Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal, Indeed we do. We have more exclusive breaking news out of those leaked documents. We also have a new response from the Planegon. It's really quite extraordinary. I mean they're freaking out about this in
every way imaginable, So we'll get into that. We also have some new interesting comments from Ukraine with regard to their interests in India being a part of a potential peace process that we'll bring you those critical details as well. Ron de Santis moving forward in the Florida legislature with a six week abortion ban. Now, this is the guy who was framing himself as the like more electable alternative to Trump and yet on this particular issue, he's wildly
out of step with the American people. What will that mean for his potential campaign. We'll get into all of that. We also have Joe Biden being Joe Biden, sort of like accidentally making news in the most bumbling way possible. You definitely want to watch that clip. And we're going to dig into Justice Thomas and the bombshell report about corruption and his failure to disclose elaborate luxury trips worth like half a million dollars over decades. There are new
calls for him to be impeached. So we will give you all of the details there, but we wanted to start with the very latest with regards to those leak docs and what we have been able to glean from them. Yeah, that's right. We're in a very advantageous position as I understand it. You know, outside of the mainstream media, we're one of the only people who had a full set
of documents. Here. As I've tried to explain before, there are a couple of images from the leaked Pentagon Ukraine documents that have been circulating around on telegram between five to fifteen images. Those are pretty much well known. They've been well dissected. All they continue to be taken off
of social media. The full and original set, though, however, has taken some interesting chicanery to obtain on our part, and so what we have been doing is going through and finding the stories, some being reported by mainstream media, but many others significantly downplayed. Same proviso at the top. Everything that we're reporting today, we sent to the Pentagon and to the White House for the opportunity to comment.
The Pentagon, actually, and interestingly, which they rarely do, responded almost instantaneously and referred me to the briefing that they gave yesterday. So let's gohe and put that briefing up here on the screen, because it itself is extraordinary. Before we get to some of the reporting, basically, what you can go through and we'll have a link here if anybody wants to go and read it. This is all
public record. Is the direct transcript where the Defense Secretary or the Secretary's press secretary is asked, I don't want to say what Crystal almost ten to a dozen times in every case about these leaked documents, and really all he has are two talking points. Number One, we are referring this matter to the Department of Justice, and we
are taking this very very clearly seriously. In other words, we are going to hunt down and find as soon as humanly possible, whoever is responsible for leaking these documents. We'll get into a little bit about that later in the show. And then number two, they continue to try and encourage BSS basically censorship on the document, saying, well, you don't want to amplify these, We urge you caution
because they could be doctor. Now, once again, there is only one piece of this which is in any dispute whatsoever, and that's not even the original document. It's the one that the Russians took, photoshopped and circulated on telegram trying to deflate the number of casualties of the US intelligence
community estimates. So already we are dealing with the Pentagon spin machine trying to say that what somebody did with the original document's photoshop and circulating makes it though they are doctored, urging caution, when if you read carefully, they do not dispute one word of what we will report to everyone today and what others have been able to
report from these documents. Yeah, in fact, they're pressed on whether Okay, so you've said that there are some things that were changed, we know about the casualty figures, any other specifics that you want to give us, and they're like no, no, and I mean, listen, I think it's important to put every caveat out there that it is entirely possible that the documents have been altered, that the information does not accurately accurately reflect intelligence assessments that were
being shared in highly classified settings at the time. But I think common sense would indicate if they had found other errors, you'd probably know about them, because they highlighted that casualty one right away. Every single article that you read about these which with good reason make sure to point out, Okay, this, you know casualty number was altered after the fact, that calls in a question all of them.
But again, if they had actually found other errors, and you can be damn sure they've been going through these things with a fine tooth comb ever since they discovered them, which was just recently, by the way, which is a whole other, separate, interesting issue, if they had found anything else, we would know all about it. Let me just read directly from the transcript of the briefing, this part where they're urging caution about the way that reporting moves forward
with these documents. He says, I just want to encourage you to be mindful not just about the impact of reposting these photos, but of the reporting around the photos, and remind you that to be mindful of reporting carefully on this subject. Disclosure of sensitive classified material can have tremendous implications, not only for our national security, but could
lead to people losing their lives. The Secretary and Department of Defense and the United States government take this apparent unauthorized disclosure extremely seriously, and this is a top priority for US now. With past leaks, whether it was Edward Snowan, whether it was Julian Nsanje and some of the WikiLeaks revelations, this is their go to line always that you're putting lives at risk by disclosing this information. I mean the sort of claims they made about the Assage and Snowden
revelations in particular. We're totally over the top about how this would devastate our intelligence gathering abilities, and this would put American lives at risk all around the world. They've never been able to point to a single example where that was actually true, which again, you know that if
there was one, we would all know about it. So it's just important to remember while listen, we have been as careful as we possibly can be in our own reporting around these documents because we don't want to get played. We want to provide you with the most accurate information. We certainly don't want to be responsible for any sort
of a dangerous situation anywhere around the world. It's also important to keep in mind that, you know, they're a little bit the boy who cried wolf on this, because they have alleged in the past that these you know, leaks would be an explosive, terrible damaging situation for our national security, and it was never actually the case. Bingo. So with all all of that, with the exposition, let's get to something that we're very proud to be able
to offer to all of you. This is an extraordinary story and let's go and put it up there on the screen. So in our perusal of the documents, here is what we found. These documents show President Zelensky privately suggested striking a Russian deployment location inside of Rostov, Russia
using drones. Let me repeat that again, President Zelenski in a faiza basically a spy warrant document and where we were spying on him privately suggested to his top generals that they use Ukrainian drones to strike Russian troops inside of Russia. Zelensky quote told his commander in chief that Ukraine does not have long range missiles capable of striking Russian troops deeper inside of Russia, nor anything to attack them,
suggesting a good opportunity. The private intelligence assessment indicates Zelensky sees a lack of long range missiles as limiting his ability to strike deeper inside of Russia, despite previous promises he does not aim to do so by US authorities. Now why does that matter? And I'm again actually have the raw document in front of me in which we suggest a couple of things. One, we are privately spying on Zelenski because we don't trust him, because we want
to figure out what he really wants to do. Two, well, how many times have we been assured here that longer range missiles by Ukraine and for their defenses will only be used in a defensive purpose. Now, look, you could argue, you know theoretically that it is defense. Now grant strategically. It's certainly a whole other thing to be striking inside of Russia militarily. And this actually proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this happened in twenty eighth of February,
not that long ago. That Zelenski maintains has the desire, has the will to strike Russia, but only lacks the capability. One of the reasons that they talk about inside of this intelligence document Crystal is that they were trying to do this or wanted to do this because it happened to be in the range of some of their Ukrainian drones that they might have been able to get to
in Rostov. That they didn't have the capability to strike deeper inside of Russia, but have the desire to, And specifically his lamenting of not having the long range missiles shows you he we know what he wants to do with them, right, It's how many times have we been assured here they will not use it to strike inside
of Russia. Now once again, you cannot You cannot be upset at a person who is at war for wanting to strike the enemy wherever the enemy is, But you can be upset at us policymakers who have assured us time and time again that this is not something that they want to do, that is not something that they're going to drag us into that. You know, this is a blood brotherhood where both of our interests are entirely aligned. No, he wants to strike inside of Russia. It's right here,
directly inside of the US intelligence assessment. And apparently we don't even trust him enough not to listen to every single one of his most minute conversations. So I think this is an extraordinarily significant story. I'm not a surprise that it's been not reported yet by the mainstream media. Yeah, I've seen it only reference one time where the headline that they went with I believe it was over at CNN was like US spying on Zelenski. I'm like, yeah,
that's not the headline. Like, what is he's saying. He's saying he wants to strike inside of Russia specifically, and not being able to because he does not have long range missile systems. When somebody tells you who they are, you should believe them. I mean, this is clear as day as to exactly why we have to be extraordinarily careful when dealing with Ukrainians because they desire to escalate this war much to a very much higher degree, which
would be a catastrophe for all of us. Yes, yeah, this really exposes once again the lie that our interests in the Ukrainian interests are exactly aligned. Now, there may be some you know, critical overlap there, but ultimately it is in Ukraine's interest. And again I don't blame Zelensky for this, for his strategic calculus, for trying to do whatever he can in order to win this war, take back however much territory he can. It's or it does
strike his enemy. I don't blame him, but it is in the Ukrainian interest to drag us fully into this war, to have some sort of an escalation that causes Russia to retally in a way that forces us to fully directly engage in this war above and beyond what we have already done. That is in his strategic interest. That might be the only way that he actually has a shot to out and out, you know, win and reclaim
all of his territory that he has lost. So it's really important to keep that in mind and clearly behind the scenes, even as US policymakers have been giving us all sorts of assurances and have been claiming that our interests in the Ukrainian interests are perfectly aligned and we should just support Ukraine in whatever it is that they want to do. Clearly, behind the scenes they know differently.
And let me also say this in terms of making the case to the American public about what our involvement should be and what type of weapons we should ship. If they're saying publicly, if Biden and co. Are saying publicly that we should just give the Ukrainians whatever they want, support them however best you know, suits them to win the war, then it doesn't make any sense to say, but we're not going to give them long range missiles or we're not going to give them fight or jos.
And so you end up with a situation where you're very vulnerable to public pressure from you know, the many hawks that go on cable news or that give quotes to the New York Times and the Washington Post saying, Hey, if we're all in for Ukraine and if we just want to support Ukraine and whatever they want to do, how can you possibly deny them these weapons that they say are critical to their fight. This is the real reason why. Now I don't think Biden has been very restrained.
