches at the Democratic Committee whenever that type of stuff mattered, and he

was pulling at what ten fifteen percent? He got thirty in New Hampshire. Eventually was able to come back and win in the New York primary, But even he did not start off from even close to the handicap that a lot of these people would be starting off from. So there's no historical basis for a lot of these people's candidacy. Give me one thing, you know, it is a different time now, social media whatever like it would be one thing if these weren't individuals who had already

long been on the national scene. When I'm thinking about Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, et cetera, et cetera. Right, but the American people kind of know who you are, they kind of seen you in action, and theyre aren't supporting you yet. So what are you going to put into a campaign that is going to dramatically ultimately shift that. So I think, especially for the folks who have been in the political world, on the political scene for a long period of time, and they're still pulling at you know,

five seven, ten percent. Sometimes in the case of Mike Pence, I think it is unlikely that you were going to shift that dynamic, especially when listen, they maybe had a chance to kind of, you know, stick the knife in Trump right after January sixth, he was very vulnerable. The American people were absolutely disgusted some of his media allies, some of his top allies, and they backed away from that,

and you're never going to get that opportunity back. Ultimately, Also in the wake of the midterm elections, that was when he was kind of at his weakest. It was really clear he was an electoral liability, especially his election

and conspiracies. In terms of the midterm results. DeSantis had a great night ultimately in Florida, and you know, nobody really moved into action to try to take him ount then, either because they're all dealing with this prisoner's dilemma of they know whoever goes after him is likely to get nuked, so they're just hoping that somebody else is going to do their dirty work for them, and ultimately no one is.

They're not going to come to your rescue. If you want to take out Trump, you have to be able to make a cogent case against him that is going to land with the Republican base. I have yet to see any evidence that any of these people are up to the task that I agree with. All Right, so this is another little nugget from Seapac. Steve Bannon was there and he basically declared all out war on Fox News. Take a listen, Okay, Murdoch, here's the way it's going

to be. Brother. You've disrespected Donald J. Trump long enough. Okay, he goes to Palestine and gets a Biden administration. It's a global news event and you don't cover it live. Is there that much happening on Fox News at two in the afternoon that you can't cover him live? He hasn't been on Fox News since he announced for presidency.

Let me ask you, any guy that brought peace to the world for four years until Chinese let off a bio weapon, right, wouldn't you think to have respect for the audience, you would have him back up here to talk about the geopolgus. What if you had respect for people, would you do that? They don't respect you. Read the depositions, the deposition. They have a fear, a loathing and contempt for you. He's actually right about that last part. That was one of my takeaways from the deposition. Now, he

doesn't mean it the way I do. The way I mean it is like they're willing to lie to their audience for readings and money. His view was like, oh, they weren't willing to go along with the stop the steal conspiracies. And you know that he takes sort of the opposite approach in terms of his conclusion that they have contempt for their own viewership. But I do think that that is a logical conclusion from the depositions and all of the text messages that came out during that time.

I do agree that there's a lot of contempt. Yeah, you're right, and in a way they almost realize their own power. They're like, wow, you know, people really believe a lot of what we say, and they're not even look, I mean, they're like all these people are totally captured. But I do think that he isn't wrong, which is Look, you know, with Fox, they have had a yo yo on Trump from the beginning. They were against him than

they were formed whenever he was good for ratings. And do any of us have any real like confidence that after he wins a nomination that they won't be covering him and going to bat for him, and of course they will, So just stop the game. Stop pretending. That's actually what I find most disgusting, like in general, with all of these just treat everybody fairly. You know, they shouldn't be blocking him off. Also, I guarantee you that's

not what his audience wants either. So they're trying to have it both ways where they're an active influence in the Republican Party, but then they also bow to their viewers whenever the time comes. So you really do need to pick one. Just give people what they want, and

I think that's what those people want. I think we're going to I'm going to tell you a little bit more about you know, what's what was revealed in the depositions and all of that going on behind the scenes, because I do think it is a fascinating look at the way these cable news outfits actually operate and what

they actually care about. But a really clear takeaway here is that you know, all of the idea of Okay, Fox News determines what the Republican base cares about, and Fox News tells the Republican base who they're going to vote for and who the right candidate is. That may have been the case at one point, maybe two thousand and four, maybe that was the case at one point.

It is really not the case anymore because they wanted to push back on the Stop the Steal conspiracies, and ultimately there was such a revolt from their own audience and like instantaneous, especially over the Arizona Call, that they changed the way they were operating, and they sort of gave some of their primetime hosts, in particular, free reign to indulge the most insane of the conspiracy theories with

regard to stop the Steal. So the idea that they are going to be to have control over the Republican primary, and that since Ronda Santis is their guy, they're going to be able to push Ronda Santis on the Republican base. I mean, listen, maybe the Republican base chooses Ronda Santis. That is certainly still a possibility. I don't want to rule it out, but it's not going to be because

Fox News decided this is the candidate. Because they have lost control of the Republican base to the extent that they ever had them And I do think it is really obviously, like blatantly biased that they've been having Desantas on for all kinds of like puff pieces and softball interviews and going down to Florida and all of this, And we track this even before the midterms, they started

in this direction. They would put together these pieces like cherry picking voters that would say, oh, I love Rhonda Santis. Ronda Santis is great. And Trump reportedly is on a soft ban at the network he has not been on since he announced his candidacy, and neither have any of his family members and children I think are also on the same soft ban. So it's really clear what side they have come down on. They definitely preferred to Santis to Trump. Is that ultimately going to matter? I kind

of don't really think so. Yeah, I don't think so either. I mean, why don't we go to the deposition? Yeah, okay, So go ahead and put this. This is a deep dive from the New York Times about some parts of this deposition. This is all with regard to the dominion lawsuit against Fox News. I have no insight into whether this lawsuit is ultimately going to succeed, but I can say that what has come out of it has been quite fascinating. So the headline here is inside the panic

at Fox News after the twenty twenty election. If we hadn't called Arizona, said Suzanne Scott, who's the networks chief executive. According to a recording reviewed by The New York Times, our ratings would have been bigger. Yeah, and the whole article. I'll give you some of the specific details here, but that's basically the whole tenor of what was going on at Fox News behind the scenes after they called Arizona, which,

by the way, they were right about. They had developed their own proprietary system to predict and accurately call races across the country. That's why they were ahead of the game on Arizona, something that news networks would typically be very proud of. But there was such a massive backlash they actually ended up firing the two key people who were involved in making that correct decision because there was

such a fewer backlash. And then, and this is also, I mean, this is really astonishing, they debated internally how they should handle ultimately calling the race for now President Biden because they knew they were likely to be first because their system was better than all of the other networks, but they did not want to be first, so they decided to actually sandbag it and wait for the other networks to call, even though they had gotten the official

call from their own election desk like a day earlier. But they want They waited intentionally to try to take the heat off, and then, like I said, the two people who were involved in making those accurate, correct calls first of any of the networks get fired for it.

