4/25/23: The Real Reason Tucker Was Fired, Future Of Fox News, Don Lemon Fired Over Interview, Wall Street Freaks Out, Biden's 2024 Announcement, Top Biden Op Smeared Hunter Laptop Story, New Lab Leak Evidence and Young Voters Rejecting Biden

Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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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.

I just don't know what we're going to talk about. There's barely anything.

In a lot of developments in the cable news world.

All right, So yesterday bloody Monday, Tucker Carlson out, Don Lemon out. There is huge political news this morning as President Joe Biden officially announced his Reelact. Have a launch video that we can show you in some details about exactly how the Democratic base is actually feeling about him right now, which is pretty interesting. We have developments with regard to the debt ceiling. We have developments with regard to the fact that Tony Blinken was ultimately behind that

Eric?

What is going on here? Look?

I made a pledge to our premium subscribers to commit this sartorial atrocity in the event that Don Lemon was fired. I didn't even remember of Actually, one of our premium subscribers reminded.

We went back and we pulled a clip.

Here's what I had to say at the time, with the breaking points and counterpoints. Seeing ever wear a hoodie and suit jackets on the air next time is Don Lemon segment.

It would be a nice gag. Don't you think? You know?

That might be the only time that I would deign to wear a hoodie with suit jacket. I will consider it. I'll tell you this when he gets fired, If that ever happens, I doubt it. Ever, Well, I will wear a hoodie on a suit jacket with hoodie with a s as an homage to Don Lemon.

I like it. Yeah, So there you go. Never Here's that was like last week apparently.

Last week and we had both already forgotten.

I totally forgot. Yeah, I we were reminded. So listen, I'm a man.

Of my word. Here it is.

Here are a couple of problems wearing a hoodie with a suit jacket you wouldn't think about. First of all, Don Lemon, why do you have a suit jacket which is not tailored properly that actually violates As people can see, this is fitting quite tightly. This is the thinnest hoodie that I own. Shout out to VIORI. I wear this to the gym.

It's a nice jacket. It's a very nice hoodie.

Put them together and it looks around.

Yeah, it should be worn at the gym, not you know, with a suit. Now. The issue is is.

That there's a lot of cloth and a normal sized hoodie, so normal suit jacket.

This is actually a suit.

Jacket from probably when I was at my fattest, and even then it barely fits over the same I'm not even wearing a T shirt underneath me.

Here's the thing too, I feel like I don't watch a lot of Don Lemon, but I feel like his suit jackets normally fit him well tailored.

Well, we're in a get of a.

Special suit jacket to go over hoodies.

So I did deep analysis on the jacket. It does appear to fit with the hoodie, which means.

People, he actually got that jacket tailored specifically so that he could wear a hoodie underneath it. It also was a separate worn on top of khakis, which is a whole crime because we're talking about a thin stripe, a pin stripe window.

No.

I think it was a window pane.

Black jacket on top of a gray hoodie with khakis. It was a complete travesty. I feel like a bum wearing this. It's not comfortable. I missed my miss my tie, I missed my shirt. It just it doesn't feel right. But you know, look, this is what I do for you people, and I'm going to do the whole show and look like an idiot. Farewell, don I'll have a lot more to say about that, and it's worth it.

It's worth it to see him go absolutely say that, Yeah, you shall be missed. I guess there.

Is a lot more to get to you in the show.

Before we do, though, we want to say thank you to all the people who have been signing up for premium subscriptions.

You are really really helping.

Us out in terms of being able to build out this new set that we're super excited.

You guys are incredible as usual, So many you've been heeding the call for those of you who can again helping us.

We've got about half the lights paid for now, half the.

Lights that we've gotten there so far, so seriously, we appreciate it.

As a reminder.

We have a donation button there on the website, but in general, if you sign up yearly and lifetime members, especially for a cash flow perspective, it dramatically helps our business. Maybe I can go and buy a properly fitting suit. Then the point in every single of your hard earned dollars is being poured directly back into production value here on the set.

The new set is beautiful.

It is a what ten fifteen X step up for all of us, and I think for twenty twenty four it's exactly the note that we want to kick things off and just look at the way of what we're about to cover versus what we're doing here.

We don't have declining ratings.

Yesterday was one of our biggest days liter Ever, it was actually the biggest day ever in the history of our podcast downloads.

Oh yeah, and so you put those together.

Ours ratings continue to go up, our premium subscription is booming. We're hiring people when they are literally firing people. They are declining and falling apart. We have a lot more to say about this, but let's go ahead.

And get to the news.

We got the official announcement yesterday. It is over Tucker Carlson. As we reacted to all of you, fired from Fox News, we can now say fired definitively after some speculation Crystal in our initial reaction to video.

Let's go and put this.

Up there on the screen from the La Times quote, Tucker Carlson departs Fox News.

He was pushed out by Rupert Murdoch.

So I've also asked around from what I have heard people who are not necessarily in the know.

This was very, very tightly kept. But the Murdocks have.

Been basically leaking and making it known that they were the ones who were in charge. And the impetus for firing Tucker is multifaceted number and really it does read like a succession level drum. Number one is their Murdocks right now are terrified, even though they have billions of dollars literally in the bank. Paying out seven hundred and eighty seven million is humiliating over the dominion lawsuit. Now,

Basically the tip of the iceberg.

It turns out that many of those texts Crystal Yes also denigrated Fox News management, Rupert Murdoch, many of his colleagues. And while we have not been able to read those text messages, his boss's lawyers were able to read those tech messages and made them available to him.

His texts were the most embarrassing. I think it's fair to say of the texts that were released publicly, and apparently according to reporting, some of the ones that were redacted that the public did not have access to in terms of his internal positioning at Fox, were even more damning. But I think it was a sort of cumulative effect of you know, here's a guy who's sort of like embroiled and scandal after scandal, week after week. He's the

I mean that's look listen, who doesn't hate their boss? Like come sure?

But then you also have you know, saying things like I hate Trump and Trump is a demonic force. And then you also had, you know, potential other legal issues going on, in particular a former producer on his show who was suing Fox News and names Tucker Carlson and his executive producer specifically in a discrimination case. And that may have been another piece of this. And with regard to the dominion lawsuit, I mean, he was implicated in that it was expected that if it had gone to trial,

Yeah.

Well, I will save some of my commentary about why I think that's completely wrong today in today's age. It might have been true in the past, but a lot of change in the cable news business in terms of the circumstances. Though, I think it's very important to say that the text messages going after Fox News management apparently rangled Fox News management.

I guess who knew.

Secondly, it comes to that lawsuit that you referenced, is going to put this up there on the screen. One of the other things that wasn't noticed is that his executive producer Justin Wells was actually also fired from Fox News. That gives us a little bit of insight into how this could be at least connected some way to the Abbey Grosberg suit.

That's what you reference for those who don't know.

Grosberg was a booking producer who actually worked on Carlson's show. She has filed a lawsuit against the company last month, related in somewhat to the dominion case because she says that she had compelled false testimony on dominion, but also claiming that she and other women face sexism and harassment from coworkers and officials. According to Grosberg and her lawyers, she had recordings of phone calls and of internal workplace

Yeah.