There's obviously been huge escalation and what we have shipped, but so far in terms of the longest range missiles, they have resisted. And I am one hundred percent sure it's because of intelligence like this that shows we could easily end up with them striking farther inside of Russia and a potential escalatory situation where we get dragged directly into this conflict. Tell us the truth, tell us why you don't want to give it to um. This is why,
because they want to strike inside of Russia. And one month before Zelensky privately told that too. Again the top general inside of Ukraine, go ahead and put this up there on the screen. He was here in Washington and on his tour around the West asking for what long range missiles and jets from the west. Now I think we can say unequivocally he wants longer range missiles and jets so he can strike inside of Russia. Yes, also to defend Ukraine, but that is not the only reason.
It's not only just a challenge air superiority over Ukrainian airspace. It's to strike inside of Russia. Yeah, and we have people. You know, the criticism is, well, what would you expect him to do? I expect him to do exactly what he's doing. He's doing what is best for his country. But we need to do what is best for our country. And this shows you the limiting principle, and it also shows you how absolutely full of it. So many of the Ukrainian hawks are in saying that we should trust Zelensky.
Go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Ambassador Michael McFall, you know, the former US Ambassador of Russia, one of the chief hawks in this entire debate, just you know, last year was slamming President by for not sending Ukraine long range advanced missile systems. He's also been somebody advocating for sending NATO jets and others to them. And that's one of those where they just don't seem to understand clearly, or maybe they do, that this is
exactly what Ukraine wants. I mean, they are advocating for an incredibly dangerous position, trying to put our faith in somebody whose interests far supersede hours and they're unable to think about what the second of the third order consequences are. Combine that with the reporting that we were able to bring everybody yesterday about China's redlines in this conflict and what would lead them to give a lethal aid to Russia.
They said specifically that NATO provided Washington provided missile systems, jets or any other weaponry that strikes inside of Russia would change the strategic calculus of Beijing and would lead them most likely to provide lethal weapons to the Russian government.
That's it. So not only then would we find ourselves in a conffrontation with Russia, which itself would be a catastrophe, but then you have two nuclear arms superpowers and really the world's largest power outside of the United States coming in completely on the side of the other, which also, you know, this is the other thing that would be a disaster for Ukraine, not just for the United States.
It would be a disaster for They're the ones who would die, and who's you know, whose territory would just be even more ravage than it only currently is. So this is one where we need to be responsible about about the way that we operate. But most importantly, like we have the cold hard evidence now he wants to strike inside of Russia. So the debate now has to
be do you want to strike inside of Russia? If you're cool with that, okay, but you need to be honest with us, with Americans, and with everybody about exactly what you are proposing, because otherwise you're just full of it. I think that several pieces of potential revelations within these leak documents really show us how close we actually are to World War three. And I know it's easy to hear those words, and we've been warning of the risks of escalation for a long time now, basically from the
beginning of this war. You know, maybe we sound like a broken record on this, But when you combine those two pieces of how close China is to coming on basically fully on the side of Russia, and how close Ukraine is to launching the type of long range missile strikes within deep within Russia that could cause China to come in on their side, that could cause Russia to escalate directly against US our NATO allies, dragging us in. What else do you call that other than World War three?
So I think it's really important to take away from these documents just how close to the edge we are just how important every single one of these decisions about what type of weapons we send and how many we send, and what's our timeframe, and what we're doing to apply pressure to push for negotiations rather than trying to extend this wars has been our policy thus far. Every single
one of those decisions is absolutely crucial. I hope that's the biggest thing that people take away from this because at times during this war, during I would say the entirety of this war, there has been a stunning and disturbing lack of public debate, lack of ability to dissent, lack of ability to consider what the strategic risks are in any of these decisions. You're just sort of like smeared and dismissed if you raise any of these concerns. And that has got to stop, because this is a
very very perilous situation. Okay, so there you go. Let's go to the next part here. We're very also proud to offer this to you. This has nothing to do with Ukraine. This was buried deep inside of the documents and yet is stunning. Nonetheless, let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen that we can offer to all of you a absolutely fascinating part of a US intelligence assessment. They show us that private INCEEL says that increased five G services are increasing the risk of
satellite interference that will disrupt commercial and military communications. The assessment warrants that some of the new five G frequencies could encroach on some satellite communications for the US military, and could even occur if military satellites are on a separate frequency. Now, I know that this is not exactly breaking news to people who are very interested in all this, but it's a whole other thing to actually see it
directly described in a private US intelligence assessment. And also this specific assessment was marked secret and also not to be shared with foreign intelligence services aka the Five Eyes intelligence and they are actually specifically citing satellite communications SATCOM that they rely on. This it appears to be comes from an intelligence warning crystal inside of the National Cognizance Office, I believe, which is actually one of the most secretive
parts of the entire US intelligence community. There are seventeen different US intelligence agencies. This is the one that is responsible for all military spy satellites around the world. Obviously, it remains one of the most critical parts of US spy infrastructure. So for them to be warning this is Look, all I would say is, I know there's a lot of five G conspiracies and all that stuff out there, but you look at this, clearly it's disrupting something. What
does that mean? How are we going to get around it? Is there a technical fix all of that? I'm not so sure because clearly what they point to within this is that a they don't have a technical fix, and b that even if you were on a different frequency, yeah than the five G network, that it will still disrupt potential military and communication satellite infrastructure that the US relies on so heavily. I know literally nothing about this
except what I read over like the last day. Apparently there was already huge concerns from the airline industry about the way five G could interfere with aviation, and so there have been these like deadlines that are consistently extended about deploying five G in and around airports because of these concerns. But based on my day's old knowledge of any of this, apparently that's because they're on the same frequency. The fact that it would have an impact on separate
frequencies seems to me to be significant here. Well, I mean again, a lot of this is already publicly known. Yeah, privately, there's been warnings about this. The SpaceX has actually warned about five G interference, saying quote, they will make Starlink Internet unusable because they said that the dishes efforts on five G would actually result in a huge interference with
Starlink service. There's no reason to say that Starlink satellites are somehow different necessarily than yes, communication satellites or US spy satellites. That said, I just think it is fascinating to see it inside of this private US intelligence assessment.
It's certainly one thing to talk about it in kind of the open commercial space environment, but it also shows you, like the military and their spy satellites are not above also being blocked by five G. I mean yeah, I mean in terms of some of the stories inside of these documents that have nothing to do with Ukraine, that was one that really jumped out of me and I was like, oh wow, I was like, this is significant enough. This also takes us back to what this document even is. Look,
we don't exactly know where it came from. However, the current speculation is that this is very likely part of a large briefing booklet that is given to somebody like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ergo. It very likely came from somebody around the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. There's an office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff here in Washington inside of the Pentagon where they would aggregate this type of intelligence and deliver it to
principles and give them like a briefing booklet. And clearly this was significant enough for them to include it because and this takes some of the background, how do you even get some of your stuff included in the daily briefing? Based upon from what I've been able to read from people who've been involved in this, it's actually a real process.
It's like a war between all the intel agencies to see, like what is the most significant parts of this, what should be able to put What do these senior leaders really need to know? It was enough for one of the most principal military policymakers here in the US to be warned about it inside of this briefing book, not saying it's a catastrophe, just that they found it significant enough to include inside of their briefing. Interesting that's all
I can really say. Yeah. Absolutely, And you know again, the fact that this was all revealed is incredibly embarrassing and humiliating for the Pentagon and for all of our intelligence agencies. Oh yes, absolutely, Okay, so take that what you will. Five G. It's interfering. We don't know what that means. We just wanted you to know that it's part of the briefing booklet, and we think that's something our government is concerned about. They're concerned about it, so
maybe we should be concerned about it. All right, Let's go to the final part here about these documents. Just how did these come about? So, like I said, Bellincat, which you know, it's an organization, very controversial. They did their investigation. How other outlets are looking into it, relying on little bits and clues. Let's go ahead and put
this up there on the screen. The Wall Street Journal, relying both on Bellingcat reporting but some of their own original reporting, says one of the most significant leaks of highly classified information in recent history began amongst a small group of posters on a messaging channel that were trafficked in memes, jokes, and quote racist talk. Now, first of all, any Internet community that is anonymous will of course devolve into all kinds of shit posting, So let's not say
that that's necessarily a bad thing for this group. Now, what exactly was posted there? An anonymous member of this group, which has just over a dozen users, started posting files, many labeled as top secret sometime in January, including some of the intercepted communications we've talked about here about US
allies the details of American penetration plans inside of Russia. Then, these documents, which actually at one time numbered in the hundreds, actually stayed in this tiny discord group up until early March. Basically nobody in the group found it significant enough to publicize. Nobody even Discord was really aware of it, nobody in the public. And over these one to two month period more and more of these documents began appearing inside of
this discord. Then, though, another user who was part of this group reposted several dozen images to another group with a much larger audience. This is kind of when the trail picks up. That is where at quote at least ten files migrated to a Minecraft computer game Discord server. Then what happened is that on Wednesday, Russian propaganda accounts on Telegram, which I have now joined, so thank you Telegram. My phone is now full of crylic messaging. They what
they did is they took those repurposed. Specifically, the Kia document spread like wildfire, and that's when Counterpoints covered it for the very first time on Friday with the initial indication. Since that time on Friday, the Counterpoints covered it, we and some other outlets have been able to obtain a portion of these documents. Unfortunately we have nobody, it seems bit from what I can tell, and I've gone deep, has the original set of the hundreds of documents that
this man posted. Discord nuked the original server. They nuked the Minecraft server as well, and currently you know, we have about half of what was publicly posted on these on this website. But the other By the way, if you have them, police, please send it to us. I would love to read it. But from what I can tell, based on some of the forensic other people that I've interacted with around this crystal, they kind of appear to be gone. Yeah, for us, none the mainstream outlet's have
the meme. No nobody, everybody like the most anybody has is what we've been able to obtain and so yeah, those original documents, like i'd have to pursue presume you'd have to presume the Russian government has them, You'd have to presume that the US government has them. But they have managed to it seems like Holly scrub them from
the Internet. I mean, one of the things that's fascinating here is sometimes you can delude yourself into thinking that the US government it acts in the way that it's portrayed in the military, in the in the movies like this Super you know, high tech, they're on top of their game in every way. But it's extraordinary these documents.