So let me read you some of this. The details here they say a little more than a week after television networks called the twenty twenty presidential election for Biden, top executives and anchors at Fox News held an after action meeting to figure out how they had messed up. Not because they'd gotten the call wrong, but because they'd gotten it right, and they'd gotten it right before anyone else. Typically, it's a point of pride for news network to be

the first to project election winners. But Fox is no typical network, and in the days following the twenty twenty vote, it was besieged with angry protests not only from President Trump's camp but from its own viewers because it had

called the battleground state of Arizona for Biden. Never Mind the call was correct, Fox executives worried they would lose viewers to hardwright competitors like Newsmax, and so On Monday, November sixteenth, Zan Scott, who was the head of the network, and Jay Wallace, the network's president, convened a zoom meaning for an extraordinary discussion with an unusual goal, how to keep from angering the network's conservative audience again by calling

an election for a Democrat before the competition. They floated a bunch of different ideas. Maybe Fox executives use they should abandon this sophisticated new election projecting syste which Fox had invested millions of dollars, and go back to a worse, less accurate model they had been using before. Or maybe they should base calls not solely on numbers but how viewers might react. Or maybe they should delay calls even if they were right, just to keep the audience in

suspense and boost viewership. Here's a quote. Listen. It's one of the sad realities. If we hadn't called Arizona those three or four days following the election day, our ratings would have been bigger. Suzanne Scott said. The mystery would have still been hanging out there. And there's a lot more like that. And by the way, Brett Baarr and Martha McCallum, who were held out is like, you know,

the pinnacle of their news gathering whatever. They were deeply involved in this, and they were on the same side of like, hey, let's wait, because they were the ones getting a lot of the pushback from viewers. They didn't like taking the heat, and so they were also in favor of let's sandbag, let's let the other networks make the call, even though we are likely to know ahead of everybody else. Yeah. Look, I mean, I think one of the things we always try and emphasize here is

how bad all three of these cable networks are. I mean, look at that. This how much contempt that they have. They are willing to abandon their proprietary system just because they're afraid of what their core viewer base may think. That's outrageous. I mean, they are willing to abandon their actual factual calls on the state of Arizona and others based on the millions of dollars that they spent on the system. And supposedly, we're very proud of all because

it goes against the editorial direction of the network. It just shows you that, like literally the feelings do trump facts over yes, and at all of these I really do feel that less the money fast overall, right, oh, our ratings would have been higher, I mean, and then going and firing some of the people that were involved. It's just totally ridiculous the way that they handle themselves. And that's why they need to pick. You can either

go editorially, can go facts. You can't do both. Yes, well, I'm reminded of back in twenty twelve when it was becoming they had really sold to their audience leading up to twenty twelve election presidential election that any a toaster could be Obama, any buddy could beat Obama. He was completely hated, you know, Mitt Romney was a shoe in.

And so then when election night comes and the results are not turning out that way, you know, there was a lot of sort of panic and meltdown on the network, and in particular Carl Rove was they had called Ohio and Carl Rove was like, no, no, no, this is too early. I'm talking to people. This county's out, that's

county still out. And Megan Kelly famously said to him like, is this real math or is this just math you do as a Republican and make yourself feel better, And it led to an extraordinary television moment where she actually they took the camera, she walked down the hall to the decision desk they live on air, justified why they made that call, et cetera, and didn't back down. And that was in the pre Trump era, when I think they still felt a lot more confident with their position

visa via the Republican base. Now they don't have that same level of confidence that they can, you know, stick to the facts when it comes to something as black and white as did the President win this state or not. They clearly don't feel that same level of comf evidence and they are terrified that their viewer base is going to abandon them in droves. But I think it really is an extraordinary window into not just Fox News, but

CNN and MSNBC. I mean, they have these same business incentives. Ultimately, it is not about facts. It's not about journalism. You could see this certainly in the Russia Gate coverage for example. Over at MSNBC. It's about feeding an audience. The things that they want to see and feeding them the things that they can tell are going to juice ratings, regardless of whether they are the most important stories or whether

those stories are ultimately accurate. So I think that's why these texts and these internal meetings are so extraordinary to actually watch it laid out in black and white, like on their own voices. These are all recordings from the Zoom meeting explaining that the thing they cared the most about is the ratings, and that they're terrified of their own audience. There's one more piece of this that I

think is worth getting into. Rupert Murdoch admitted, as part of his deposition, go and put this next piece up on the screen, guys, that some Fox News hosts had endorsed Trump's false election fraud claims. He acknowledged this in unveiled question answers from his deposition. He was asked if he was quote now aware that Fox endorsed at times this false notion of a stolen election. Murdoch responded, quote not Fox, meaning not the network. No, not Fox, but

maybe lou Dobbs, maybe Maria Bartiroo as commentators. He went on to say, some of our commentators were endorsing it. They endorsed, so an acknowledgment there of you know what was kind of plainly obvious to anyone who was watching this all unfold at the time. All I would say

is this is a sign of a dying organization. You know, whenever you're dying, one of the ways that you want to make sure that you're not a precarious spot is to get to some tipping point where you may tip you over to the point where you're just ultimately going to fail. The twenty twenty twelve that's when their ratings are much stronger. They had a much better hold on linear TV, they didn't feel as under threat by newsbacks, by Oan and all these others were no real competitors.

You know what the irony is to all of this, This whole thing is IDEOC might cost them a billion six in a settlement with domin at the end of the end, not to mention the reputational damage of all the depositions that now Steve Bannon, your enemies from the left and the right are using against you, So not playing it straight may actually cost you even more in the long run. Yes, an idiot move. From the very beginning the last thing I want to say about this

because we see this in independent media as well. In fact, you see it in some ways more often in independent media because cable news networks, I mean a lot of their pay comes from advertisers from other corporations, from the cable news carry rates. Ratings are actually kind of secondary in terms of their profit and business model. But audience

capture is very real. And if you go down the path of consistently just leaning into feeding your audience whatever it is you think that they want to hear, this is the place you're going to end up in where you have backed yourself into a corner where you increasingly compromise your own ethics, morals, and integrity to try to guess what the audience really want wants to hear, versus cultivating an audience that expects to be challenged at times,

that expects that sometimes they're going to disagree with you, and is not going to have like a panic attack and freak out and melt down run away the minute that that happens. So listen, they've walked themselves up to this ledge over many, many years, and it's no surprise at this point they feel like they can't possibly back away from it. Sometimes you got to take the hit. Maybe one day we'll tell you about how much money

we lost on Afghanistan and on your crate. Maybe one day we'll reopen the wounds of what it costs to actually just tell you what we really thought about Afghanistan. I have no regrets about that entire situation. Absolutely not. All right, all right, guys, let's turn back to Ohio. Is the story we do not want to stop focusing on. And we've got some news this morning, which is there was another Norfolk Southern train derailment in the state of Ohio.

Let's go ahead and take a look. This is some extraordinary video are going to put up on the screen. You can see someone is recording this from their car. They're at a train crossing. The train starts to come off the tracks. It's hitting like the sign posts there that tells you you need to stop for the train. Cars starts backing up. I mean, probably needs to turn around and get the hell out of there. Absolutely terrifying to watch this unfold, and ultimately about twenty cars of

this cargo train derailed. As they point out in this article. Put this up on the screen. This is the second derailment obviously of the company's trains in Ohio in a month, unlike the February third derailment. Now, they did initially respond with has matt you know, with first responders and has Matt suits, just to make sure there was nothing toxic aboard this train. Apparently there were no hazardous materials aboard this train. According to the Columbus Dispatch, it had no passengers.