Two, now they've got this lawsuit on his face. The lawsuit, he would have survived it from basically from what I could have seen, it may not have been a good look. And he certainly, I mean he admitted to using quote the C word in some of his testimony, which I mean, whatever if he' said privately in a text messages, fine, let's put that aside on the actual content though, from what I understand and also what the LA Times has been able to report, this also happened because of a

Now, apparently there was.

I mean, I guess we could surmise there was some sort of response in the works for Monday on the show that evening to discuss the ray Epps situation. And this appears to be a redline for Rupert Murdoch, who apparently has been super pissed off. I also had somebody flagged to me something very important. Recall, Crystal, all of those hours of footage that were made available to Tucker by Kevin McCarthy, how much of that footage did we actually see?

Right? Very little?

Why is that even though even on his show he said that we were going to see hours and hours of the footage and we were going to do more. And we had one segment which happened to show the Qwanon Shahman just walking around the capitol. Yeah, now we were promised ours. Who wants to make the guests? Was it Tucker who made the call not to show anybody more? Or maybe was it somebody with an Australian accent who

Again, this is a man worth tens of billions of dollars cared about the boycotts.

Allegedly, his son Lachlan was very aligned with Tucker Carlson in terms of his views.

Now they are trying to leak and.

Make clear that Lochlan is apparently the one who made the call to fire him, But those who are in the no say it was Rupert himself who just basically wanted to wash his hands of the situation. All of it based again on the premise that you alluded to, Crystal with the idea that Tucker Carlson is not bigger than Fox News. Also, this comes back to the question of Tucker's future because he could currently be embroiled in a major contract litigation.

Let's go and put this up there on the screen.

Yesha, Ali media reporter here Tuck and saying Tucker will likely get paid out on his deal. This has now since been confirmed by The Wall Street Journal. Even when Fox feels that it has the cost of fire, it often pays out.

On deals in order to avoid litigation.

He signed a multi year extension on his deal in twenty twenty one and likely has anywhere from one to three years left on his deal. Now. The reason why this matters is that because Fox, we don't know about Tucker's contracts specifically, obviously, but Fox as a matter of course has had non competes in its talent deals for

Negotiation, well certainly in terms of while this is all being resolved, he will not be on air you know, with Fox obviously, but anywhere else very likely, And so we'll see how this has ultimately resolved. You know, the non competes are very common in the media industry, not just at Fox News but at every other cable news

Now we know the definite involvement.

Of FEDS who were in Proud Boys, informants and.

Oath keepers and all.

You know, all of these different organizations were infiltrated by FEDS. He takes that and spins it into a whole grand conspiracy and goes way further than what any of the evidence suggests. And even the fixation on Ray Apps. Bronco Marcatic made this comment which is like, I don't know why the fixation on him when we literally know there were dozens of FED informants inside of the.

Proud I think it's the video element, Crystal, It's the video montage.

But again there's you know, maybe, but there's no evidence that actually proves that Rayepps is a FED, and Tucker goes way too far in asserting some of these things. So just on the merits, I wanted to put that out there, you know, ters of is he bigger than Fox News? I think it sort of makes sense that Fox News doesn't really need Tucker Carlson.

They do have a very committed.

Sort of default audience that shows up for them regardless of who's sitting in the chair. Now, will whoever they fill in for Tucker? You know, Jesse Waters has been floated as one potential replacement will they be able to garner the ratings that Tucker was able to garner, Probably not, at least not immediately. But then again, no one thought that anyone would be able to match Bill O'Reilly's ratings when he was pushed down, and I don't know that

Next, no question.

So let's just go to the next part here, because I think this is an important set piece about Tucker's future and also just about what exactly all of this means for the future of Fox Now. You have pointed long to this Vanity Fair piece that's going to put this up there on the screen. Guys, this is important inside the Rupert Murdoch succession drama, specifically about the war in between the Murdoch Empire between Lachlan Murdoch and his son James. James is kind of your doctrinaire I guess.

I understand. It's sort of like Resistance lib.

He's about his resistance lib as. It gets kind of a joke within the family. So that's James Murdoch. Lachlan Murdock is much more aligned with his father, much more with the Tucker Carlson view. But Lachlan also is a multi billionaire who lives in Los Angeles in one of the largest homes. He likes to go to parties, and he doesn't like being told that Fox News is such an awful place, and why does he continue to do this to the country. So he's pulled in a couple

The war is over.

Whatever Murdoch has left and has not sold over to Disney. The vast majority of his empire he sold for cash to the Disney Corporation, Fox Properties, Fox Studio, all that stuff, Fox News, his baby and the Dow Jones Company were really the ones that he loved the most.

Wall Street Journal. That's like his bread and butter.

So within that the war over control and his future is one where they're tugged in a bunch of different directions. Here is why Crystal, I think I will dispute what we were talking about earlier. O'Reilly's departure was in twenty seventeen. That was a media eternity ago. So Fox is very

That was eight years ago.

So we are talking here there's no reason to believe that that hasn't changed. So all of those people have actually aged. So now we are talking about a median age of somewhere in the seventies. Now, according to Fox's own data, I had to dig deep and pull from their own article which they were touting about beating CNN, they average only one hundred and seventy four thousand people in the key demographic primetime average is two hundred and

Now that's over, So.

What are they going to do with their bet on the future? All of this comes back to it's not that their business will be fine in the first one to two years, certainly, what about seven years from now?

So I've been complete, I've been looking at this.

The next cable carriage negotiation is within the next decade for the company. They have to make the case that their aging viewers are going to be worth some of the highest cable carriage fees in the entire business to justify a two billion dollar profit for the Fox News Channel. I just don't think that that case exists anymore. And I'm not the only person. A lot of people in

Number of views is quite low.

Again, the best of them was Tark Carlson three point two million as of literally last week, three point eight usually at the overall cap the average young demo. As I said, the comparison I'm using is this, if you were the number one classified ads business in two thousand and one, why should we care? By twenty ten, it's cool. It's great to be a classified business. Classified ads print classifies and that's a multi billion dollar.

Business Washington Post company.

These people were go flying on private jets, you know, making bank.

Guess what a.

Decade later, nobody cared. They're all bankrupt.

Well, let me let me clarify because I see Fox News in the same light I see MSNBC and CNN, which is that they are all on a path of managed decline. Yes, the business model is already effectively defunct, that they are trying to hold on to the scraps of what they already have. Now, Fox News has the largest of the scraps. They consistently have the highest ratings, even as all of these networks have a very elderly audience and young people are buying large not going to

Watching that show, it's like two hundred thousand.

It's very small, right, So I don't think that whether Tucker is there or Tucker is not there, that they had a very compelling case for the next negotiation with.

So you can't.

I mean, when you have an entire twenty four hour news network and you're trying to figure out some streaming play, which even with Tucker involved, and that was not particularly successful, I don't think that his presence there was going to rescue them one way or the other.

So that's why listen.

And to speak to Tucker's role at the network and whether he was like uniquely good or uniquely.

Bad or whatever.

I think it's always important to take a step back with all of these networks and think about what their bottom line is. Fox News has a dual bottom line. They are first and foremost a partisan outfit.

I mean they were.

Set up explicitly as a partisan pro Republican party play, and that is another thing that comes out in the Rupert Murdoch texts and all of the texts that were east as part of the Diminion lawsuit. They're actively talking about like how do we prop up the Republican candidates in Georgia? And Rupert Murdock is actively telling Ronda Santis like I want you to be the Republican nominee.