They were hanging out there for months before anybody noticed, before the US government noticed, And I mean, you can sort of understand it, because how could you possibly be monitoring like all of the twenty thousand discord servers, et cetera. But it's just kind of wild to think that this top secret, highly classified information has been out there publicly posted for months and it only just recently came to the attention of the news media and the US government,
who are completely scrambling now. And you know, they had a quote in here to give you a sense of how freaked out they how angry and upset and like humiliate, embarrassed whatever they are about this disclosure. They interviewed a former FBI senior executive who now is with some government contracting firm, and he said they're going to be looking to get to the bottom of who did it as expeditiously as possible. They're going to be sparing no resource.
The FBI is approaching this as if someone has committed a treasonous act. And one of the things they point to that will be relevant in terms of their search is something we mentioned briefly yesterday, which is that if you look at these documents, you know it's they were folded up, they're unfolded. They try to like flatten them ount and then they just laid them on top of
like whatever was around and took pictures of them. And so in the background of the documents you can see what they describe as a variety of items that you can see in the margin of the photos, including gorilla glue, shoes, and instructions for a glasshawk HD spotting scope, details they say could facilitate the search for the leaker. So they are going to come after this individual or individuals with
the full force of the US government. But you know, in my opinion, this person, frankly is a hero ohes to get this kind of accurate, you know, very recent, like weeks old, information about the US's view of this war, what we're doing, what our understanding of what Ukraine is doing, understanding of what Russia is doing, are understanding of what
our allies are doing. It's absolutely critical for the US public to be informed about the reality of what's happening, not the spin that's being fed to us by the US government and regurgitating and regurgitated in large part by mainstream news outlets. And the last thing I'll say, Soccer is I think it's been telling too some of these outlets. You know, I don't want to the smirk them. They've
done a good job reporting something sound. I think the New York Times in particular, like publishing some of the documents, but the way they frame it, you know, it's very selective in the pieces that they choose to report out. And you know, one of the parts that's certainly most sensitive is the fact that Ukraine is may have already run out of like their air defense missiles and the
location of their air defenses. All of that is very sensitive and that got reported out understandably so, but that's the sort of thing that can actually strengthen the hand of the hawk by saying like, oh, we got to do more, and we got to help them, and we got to send him fight our jets, et cetera. Things like China's red lines, things like the fact that Zelensky does want to strike within Russia and the only reason he hasn't is because we haven't provided long term missiles.
Interesting that those pieces don't get reported out. And then the other thing that they consistently emphasize is like, Oh, we're so deep inside of like Russia. We've got these great sources in terms of Russia, We've infiltrated all of their various agencies, et cetera. So even the way that this has been reported out by the mainstream press, I think has been revealing of a particular hawkish bias that
exists across the board. Whoa absolutely, I mean even today, first the front page editorial from Wall Street Journal wartime intelligence leaks can sink allies and they're basically going after the leaker, being like he's responsible for possibly sinking Ukraine. And this is America's fault. No, it's whatever has happened here is not on the leaker. If anything, it's on the US government for lying to us and the Ukrainians rankly about what their intentions are and about their ability
to sustain You're the ones who lied. He just told us the true or she whoever this person is. I'm guessing he just based on some of the paraphernalia in the background. But whoever this person is, they did us all a great service. In fact, in the history of significant military leaks, this appears to be probably the most
significant national security leak since the Edward Snowden documents. And in those documents, what a lot of analysts have been saying is what makes us one the most extraordinary is the real time nature of it. Is that you and I can sit here, I've literally got the doc in front of me, and i can read what President Zelensky was privately saying. According to the US intelligence community a month and a half ago. That is that's really the crazy part. Some of the biggest revelations from Wiki leaks
and other they were years old. Now at that point, I'm not saying they weren't important. They absolutely were. The Wiki leaks. What even in terms of the National Security Age, the NSA leaks that Edward Snowden gave us, these were programs that were sp spent, spun up Post nine to eleven. They detailed the security and forstructionally them in place for decades. I mean, this is real time data from only a
month ago about Ukraine's possible counter offensive. Oh turns out that the US intelligence and military community privately believes there's no way that they're going to have a successful Spring counter offensive. They also believe the same thing for Russia. Some of the other leagues. One we didn't even get to is Egypt. You know this is a crazy league. Egypt. It was inside the docks. The Washington Post ended up reporting it out. They on February first, were privately going
to send weapons to Russia. They are the second largest recipient of US military aid in the world, and they did so privately right after Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln was there on the ground, we have no respect, like the rest of the world looks at us like a joke. They're willing to take our money, but then they won't even do what we want them to do. I'm not saying Egypt do what we want them to do. More.
What I'm saying is it is clear that outside of the Western world, the entire Ukraine first narrative, Russia bad all this stuff, they are just not buying it. That we're not just talking about Brazil, India, and China. We are talking about each We're talking about South Korea, We're talking about Israel, some of the closest US allies over decades. So I think that is the most significant important thing
that has come out of these documents. And unfortunately, though, given the small number of people that were inside this discord server Crystal, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that all the DOJ has to do is subpoena the IP addresses of all ten twelve people who or whatever who are inside of this thing. And you know, whoever it is, good luck to you. That's all I can say. Yeah, yeah, for sure. There was also some stuff in there about the UAE deepening there oh okays
right with Russia. That was one that the mainstream press has reported. In mid January, officials claimed UAE security service officials in Russia had agreed to work together against US and UK intelligence agencies. According to Newly acquired signals intelligence. That's from one of these documents as well. So it really does show you as you were saying that, you know, what we wanted the world to do with regard to the Ukraine War is not did not come to fruition
even within NATO. I mean you see, you know France and Germany who certainly have a different view towards China and different approach here. There's a lot of divides and we have been wildly unable to really get the world on our side and convince them that this is truly some fight over democratic values or human rights or anything love the sort. They're not buying it. Let's go to our next block here. This is probably the most significant
event actually outside of the League documents. So currently the Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister is traveling around the world in a bid to try and get countries to broker peace. One of those is New Delhi. Let's go and put
this up though or on the screen. The Deputy Foreign Minister actually appeared on national television and wants New Delhi to quote be more involved in helping resolve its conflict with Russia and has even sought now an actual private visit by Indian Prime Minister Naram the Ramoli and other
top officials to Kiev. She told the broadcaster that Kiev has expected India to invite Ukrainian politicians as well to participate in the G twenty and intensify political dialogue that is happening in India, incepts that will be held in September, where New Delhi is actually hosting the event. The reason why that this is so important is a couple over ones. One.
India was the bore a tremendous amount of brunt of public criticism in the West and specifically here in the US for not going along with sanctioning Russia and specifically for continuing to buy Russian oil. They were you know, oh, they're taking the Russian side. They're taking the side of the barbarians. They're not, you know, standing up for Ukraine and India from the beginning was like, look, we're not
saying we like what's going on in Russia. They're like, but we're gonna buy cheap oil if you idiots aren't gonna buy it. And in terms of this whole democracy you know, under attack thing, They're like, that's just not how we see the world. We do what's best for
our country. It's realism, literally, one oh one. Well, I find it incredibly ironic that now whenever Ukraine appears to be wanting help brokering peace deals, and I think we know why if we take a look at those classified slides around Ukrainian air defense, who are they turning to India, China, France three of the countries which France you know, of course,
is applied weapons. Ukraine has always not really been on board with the US and the UK and the the like Latvia, Estonia, the Baltic states in their hawk istry of the conflict. They have always wanted piece. That's why Macron was inside. It was literally just in Beijing. Our producer mac flagged a video where he released this bizarre China highlight reel of his visit to Beijing where he's like, He's like, French loves Beijing. We all have great friends.
It's all fun, fun and games. Apparently his visit did not go very well. Jichhingping kind of laughed him off the stage and he committed a very bad diplomatic faux pa. But once again, when Ukraine wants weapons and they want the conflicts to keep going, they come to Washington when they actually want peace. They're not coming to Washington. They're going to New Delhi. That's what they want Prime Minister Modi to visit them. And here's the other thing. If
you're Modi, why would you do it? At this point? You have been denigrated, You have been you have been criticized by Zelenski himself for continue to buy Russian oil. You have been ostracized by the West, you know, pointed to is some war criminal by proxy? What do you care?
You know at this point? Well, I don't think that's the way to look at it, because even though they have, you know, done what was best for them in terms of trying to buy cheap Russian gas, they still have been impacted by the elevated food prices and trade disruptions and elevated energy prices. So I do think that there is a even if you're just looking cold heart self interest, I think they are directly self interested in being a
part of resolving this conflict. And I also think that you know, in terms of like global prestige, you can't, you know, you can't do better than being a critical part of trying to broker a piece here. That's so first of all, you're right, there is a hard power
case for why they may want to bring it. But second, in terms of why and the only way that this might actually work, it would be because this would elevate India basically to great power status, because I'm not saying that they necessarily aren't, but this really would put them effectively on the league of DC Beijing and would put
New Delhi right up there. Because if they were to do this, which not necessarily all that much in their self interest somewhat but not necessarily, that would elevate them to the status of brokering peace deals which are in the interest of the two parties, because they have diplomat
relations with both. Mody you know, has that has had that visit with Prime Minister or the President Putin He also, I mean he hasn't visited Ukraine, but he hasn't also of course been like entirely on the Russian side in the way that Beijing has. This might be the only actual honest broker in the conflict, which would elevate them
significantly and give them prestige. But you know, speaking also from a Washington perspective, that's not what you want, Like you are the ones who are supposed to be the global priestmakers, you know, trying to do shuttle diplomacy. That's the Kissingerian model. That's something we prided ourselves for years. We have no impact on it, We have no influence in this well and this whatsoever. Because once you take sides, and who is going to trust you to be a
neutral broker exactly? I mean really clear here We're going to talk later about Yemen. Is clear there. It is clear with regard to Iron and sat when you take clear sides in a conflict, they're not going to come to you for peace. They're going to go to countries like India or China or Brazil, nations that have tried to at least publicly maintain some sort of a plausible
deniability and neutral status. So I also think that this these revelations, you know, this approach to India, it really helps to understand why you're now seeing overtures from Zelenski to nations like India or even nations like China in terms of trying to forge some sort of a diplomatic deal.