It derailed about five pm on Saturday by State Route forty one near the Clark County Fairgrounds, and they asked residents initially within a small radius about a thousand feet of the derailment to shelter in place, but they did not issue you formal evacuation orders. Once again Sager highlighting just how common derailments are in this country, and again

this is not something that is a global phenomenon. Specifically a problem here because of industry capture and the fact that we have rolled back so many safety regulations that are designed to try to prevent terrifying incidents such as this one. Well, yeah, five thousand residents had to a vacuum. It's not a joke, right, I mean people are terrified. Obviously, a specially shelter in places, all the shelter in place, and they didn't know exactly what they were going to do.

People are still afraid of what's happening with the toxic chemicals. They don't have any response. They don't have any confidence right now in the government over their handling of the crisis, and I mean, really, why should they. So, you know, we're almost over a month now into this entire thing. It's beginning to move and slightly out of the headlines. And one of the things we're learning is that there's almost a thousand train derailments a year in this country.

And everyone's like, see, why are you focusing on I'm like, wait, hold on a second. So how many are in the rest of the developed world. Oh, we're orders of magnitude higher than everybody else. Okay, America is a big country. You certainly have more rail lines, mileage, et cetera. Than many others, maybe China and a few others that might even come close. But why does this keep happening here?

And look in those countries. You know, there's pluses and minuses to any system, but over there they have much more stringent regulation and bigger fines and bigger punishment for anybody who has caught breaking the rules like this, Yes, exactly right. At the same time, pretty extraordinary interview with our friend Pete Footagage, Secretary of Transportation. Let's go and put this up on the screen. This was a CNN interview that he gave. I presume thinking that he was

going to get a softball friendly treatment here. The headline is just incredible. Pete Footagage starts to rethink how he does his job in wake of Alio trade disaster. Oh really, oh really, Pete, it wasn't enough, you know, the supply chain crisis wasn't enough, the airline crisis, the fact that we've had, you know, multiple issues and catastrophes in terms

of air travel as well. It took to you till this moment to realize maybe that you weren't handling things and quite the right way by being completely absentee and seemingly only caring about like ribbon cutting ceremonies, something that he, by the way, admits to in this peace. This is what I find so extreme because we've been saying this for a while, Like obviously he wanted this job because

he wanted to be Transportation secretary. Sea could dole out checks, fly around the country, take pictures with mayors, take pictures with governors, do the ribbon cutting ceremonies. He actually acknowledges in this piece that that is precisely what he wants to do. It's astonishing, he says. Boodhaj just says what he'd rather be doing his trips, like what he did on Monday, opening the first new airport terminal in Kansas City since Vice President's Bureau Agnew was there for a

ribbon cutting. Buddhaja derived Lake Curcei being stuck on his own delayed Southwest Airlines flight lol, celebrating the groundbreaking on a record busting four billion dollar electric vehicle battery plant, and just odo of Kansas and talking transportation programs with students at the University of Missouri. So openly admits here that is the sort of thing that he would rather be doing as opposed to holding corrupt industries like the

airline industry and like the rail industry to account. He does acknowledge he should have gone to East Palestine, Ohio earlier. He said he failed to anticipate the political fallout from the toxic train derailment. Despite months of transportation problems like mass flight cancelations and air traffic control system shutdown that

left many Americans frustrated. But he also punched back at critics, arguing that many of the problems he's being blamed for are only partially connected to his portfolio and mostly out of his direct control. So, once again, Sagur, it's not his fault. He's powerless. He can't really do anything. This is in his portfolio, and he only cares that he didn't go to East Palestine, Ohio earlier because it became a political problem for him. That's pretty obvious from his commons.

We just had another near miss on the tarmac. The FAA is in a complete disaster. You know, I think we'll probably cover it tomorrow. There's a major conference being called about these terrible safety events, and with the shutdown, the FAA is in bigger shambles, and it's been in a long decades actually, according to the pilots and the regulators themselves. What are you doing? You know, you can claim all day that you didn't have responsibility, but you

do now. You were the Secretary of Transportation. And really, when he says that, he's saying, I don't want to do my job. I don't want to get intimately involved. You know, people who are in positions of power like this, they wrangle the troops, they cut through the red red tape, and they try and deliver. And I also found it was extraordinary, as you said at the top of it, just knowing what he really admits is yeah, I didn't expect that I would have to work this hard. That's right.

I think he's absolutely fundamentally lazy, having come from the corporate world and being a small town mayor of where it's you know, plot twist actually didn't do that good of a job. We covered some of the transportation and infrastructure failings that he had while he was the mayor of South Bend. He was completely unqualified and worse, now that he's in this position, he is using his allies in the media to do little puff pieces like this,

where even this like moderately strong piece. You know. The other thing that drove me crazy is he tried to conflate criticism him with people online who were criticizing the boots that he was wearing. Maybe there was I didn't see it. I didn't even know. I didn't see much of that commentary. What I did see or people saying, hey, you know, it's bs that you didn't come here for days and that you're not taking responsibility. He says, quote, it's bullshit that it's the idea that he went there

because Trump had already gone there. It was apparently already on the books. I don't know if I believe that. I'm not sure I believe that at all. I think Biden probably called him said you need to get your asked East Palatine right, listen. I don't know if it was specifically because of the Trump visit, but it was one hundred percent because of the political pressure and the fact that this became very hot. And yes, the right picked up on this and you know, wanted to use

it as a cudgel, no doubt about it. Although I want to give a lot of credit to the Republican senators who have signed on to a bipartisan bill that would actually do something real about real safety. We'll see if that goes anywhere in the Republican House or as in, Biden just endorsed it, So that's a big deals Bright and endorsed it. That is all. That is all genuinely

positive to see that kind of progress. But yeah, the right picked up on this, but it wasn't only the right, I can promise you it was not only the right. Blendy people on the left and even a few members of his elected members of his own party were critical of this response as well. And his takeaway from this piece too. What he lays out is he doesn't feel that the actual actions that he took with regard to his job, he doesn't feel like that's where he messed up.

He feels like he messed up on the optics. Why does he feel that way, because optics are all this man really genuinely cares about. That's a good point, and it's not the optics. I mean him going to East Palestine. It does matter when you have government officials show up and make it clear that we are focused on this. This is a priority. We care, we see you, we

understand the pain. He even says himself. Being there, seeing the twisted metal and spelling the chemicals in the air, it is much different than reading some report, some sort of like you know, arms length distance reports, sanitized about what's going on in the ground. So it matters being there, But what matters a hell of a lot more is what you did up to this point and what you're

going to do moving forward from this point. And he continues in this piece to just pretend like, Huh, this isn't really my fault and I really can't do anything about it. Yeah, he's crazy, congenitally is unable to take responsibility. Correct, one hundred percent correct. At the same time, still a lot of questions about what is in the air, what is in the water, is it actually safe in this town?