I'm going to push you.

So this was an explicit partisan play and it's a money making venture. It's both of those things. And so how did Tucker fit into that universe? I mean, his ratings just made him a very valuable asset, no doubt about it, even with advertiser backlash, still a very valuable asset. And ultimately I think he was also a very effective.

Partisan.

He was a more effective partisan operative because he could be at times more interesting and wouldn't always say the thing that you would expect him to say, Sean Hannity, you always know what you're going to get night after

And so I think.

That's sort of even as Tucker was still delivering for them in terms of money, still delivering for them, because ultimately, at the end of the day, Tucker is still about, you know, pushing you to vote for whatever Republican candidates in front of you. Still very effective at that, and I would say probably the most effective of all of

I think you. No, I don't disagree with you.

I personally think it probably had it was equal parts ideology and equal parts business, and for Murdoch, he finally.

Just was like I've had enough.

And basically, also from what I've heard, people inside Fox are furious, not necessarily about the Tucker thing, but they're just like, how are you so capricious in the way that you're handling this. You won't settle the damn lawsuit until we've humiliated ourselves everybody, and then you spend a billion to do so. It's like fairy threw you embarrassed us, and then you paid a billion dollars out You should have just paid a billion from the.

Beginning and it saved us all the humiliation.

Definitely the case, of course, it's the case.

And then and.

Remember there's other lawsuits to cut. There's the Smart Mattic lawsuit to come in on top of this. You know, Abby Grosberg is lettername producer suit. There's potential shareholders, like, there's a lot more that's coming down the pike here as well that has potential business impact.

Absolutely.

You know, we can look from the outside and be like Fox News is a juggernaut, which they continue to be, even as I do think they're in the state of longer term managed to climb just like the other cable news networks. But when you are in charge of running it, I can imagine how it feels more precarious. You know, they saw Newsmax and One American News eating into their

And so even.

Though we look at and your we're like, you have four billion dollars in the bank, like, You're fine, they see the landscape and they understand how tricky and precarious their situation.

Actually, I think they should be.

Yeah, Chrystal, what were you doing in twenty seventeen when O'Reilly left?

Or was that early days of Rising or was that before that before I even joined this?

Yeah that was before Rise, right, I was a white house course, Like, yeah, that's how long ago it was.

Now our show is where it is.

We're one of the number one podcasts in the United States whenever it comes to news.

That's how quickly the internet can change things.

I'm not saying we're anywhere even close to the par but I am saying very clearly people are watching us, which it's a zero sum game in their opinion, and that means that they're not or they're watching the Glenn Greenwall Show or the Jimmy Door Show or the Kyle Kolinski Show, or the Tim Poole Show, or the Ben Shapiro Show, any of our aggregate increases in the audience is a huge existential threat.

To all of them.

And I think that's a big, big problem for them, which they wouldn't be stupid. Let's actually get to Tucker's future now. Yeah, after that very interesting debate error around Fox News in the future of media. As you can tell, there's a lot to say, Well, Fox's competitors, specifically to this point, go ahead and put this up there on the screen.

Newsmax CEO.

Sorry, Actually, first of all, in terms of the value that it costs Fox six hundred and ninety million dollars in value on their stock the very same day, almost roughly equivalent to the value of what they had to pay out. Now, obviously it's not a realized gain, but you know, still it shows you that Fox shareholders are not too happy about Tucker's leaving the company, and they're specifically looking to the future earnings on their ability to make up for it. Second, put this up there, please.

Making it very clear.

Chris Pavlovski, who's the CEO of Rumble, also put this out there. Put the next one up there quote, Cable television is now completely controlled speech. Rumble is now the only bastion for authentic speech. Don't forget Chris personally made that offer of one hundred million dollars to Joe Rogan, and you know, I presume that some similar offer absolutely could be made there. Again, I don't have any inside

I mean, I'm sure I'll take him, so in that way, it's not a trick.

Yeah, I guess you're right.

I guess they would take him, you know, have taken some other MSNBC personalities and all that.

Tucker, though, appears to have something in the works.

Let's put this up there on his website that he has updated since then. He says, text Tucker to figure find out what he's up to next. You can sign up by a text or email. Yeshar A Lea speculating I suspect Tucker already knows exactly what he's going to do next.

We'll see.

I'm not so sure about that.

He there's a lot of options, but.

Really more so, it's like he needs to get paid and he needs to get himself out of that non compete before it before anything. That's going to be like the immediate.

That'll be the immediate for sure.

I mean, I don't know if he has plans already in the works, but we do know apparently according to the Wall Street Journal, which of course is a Murdoch property, so you should probably believe they're reporting here, he was informed ten minutes before all of us found out, right, ten minutes and they all, I mean.

This is this is what they do.

Doesn't matter how long you've been there, doesn't matter whether you've been a good soldier, a bad soldier, or a medium soldier.

Like they will protect.

Their own brand and they will not give you a chance to, you know, God forbid, go on air and say something like tweet something before they can put out their release and their spin on it, et cetera. So yeah, his staff, you know, outside of his EP executive producer who also was let go, His staff found out by the same news alert that all of us found out, which it's.

A good remind wild all these people. Tucker got paid some twenty twenty five million dollars a year. Don Lemon was getting paid probably five ten million dollars a year, Jake Tapper, all these people, they hold themselves.

Up as bastions, as independent.

Guess what, they can fire your ass until yes, I mean look at that, really really.

Understand like they work for somebody.

And that's why both of us, Crystal, we've had some experiences, certainly with being screwed with by executives, bosses and all that, we set our business up exactly this way. Like you know, you can never be a freeman, never or free what you will never be free in your head when you have the axe hanging.

Over you like that.

He worked there for he worked there since twenty eleven as a contributor. I remember him coming back from the office, going up there on the weekend to do Fox News, Fox and Friends in New York City, shuttling back and forth.

They treated him well.

They treat you like a king when you're a king, and then they will cut your head off like that with no remorse.

And if you don't think that that does hang over all of them and impact the way that they do their jobs, you're a fool. Because they all know the limits of where they can go and what they can say. What's going to rankle management what's going to get them in trouble, what's not going to get them in trouble? And so that is, I mean, that is a core part of how you end up with the like very boring, predictable, not good content that you have on cable news.

Yeah, and it gets to look at Brian kill Me.

Brian kill Meat has worked at this company for what well over a decade. He's just Fox and Friends star. Look at the hostage fear in his eyes as he opens for the Tucker Carlson Show when the boss has clearly told him that he had to take over. Very bizarre in the way that he opens Tucker's own show in that time slot with a less than fifteen second passing comment and immediately getting to it.

Take a listen, Hi, everybody, and welcome to Fox News Tonight. I am Brian kill Me. As you probably have heard, Fox News and Tucker Carlson.

I have agreed to part ways.

I wish Tucker the best. I'm great friends with Tucker and always will be.

But right now it's time for Fox News Tonight.

So let's get started that quick. That's all it takes. You're right to it. You get ten seconds? Yeah, sure is definitely for it.

I don't know, man, somebody, you know, they axs you and then you go on there and you fill in that night. That's a little bit scummy in my opinion. But hey, look that's just me talking. It also is a real loss, you know, kill Mead look from a basic ideological perspective, at least a Tucker Carlson show was willing to air some very very dissonant views on the war in Ukraine. Brian kill Mead is a warmongering neo Kon Reaganite low IQ moron and has been for over

We'll see.