Also some indications from them that they, you know, are willing to not try to retake Crimea because you can see within these documents that they're not in a strong position strategically, and they know that, you know, the US has been giving them a blank check, but that may not last forever. And they're already critically low of you know, certainly air defenses, also ammunition, that they are in a difficult place that they don't expect this spring offensive to
yield anything more than an indefinite stalemate. So that's why there is a new seeming interest from Zelenski and actually having some sort of negotiated settlement to bring this conflict to a close. And it is a catastrophe and embarrassing that the US has short circuited any potential peace negotiations to date and is being effectively shut out and understandably so,
of any possible conversations about a diplomatic resolution. Yeah, and we actually have some of the comments that the Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister made, let's take a listen to that the presidency in G twenty is an important and essential role for India. So of course we believe that India should be engaged and involved into Ukrainian issue to a great extent. We are not in the position of instructing India.
Of course, we do respect the decisions that are taken by India and Prime minist Marremodi with his three D attitude diplomacy, dialogue democracy, with his message that he delivered in Samarkan that there is no era of war, and we do accept it and we do share this message.
But we think that India's global rule, especially with the adverts with the press in twenty with regards to the influence in the global self and sharing experience with the global seuth and being and living country for the Asian African countries is important to also not escape discussion about Ukraine because it might seem regional here, it might seem distant from here, but it's not. She's referencing Prime Minister Modi's speech whenever he appeared before Vladimir Putin and he said,
this is not an age of war. It's kind of a you know, kind of a rebuke to Putin's face that happened there. But look, it's just to me, I love watching how the Ukrainians act when they're not acting in a Western context, whenever they're not here in their military outfits, begging for weapons and they're outside of the
rest of the world. Trying to talk to them. It's a very different tune, and I think that tune is exactly what you see there, and the fact that they can't reach out to Washington, they have to look to the rest of the world. People who were vilified for keeping a neutral stance in this conflict now being the ones who might actually be able to bring it to an end. And I think that vindicates a lot of Indian strategy, Brazilian strategy, and many others who decided not
to take one side in this. I hope it's successful, so we'll keep a close eye on it. And wanted to turn to domestic politics and what is unfolding right now down in Florida. So we've been talking about the fact that abortion politics, ever since Rowe was overturned in the Dab Supreme Court decision, have been a total electoral disaster for Republicans wherever you stand on the issue. I
just don't think that's deniable at this point. I mean, you saw the pro choice position winning in places like Kansas. Just last week, we had in Wisconsin, the most fifty to fifty state you could possibly get. You have the state Supreme Court seat that is won overwhelmingly by a liberal candidate who was running on abortion access and she wins by eleven points in the state of Wisconsin. So I think the electoral significance of this issue is pretty
clear At this point. However, Ron DeSantis is moving forward with quite an extreme bill that is being passed right now through the Florida legislature. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So he is in the lords of political politico, charging ahead on a six week abortion ban. They say that the governor's support might seem politically risky, but he's been backing restrictive abortion policy for years. Apparently he initially signaled support for a six week abortion
ban during his first race for governor. Currently in Florida, they've instituted a fifteen week ban that includes some exemptions for the life of the mother, but very limited, and I can give you some more details on that. In a moment. You have people who are on the religious right, who are pro life activists really praising him from making this move. They say it makes it clear that DeSantis is solidly pro life and he's trying to move the ball for the protection of the unborn and can be
trusted to do that. In the future. That's according to the president of the Florida Family Policy Council. And you've got some Republican consults I think this is interesting around interested to get your reaction on this, who are basically saying Desanta's whole play here is to have his list of policy accomplishments through the Florida legislature be what positions
him properly for the Republican primary. So you've got one top Republican Florida consultant saying if he decides to run, he wants to have the most robust cultural and policy conservative list of accomplishments. This makes him pervious to hits from the right. And to show you how complicated this is, even in the state of Florida, some of the Republicans who won in Biden districts actually are not backing the six week band. So even within the state of Florida,
even among the Republican Party, this is quite controversial. But you know, personally, I think if DeSantis believes that his positioning within the Republican primary is going to be based on whatever he does in the Florida legislative session, I don't know what race he's writing. Well, this is the issue. Let's look at this on the merits. So first of all, for the people who are willing to have abortion be more of a comps issue, you're going to vote for Trump.
Why wouldn't you vote for Trump? That's actually one third of the people who voted for Trump in twenty sixteen were pro choice. They just didn't care that much. Then, if you are trying to win hardline abortion voters, like evangelicals, why wouldn't they just vote for Mike Pence, who's going to be for a national abortion band. They're like, he's like six weeks. What are you talking about? Six weeks?
That's way too much. I'm for a full scale ban. Now, not a lot of people are for it, but those maybe thirteen percent or whatever of the country, but they all vote Republican and they're all evangelicals, and they're going to support somebody like Pence. So who exactly are you targeting here? Basically pushing legislation which is dramatically politically unpopular on a national level and most likely in the state
of Florida. And then second, you are trying to do it to burnish your credentials in an almost like targeted way that somehow strikes at exactly the middle of nowhere, Like there are two chasms in the debate. There's Trump who thinks that the Row versus Way overturn he will take credit for it, knows as a disaster, Yeah, And then there's Pence who is like, no, we didn't go far enough. We need to outright ban abortion. Who are you going for? There's just not a lot of voters
in the six week category. They're either basically for a ban or they're like ish pro life, I guess. And then a lot of people, and even those people most likely vote for Trump says he's the one who got Roe versus Wade over Tay overturn, or there's just straight up pro choice voters, which is some seventy five percent or whatever of the entire country. Matt Aglaci has made actually a good point about this, which is Ronda Santis's best, most compelling lane in the Republican primary is like, I'm
a more electable version of Trump. And I've always been skeptical that that was going to be a winning argument because, frankly, I just don't think the GOP base, I don't think they see it that way. I think they believe Trump is perfectly electable. After all, here was president before. I don't think they put the priority on electability that the Democratic base seems to. So I was always skeptical of
that case. But that's his strongest argument. Is like, if you want to beat Joe Biden the Democrat, you might like Donald Trump. But now we've got a record of several election cycles that didn't go well for Republicans. Let's go with the guy who is more electable. Passing a six week abortion ban, which is insanely unpopular in Florida and everywhere else. It's not even really popular with the Republican base. It's popular with like the most activist part
of the religious right, no doubt about it. But this is insanely unpopular. How does that make you more electable in a general election? And it's not just done this, I mean Trump has been hitting him hard on social Security and Medicare. DeSantis has positioned himself in terms of policy and ideology to the right of Trump, especially on issues where the Republican elite like hard right position is actually out of step, definitely with the country and actually
with a significant part of the Republican base. So, in my opinion, when you look at this, he's damaging his ability to make that electability argument, which is the strongest case that he really can make, both to GOP voters and to the donors that he will need in order to back his campaign. Just to underscore this and how unpopular this position is, and frankly, this is actually this was not cherry pick. This is one of the maybe the more beneficial polls in terms of the six week
abortion ban. Like it shows that having higher numbers than I've seen in some other polls, but I didn't want to like sandbag the case. So this is from the Wall Street Journal. According to their survey. First of all, sixty percent of voters now say abortion should be legal
in all or most cases. That has actually gone up by five points and reflects the fact that since the Dobbs decision, which overturned Row versus Weighed, support for abortion rights nationwide has actually gone up, So the pro choice position hasn't stayed this fifty to fifty issue that people have assumed. The pro choice position has actually become significantly more popular, not just in this poll but other polls
as well. Twenty nine percent said it should be illegal except in cases of rape incest, and when the women's women's life is in danger, six percent say it should be illegal in all cases. Okay, that's down from what it used to be was at eleven percent, which was still very low, but again shows you that shift. When you're specifically talking about an abortion ban at six weeks of pregnancy, sixty two percent oppose that ban, just about twenty five percent. Twenty five percent say they support a
six week abortion ban. So this is a wildly unpopular position. And we have also seen you know, sometimes things are unpopular, but they're not particularly motivating to voters. This issue has been extremely motivating for voters in a way that again I didn't necessarily foresee. No, no, I don't. I didn't foresee it nearly either, I think really because what it did is it activated a bunch of people who just don't vote that much. I mean, that's where we really
saw in Wisconsin. I also would just say it really under scores the biggest political noose around the Republicans. Next, they outperformed dramatically and many elections in Wisconsin except for one that happened to do with abortion. So if the Democrats can make twenty twenty four all about abortion, it
will be dramatically to their benefit. It puts Trump in a very difficult political position, and you know, I don't really know how he can possibly wriggle his way out of that one, because you can't disavow your own voters while also trying to win over swing voter because they basically are diametrically opposed. I saw Ryan Gerduski, who is a Desantist supporter, say that the six week ban is the single most unpopular thing that Grand DeSantis has ever done,
you know. And it's interesting too, because that's where the institutional GOP is most aligned with him. Yeah, and that's always going to be the toughest one to square. As someone who has had three babies, at six weeks, it is rare that you even know that you're pregnant, Like that's how early you're talking. There's already stories. I was just reading these horrible cases that the Washington Post documented with the fifteen week ban, which has these limited exceptions
for the life of the mother. But it's only when you really like are on death's door that they will you know, even with the fifteen week ban, if you're beyond that, that they will actually perform the abortion when mother's life may not be you know, imminently in danger right at that second, but it's very much at risk. They documented these two women who around week eighteen, their
water broke. Now this is you know, long before fetal viability, and these were women who had struggled to carry pregnancies to term in the past, and in any other you know state where abortion is legal, the standard of care is that you offer the women at least the ability to have the abortion. The baby is not going to live. And if you allow the mother to go through with like you know, the misk wait for the miscarriage to happen, there are much heightened risk of infection and much heightened
risk of hemorrhaging. Well, one of these women, she ends up hemorrhaging to the point that she loses half of her body's blood, nearly dies, has to be put in a medically induced coma. So we're already talking about a situation where women's lives are at risk, even with something like a fifteen week abortion man which is already in Florida.