And are there going to be long term health impacts from this quote unquote controlled release of toxic, cancerous chemicals. Let's put this up on the screen. From the Washington Post, the EPA has now what a month later, ordered testing for highly toxic dioxians at the Ohio derailment site. The agency ordered rail company Norfolk Southern to test the Ohio Derailment area for dioxists. Is a dangerous and persistent class of pollutants. I don't know why the hell they're asking

Norfolk Southern to do it too. By the way, just go do it yourself, my god, Like, why are we trusting the polluters to be the ones that are handling these critical tests? Do you really think that residents are going to feel confident in tests that were paid for and managed by Norfolk Southern, the very people that cause

this catastrophe. Putting that aside, they say here, after weeks of questions about contamination associated with this Traine derailment, they ordered rail company in Norfit Southern to tests area for dixins. That's a dangerous classic plutance that is created when plastic is burned. The train, of course that crash was carrying

chemicals that were used to make plastics. They go on to say, a course of academics, environmentals and residents have been raising alarm about potential dioxide contamination because days after the derailment, authorities who were seeking to avoid explosion, purposely released and burned chemical vinyl chlorid that is a key

component of PVC plastics. EPA officials say it's a low probability of dioxid and contamination, but they want to go ahead and test to make sure, just so you can know a little bit more about what dioxins are, because this wasn't something that I think was broadly known before this situation. They're produced when you burn anything from wooden fossil fuels to municipal waste and cigarettes, combustion releases chlorine stored in those substances. It reacts with other compounds to

form dioxins. The plutans are a particular concerned when plastic is burned because chlorine is a key element of plastics. They are linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, and immune system damage. They're particularly troublesome because they are slow to break down in the environment. They build up in the food chain, and that EPA said that most human exposure dioxins in the US is tied to releases that

occurred decades ago. They didn't respond to questions about why it was Norfolk Southern who was tasked with conducting these tests. Why are they the ones who are conducting the test, Why do the APA wait so long to conduct this test? And at one point we got to wonder, are they waiting for stuff to dissipate? Like how does that work? Why do they wait a month in order to order this They should have ordered it within the first week.

So still a lot of question and who knows, you know, what if that test does pop positive, and if North Southern is even going to give you proper data, you know you can't trustworthy custodian of data. And has a direct financial interest in terms of fines and in future regulatory authority to hold them accountable for making sure that they don't have to pay as much as possible. This is total craziness. I don't understand why they waited so long.

I don't understand why you would use Norfolk. Well, I do understand. It's because they want this all to go away. That's the reason. Okay, let's not be clulas there. Yeah, they wanted to go away, so they put it off as long as they could. But there have been too many people, and not just like ran people like us who don't know anything about chemicals on TV talking about it. Actual researchers who deal with this stuff are saying, hey,

you got to check this out and make sure. Maybe you think there's a low probability, but you have to make sure because we're talking about serious long term issues for the residents of this town who need to know whether it is safe for them to continue to live there or not. And of course, you know, if this is declared a public health emergency, if it's declared basically you know this town is now toxic to live in.

That's obviously going to have major implications for the government for Norfolk Southern and so that's why they have tried to jamp down on all of this. But we are certainly going to keep our eye on it absolutely, all right, guys. So we officially have one Democrat in the race. Remember

Joe Bidens. It hasn't officially announced yet, alto most people think that he's going to run, but best selling author Mary and Williamson, who ran last time around as well, she announced she is officially running for president, seeking the Democratic nomination. In a speech at Union Station over the weekend. Let's take a listener to a little bit of that. This system is intrinsically corrupt. We can see it in the broken windows. We can see it in the shadowed

shadow factories. We can see it in the addiction addle brokenness of our fellow citizens. We can see it in the despair. We can see it in the addiction. We can see it in the anxiety. We can see it in the depression. And people in this town, if they will not care enough to fit to solve the problems that produces all that despair, half the people in this city don't even notice it. They are so buffered from the ravagers of human suffering. They don't even mis the

word poor. They don't even mention the word poverty, much less address its deeper causes. So some people in this city just don't even seem to care. Some people in this city, with some very brave exceptions, apparently don't have the spine or the moral courage to fix it. Ladies and gentlemen, let me in there. I will so democrats, fresh off the heels of lots of grandiose rhetoric about how much they care about democracy, how committed they are to the people having a voice, how's that going? How

are they responding to this? Obviously with complete contempt and dismissal. Let's go and put this up on the screen from the hill. The headline here is Democrats brush off Mary and Williamson's twenty twenty four primary challenge. And there are some incredibly smug and condescending quotes here. Matt Bennett, co founder of the centrist think tank Third Way, he said, I hope and expect they will completely ignore it. She is not a credible candidate in any respect. She certainly

isn't going to be challenging to win the nomination. If that's the only primary challenge he faces, Joe Biden can rest very easy until the general election, an aid to Congressman Don Bayer said on Twitter high AP in response to an AP article calling her a major Democrat. Marian Williamson is not a major Democrat. Thank you for your attention in this matter, and listen, whatever you think of Marian and her chances here. Number one, again, she is

actually unopposed at this moment. She's the only Democrat who is in the race. Number two, It's up to the voters to decide. Democrats have already effectively rianked the primary for Joe Biden by putting South Carolina first. They're saying they don't even want to do any debates, so all of their rhetoric about how much they care about democracy and they're obviously total hypocrites when it comes to them

maintaining their own grip on power. And I would also say, your guy here is going to be closer to ninety than he is to eighty by the end of his term. Give a majority of Democrats and an overwhelming majority of the country who are like, please don't run, so save me your like smug and ary about how solid he is in terms of his standing visa VI the American people,

not just that. I mean, look, Mary Anne was able to get to the debate stage as a Democratic candidate at a time when senators like Corey Booker and many others were not able to. This is a person who was able to raise the requisite number of funds and to actually hit the requisite two percent in polling to get there. Trump, I mean, right now, Biden is actually acting weaker than Trump. Trump is actually willing to have

these Republican candidate debates. We have GOP primary debates which are already being negotiated with the major cable news networks, where we would anticipate in Nikki Haley, I aveak Ramaswami or any of these people if they do qualify to head up against him. So why don't you put yourself up in the same way. Jimmy Carter actually famously won his challenge while he was president in the debate stage against Ted Kennedy. And you know, the Carter campaign says

that he was worse off for it. I'm not so sure, because it actually got him in some fighting spirit when he was able to go up against Raigan, now obviously lost, Mick Carter didn't need any help losing. No lost, he lost it, right Onda. It's a good point, and I am just generally of the opinion. Do you remember the first debate between Obama and Mitt Romney where Obama lost? He was terrible. And one of the reasons that came forward is Obama was in a bubble for four years.