Also Trump himself also weighed in on the reaction to the Tucker Carlson Show or to the Tucker Carlson firing. In an exclusive interview over on Newsmax, here's what he had to say.

I don't know if it was voluntary or was it somebody fired, But I think Tucker's been terrific. He's been especially over the last year or so, he's been terrific.

To me.

There's a lot of turmoil over there at Fox.

I mean, seventy eighty seven, they just paid.

Why would they get rid of a guy who's performing.

Why would somebody do that to their business because they're losing money right now.

Their socker's gone down.

Well, I was surprised that they made a settlement in that case.

I thought that was a case that.

Should easily be won, and they made a settlement. Look, you'll have to ask them. I'm not representing them at all by any means. But the Tucker situation, again, you didn't know.

If it's a firing.

Maybe he left because he wasn't being given a free rein he wants free rain. Maybe, but I was surprised.

By what did you make of that, Crystal?

It was interesting to watch him couch his words because Trump both wants to hit fox Es, but he also.

Wants wants to keep them. Yeah.

Yeah, he felt like he was walking a very careful line there and by the time, but also his whole like, oh, we don't know whether he was fired or whether he walked away.

By the time that.

He was recording this interview, we knew damn well that he had definitely been fired. So yeah, he's very carefully choosing his words there. Also, that was on Newsmax with Greg Kelly, who I think is their highest rated program or one of their higher rated programs.

But they're trying to make the most of this.

But I do think it's important to put in perspective for a variety of reasons where Newsmax actually actually stands.

But again, it.

Shows you how precarious they think themselves to be, and in a sense, they're really not wrong.

They're really not wrong.

Oh I think you're right.

I mean, listen, ten to fifteen thousand can start out small, but then it can snowball. It was I think, I believe Chrystal during the election in November of twenty twenty. Wasn't it like twenty five or fifty thousand. That's quite slow for them.

Yes, so they during that stopped the steel part.

Yeah, they did search there you go, and.

There was you know, a more sizeable audience that was tuning in there, maybe even as many as one hundred thousand in the demo. I'd have to go look back and look back at it specifically. And Fox of course

Now.

The whole reason that Fox built the juggernaut is because they were effectively a monopoly and the only game in town, and that is simply not the case anymore. I think zooming out from Fox, looking at the whole cable news landscape which we're about to transition to CNN, you're going to see it be less about these individual stars and more about just the sort of like standard issue replaceable whoever, because if you are a genuine star who can drawn audience,

Listen.

I can only hope that's a good thing.

That's definitely a good thing. All right, So let's talk about CNN. Minutes after we finished recording, are like, oh my god, Tucker Carlson's been fired segment yesterday, we get the note of that, oh my god, Don Lemon is actually on at CNN. That, as we discuss at the beginning of the show, is why Sager is wearing this absolutely ridiculous outfit.

Look at this. This is not meant to be done with people. It's not never meant to be done.

I'm not gonna lie. It genuinely looks terrible. So what's interesting is even on the way out, it was kind of ugly and messy over at CNN. So Don Lemon put out a statement that was complaining that after all these years of service at CNN, that they didn't tell him personally, that they told him through an agent CNN did not appreciate this tweet that he put out, and so they put out their own comments here put this

That that friction and that tension.

Who wants to like start their day with this weird underlying psychodrama that's going on, So apparently it's put this up on the screen. For The New York Times, they had some reporting about exactly what was going on behind the scenes. They say Don Lemon ousted from CNN in move that left him stun Hours before those dueling statements, he was on air in his usual anchor chair. He showed no signs of knowing what was about to happen. The end, he signed off to viewers with a smile

Deteriorated as the men fiercely debated.

Questions have black history in the Second Amendment. Mister Lemon's co anchor, Miss Harlowe, could be seen sitting silently beside him, at times, casting her gaze elsewhere and scrolling through her smartphone.

I want to show you, guys a little.

Bit of this.

They go on to say that that incident left several CNN leaders exasperated.

I want to show you a little bit of this incident.

Not because of the content of the debate, which in my opinion, both of them lost for various reasons, but because you can see on Poppy Harlow's face and her body language and what she is doing there, just how much she hates the situation she's in.

Take a look at a bit of this A.

The way, please, I cannot keep a thought if you guys are talking to me my ear, so hang on one second, so to say that that black people would say what you said again.

Historical fact, but notical.

The part that I find is you say it's historical.

Part part that I find insulting that you're regarding you here as a fellow citizen.

You're starting to.

Hear whatever ethnicity you are explaining.

To me, continuing that conversation.

Well, thank you the conversation.

Thank you so much, Thank.

You, Papa.

We'll talk about China, yes, chime you come back.

Oh, thank you much to say on declaring independence from China. So you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Oh boy, her face if you're just listening, stone face the whole time, she looks. I mean, I honestly have been in that situation. I know exactly what it feels like. When she had prepared for the segment too, she had things that she was something she wanted to tell its

If it was just that exchange, I'm.

Sure no big deal because everybody oversteps somebody. It's it's a little you know, delicate dance you're doing with your co hosts, et cetera. But there have been so many visible incidents, let alone what we don't know behind the scenes, and clearly they decided this man is getting paid a lot of money, and the guests don't like him, the audience doesn't like him, his co hosts don't like him, Like this is supposed to be Chris Lick's new flagship show.

What are we doing here?

Yeah?

I don't know.

I mean, it's just psycho because you know, when you respect somebody, It's like Chris, when we interview people and you want to ask a question, I'll look at you and be like you want to like, okay, cool, you know, saying vice versa. I'll be like, hey, I have a follow up, like put a finger up or something like that. Both have things. We'll even talk about it a little bit before. This man has no respect for his co os, and I honestly, I am going to and look, you know,

Get a job.

Clearly coupled with the past your prime comments on top, he's not only a crea madonna. I think he is such like an insane misogynist narcissist. And it takes a lot for me to say that, but like I've seen it enough.

Yeah, like I've seen it enough.

Having a little bit of inside CNN knowledge, I think your comments fit with some of the things that I have heard behind the scenes. But I think all of his I think everybody that worked with him couldn't stand him. I mean, that's why the knives came out for him the minute that he was vulnerable here and again, look, there's another thing to say about this, which is Chrislick comes into CNN, he's supposed to be turning around the network. He's supposed to be, you know, ushering in a new era.

Gel and work.

It is actually rare to have a situation where you have chemistry with someone, where you have that give and take, where it is comfortable, where you have that good working relationship, where you can disagree at times and debate at times, and you know how to hand off the ball, and all of those things are not a guarantee, far from it. So I also want to say, you know, Don Lemon is Don Lemon, and it was no surprise who this

We'll talk about age to be uncomfortable. I think that I think it's the wrong road to go down. She says people, you know, politicians or something and not in their prime. Nicki Haley isn't in a prime. Sorry, when a woman is considered being in our prime in her twenties and thirties and maybe forty, that's not according to me.

For what it depends, And it's just like prime.

If you look it up, it'll if you if you google when does a woman in a prime? It'll say twenties, thirties and forties forties. So I got another So I agree with that. So I think she has to be careful about saying that, you know, politicians aren't.

In their prime?