You can only imagine the sore of horror stories that are going to come out when you have a six week ban in place and do you think that the press is going to ignore that, you know, what is happening to these women and their stories and the way that they're being put at risk because of these new policies. I don't think so. So so in any case, you know, I think he's delusional in terms of the Republican primary if he thinks is the legislative record down in Florida
is going to be what sways voters. At this point, you can see the Republican primary is going to be dominated by Trump, his indictments, people coming after Trump. That's that's the landscape that you've set up. And then if your strongest case is on the electability candidate, you are just like you know, cutting yourself off at the knees. In terms of that position, there's no question a six week ban's dramatically politically unpopular for many of the reasons
that you just cited. I will say fifteen weekman has a significant amount of popularity that was at least at some point post obs was around like seventy percent approval. And look, I mean we in Europe, like Germany has a twelve week ban, like I think France is at fourteen weeks now. I don't know much broader availability to
receive care based on risk to the mother. Right the piece, he's that they have more exceptions outside of like elective abortion, which I think most people are broadly on par with. So I'm more saying, like, it seems quite reasonable to have some fifteen week standard with the elective or or with the proviso that anybody whose life is in danger also has access to an abortion, just from a general like actual where we could land on all of this
for a national public policy. I wanted to pull up numbers because here's here's part of you know, the public sentiment has really shifted post stops consistently, not just in this Wall Street Journal poll, but in effectively every gallops pulling, Pews polling. People have become more pro choice. I think it's partly because they've seen these bands go into effect, and they've seen the way that the law has been applied.
And so when you say in Florida, you know, the life of the mothers at risk, they really mean like you have to be about to die right then and there. They don't take into account, well, if you don't have this procedure, you're going to have the baby is not going to live like that's off the table. You are going to have this elevated risk of massive hemorrhage, threatening
your life, potential infection. And so you have already numbers in states that have the band where women are having much worse outcomes in terms of their health during pregnancy, or states that don't have these bands into you know, that have not been instituted. So I'm looking. The Wall Street Journal poll had numbers I believe on abortions after six weeks, as I said, only twenty six percent support it. Abortions after fifteen weeks, It's almost identical. It's like twenty
seven percent support it, maybe thirty. They have this like bar chart where they don't give the specific numbers, but it's not popular. Maybe it was more popular before these bands went into effect, but now that people have seen the impact and what it actually means in real terms for women's lives, you're talking about a few, you know, few more percentage points popularity than the six week abortion band. Yeap.
I mean, it's certainly possible. I'm more thinking about like where some sort of grand bargain actually could be struck in terms of where people feel comfortable. I don't know, what has any support then just what is it Row versus Weighed like the first trimester? Yeah, I mean I think Roe versus Way. Yes, I think that is correct because remember Roe versus Weighed was only about you know, pre viability, so post via ability then states could do
whatever they wanted. So in states like Mississippi, I mean they basically had with Row versus Wade plus Casey, they had already basically banned abortion in the state. There was like one clinic open and then that was underpression to close, et cetera, and that was permitted. I personally don't support that, but that was the landscape ahead of time, and I
think that is generally where most people are. It's like sixty percent of the public, that is, you know, generally pro choice generally believes abortion should be available in all or most cases. So yeah, I think that's where the public sentiment is at this point. I'm not sure though about all our most cases, because it is in all the most cases include late term abortions. I mean, like here in all cases would be late term, most cases would be the sorts you know people like how they
personally define it, I think really is very different. Right, But for you know, for a lot of people, they'd say most cases is you know, previability or something like that. So it's listen, Americans have always had mixed, complicated views on the issue, which I understand because I'm not going to deny it's like a morally fraud and difficult and
complicated issue. There's just like no doubt about that. But Number one sentiment has moved into the pro choice direction post jobs, I think because of the reality some of the situation. Number two now, the ground that Republicans are exclusively fighting on is definitionally extreme. Yeah, absolutely true, because to go further than what the court has already done is just definitionly going to put you on the wrong
side of public opinion in any case. Six weeks, no question about it is a single most unpopular thing the man will do. Will it matter? We'll find out the same respect. There are some warning signs being raised from a bunch of Republican strategists. Just some of these quotes are funny. So let's go and put this up on the screen. From Politico. They say, is Trump dominates the airwaves?
Quote it feels like effing twenty sixteen Terry Sullivan who ran Mark or Rubio's twenty sixteen campaign for president, said this is deja vous all over again. Trump dominates media coverage, making it impossible for his competitors to get any viage or four attraction. Another Republican strategist who supports DeSantis but was granted anonymity to speak freely, said, it feels like
fing twenty sixteen. Is there anything that can suck up as much political oxygen in the American political landscape as Trump? I don't think so. And then they have this anecdote that is brutal. DeSantis went to New York to Long Island recently to promote his book or whatever and his potential candidacy. He was greeted by, they say, a number of New Yorkers in Maga hats and a sign that
read DeSantis twenty twenty eight. So not this election cycle, but maybe next one would give you a shot, suggesting you get out of Trump's way. Then Politico went to the event where DeSantis was speaking, and they said that nearly all of the attendees that they interviewed spoke favorability favorably about DeSantis, but said they are already committed to supporting the ex president's comeback bid so like, yeah, we
like him, but you know we're with Trump. Yeah. I mean, look, it's twenty sixteen all over again in terms of his domination in the race. And I think very specifically for a reason, especially as you said, citing the Iglesias point, that a lot of what DeSantis does or at least says that he wants to do to try to be electable, is less politically popular than what Trump wants to do. Yeah, we'll see which one wins out. I honestly have no idea. Yeah,
so let's get to our current president. He did a little interview with Al Roker of the Today Show with regard to the Easter egg role. And you know, there's two things that are noteworthy here. First of all is an ability, persistent inability to communicate his thoughts in any coherent manner whatsoever. Second of all, he seems to, for I guess the most clearly stated way and the most clearly stated way, indicate that he is planning on running for president again. Take a listen, will you be taking
part in the Easter egg roles? Planning on after twenty twenty four? I plan on at least three or four more Easter egg roles at least three or four more, may maybe five, maybe five, maybe maybe six. What the hell are you? Are you saying that you would be taking part in our upcoming election of twenty four out of it, I'll either you're rolling an egg or you know, being the good you know, the guy who's pushing him out, help help a brother out. Well, I plan on running out,
but we're not prepared to announce it yet. So plans on running but not ready to announce it yet, and he plans on being the guy that rolls or pushed out all. That's the oddest interaction. Yeah, I mean, al Roker, I can't believe that guy is still working. I'm out retire man. I'm sure you got enough money at this point. Brother. I love it. I love the way that when Biden says something like that, which is just like totally nonsensical, everyone just pretends like, oh, yeah, of course, yes, sir,
I totally understand what you're saying. Well, okay, so he says, I plan on running, but yeah, what is with the delay? That's where it all comes like nobody seems to understand. We have some reporting a little bit that gets into it, but it's just odd because it would get him an advantage to be in the race, so he could give the American people, I think, the clear contrast, and so he could continue to start raising money, which is what
expected to be a very expensive presidential race. There doesn't seem to be any strategic benefit to running. Here's the other case that I could make. Trump is dominating the airwaves. Trump is dramatically unpopular right now. He's got like a twenty five percent favorability rating. Let him hang himself as the center of the stage of the news, and then I'll come in and sweep up, just like I did in twenty twenty. That's not a bad case I guess I could make. But I still would want to be
in the race and have some skin in the game. Yeah. I don't know. The only way I can explain it is through his own personal attributes throughout his career of indecisiveness, and not necessarily about the decision of whether or not he wants to run again. I have always thought that
he's going to run again. I've always thought that the idea of the Democratic Party was going to try to push him to the side was overblown because you know, listen, Kamala Harris is the heir apparent, and she is less popular, and they really have no way to get around, right, So I always thought they were going to move with Biden if he was at all capable of, like, you know, being propped up in a weekend at Bernie's kind of
a way. He though, has always throughout his career, had trouble just making decisions about like where are you going to launch, where is your campaign going to be headquartered, who's going to be in charge, what kind of messaging are you going to roll out with, who are going to be here? Adme like these basic campaign decisions. He's both a micromanager and he's really indecisive, So then everyone
just gets hamstrung. And in the same respect, I don't think they take seriously, you know, any sort of primary challenge, so they don't feel pressured to get in, and so they just let Biden like do his thing and not really come to any particular decision, And then the announcement date just keeps getting pushed and push and push and push and push. That's my best guess of what's going on. Yeah, it's very odd. I mean, they keep saying that they
expect him to launch sometime soon. We have the Axios report we can reference here up on the screen, and they're saying, now, I believe it could come as late as July, or perhaps even the fall. I mean, the reason the fall seems very odd is that only puts you one year out from the actual twenty twenty four election. I mean, it says the announcement timeline could be affected by his advisor's desire to have strong initial fundraising numbers to try and avoid news reports about a lack of
enthusiasm or vulnerability. Which, if that's what you're saying, that's already a vulnerability that you don't think you even raise enough money. It's a little bit odd. Yeah, that's true. Especially, I mean you're the sitting president. Yeah, you should be able to raise a ton of money. Trump raised until three hundred million dollars or something crazy in the first
six months of his campaign. I'm talking in my monologue about this sort of like desperate and pathetic social media influencer plan that they've been rolling out because it's always been the case Biden has had like zero organic excitement for him among young voters, grassroots or online. You know, it was very much last time around this suck it up and vote Joe kind of a even continues to be the case. He's even less popular now, certainly than
he was at the time. His popularity appears to have dipped in the past several months for you know, I think a variety of reasons. But yeah, they're sort of desperately trying to float like access and little goodies to online social media influencers to try to get them to make the case for Joe onlines like good luck trying to get up that AstroTurf. We'll see if that's got
I don't see it. Yeah, I mean, I think the fact though that they do have to delay it just shows you the fundamental strength of his campaign is just any contrast with Trump, because that's the only way he came in, And the weakness of the campaign is nobody really likes him. A lot of people would like to see somebody else. Most people think he's just way too old, and he's a begrudging kind of acceptance as a president,
which is a very odd position to be in. Yeah, very odd, very odd, And I think the total political landscape really lays bare a nation in difficult decline. I don't want to say terminal decline, but in quite decline, given that you have two likely candidates that not very many people actually want to see occupy the Oval office moving forward, and both both of them also are quite aged.