He had not debated anybody, whereas when he was the actual candidate into he had did like seventeen eighteen primary debates in two thousand and eight that made him sharp and ready to take on McCain. So even a challenge where you presume that the candidate is going to win anyways, it's actually very good for them by and large to

actually go through some competitive process. This is what we were talking about earlier with Ron DeSantis, and he's doing himself a disservice by keeping himself away from any potentially adversarial media and being very careful and very cautious about the interviews that he takes on because you need practice. Ultimately, you really need practice in order to be able to

effectively compete in an election. I mean, and Biden didn't really get any last time around because of COVID that essentially rescued him and he could kind of hide in the basement for most of the general election. He does very limited and very you know, cautious media appearances as well. So yeah, he could use that blade sharpened, no doubt

about it. If that's even possible at this point. And if they were not, you know, if they really felt secure about their position Feza VI Joe Biden, then they wouldn't be worried about Mary and Williamson, you know, like I said, Look, she dropped down before the voted, you know, after Iowa last time around. Yeah, she made it to the debate stage, but she wasn't a huge factor. Like this is fine, We're not worried about it. The fact that you've had this incredibly fragile response to her, I

think is really interesting. And they have a big problem on their hands in New Hampshire in particular, those people are pissed about the rewriting of the primary calendar because you have effectively stripped all of the sort of power and relevance of you know, that entire state and especially of the party faithful within the state of New Hampshire who you have openly come out, including a sitting member of Democratic Member of Congress and said we want primary

challengers to Biden. We welcome primary challengers to Biden. We think he's going to have a problem in this state. Wasn't just these quotes in the Hill though, of course, MSNBC handling Marian in a very similar way. Let's take a listen to their coverage of her announcement. I don't consider Marion Williamson to be much of a threat. She's a spiritualizer and a twenty twenty all Storan who may

not even make the debate stage. Let's be honest. I think in best way to handle her is not to address her at all, because I don't think many people consider her to be a major Democrat in ages is a concern for some for Biden. But she's seventy years old, so she doesn't exactly represent a new generation and leadership either. And she has no platform to speak of other than some nebulous Department of Peace, and so she's not a threat to Biden. Okay, Number one, you don't get to

decide whether she's major Democrat. The idea is that people get to decide, and that you know, we'll have their verdict. Number two, the parth actually really pissed me. Off was her saying she doesn't have a platform, because that is just factually, that's just completely utterly false. She has a platform. Whether you like her platform or not, you can look at it, you can disagree with it, but she's been

very clear and very specific about what she stands for. Well, also, seventy is a hell a lot different maybe two, okay, I mean like on a scale, but seventy is actually younger than every single other person all of democratic leadership. Well, and not to mention, not defending it, I'm just saying not to listen. Yeah, watch Marian's speech, no teleprompter, no notes, and it was electric. People in the room were clearly

really loving it and really enthusiastic about it. They do not want so they've already said they aren't going to have a debate. We'll see if they're able to hold to that, if there's enough public pressure to force it. But they don't want that comparison because all elderly people are not the same. Right Trump, I can't stand the man. He's still clearly got it, and he's still got a lot of energy. A boggle's mind, given how unhealthy his

lifestyle is, his weight, his age, all the rest. But you know, not everybody has created equal people obviously go through you know, life transitions and phases and sundowning at different points in time, and so I just will hold that out for you. Lastly, Marian had an interview with ABC News over the weekend where she got asked some questions about exactly these topics. Y'll take a listen how she responded, This is a democracy. This is not about

what I think is wrong. Obviously, I believe the American people should be offered an agenda for genuine fundamental economic reform, and it should be the voters who decide. It should not be the DNC that decides. It should be the voters who decide. That is what a democracy is. Do you expect that Biden will debate you? He certainly should debate me. It's called democracy. And I'm running as well.

And what about this notion of taking New Hampshire out out of its position as first you're going to New Hampshire. I can tell you that New hampshireots happy about that, the fact that so will you be competing in the Newmpshire primary? Though, this is the democracy, This is the thing the DNC should not be rigging this system. They don't even pretend anymore. They're not even covert about their they're swaying the primary season. They're very overt about it.

They're going to get that's what's going on, is they're rigging the system for Biden. They even admit that. John, So, I mean, look, she's not wrong. I think a lot of it comes down to what she said, which is it's up to the voters to decide. And yeah, the New Hampshire point I think is very important. As you said, people are really pissed off in New Hampshire that they got dinged. At the same time, though, it can't help but just say like they have rigged the primary so well,

and good for Biden. I just don't know if it's possible there. But listen, the reason they have gone to such extraordary links is because they can read the polls. They see that there is a majority of Democrats who were, like, we would really like some other options. Marian's the only option that has stepped up. So it's very likely to be a one on one race here. New Hampshire is

kind of welcoming her in with open arms. It's not the first primary anymore, but it is an early state, and so they have to be worried about appearing vulnerable at the very least, even if they aren't worried about him ultimately winning the nomination. And again, he's not even in the race yet. So right, we'll see when he actually gets in. We'll see what happens. As Trump used to famously say, all right, let's move on. Russell brand he's here in the US, fresh off the Joe Rogan podcast,

stops by the Bill Maher Studio. An extraordinary confrontation with John Hyloman, a famous game change of fame in a confrontation over whether cable news MSNBC is just as bad as Fox News. A very smug response from Hyloman, a lot of good points that Russell brings up. Let's take a lesson, John. I've not known you long, but I love you already. But I have to say that it's disingenuous to claim that the biases they're exhibited on Fox News are any different from the biases exhibited on MSNBC.

It's difficult to suggest that these corporations operate as anything of than mouth pieces for the affiliate owners in Black Rock and Vanguard. I've been on that MSNBC, mate, it was propaganda's nut crackery. That's not a fad called Morning Joe. It was absurd the way they carried Morning Joe. Yes, yeah, I don't know what it was. It wasn't morning. There was no one called Joe. There's no one concentrate. They didn't understand the basic geners of jun journalism. No one

was willing to stick up for genuine American heroes like Edwards. No, then no one was willing to talk about Julian Assange and what he suffered trying to bring real journalism to the American people. I'd like to hear a specific example, approved specific example of an MSNBC corseponding her anchor being on television saying something they knew was false, and we're saying, behind the scenes, two people, this is I'd love to

go out. We know that, we know that the election wasn't stolen if it were safe, for example, but I will go but I will go out. I will go out on television and saying the opposite though about bias, it's a posible say because you don't actually know anything about any of these stories that you're talking about. You don't NMSBC one big fucking deal, my dad. It was

more big fucking deal. You've been on MSNBC once. You know what I actually found insane about Howlman's response here is in actually even the way that we treat Hioman today, I don't know people know this. Horloman started a media company. It was called The Recount and it was a massive failure. Outside of a Twitter account where they literally clip what's

going on, they raised like thirty million dollars. They tried to start their own show all of that, and it failed so precipitously that people barely even wrote about how much of a joke it all was. Russell Brand you can like him or not. He has a very successful show on Rumble. He has a very successful YouTube show. Many of the numbers that he gets he talked about this on Rogan are far more than anybody on cable and it's because he's willing to discuss and talk about

issues of exactly where the cable news system fails. And you can also see the smugness in the way that Hyloman is confronted with the idea He's like, oh, well, we never went on and intentionally said something that we know not to be true. We have how many times we need to play the Russia Gate coverage from MSNBC. Shall we play once again the Donald Trump was a kgb asset from nineteen eighty seven clip. How many madout clips do you guys want about rushing attacks on energy?