Are you talking about prime for like child or.

In facts? Are Google and everybody at home. When is a woman in a prime?

It says twenties, thirties and forties. And I'm just saying, Nicki Haley should be careful about saying that politicians are not in their prime and they need to be in their prime when they serve, because she wouldn't be in a prime according to Google, Google or.

Whatever it is.

And there were other incidents where.

Yeah, I feel so bad for her. Apparently, you know, she stormed off.

She was crying afterwards, like what's wrong with you, dude, Like, you know, from a very basic level, even if you believe it, why would you say that to somebody right to her faith? Her ass is getting up at four point thirty in the morning. I don't know if she has kids or not. That ain't a fun life, you know, it's like and then basically saying that like she's like wasting her life or whatever like that to her, it's just really gross.

It is gross.

And there was another Remember there was another really visible incident where again Don Lemon is acting like this is his.

Show alone, Yeah yeah, and talking over.

Caitlyn is trying to get in and just to like contribute to I think we're like talking about Biden was getting off an airplane or something, and Caitlyn covered the White House, so she felt like, Okay, this is my time to jump in and sort of commentate this and do this thing. And Don got so irritated with her that she was even trying to be in this segment at all. And apparently there was some ugly scene after the fact that many people were witnessed to. So in

He probably just a new deal when.

He got put on this morning show, so I wouldn't doubt that he has a number of years left on his contract. But they just looked at the math and they were like, what are we getting out of this situation?

I already hates this dude. His female co hosts definitely hate this dude.

The show was getting terrible ratings. Why are we going forward with this? And so at the you know, once they got this research back, apparently that was like the audience doesn't like him, the guests don't like him, his coworkers nowhere like him, his co hosts don't like him.

They're like, all right, we're done here.

Well, good ridding, Stan. I hope they don't pay him.

I think, you know, here was the only thing I enjoyed. He was second rate news. Even on the day of his firing, he wasn't at the top of I checked all the major outlets.

You would have been at one point, would have.

Been the front page because Tucker was a bigger story. It was everywhere, even in terms of our own viewers. Our viewers cared much more about Tucker than Don Lemon. I see it everywhere Sonner number two, even on his way out, I can.

Imagine him having a second act.

I could if he goes, if he goes back to remember how he used to do during the Obama era, all that like like black respectability, like pull up your pants and all that stuff. If he leaned into that sort of like you know, conservative respectability politics, I could see him having a second US.

It's possible.

You said, Crystal that it was the prime video. I think it's the hoodie What did it?

That was it? That was the end committee. That's what put him over the edge.

That could be all right, So it is put up or shut up?

Time in terms of Republicans and debt sealing negotiations. Kevin McCarthy offered a bill, but there's a real open question whether he can get his own caucus to go along with it.

Remember, he can only lose five votes, well really four votes. Once he loses the fifth, that's it. It's over.

And he is facing challenges on both ends of the ideological spectrum.

He's got moderates who are leaning no.

He's got sort of like House Freedom Caucus right wing people who are leaning no. So we'll see how this all works out. Let's go and put this up on the screen. It's from Jake Sherman. A little bit of detail about where things stand. They say the GOP whip team works through on the weekend to shore up the

Number two.

He also says that Dems seem to be trying to figure out what McCarthy is up to, but it's quite simply he wants a negotiation with Biden's ultimate goal of spending reductions work requirements in permitting reform. They also go on to say here that House Rules will take up the bill sometime today, likely around four pm. Goal is to get a vote by Wednesday, but that easily could slip. But those next peece up on the screen from NBC News. This gives a little bit of the sense of who

Which I don't know how you work with that.

Yeah, good luck.

Yeah.

Matt Gates has demanded quote more rigor on work requirements and recipients of Medicaid and other safety net programs. Victoria's Sparks, another House Freedom Caucus type, went back and forth on supporting McCarthy. For Speakers, said she's also undecided, arguing if her party wants to target the poor, it should also

In her state.

That is I think a key piece here because within this bill, all of the various cuts that are going to be contemplated, there are going to be some districts that benefit from the green energy credits. There are I was just reading a report yesterday about how breadlines are expanding and need for food aid is actually massively increasing

Yeah, I think it's going to be really tough now as I understand it. The way that the White House and the Senate Dems are basically doing is they're holding their breath. If McCarthy can pass the bill, then he's a serious negotiator.

Yeah. If he doesn't, all eyes are going to be in the Senate.

So effectively, what I understand is that the very first bill passed by the House of Representatives was that repeal of the IRS to the IRS budget increase. That's called a revenue vehicle. Revenue vehicles all have to originate in the House of Representatives because of the Constitution. That's the only revenue vehicle bill that's been sent over to the Senate. The Senate is sitting on that bill. The reason why is they can now amend that to include the debt

It will pass the Senate kick to the House. Then it's a game of chicken.

Does McCarthy let it come up to the floor for a vote. Do the Dems use it as a discharge petition and get it to the floor anyways and maybe get ten Republicans to vote for them. It comes down to some really crazy, high stakes chicken negotiation, but in my opinion, it's probably the most likely.

I don't think you can pass a stamp bill. What do you think?

I don't see when you got Nancy Mace over here saying I don't want to cut green energy jobs because we're talking about a billion dollars in stuff used GOP districts in many cases, and then you got somebody over hear says I don't want to raise the destining at all.

How are you going to get nine votes to agree to agree to those.

And none of these people care about like the good of the Republican Party. They're looking out for their own personal interests in their own very different districts. Yes, so for a Matt Gates, it makes all the political sense in the world.

And he has gone a long way.

He's the reason we know his name from being a hard hard line, you know, being difficult, like causing problems for Republican leadership, taking the furthest fringe.

That is really good for him in terms.

Of his politics and his desire to be on cable news and his desire to fundraise or whatever it is he wants to do. And if you're Nancy Mace or one of these New York Republicans who are representing Biden districts, well, guess what benefits you. You have to be able to go and say to your constituents, Look, I'm not like these other hardline Republicans. I'm different. I'm reasonable. I you know, pushed back when they wanted me to go along with all of these cuts that would have heard our district.

Them to align.

The only way I think he gets this through is if the Caucus really does believe that it will be sort of humiliating for Republicans as a whole and really damaging to their prospects of doing anything if they don't pass this particular bill. But again, when you have individual self interest competing with the good of the party, guess what's very likely to win out in the end. And that's clearly what the White House is betting on. At the same time, you do have Wall Street starting to

We are not on your side.

But this next vis up on the screen from Politico, they say, nobody knows when it's going to happen.

Wall Street wakes up to default threat.

The government has until the summer to strike a deal, so there are some sort of under the radar signs that Wall Street is beginning to really get serious about this threat. They quote the chief political economist at Goldman Sachs saying, there's this few in DC that the market

You had.

City CEO Jane Fraser said her bank believes it's quote now more likely that the US will enter into a shallow recession later this year. The biggest unknown, she told analysts on the bank's recent earnings call, is how the debt ceiling plays out.

Yeah, I think this is where all eyes are. As you said, Look, Wall Street doesn't care. They don't give a damn whether you increase spending or decrease spending. All they care about is are the interest rates going to stay flat? And are you not going to screw with what's going on in the markets. And no matter which way it goes, brinksmanship and default is bad for the overall US economy, which would basically crash the stock market

Let's all just try and avoid that if possible.