So let's talk about we weren't able to get to this yesterday, but this is quite explosive the revelations that Pro Publica was able to unearth about Justice Thomas and the repeated luxury vacations that he has been gifted along with you know a lot of other perks and benefits from this Republican donor billionaire. It's going to put this
first piece up on the screen. You can see this is the yacht that Thomas has been has been able to the luxury yacht that Thomas has been able to travel the world on that is owned by this billionaire. And on the other side is this painting of Thomas the billionaire. His name is Harlan Crowe. Leonard Leo actually, who's the head of the Federal Society, is also very prominent and prestigious and important in terms of conservative circles,
especially influential with regard to the Supreme Court. There they are smoking their cigars and hanging out together at Crow's luxury retreat, getaway, etc. So let's go and put the actual pro publica report up on the screen. Let me give you some of the details here, because they are pretty extraordinary. The headline is Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire. They start off with an anecdote about what happened in late June twenty nineteen, right after the Supreme Court released
its final opinion of the term. He boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation nine days of island hopping on that super yacht that we showed you before, and staff by a coterie of attendance, they say in a private chef. Now, if he had paid for this trip himself, it would have cost over a five hundred thousand dollars, but he didn't. He was brought along and all expenses paid by his buddy Harlan Crowe. Now this was far from the only
trip that Harlan crow had gifted him. For more than two decades, they say, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every single year with the Dallas businessman without disclosing them. He's a public servant who has a salary of two hundred and eighty five thousand dollars, but he's been able to vacation on Crow's superyacht around the globe. He flies seemingly regularly on Crow's private jet. He's gone with Crow
to Bohemian Grove. That's that sort of infamous exclusive California All Mail Retreat can ask Alex Jones about what that is, and to Crow's sprawling ranch in East Texas. He typically spends about a week every single summer at Crow's private resort in the Adirondacks. And they have a bunch of photos in the report that shows the lavishness of the type of accommodations that Justice Crow. Justice Thomas has been
provided here from Harlan Crow. They say that this has no precedent in the modern history of the Supreme Court. And where this really gets into trouble, none of this has appeared on Thomas's financial disclosures. His failure to report any of this could run a foul of ethics laws. And reminder, the Supreme Court has very little in the way of ethics laws. Other federal courts have a code of conduct, they have specific guidance about how to deal
with conflicts of interest. Supreme Court is largely up to them basically policing themselves, but there is a requirement that you disclose these sorts of gifts, and just this year it has been updated to clearly reflect the fact that, you know, private jet trips, for instance, don't count as just sort of like normal hospitality of having a dinner at a friend's house or whatever that you wouldn't have
to report. So this is really something. And adding to the concerns of corruption here are is the fact that when Thomas is going and staying at this private resort, there are a lot of other influential Republicans in floce uential corporate executives there. Recent guests included executives at Verizon, Price Waterhouse Cooper's, major Republican donors, one of the leaders
of the American Enterprise Institute. So they're sort of gathering all of these conservatives together and you know, putting them up at this luxury private resort. And then Crow himself has been a significant donor on the Republican side. But even putting all of that aside, you know what we talk about with regard to corruption, whether it's politicians, whether it's the FED, whether it's judges, whoever it is. It's even just the appearance that there is a problem is
a problem. And when you're talking about I mean, this dude has lavished millions of dollars in gifts on Thomas and his wife, there is a real issue there. Even if you could say, oh, he had he didn't influence them at all, He never talked about some reinport cases, et cetera, et cetera. The appearance of that level of direct corruption is incredibly damaging. Here's the thing. Look, if you want to be friends with the guys a citizen,
nobody is stopping you. But if you want to be friends with the guy as a Supreme Court justice, yeah, that's basically complete. I've seen a lot of Republicans say this is like a witch hunt against Clarence Thomas. I mean, look, there's no real defense of this from a pure ethics point of view. At the end of the day, federal judges have immense power, specifically the Supreme Court, they have
incredible amounts of power. You and I may know them, most people may know them as somebody involved in abortion or any of these other top line cases. Remember this, The vast majority of the cases that come before the Court have to do with administrative and business law commerce.
They're the ones who set tremendous amounts of regulation with respect to how businesses get to conduct themselves, environmental protection taxes, how the administrative state is allowed to behave in Levy finds that is what really that they're you know, their bread and butter like day to day stuff that they actually do. We just don't pay as much attention to it. Well, I don't think that there's a single possible rational defense
of that. Remember Bob, I mean Bob Menendez was indicted by the FEDS for accepting private jet travel and not disclosing it as some sort of inkind donation and possible even at parts of bribery. Like Look, if you're really friends with the guy fly commercial and meet him on the island, it's like you are very within your ability to do that and still hang out with your friend.
There's a difference too, like, look, you know you can board the yacht for the day and have dinner or whatever, and then stay on land and pay for your own private accommodation. Look, any of us, any person who would be accepting gifts of this of this kind, would understand it as a gift and not just something that you're getting nothing in return for. Maybe that is maybe you can believe that they're twenty years of friendship in all that stance. I look, actually, I'm will say this. I
think they probably are friends. I think they're ideologically about that. They probably do get along. Harlan Crowe is one of those cringe lords who funds people like Liz Cheney and Jonah Goldberg over the Dispatch. So his politics and Clarence Thomas's very much kind of stand side by side based on from what I've seen about the guy, and many of these right wing billionaires consider themselves like Philosopher Kings, which is why they even so much some of the
most repulsive people on the planet. I also do want to say is fits are horrible and he should be canceled for that alone, specifically the sandals. But a controversial oh god, I mean, I can't imagine, I mean a billion dollars in dressing like that. I guess when you're a billionaire and get away with it. Well, So a couple of things. I do think the fact that he is an activist in terms of conservative politics, I think
that matters. But even if he wasn't. I think it's still a major issue, right, the fact that his French billion, like somebody, had nothing to do with it, right, it still would matter, YEA. The fact that he has business interests that can be directly impacted by what the Court does, that makes it all the worse. But even if he didn't, right, even if he was just like an air and it didn't really matter what happened to the court in terms
of his fortune, this is still a massive issue. And just to give you a sense, so for other federal judges below the Supreme Court, their code of conduct requires them to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, so they're supposed to be held to a very high standard here. And then the other piece of this, which you know, it's just worth noting, apparently Harlan Crowe actually financed a
documentary about Justice Thomas. In that documentary, Thomas is quoted as saying, I don't have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I'm prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States. I prefer the RV parks, I prefer the Walmart parking lots, to the beaches and things like that. There's something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that.
I prefer being around that. Contrast that with the portrait that is painted here of a man who's flying on private jet to board a luxury super yacht for a well I one hundred thousand dollars trip to Indonesian. I think you get a little bit of a different picture than what he's trying to portray himself in in this Harlan Crowe finance document. If you like nice stuff, it's fun.