All bullshit, complete bullshit. They will never grapple with that. I almost wish that Russell hadn't brought up not just the Ivermectin thing, because that was more then it was MSNBC. Although Mattout did get in a little bit with the retweet. I think Russia Gators we have them dead to write, dead to right have the same spot. And I don't know whether the hosts at MSNBC really believed this stuff. I think it's possible that they did or deluded themselves

into thinking that this was a real possibility. But it really doesn't matter whether they technically, like really believed it or not. They clearly were engaged in the same thing that Fox News was engaging with and stop the steal. They saw what their viewers wanted to hear, and so night after night after night they spun elaborate tales of Russian It was a Russian spy novel. Extraordinaire. Of course people wanted to watch it. It was action packed, it

was unbelievable. Ye had cliffhangers all the rest. They knew what their audience wanted to hear. They cared about ratings, and that's the bottom line here. Look, could you quibble and say, I think the one thing that you could say is a little bit different about Fox News versus MSNBC is that Fox News was explicitly set up to be an organ of the Republican Party, effectively into boost Republican conservative candidates. Emma's NBC was just a a money play,

just a business venture. They stumbled into liberalism and went from there. But the bottom line for both at this point is the bottom line. They need to make money,

they need to justify their existence. They need to feed their audiences that they've cultivated and lied to exactly what they continue to want to hear, and so on that basic level, it's silly to quibble over which one is worse, but ultimately they're both cancerous, they're both infotainment, they're both terrible for the American people, and they will both willingly

lie to their audiences when it serves their financial needs. Yeah, and I think it gets to exactly what we were talking about in the box news block where they have contempt. MSNBC just has as much contempt. They're willing to put outrageous lives on their primetime networks just because they knew that that's what their audience wanted to hear, deceive them all the way up until the day of the mall report, and then continued to spin well with the after the

Malla report. That's maybe the most important point, because maybe you could persuade yourself like, oh, they really believed this stuff. No they didn't too. Okay, well, now we know that there was no there there did they go back and here's where we got it wrong. Here's how that's what you would do if you made an honest mistake and you had respect for your audience and like some self respect for your supposed credentials as a journalist or an analyst. No,

they didn't do any of that. If you live in the MSNBC bubble, none of what they were spinning was ever disproven. It was all just oh Muller failed or whether they have all kinds of cope rationalizations for why it never actually the pe tape never actually came out and that shows a high level of contempt for their audience, same as was revealed in those Fox News text messages. Absolutely correct, Crystal, what are you taking a look at?

Way back in twenty seventeen, before we had any idea that a pandemic would up end the world, killing millions and reordering both work and play, Jeff Bezos announced a little contest. Amazon, he said, was building a second headquarters, which he dubbed HQ two and classic sleek tech jargon. This wasn't to be just any old office park. HQ two, he said, would be a full equal to their Seattle headquarters, maybe even larger. The temptation proved irresistible to cities and

states alike. After all, Bezos was dangling a promised fifty thousand jobs and billions of dollars in investment. Such a massive infusion. It could jolt a struggling city to life. It could surge a mid tier city into the world class, could help a superstar city push out even more of its working class residents in favor of the coveted, affluent, creative class that our politicians seemed to almost uniformly prefer.

And so, in a nationwide contest, of public humiliation. Locations across the country competed to debase themselves in offering the largest grab bag of taxpayer funded goodies to a company that is already among the richest and most powerful in

the entire world. It was kind of a municipal squid game where cities, desperate for the vitality that had been robbed them by free trade market fundams medalism, competed in a race to the bottom in order to delight the overlords at Amazon, the beneficiaries of that very free trade market fundamentalism. The whole situation was already a pathetic commentary

on the corporate capture of our entire nation. Rather than corporations being shaped by government to serve the needs of the people, government was falling all over itself to bend to the rapacious desires of our largest corporations. According to tech Crunch, the city of Stonecrest, Georgia, offered to rename the town and make Jeff Bezos its permanent mayor should the company select it as the site for the new office.

HQ two Birmingham, Alabama, plastered fake Amazon boxes across the city and created a marketing campaign called bring a to b to woo the quote Everything store. Albany, New York's take was apparently so pathos inducing that it was actually eviscerated and mocked by the onion. But the whole contest

was a complete sham from the very beginning. After inducing all these cities to spend time and resources putting together these humiliating gimmicks and billions in tax incentives and bend the knee to their lord and savior, Jeff Bezos, Amazon didn't pick one city but two, New York City and Northern Virginia, and they happened to be the two cities where Bezos already had second homes and which were already major hubs of tech, media and government power, revealing that

the whole thing was always a farce and the results preordained. While these two cities did offer grotesquely large tax incentives, they actually paled in comparison to the giveaways that were offered by a lot of other locales. In the end, every single participant was completely played, including the media that of course eagerly did Amazon's pr work for them. It wasn't a contest, It was a scam designed to extract the largest possible goodie package from the places which Amazon

was always going to go to all along. Now, the New York City locale and queens was immediately controversial. When residents and progressive politicians found out just how much then Governor Cuomo had promised to Amazon and tax incentives, they were apoplectic. After all, New York had reportedly given about a billion dollars more in incentives than in Virginia. Had also that they could price out longtime residents and further

strain in already crumbling infrastructure system. After a local uproar, Amazon backed out, but there was a lot of exuberants in northern Virginia where local leaders and developers, construction companies, they all started planning for this big new influx of office workers ready to shop and dine and to live, which brings us to the final cruel twist in this sordid tail, Bloomberg got the scoop here. Amazon pauses construction

on second headquarters in Virginia as it cuts jobs. So after all that sham contests the press around the sham contests the build up expectation locally, they are all but pulling the plug, halting construction on the largest portion of this project. Now We've been covering the post pandemic tech sessions here, so you probably know that, like a lot of other tech companies, Amazon ratically overestimated their staffing needs

for post pandemic realities. They recently announced layoffs, impacting some eighteen thousand workers, and the entire world of corporate office space has been turned upside down by remote and hybrid work. The whole concept of an eight two to anchor a company in a new city has kind of been rendered obsolete by a pandemic that scattered white collar workers across the country in search of more affordable housing and a better quality of life for a region that insede an

anticipatory boom. This was really a harsh blow, a renigging on the promises that were made, and also at great expense. Of course, Amazon stock surged on the news that they were pulling the plug. As always its heads, Amazon wins and tails, everyone loses. Now you might be tempted to think, well,

the pandemic did change everything. Who could have known, what choice do they have, etc. But I will remind you this is far from the first time when politicians gave way the store to huge corporations got big promises and ended up with nothing but big disappointment. There was the fox Con debacle in Wisconsin, where the company promised thirteen thousand jobs in exchange for three billion dollars in incentives.

President Trump called it the eighth Wonder of the World. Instead, the most optimistic estimates say now that the long stalled project might create fifteen hundred jobs and in destroyed the credit of the surrounding region, which invested a billion dollars in infrastructure for this insulting outcome. Amid a lot of hype, Lordstown Motors got a deal on a shutter GM plant

in Ohio to build electric trucks. Well, they overstated their orders and the first prototype that they put out caught fire when they actually took it out for a spin. Now you're ready for this one. Fox Con is said to buy the factory, So good luck with that one, guys. A new Panasonic battery plant in Kansas promised in exchange for eight hundred and twenty nine million dollars in incentives.