But I honestly, I don't know, you know, looking at the situation, it looks bad.

It really does look bad.

I mean, and I don't need to underscore for people that the economy is already in a very precarious position, that people wages are getting eaten up by inflation, that the Fed's continued interest rate hiking has been a real problem for ordinary people, and you know, their day to day life economic anxiety already very high, a lot of concerns about a you know, some type of recession, deep shallow, who knows, And so into that mix of tons of

Not a chance.

But on the other hand, with McCarthy, I mean, this is the deal with the devil he made in order to ascend to the speakership, and so if he doesn't, this is also his speakership on the line right here. So you know, he he's doing what he told the House Freedom Caucus and the whole downs that he would do ultimately, and we'll see if he survives this, We'll see if the economy survives this, will see how this all works out.

Yeah, and you know, good luck to him. I certainly think that he's going to need it. And it fits very well actually with President Biden. And his announcement for twenty twenty four.

Yes, so we told you yesterday.

It looked like Biden was going to announce officially for his reelection today, and he did in fact do that with what they're describing as a soft launch, putting out a video here announcing he is in fact running for reelection.

Let's take a listen to that.

Freedom. Personal freedom is fundamentally who are as Americans. There's nothing more important, nothing more sacred.

That's been the work of my first term to fight for our.

Democracy, be sure to be a greater volution, to protect our rights, to make sure that everyone in this country is treated equally and that everyone is given a fair shot at making. But you know, around the country, Maggie, extremists are lying enough to take on those bedrock freedoms, cutting Social Security that you paid for your entire life, while cutting taxes from the very wealthy, dictating what healthcare decisions women can.

Make, banning books, and telling people who they can love.

All I making is more difficult for you to be able to vote. When I ran for president four years ago, i said, we're in a battle for the soul of America.

And we still are.

The question fors pation is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom, more rates or fewer. I know what I want to ask them to band.

I think you do too.

This is not a time to be complacent. That's why I'm running for re election because I know America. I know we're good and decent people. I know we're still come to the beliefs in honesty and respect and treating each other with dignity. That were a nation where we give hate, no safe hardware. We believe that everyone is equal, that everyone should be given a fair shallenge to succeed.

In this country.

Every generation of America is it's faced the moment when they have to defend democracy, stand up for a personal freedom, stand up for the right to vote, in our civil rights. And this is our moment.

So if you're with me, how Joe Biden not classic, Let's phantasy this job. I know we can't because this is the United Space of her Here's nothing else.

Nothing we cannot do for.

Let's finish the job sold America that stuff. Let me.

I have a lot to say about this. So, first of all, do I think it's a good and clever srategic ad?

Yes, I do.

This is all of the points that were effective for Democrats leading into the midterms. January sixth, Abortion extremism, protecting social Security and Medicare on the merits number one. None of these things are issues that you're actually pushing forward, like you're literally just saying, I'm going to protect the status quo. Not even because it's not like he protected abortion rights. It's just I'm going to make sure that the Republicans don't roll them back even further. It's not

That's the core of what this campaign pitch is.

Yeah, look, I think it's pathetic on several levels. So I also think it's smart. So is that possible to say that on the merits pathetic? Right here, we have a sitting president of the United States or the greatest bully pulpit known to the history of man, who could throw a massive Well, I guess theoretically should be able to throw a massive rally, a titanic speech, a video, kick it off, have some energy, have some people, thousands.

Of people who are there, people who are excited.

He releases a Twitter video at six am in the morning. Okay, to guess to lead the news. You know he succeeded. We are certainly covering it here. But also what Chrystal, He's going to immediately to a donor event.

He's not doing anything.

Now, look again, I want to say I think it's smart, and I think the reason why is Republican repealing of abortion is so unpopular. All you have to do is say I won't let that happen, or at least it's not going to happen under my watch. He hasn't promised us anything, so he almost can't fail. It's actually very difficult to fail. I won't touch your social security I'm not going to do anything it in the future or anything.

This is what people understand.

Americans are freedom loving people, regardless of what a lot of people think. One of the most salient messages on abortion is really, I don't like being told what to do, and if you really think about so many methods of politics, this comes back to wokeism too.

A lot of people are like, yeah, you're not going.

To tell me to not say Latino, Like, it's just not going to happen, especially when I'm Latino. You're not going to tell me which in how I get to speak, or that my grandfather's a racist because he speaks in a way that they used to in the nineteen sixties. Like it's you're not going to sit here and dictate the way I live my life. That also transfers well

Don't talk about it. Yeah, but it's not a strength for you.

Nobody cares about COVID anymore. I mean, voters are not voting on COVID, agree, not in the Democratic Party, not in the probably, not in independence. So it's not like a top of mind issues. So it would be silly for him to talk about that.

As those I'm with you more.

What I'm saying is he's not even trying the whole here's my accomplishments thing. He's not here like homery, vaccines or whatever I did with the American He's like, these are the two things I'm going to protect. They both poll around seventy percent. I'm not going to touch him. airG vote for me now. Like I said, I think that is a very sad place to be when that's your only pitch.

But I think it's a smart pick.

Let me also say that while I agree with you, that there is wisdom in the strategy, given that, you know, number one, Joe Biden and his team are like ideologically opposed to actually doing anything real for the American people.

But there's also a real.

Risk here because the bottom line still remains that people care a lot about whether or not they can feed their kids, about whether or not they're earning enough income that maybe one day, in a far.

Off distant land, they might be able to buy a home.

They care a lot about whether or not they can afford to go to a doctor when they're sick. And if you are taking all of that off the table, you are opening up a huge lane, especially at a time when you have so many Americans saying I'm struggling economically, I'm concerned about a recession. I think we may already be in a recession. Inflation is eating into my wages and making it so that every single month it.

Is harder and harder to get by.

So if you are not speaking to that whatsoever, I do think that that is a risky place to stand.

Now.

Given who Joe Biden is, perhaps this is the best case that he can muster. And that's why I say, you know, perhaps this is like there's some wisdom here to this approach, but I do think there is a

And you are just completely shutting that off.

And you aren't sitting for interviews, are doing press conferences, You're barely interacting with the press whatsoever. Spare me your rhetoric about how much you care about democracy, because your actions speak way louder.

Than your words. Oh absolutely cool.

Well, Chris, So you found this Washington Post article which actually highlights some of your vulnerabilities you're discussing.

Yeah, So Washington Post interviewed a bunch of like committed Democratic voters. These are not like on the fence, independence whatever. These are people who voted for Joe Biden. Many of them were activists, They were knocking doors. Some of them are local party officials.

Like.

These are Team Blue people and they feel very like, eh, not sure about this with regards to Joe Biden. Put this up on the screen from the Washington Post is a long piece here. They say Democrats reluctant about Biden twenty twenty four, but they see no other choice. Of course, the media make sure that they see no other choices.

I'm worried about his health.

And I don't know how much I like Vice President Kamala Harris if something happens to him. Put this next piece up on the screen, which underscores the vulnerable position that Biden is versus with regards to his own party versus previous Democratic presidents. Only thirty eight percent of the Democratic base, the Democratic base wants to renominate Joe Biden, fifty seven percent wants someone else. That compares to when

No?