Nobody begrudges anybody for wanting nice things. In fact, that's what a lot of people want money for, is to be more comfortable and to be able to participate in
fun experiences. Nobody would begrudge you for that. I do have I actually have heard that he's kind of a biker guy and does enjoy some of those biker trips, likes what he really genuinely loves the Walmart parking life apparently, but his thing that doesn't exclude one from the other, right yet, And you know, I could see a world where you both like to do that, and you like to go on the yachts, where you just don't mention it. Look,
there's no square in this one. I think it looks terrible and uh yeah, I mean, like I believe so strongly in the appearance of corruption being as bad as corruption itself. And for Thomas, this is a terrible look. It's always been a bad look to with how active his wife is in politics. And people are like, that's exist, you know, are you saying, I'm like, listen, they chose this life. Nobody asked you to be. You know, like, nobody was like you. Nobody said that you didn't have
a choice in becoming the Supreme Court. You knew what you were signing up for. You don't get to be a private citizen if you want to be a private That's a funny thing. He probably could make a ton of money if he just retired and wrote some crappy book that Harlan Crow could bulk by, and then he can afford these own vacations. You know, this is about it for all these guys. This life is accessible to you. Just leave. But you know, for a lot of them,
they want to have their cake and they want to eat. Yeah. Well, I'll just say I hope you guys have seen through the body of our work that we very consistently apply these principles with eruption, whether it is you know, conservatives and liberals exactly. Yeah, So I mean this one, this is incredibly flagrant. And the fact that he didn't disclose it over this many years, I think shows you that
he knows it's a problem about it. It's terrible. Look, no question, Okay, christ Take a look at well Biden, in his own bumbling ways, tumbled into making some major news with Al Roker on Easter Sunday. Take a listen, Are you saying that you would be taking part in our upcoming election of twenty four out of it all either your rolling and egg or you know, being the good you know, the guy who's pushed him out, help a brother out. Well, I've planned on running out, but
we're not prepared to announce it yet. I plan on running al, but we are not prepared to announce it yet. So there you go. Any lingering suspensive or whether our octagenarian president was going to run for a second term should officially be put to bed. As we expected all along, Joe Biden is running. Even if the Dems wanted to push him out, they can't get around the problem that the chosen heir apparent Kamala Harris is even less popular
than the current White House document. But there are signs that well Biden is apparently eager to do the official Easter egg role for another six years, American people are somewhat less enthusiastic about the prospect of seeing him occupy the office of the President for another term. According to a brand new CNN pull, just thirty two percent of responding say that he deserves to be reelected. What's more, his performance is panned across a variety of personal characteristics.
Sixty seven percent say that he does not have the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively, which I mean, given that Easter Egg roll clip, can you really blame them? Sixty five percent say he does not inspire confidence, fifty four percent say he's not honest and trustworthy, and fifty four percent also say he does not care about people like them. That last one, I would say is particularly devastating, giving that perceived empathy has always been one of Joe
Biden's greatest political talents. These numbers are really bad, but among young people, the numbers are downright catastrophic. In that very same CNN poll, only twenty six percent of voters eighteen to thirty four believe Biden deserves to be reelected, as opposed to seventy two percent who do not. It's easy to take for granted young people's antipathy towards the current president, after all, he was not really their candidate
in the Democratic primary. But Biden did win young voters by twenty six points over Trump, and early in his president young voters actually handed him very high approval ratings as he took action through the American Rescue Plan, including stimulus checks, and signed a bunch of executive orders in line with progressive priorities, things like addressing climate, lifting the minimum wage, etc. Young voters are supposed to be the bedrock of the Democratic base, and they're supposed to be
the emerging coalition which, given time, will swamp the Republicans. And yet there are signs that the Biden team realizes they got a major problem with the youths, and they've cooked up a game plan to try to force Biden love on millennials in the newly politically powerful gen Z. The plan is both pathetic and gross. Here are the details,
as reported by Axios. President Biden's not yet official bid for reelection will lean on hundreds of social media influencers who will tell Biden's record and soon may have their own briefing room at the White House. Axios has learned. So apparently, guys, the White House is working to do with influencers what has long been done with the mainstream press, which is to promise them access in exchange for favorable coverage.
This is the corrupt heart of ACXI journalism and a key reason why the mainstream press cable news in particular, handles mainstream political figures with such kid gloves. They're more interested in maintaining their White House Christmas party invites and off the record briefings than they are with actually doing their job the way that they should. Well now, Biden is looking to AstroTurf some online enthusiasm by the same
promise to influencers of goodies and proximity to power. According to Axios, hundreds of these so called influencers are already working directly with the White House. About two dozen were invited to a White House State of the Union Watch party. The White House is also moving to give them a dedicated press briefing space so that they can maintain more
consistent communication name checked in Axios reporting as creators. The White House is working with our Heathercox Richardson, she's the wildly successful resistant substack author Vivian Too, a financial TikToker, and Harry Sisson, a young, dumb political TikToker. Here, presumably are some of the cringe dividends which are already being reaped from this program. Take a listen. See this is
exactly what leadership looks like. Earlier today, President Biden that with a three Ocratic representatives in Tennessee that Republicans voted on expelling, He met with them, he thanked them for fighting for democracy, and he invited them to the White House. See, unlike Republicans, President Biden actually supports democracy, and he's not going to just sit by and watch Republicans do these crazy radical things like expelling Democrats for supporting gun control.
Thank you to President Biden and these representatives for standing up for democracy and standing up for America. But judging from the comments section, not clear that systems Biden propaganda averts are really succeeding here. Some comments are supportive, for sure, Others say things like this, what a joke, That's what leadership looks like. Oh, brother. When kids love warmongers, how heartwarming. Let's not forget the Willow Project and the meat writing
is crazy anyway, you get the point. I guess I've just come to expect that corporate media has co opted self interested and biased. But it's really kind of gross to see supposedly independent creators seduced by the explicit promises of access from a corporatis like Joe Biden. It's also a perfect window into the roots of media corruption. Many times there's not a direct exchange of cash, just a
quid pro quo of powerclout, and relevance. A lot of people out there are willing to sell out for literally nothing. The good news is they might win clout with the current president, but they will lose it with their young audiences who are not remotely buying this spin. So, Sager, this is a big game plan to get the youths excited about Biden twenty twenty four. What do you think? And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. All right, Sager, what are you looking at it? Well? I may have been mired in leaked Pentagon documents now for the last forty eight hours. But I couldn't let it pull me away from another vitally important story that we have been following from day one over here at breaking points, the lab leak hypothesis of COVID and the Pandora's box of inquiry it has opened, from exposing the media's cover up
of Lableak to the corruption of doctor Fauci. There's always been a deeper point of Lableak. COVID was the tip of the iceberg on lab safety, the complicity of the US government and the complicity of the US scientific establishment. A new investigation hints at just how deep the rabbit hole goes. They point, as just one example, to a lab in Thailand that was searching Southeast Asia for exotic viruses.
The research was supported by the US government from twenty eleven onward and entailed Thai researchers going into remote caves and forests inhabited by millions of bats quote, including species known to carry diseases deadly to humans. They report quote. The scientists collected saliva, blood, and excrement from the wriggling razor fanged animals. Those samples were then driven to Bangkok. As any reasonable person may ask, why would anyone in
their right minds do this? Because the goal was to quote identify unknown viruses that might someday threaten humans, and then, in a move that will shock absolutely nobody, researchers were bitten by bats and one accidentally stuck herself with a needle. They claim nothing ever happened as a result of those incidents, but the incident was recorded in twenty sixteen. Despite that, for five years, the US government still continued to fund that lab, which did not shut down until it voluntarily
did in twenty twenty one. The report notes that on the very same campus as this Bangkok lab, they had another lab that was actually shut down in twenty eighteen because of quote mechanical failures, even though it was supposedly built to handle dangerous viruses. Once again, the most insane thing about this report is that this is just one example. They note that the number of labs handling dangerous pathogens funded by the US government is quote believed by experts
to be in the thousands. In fact, the real interesting part of the report was detailing not only the existing insane projects that we continue to fund abroad, but the genesis of all of them. Before twenty years ago, we actually took studying dangerous pathoges and viruses very seriously. It was restricted almost entirely to bioweapons facilities like forty Trick in the United States or other nations that were studying them.
No outside funding, very little private research involving universities and others. But in two thousand and one, the anthratc attacks changed everything. All of a sudden anthrax incidents coupled with post nine eleven hysteria, flushed billions of dollars into the Pentagon and National Institute of Health budgets to help prevent future bioweapons attacks and also to predict future pandemics and to try
and stop them. In fact, Scientific American, which later went woke during the COVID pandemic in two thousand and eight, published a huge report looking at the forty one billion dollars in the seven years spending on biodefense In two thousand and eight. They cite a Government Accountability Office report from two thousand and seven which quote said we are at greater risk today than ever before of a pandemic because quote the great increase in bio laboratories and the
absence of oversight they receive. Richard Ebright, who today is a major critic of Fauci and a Lablique warrior for truth, was even quoted at the time warning quote, the Bush administration has driven a twenty to thirty fold increase in the number of institutions individuals with access to live virulent bioweapons agents from four hundred institutions and fifteen thousand people.
To connect the dots further from then to now, the only person on records defending all the money spent on bioweapons safety was a protege of doctor Fauci, Michael Carilla, who was then the head of the NIAID Director of Extramural Research, who said quote, we're much better off having spent this money, pointing then to an anthrax vaccine and to a small smallpox vaccine for why the country is
safer for having funded it. Even then, Fauci and his men were connected to protecting gain of function research dollars at all costs. Most of us never question any of this for two reasons. Number One, we had no idea any of it was going on. Two, we just assumed that these scientists knew what they were doing. But now we know that's just total bs, and we're looking back to see if all signs were there if we wanted
to see them. Take Ebola our own Ryan Grimm has been doing a fantastic job of reporting in recent weeks. We're really supposed to believe an eighteen month old child was playing by himself in a cave and he happened to become patient zero for Ebola, or maybe it was a nearby research facility that is now confirmed to have been studying Ebola. In fact, new research shows in twenty twenty one the same human adapted strain of ebola was previously seen in the twenty fourteen outbreak, with no new
novel mutations over five years. Scientists want us to believe that the strain was frozen inside of a human patient somewhere in Sub Saharan Africa for five years and that's why it didn't change. Or maybe the nurse who got the twenty twenty one strain happened to be working in the area of the twenty fourteen Ebola league where there
was a lab. Much more at work is left to be done on Ebola, but it's not the only hint of a potential lab league sufferers of lime disease have long pointed out that one of the original outbreaks of lime disease in Lime, Connecticut in nineteen seventy five just happened to be the closest mainland town to Plum Island, the site of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, which was a hotbed of US biological weapons research for the US military for decades and is known to have been
studying at the time tickborn illnesses, specifically diseases like lime disease. Geography, of course, proves nothing. Critics of the lime leak hypothesis have long pointed to evidence that the bacteria itself has been present in and around the US before the outbreak. Sure possible question, though, is it a natural flare up of lime disease in this geographical town next to the lab, or was the illness being studied in the lab and then got released from the lab and that's what eventual
nationwide outbreak. It's been forty years since that happened, and only in twenty nineteen did the House of Representatives even tried amountain effort to get to the bottom of it, despite vigorous objection from the scientific establishment. My question is simple.