That sounds pretty good on its face, but the deal required no commitments on jobs and no commitments on pay pretty glaring emission, leaving Kansons on the hook for a big paym regardless of whether the company ever actually delivers on a single solitary job. So what should we take from all of this? Listen, I actually have no problem

with a national strategy of industrial policy. It uses incentives to drive investment in key areas like microchips or evy batteries, or to pursue other goals in our national interest, which may include creation of good paying union jobs. But this state versus state, city versus city competition to give away the sweetest deals to the biggest companies. This is a loser's game for everyone but the giant multinationals, who routinely break all of their promises and laugh all the way

to the bank. The Onion with typical trench and satire wrote this a while back about the Amazon HQ two contest. Quote. You are all inside Amazon's second headquarters, Jeff Bezos announces to horrified Americans as massive dome envelops nation. We're proud to welcome all three hundred and twenty five million new

employees to the Amazon team, said Bezos. Now please begin working, all of you, Bezos added, as a dark cloud of buzzing drones appeared on the horizon, pausing uniforms, orientation packets, and a pile of boxes to sort on the doorstep of every American home. This race to the bottom mode of desperately begging for jobs shows just how backwards our country has become, where we all expected to scramble to serve the interests of corporate overlords rather than organizing the

economy to serve the interests of the people. Our politicians have allowed Amazon to treat us in our communities as playthings to pick up and throw away as it serves them ASQ two is just the latest scamp. Sager and I have a personal stake in this one. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. All right, Sager,

we are looking at it well. The recent release of CDC study on Youth Risk Behavior Survey of American teenagers. It's ignited a firestorm in our political discourse. Teengirl depression is going up. No way, all youth depression is skyrocketing? Well is it? The smartphones is a general social paranoia. You can basically pick your poison when it comes to

these takes. It won't surprise you what angle of mainstream media has gone with You would think that the only story in ed of these data is that teengirl depression has gone up. In fact, I could not find a single mainstream outlet that didn't lead with the CDC framing exclusively about teen girls. Interesting writers, though, have dug into not only the teen girl data, all of the data, and then come away with better conclusions that are more nuanced.

So let's focus on the major takeaways that most of the media is ignoring right now. But it's very glaringly obvious the ubiquity of smartphones amongst all teenagers and its solid entrenchment into their everyday lives. Blogger Noah Smith notes that teen girls, suicide, anxiety, self poisoning, and major depressive episodes all began to skyrocket in twenty eleven, and they hit escape velocity in twenty thirteen. What changed? As NOA notes.

While those who don't want to blame the smart form often point out it came out in two thousand and seven, why did it take so long? But the actual mass adoption of smartphones amongst teenagers happened in wait for it, twenty eleven, Basically the exact same mirar that these symptoms began to take off. Now we have had over a decade with the smartphone, and it's basically inseparable from teenage life. At this point, we have all kinds of crazy data

to back this up and what it's actually done. Face to face interaction between teenagers has plummeted all starting in twenty ten, right around the mass adoption of the smartphone. It continues to hit record lows with teenagers but boys and girls reporting fewer friends than ever before. Social isolation with mimicked communication online is no substitute now for actual friendships, as we all found out the hard way during the pandemic.

Another illuminating chart from researcher Gene Twinch is even more clearcut. Adolescence with depression of low well being report many more hours on their smartphones, with the most depressed reporting some five to six hours a day of screen time. Now, is it the cause? Maybe? Maybe not? What's the good indication? Our friend Richard Hannania also did a systematic review of all of the data, not only from the US, but

from around the world, and he came away with this quote. Overall, we find strong evidence of declines and teenage mental health over the last decade or so, based on government data with large sample sizes not only in the US, but Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, and the UK. He adds, quote overall, this makes an extreme strong case that the problem goes way beyond the

United States or even English speaking countries. But if you look a little closer, as Richard points out, there are very interesting anomalies to consider. In Hungary, the Netherlands, and South Korea, we don't see the corresponding rise in teenage mental health issues. Richard knows that these countries may not be as culturally similar to the United States. Thus they may have something within them to resist the same poll that has brought nearly every other developed country down. But

there's another take here, which is also important. Is it really the phones or are we just freaking out because they're new? As venture capitalists Mark Andresen observed, quote, we did not live in a calm, placid, rational, happy world before smartphones. People have been bananas forever. On most metrics, people were more bananas in the past than they are now.

If anything, technology may be calming people down instead. He pauses the simplest explanation for whatever the hell that we're going through is some kind of secularized great Awakening where transformation societal change is taking place. It's not unprecedented at

all in Western history. The last great way in US history was only fifty years ago, the rise of militant evangelical Christianity, the decline of mainline Protestantism, the modern pro life movement, much of a political orientation of the American South is traced right back to that. But how does

this compare. A possible explanation is that social trends like smartphones, atomization, combined with what can be best described as empty woke catastrophizing, is leading to its own great awakening, awokening as we've referred to it in the past. Writer Matthew Gleasy's actually dug into some of that data and he found something that's actually astonishing. Focusing on teen girls completely misses the point.

When you look at the comprehensive studies that control for gender and for political ideology, you get a different view. It's young liberals who are actually especially depressed, with liberal

teen boys outpacing conservative teen girls in depression. So let's discuss why one theory came from Jill Philipovich, who Iglesias highlights writing, quote, I am increasingly convinced there are tremendously negative long term consequences, especially to young people, coming from this reliance on the language harm and accusations that things one finds offensive are quote deeply problematic or if they

even violent. She continues, quote, just about everything that researchers understand about resilience and mental well being suggests that people who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization, hurt, and the sense that the life simply happens to them and they have no control over their response. So it could be that victimization and politics itself is to blame, smartphones aren't at all, or maybe

it's both. Who really knows. What I do know is we have a big problem. As to the solution, it's anyone's guests, and the best thing is to look at the problem from all angles as they're attempted here, instead of a myopic explanation, so that we can eventually try to do something about it. And in the meantime, you've got to take care of each other because it seems to be something that we are doing less and less

of as a society. So I thought it was really interesting, you know, something they have focused here and if you want to hear my reaction to Cyber's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. A lot of discussion here on Breaking Points about the balloon, about UFOs, and we've been trying to talk to the actual experts here. One of them is the former lieutenant in the US Navy, Ryan Grave, So let's put this up there on the screen.

He writes, in political quote, we have a real UFO problem and it's not balloons. And Ryan recounts some of his own interactions with anomalousts, aircraft or objects, whatever you want to call them, that we're up in the air. And he's been trying to draw attention to this increasingly on his own podcast and in the public. So we're very happy to have you on the show, sir, Thank you very much for joining us. It's my pleasure, thanks

for having me here. So, Ryan, what did you want to accomplish whenever you were writing this article, whenever you started your podcast trying to bring as much attention to the UAP phenomena. You've been one of the most outspoken former pilots who's actually interacted with some of these things. Why are you choosing to do so? Why do you want to be in the public eye. Oh well, I'll push back and say I don't necessarily want to. But this was an issue that just wasn't getting the attention

that it deserved. When I saw the twenty seventeen New York Times article come out with the videos of various UAPs, I recognize those videos. I recognize them. I heard the voices on them, and I was like, hey, I was there for those I also realized at that point that

this was an issue that was still ongoing. I didn't reached back to my squadron mates who are still flying on the East Coast and this was still an everyday aviation safety hazard for them, And I realized the proper mechanisms weren't being but in place to resolve this issue. It was just a matter of time until there was a midair ran. Can just for people who aren't familiar with you and the videos that you're referring to, can you just explain what you experienced and what you saw, yeah,