That was sh and Bodwin Raya, a local Democratic committee woman. And this last one from a college student is really something and this underscores what is a core concern here about his age and his capability of fulfilling the office of the presidency for another four years. Avery Burns says, I don't even know if he'll make it to twenty twenty four, Like he's just old, not even to be dark. I think president shouldn't be older than like seventy, your

Well, obviously, and also, look, it's never been more clear. Vote for Joe Biden is almost a fifty percent vote for maybe not even fifty percent if you're looking at an actuar aial table, considering his age, considering the amount of stress that he's under, it could actually be more. Again, not to be morbid, but listen, it's at least a fifty percent vote for Kamala Harris for a second term. Remember this January twenty twenty nine be on the verge

And the media wants you to think this is ageist.

And gross to talk about. I'm sorry, like, we're paying your salary. You're responsible for the world's nuclear arsenal. This is not a joke here. Let's not like, let grandpa be ceo emeritis. Yes, I feel like he has a little bit of responsibility.

Joe Biden's vulnerabilities here are so great that really the only thing that is saving him, even in terms of the Democratic nomination is a collusion between the media and the Biden campaign to convince voters that there are really no other options. In this article, they have that same

I believe a Kamala presidency would plunge the world into war.

I'm not being hyperbolic, I do not.

I think she might be one of the most irresponsible least not even about quo leave alone like qualifications on paper, she has shown us very clearly not a good steward of the nation, not a good politician, unable to connect with people, bad decision making, bad staff turnover. It would be like Andrew Johnson two point zero. I think it would be a complete nightmare for.

I think it's very scary and people shouldn't.

People should really think about that before they cast their vote. Okay, let's go ahead and we'll talk about Anthony Blincoln.

This was a big story we wanted to cover earlier.

Obviously there's been a lot going on, but it's still very important. We will recall that letter that was orchestrated by the Biden campaign, which we found out a little while ago, that came out during the twenty twenty election, in which multiple former members of the CIA, the FBI, the intelligence community came out and said that the Hunter Biden laptop had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. This was a sign letter that was distributed to the press.

What we now know though, via.

A release from the House Judiciary Committee in Fox News.

Was a story.

Now it was the most important story, was the most important issue in the country. No, but I mean it did certainly show corruption at the highest level for the president's son and possibly links that remained to be investigated around President Biden and his own financial connection to his son, who certainly was going through personal struggles.

But the personal struggles on at the.

Point the exploitation of the Biden name to print hundreds of thousands of dollars a month is the actual point of the story.

Now you put that all together and you.

Were seeing, basically this is the equivalent of like if Hillary had won the presidency and the guy who organized the Steele dossier became one of the most powerful people.

In the United State, the Secretary of the State. Let's put this up there on the screen.

And you know, now, the State Department says they have no comment, zero comment on arranging.

The spies who lie letter.

They're just simply leaving and letting it just completely go by the wayside. I mean, I think this is to only crazy because again, this is not even a deniable fact. This EXCIA director Michael Morrell testified to the House Judiciary Committee straight up that Anthony Blincoln was the person who organized this. This isn't you know, like it's it's straight

What about now? Do you stand by that letter?

What were you doing in your capacity as then a chief form policy advisor to the Joe Biden campaign.

I think the thing that bothers me the most is they feel no shame about it. They feel they don't feel pressure to even have to comment about it, certainly not to apologize about it, because they know that the media won't cover it. That'll only get picked up in right leaning news outlets. It'll be all fed through like a partisan lens. To the extent that the MSNBC or New York Times World even knows that any of this is happening, which is probably they don't know about it

A word about it.

That's what maybe bothers me the most about this whole thing, and it didn't take a rocket scientist. At the time, it was so obvious that this was all total and complete bullshit.

They didn't offer.

Any evidence that this was quote unquote Russian disinformation. Bears all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Oh really, okay, well give me some proof. I don't need hallmarks, I don't need a Christmas card. I need some proof. And to the contrary, what we really had from the Biden campaign was effectively in an admission because they didn't deny that the contents were real.

They didn't offer to the press even.

A single email, a photo, or anything that had been altered. It was very clear that this, overwhelmingly more likely than not, was legitimately his laptop, and that it got obtained through sketchy circumstances.

Who cares?

Who cares all kinds of journalistically relevant information comes from sketchy sources.

That does not matter.

Three hours into it, I knew it was true. You know why, because they hadn't denied it.

Yes.

Simple, It's like if somebody put something out and said this came for your laptop, wasn't from my laptop, I'd be like, that's not form my laptop. If it was for my laptop. I'd probably just be like, yeah, you got me, it's from my laptop.

But you know it.

But what he decided to do is just stay completely silent. That's it.

Three hours in it was over. It was like, Okay, it's obviously real. It does not take a genius to figure out.

And by the way, the rest of the media knows how this works.

Yeah, they're not stupid. They deal with this more than we do. Where they're trying to get you know, things confirmed or whatever. And if the government officials don't immediately wave you off and give you like, no, here is proof that this is not accurate, then it's probably true, probably true. And now can you like definitively run with it and say conclusively one no, but can you in your mind be like, yeah, that thing is probably true.

Yes, absolutely, And then you can say, well, he didn't deny it a laptop purporting to belong to Hunter Biden, of which he has no comment on.

You decide what exactly it means.

For that, all right, sago, what are you're looking at?

So much of the hype around cable news and its hopeful demise given recent events is a reminder of why their demise is so important because their active propaganda work to keep half the country and keep it dumber less informed during some of the most critical times in modern American history. Now, as I've always said, what cable news chooses not to show you is far more important than

Number One, an.

Epidemiological look at COVID and its emergence in the city of Wuhan. Sometime in late October twenty nineteen, According to China's own data that it provided the WHO and a new review, a large spike of quote adult like influenza symptoms began spreading across the city in November twenty nineteen. The spike was accompanied by negative tests internally for any known type of said influenza, despite thousands of cases spreading

And how it morphed right from there to humans.

The committee notes the China's CDC shows it collected thirteen hundred and eighty samples from the Wuhan met market in twenty twenty, so well after COVID was swamping the entire city of Wuhan, and even then, not one sample from that market tested positive for sarscob two. In fact, the only traces of sarscob two that was found at the market were the exact same strain found.

In humans at the time, indicating.

It was the humans who brought the virus to the market, not vice versa. It's important to establish a few things. One, we know all of this.

This COVID was all over Wuhan by mid November, not.

Just Wuhan, but confirmed cases all over China, according to internal Chinese communications.

Second, even samples from the.

Lab wet market months after the spread didn't even show zh COVID inside of these animals. Ergo, we can say with confidence the timeline from China and its theory of spread absolutely wrong, not correct. So then what about the lab here? We will tread again on obvious ground. The Wuhan lab was cited for safety violations No. Twenty eighteen by an internal US Department of State cable and actually the committee found a warning from March of twenty nineteen.

So yes, you heard that correctly.

Months before COVID leaked from the lab China's own CDC director warned of a potential lab leak for genetically modified

Then there is even more evidence, as.

We know the Wuhan Lab took down any record of the samples that they were studying in late September twenty nineteen, only to vanish them for all time. It is presumed that this sample list would guarantee to show stars Kobe two. More interesting is the committee's revelation that Chinese officials in November twenty nineteen miraculously were able to begin production and research of a vaccine against stars Kobe two. The report

Crystal? I mean I did an update on the first part of their monologue way back when.