If it's wrong, why not try and find out at least rule it out, because how can you need look after the COVID nineteen pandemic, look at the fact that lime disease happened to blow up in the town next to the bioweapons lab studying things like lime disease, and just accept the government's words. Fact we need to take
control of our scientific research dollars back. Like everything else sparked by the nine to eleven attacks, it is now cleared we created a monster bigger than anthrax and terrorism itself. We unwittingly built a multi billion dollar virus engineering empire that has already started one pandemic and it could start another very easily. The clock is ticking already, twenty seven new top level labs are under construction. FAUCI is retiring
with no punishment, and the dollars are still flowing. If we don't stop it now, we may never get the chance ever again. Lime disease. That one's great. Yeah, I mean, wow, it's funny too, because and if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. There are some POTENTI new developments in the war in Yemen, which the US has been complicit in by helping to arm Saudi Arabian We're joined
now for an update on that by Thomas Sedowski. He is an actor, former actor at the Newsroom and also ambassador for the nonprofit organization War Child USA. Great to have you, Thomas. Good to you man, Thank you, Thank you guys very much for having me, and thank you for taking in some business. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, this has been classified as the greatest humanitarian disaster on the planet, something you've been calling attention to. And let's go and
put this tear sheet up on the screen. There have been some developments that I'd love you to speak to. This is the headline from the Intercept R and Ryan Grimm. He writes, to help end the Yemen war, all China had to do was be reasonable. With Joe Biden nowhere to be found. China's diplomacy set the stage for Saudi concessions and cease fire talks. Are you hopeful here that this could actually bring a resolution and to this conflict? You know, I think that it's a really good first step.
It's it's shameful frankly that we're delinquent in our in our humanitarian and diplomatic work over there, and it's it's concerning to me that the Chinese have sort of stepped in to fill that very huge void. I'm hopeful in the sense that, you know, the Saudis seemed to be ratcheting down the tension uh with the Houthi regime in the in the northern part of Yemen, which I was in not too long ago, which is in pretty rough shape. My concern, I think past that is that what happens
after this. You know, there's still a civil war that is going on over there and one that has to be addressed, So there's a there's a lot of work still left to do, but this is a very good first step. My hope is that maybe this will rattle the cage enough of the United States to to sort of wake us up, get us off of our asses, and get over there and do some good. So how
did you get involved in this organization? Tom? For people who maybe not know, just to lay out the humanitarian disaster of what is happening in Yemen has been happening
now for quite some time. Yeah, I mean for the past eight years since the since the civil war started over there, and since the war started since the Saudi sort of got involved in since the international community, specifically in the West, led by the United States and joined by its allies in Canada and the UK Germany started supporting the Saudi and u a bombardment of northern Yemen, We've seen a situation develop over there that, I mean,
it really staggers imagination. What was happening. The international community that had formed around that Saudi coalition was allowing and supporting that coalition to use famine as a weapon of war. So it wasn't just that they were attacking population centers, coming very close to destroying you know, World Heritage sites and Sana and things like that. That they were also like bombing agricultural land, of water treatment facilities, stuff like that.
It became really really brutal. And when you spend time there in the country, it's an extraordinary country, its extraordinary people. The destruction is everywhere, particularly in the north. Just it's it's incalculable the amount of loss. So it's not hard to see where this you know, deprivation has come from. Unfortunately, you can see it up close. You can feel the levels of pain and suffering. You see the stunted growth of the children that come from you know, prolonged severe
amount nutrition. You know, the sort of polite term that is being used these days is acute food insecurity, but all that means is starving to death. And you know, you're talking about millions of people. Sixteen I think sixteen point one million was the last number that I saw people in the CUE food insecurity, with just about two million in the famine state or thereabouts. That's really, really bad.
I saw recently the United Nations had released some reports saying that things were getting better, and you know, on some sort of level, if you were reading the report, yeah, people were coming off that famine end of the role. The reason they were coming off the famine end of the role is that they were dying. A good way to take people off of those numbers is to just
watch them perish, and it's really disturbing. Also, we're getting running ready to run into a situation here coming up in the warmer months where the mosquito season is getting ready to hit. One of the primary side effects of prolonged acute MAUNT nutrition is the collapse of your immune system. The mosquito population over there brings a lot of issues.
So you're going to have a serious spike in dengey fever, You're going to have a serious spike and a lot of other insect bign diseases in sicknesses that are going to really ravage that population all over it. And the international community has failed yet again to meet its standard for what the UN is saying it needs in order to help the situation, help the situation by not allowing it to degrade further. They asked for four point three billion dollars. That's not to fix the situation, that's to
keep it from degrading further. Four point three billion dollars. I just checked right before we came on air, and that is that fund is currently ten point five percent funded. Why do you think there has been such a reluctance to you know, offer up the minimal aid that would be required. Why do you think there's been such a reluctance on the US part to stop, you know, tazitly
supporting Saudi's involvement in this conflict. And why do you think as this unfolds, there's so little interest from the news media in this just absolute crisis which we are complicit with. Yeah, great questions, Christal, I myself have not been able to wrap my brain around how and why you've allowed our fellow human beings to suffer on this level, not only allowed, but being complicit, like you said, been
complicit in exaggerating that suffering and perpetuating that suffering. I think that, unfortunately, what ends up happening is, you know, in the twenty four hour news cycle, a lot of things come along, you know, the ridiculousness of what ends
up ultimately getting covered and prioritized. You know, a conflict like this in a small country at the tail end of the Arabian Peninsula that hasn't historically had much of a much contact in any way, shape or form with the United States or with our population, it just gets completely not even thrown to the back pages. It just doesn't get included at all. So I think what you're seeing is a population, our population that doesn't know it
just doesn't know. I was, you know, in DC after I got back from from Yemen, and I went down there to meet with some senators and members of the House, and you know, it's it's heartbreaking how much people in government know about what's going on over there, and how little they're doing about it. I had the opportunity to sit with a number of senators and they were very well informed. I was. I was very heartened to see
that they were very well informed. But when I left those meetings, it just sort of dawned on me, like, if you know that much and you're doing so little, I don't know how we can pretend to have any kind of moral authority or any kind of moral position from which to lecture anybody in the world. It is a great point, really pretty extraordinary. The situation continues to
get worse. In our solution to it seems to be to do less, you know, the Blinken announced Secretary Blinken announced the United States is going to be kicking in four hundred and forty four million dollars, I think to the UN Fund. And he said it, you know, with a great deal of you know, empathy and compassion and
talking about the extraordinary suffering over there. What he didn't say is that what that offering of that money is twenty five percent less than what they gave last year, and very few people in the media said anything about it. It's shocking, and not only that when we're in DC. I had the opportunit to meet with some folks at USAID,
which is an extraordinary organization. They do extraordinary work. They're talking about Congress cutting their funding to Yemen by upwards of thirty eight percent this year, with more cuts on the way next year. There is a piece that is coming, but what happens after that is entirely up to us. The suffering doesn't go away just because Saudi bombardment stops.
In fact, it becomes a much more tenuous and a much more desperate situation because now that these goods and services are starting to flow more freely into the country, there needs to be oversight as to how it's going, where it's going. My fear is that, you know, big organizations like the UN will step in and say, well, what the funding is going to do now is going to do We're going to work on transition and rebuilding, and we can't move on to that point. Yet We're
not there. We're still in a profoundly delicate situation around famine, children starving to death, one point one million mothers, breastfeeding, mothers in acute food insecurity. It is it's unconscionable that the United Nations fund is only ten percent funded that we are cutting funding meanwhile, And you know, I don't I don't want to get into atrocity Olympics. Nobody wins, everybody loses. But how many billions of dollars in the last two years have we sent to the war in Ukraine?
And you know, in Yemen we have perpetuated and participated in the suffering of these people who have done nothing to us. When I was when I was on the ground over there, I talked to folks and they kept on asking why us, what did we ever do to you? You know, they kept saying, you know that it wasn't Yemenis who flew the planes into the towers on nine to eleven, right, that they were you know that right? And yeah, I'm not here as a representative of my government.
I'm not here as a representative of my people. I believe my people if they were to know what was happening over there and how we have participated and how we have turned our back on that degree of suffering of women and children would be living. And I wholeheartedly agree with that, because you see the way that you know, when the suffering of Ukrainians is put on TV America that we got to do, you know what we need
to do. But when you have a media and a political class that you know completely invisibilizes not only what's going on here, but certainly any role that the US has in playing, then you know, people they're not putting Yemen flags out in their their yards, and there's no political will to do much of anything. It just gets completely ignored. So we're really grateful for the work that you're doing to try to highlight this crisis. Where can
people find your organization? We're Child USA dot got it and those folks outside of the United States who are looking to help out. War Child Canada is sort of our interlocked system organization who leads the charge and they are really extraordinary as well. So I would, you know, ask folks to look at those two organizations, specifically USA and Great. We will have the links to those in the description of this video. Really appreciate it, man, Thank you, thanks,
thank you for the time. It's our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. It's been a while two days over here at breaking points. I just want to reiterate again thank you to all the premium subs who give us the confidence to do reporting around this stuff. Dealing with highly classed information, highly class information can be terrifying. Often at points you got to make sure all your
legal basis and all of that is secure. And it should censorship ever come, not saying it has yet, but should it come, we know that you guys have our back, So we love you, We appreciate you of a great counterpoint show for everybody tomorrow and we'll see you all on Thursday. Love you guys, See you soon. H