I'd be happy to. So I was an F eighteen Fox Trot super Hornet pilot, which means I was attached to the East coast of the United States, and I would operate off the Eastern seaboard for a number of years in basically a training environment, not really a comma environment. However, while we were there, we started noticing objects when we upgraded our radars that weren't there, you know, just even

on the previous flight with the older radar. And so eventually we started flying close enough to these objects for them to be picked up on our optical for looking infrared camera system, and we started to gain visuals within the jet itself on those systems of those videos that you see such as the Kimbal video and Go Fast. Eventually we saw these objects with our own eyeballs, and at that time we didn't have an explanation for what they were. They just simply looked like a black cube

inside of a clear sphere. These objects would be up there all day. They would be either maneuvering around point six to point eight moc, which is around at the high end three hundred and fifty knots, or they would be completely stationary against the whim. When you're up there,

it's like being in the ocean. Everything is moving. So when you have objects that are stationary against high winds for very long periods of time and then begin maneuvering, it's just something that we're not used to seeing, right, And we were almost hitting these objects. We had them flying very close to our aircraft that we're requiring a

basi of maneuvering. Wow. Yeah, I mean, this is your testimony, you know, before Congress and just publicly has been so important for highlighting how frequent of an interaction that this is. And it's almost more stunning that we, like you said, we haven't had an accent or that we haven't had more pilots come forward. One of the things that you write about, Ryan in the Politico article is that the President did not talk about UAPs that exhibit advanced performance

capability set. You say, where is the transparency and urgency from the administration in Congress to investigate highly advanced objects and restricted airspace that our military cannot explain? And you talk about a new organization that you are starting and an initiative to try and gather as much data as possible.

You want to talk a little bit about that absolutely, and so that's a natural progression of the work that's been going on trying to bring attention to this seeing that one of the main movers of attention on this topic is on Capitol Hill with the centers and congress people that have been mandating action from the Department of Defense to investigate this topic, and within the aviation ecosystem, I'll say with the United States, it really does take

an Act of Congress to move anything. So I founded the Americans for Safe Aerospace, which is a very simple organization. We think that we should know what's above our heads, and those are going to likely fall into two different categories. They're either going to end up being some type of adversarial threat platform and it's a national security issue. We have the systems to prosecute those targets, or if we don't know what they are, it's a matter for scientific curiosity.

And I bet when we start narrowing down that bucket of anomalous objects, more security threats could fall out. But we'll continue to make that bucket smaller to try to figure out what these objects are. American for Safe Aerospace is going to be looking to push policy and legislative action to ensure that air and pilots, both military and commercial. I feel comfortable of reporting this so that we can continue to expand the conversation and ran, what did you

make of these recent objects that were shot down? Obviously one of them was a Chinese spy balloon, don't really know what the other ones were. Maybe potentially one of them was just like a hobbyists balloon. No debris has been recovered, and they seem to have abandoned any attempts to recover whatever debris there was from these shootdowns. What did you make of all of that? Yeah, you know, it's a very confusing series of events, which is what

led to me writing that political article. Back to the first question, there just seems to be a very confusing narrative around these objects. First, you know, if we think of how this proceeded, there was a visual confirmation of an object of a balloon that it appeared by civilians in the United States. That kind of ramped things up,

and this is public knowledge. Now we seem to have slowed down the speak gates on some of our censors, at least brought to attention based off of the siting of that balloon, what other slower speed objects could be in our airspace. However, the communication was very clear that the first quote unquote Chinese by balloon was a Chinese by balloon, and the other three objects are still unidentified

objects at this point. What was communicated was that they appeared to be more or less drifting in the wind, which is not consistent with what we were seeing off of the Eastern seaboard. But I think whatever the object end up being, I think it just goes to prove the point that there are objects up there that were

not aware of. Some of them are going to fall out and be adversarial programs, some of them might be completely prosaic, and there are another category of them that we can't necessarily call prosaic due to the behaviors that they're exhibiting. And I wrote that article to ensure that that wasn't lost in the fray, so that we didn't start assuming that everything unidentified in our airspace ends up

being a balloon. But to that point, for those hard skeptics that like to say, well, they're probably just balloons, I think now the American people see that that's actually a pretty serious issue as well. Both from National security and for aviation safety, and you know it goes all the way to the top. So we just can't be complacent with what's above our heads. And the ASA is going to push for action to ensure that's the case good.

And one thing I want to get with you, Ryan, I hear this from the critics all the time, which is is pilot error. These guys, you know, they have no idea what they're seeing up there. They're mistaking it

for you know, reflection or something like that. Can you talk about you join the Navy in two thousand and nine, lay out for the audience how much training, familiarity with your equipment, familiator, familiarity with normal objects in the sky that you encounter, and your ability to determine what is anomalous and what is not while you are flying at

aircraft you've probably flown for thousands and thousands of hours. Certainly, so these these aircraft, you know, I'll even not even refer to F eighteen and as an aircraft, it's a weapons system designed to do very particular mission sets. And

those mission sets are really based around two objectives. One is to be able to identify what's out there and be able to tell who's friendly and who's not, and also to identify the ones that we're not certain about and work to identify whether they're friendly or not, and then to prosecute the targets that are not friendly. And we prosecute those targets that are not friendly primarily by flying close enough to be within weapons range and also far enough away that we're not too much in their

weapons range. So controlling the distance off the nose of our aircraft and knowing who's who is essentially the primary responsibilities of our job. Everything else is mechanics to prosecute those targets. We call that correlation while we're flying up there. So the suggestion, you know, and so all our tools

to go to your point. So our training is to learn how to use the incredible tools that we have in those in those weapons systems, and those weapons systems tools include radar, electro optical cameras, other electronic warfare systems, and electrical tools for understanding electromatic netek spectrum around you. And we take that information and we share it, and that information gets pumped out and we get a combined

image of what's in the area. And so when we say we see something out there, whether it be on our radar or our electroloptical systems or some other device, that information is being correlated across multiple sensors, and all that technology that we have and that we've trained to use is telling us that can't be identified. And not only can't be identified using the interesting mechanisms we have,

but also it's not behaving in a way that we recognize. Yes, so all these things are telling us they're wrong, and yet these are the things we most highly trained to do, is to maintain the distance off our nose and to identify things, and those are unfortunately two of the largest arguments used to say we're incorrect. Very important. I'm sure if that answers your question or not, but oh, it answers it very very well. Ryan. Congratulations that started the

new organization. We'll have a link down there to all the description to your new podcast as well so people can find out about it. And you're welcome back on the show anytime to the discuss a topic. Really appreciate you joining us, Ryan, absolutely, Thank you guys so much for watching. Really appreciated fund developments here. Thank you for everybody who's been helping us out with the premium subscriptions. They really help out as we plan the future. Some

big stuff that's coming down the pipeline. I think that you guys will enjoy. Chrystal, I've been looking at mock ups. Can't say yet of what. Some of them are a little creepy. We'll just say that anyway. We'll reveal some of that at the time and the place. Thank you all so much for those whose supporters have got a great show for you tomorrow, Counterpoints on Wednesday, and then the show on Thursday. So we'll see you all later. Love you guys, See you tomorrow.