That's what I was talking about, the hospitals and the geospatial intelligence around the part.

And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagre's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.

Crystal, what do you take a look at?

Well, guys, Harvard is out with their annual survey of young people, and the results here are quite revealing. Contrary to the stereotype, voters under thirty are highly engaged, even as they are disgusted as we all are, with the current political class, and they're very anxious about the present and their own futures. They're depressed, fearful about their own personal safety. They really can't stand Joe Biden, and they

With the youths.

He was sitting at fifty nine percent. In every subsequent subsequent poll. However, that support has dropped like a rock. Currently, only thirty six percent of those who are under the age of thirty approve of the job that he is doing. This in spite of the fact that this group overwhelmingly voted for him in the last election.

This makes a lot of sense.

Of course, at the beginning of his term, he delivered on stimulus checks and other aid measures that were a lifeline for a lot of young people who were just getting started in life when they got kicked in the face by the COVID pandemic. Since then, he has completely abandoned any sort of larger program, even as young people,

That it did.

So you've got a large group of voters highly engaged, disgusted with the status quo, feel dismissed and crushed by our current political class. They despise the Republicans, are disgusted with the impotence and limited ambitions of the Democrats led by Joe Biden. The dam is going to break one day. It is only a question of when I thought. The shifts over a decade are both astonishing but also make all the sense.

In the world.

And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.

Excited to be joined now by Kyle Konde, great friend of the show and writer for Sabato's Crystal Ball at the UVA Center for Politics.

Great to see a friend.

Good to see you man, Thanks for having me so.

You have I think very smart anawo here of Joe Biden's prospects for reelection. Let's put this up on the screen. You say, is Biden's approval rating two week for him to win? Just like in twenty twenty two, soft disapprovers are a key block. So, as you point out here, presdential approval ratings oftentime determine whether or not an incumbent president is.

Going to get reelected.

Biden's approve approval rating has been consistently now for a while, fairly poor. So what do you make of that landscape and what it means for his chances?

Well, look, I think either Biden is going to have to get to fifty percent approval or better, or he's going to have to do what Democrats showed some success in doing in twenty twenty two, which was that you know, Democrats were able to win. The group of voters was like ten to twelve percent of voters in twenty twenty two who said that they had a somewhat disapproved of Biden, but they voted Democratic anyway in the in the House elections in twenty twenty two, according to the exit polls.

Right, So this is the very interesting thing, Kyle. Do we have a modern precedent for president where the vast majority of his own party doesn't necessarily want him to run, however, sees him still as preferable, and still the independent voters would still push him over the edge to make him quite electable. I'm trying to think in my mind. I mean, even if we look at the Carter primary, he still

You know, if you went back and looked at some of Reagan's numbers in early nineteen eighty three, you can't find a lot of hesitance about him running again and concerns about his age and those sorts of things. Now, look, I think Reagan was also obviously he ended up winning a huge landslide. He did have a fairly weak Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale, but he also had some things breaking in his favor on the economic front over the course of eighty three and eighty four.

But you know, Reagan, just like you know Biden.

Biden's the oldest president ever, but Reagan is near the top of the list too, and there were some concerns about him as well. Though you know, Reagan ended up not having really any primary opposition. Biden does have some primary opposition, but I wouldn't consider it particularly strong. So you know, yeah, there's some softness there, but you know, there's been softness for you know, for previous presidents too, who ended up getting getting getting re elected.

I do think it's unique, though, how what a small percentage of his own party wants him to be renominated, which is you know, I was just looking at the number earlier in the show, which does stand down as a contrast from you know, from Clinton, from Obama, from Trump certainly as well, where Trump was very unpopular but his own party was enthusiastic about him, which is different for Biden. You know, with Biden, the feelings towards him are and this has been I think fairly consistent since

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, if you go back and look at in twenty sixteen, you know, there were a lot of people who had an unfavorable view of both Hillary Clinton, he and Donald Trump. But at the end those folks broke toward Trump because they wanted it change. You know, right now, I don't know if the you know, I think that that Trump might have our time winning over those voters. But you know, the thing is too is like, you know, you can't just say, oh, well, Trump can't win again.

I mean, of course he could win again.

I mean the floor for both parties I think is really high in American politics. I think historically you'd think, oh, well, a major party nominee is going to get you know, forty percent of the vote or something. Now it's probably more like forty five or forty six or something like that. So we're only talking about, you know, kind of a relatively small sliver of the electorate and a relatively small

Is North Carolina really a swing state?

And then you start to whittle down the list and maybe it's just like three or four states like Arizona, Georgia, you know, Wisconsin, Nevada that are like true toss ups for twenty twenty. So you know, there's there's not a whole lot of persuadable voters out there.

The floors for both parties are very high.

You don't have a lot of super competitive swing states, and so you know, there's not to you know, again, there's there's there are there are key voting blocks.

They are going to be important here. But but again the floors for both parties are pretty high.

Yeah, I think that's a really axcell point.

Somebody I always point out, I'm like, listen, any nominee of a major party can win the presidency period. It's there is no somebody can't win. It's like, if you're the nominee the Republican or Democratic Party, you absolutely can win. Now, you know, it's a game of inches basically.

From there.

If we're to look at some of the most determinative factors, Kyle, the economy is one which I remember in twenty twenty the Trump campaign always told me. They said, yeah, they don't approve COVID, they don't Buty's economic numbers. Those are always strong, and it was much closer than a lot

Yeah, I do think just by approval rating is a great catch all for like how people feel about the state of the country. And look, I don't I'd be very surprised if Biden got to fifty percent approval by you know, November twenty twenty four. But you know, I think the trajectory probably matters. You know, again, he's in

You know, that would appear in the approval rating.

You know, I mean, if Biden is like lower in approval in you know, in next fall than he is now, that would I think be a pretty clear warning sign that he was going to lose. So so again, don't necessarily think that Biden has to be in fifty, but I think the trajectory that probably matters. And you know,

Yeah, I mean, I think abortion was the rail has has really upended politics. I mean the results that we just have from that Wisconsin State Supreme Court of Race, where Wisconsin is the ultimate swing state, and you got a candidate who's winning on abortion by more than easily double digits. That shows you the power and how visceral that issue is for a lot of folks. You know, speak a little bit to enthusiasm and turnout. One thing that Trump has consistently done is he has increased turnout.

I suspect that you know, they if Trump is in fact renominated that sort of voting against Trump will probably be a bigger motivator for Democrats and voting for Biden, which was the case in twenty twenty.

I think it's also worth.

Noting that that, you know, an unenthusiastic vote is worth just as much is an enthusiastic vote, right, And this I remember this specifically from the twenty twelve election because Democrats Republicans at times had enthusiasm advantages in polling, but you know, the sort of the likely voter models and what have you still indicated that enough Democrats were going to show up to reelect Obama. It was a close election,

Yeah, well, based on the launch video today, you know that's certainly the case that they're betting on I routinely bring up, but I think it's really central to the thinking. Ron Klaan tweeting wake of Emmanuel Matcron getting reelected with like a thirty something percent of approval riting in France, like, hey, interesting, Apparently there's something that we can work with there if the opposition is sufficiently odious enough. So, Kyle, thank you

Good to see you man.

Yeah, thank you our pleasure.

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