4/3/23: Trump's Lead Explodes Post Indictment, Asa Hutchinson Enters 2024, Pro-Russian Blogger Blown Up, Fox News Faces Massive Payout, Elon Strips NY Times of Checkmark, Meme Lord Convicted, Biden Kills Healthcare For Millions

Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal. Indeed, we do, of course, lots of big breaking news this week, including of course, we are expecting that former President Trump will be arraigned tomorrow, so we've got all the latest details there, and there is some new news there, both on the legal front and on the political front. Let's just say that our predictions thus far have come true. Yes, so we'll dig into all of that. We also have a new entrant

into the twenty twenty four race. Everybody get hyped for Asa Hutchinson joining the twenty twenty four field. He's the first sort of like out and out anti Trump candidate, so that is interesting. At the same time, Maryan Williamson actually surging in the polls, so we'll break that down for you as well. Prominent military blogger was murdered in Russia and a Saint Petersburg cafe along with some of his supporters were also injured. We'll break that down for

you as well. Dominion is celebrating today because they had a major victory in their lawsuit against Box News. That case moves forward. Got the details for you there, elon doing something genuinely hilarious by removing the chech mark just from The New York Times and no one else. So I'll tell you about what that means. And we have a couple of announcements before we get into the show. So first of all, we are going to be doing a livestream special in primetime tomorrow night because tomorrow is

the day that Trump is expected to be arraigned. He also has a press conference scheduled for the evening that we are going to take live. So go ahead and put this up on the screen, guys, Soccer, what are some of the details the folks need to know Trump on trial. I know everyone's always asking for live streams and for primetime specials and all that, so which decided. Okay, you know, this is a genuinely historic event, President Trump

being arraigned. He will be arraigned in Manhattan in the middle of the day, but he's doing a major press conference around eight pm tomorrow night Eastern time. So the four of us and the counter to meet the Counterpoints crew, we will all be here at the desk. We'll give everybody a little bit of a pre show and then a post show as well. We'll fully watch the press conference here together, so you can watch it here on the Breaking Point stream, and we are also going to

be having some legal analysts. We will be running an AMA feature for our premium subscribers who can sign up at Breakingpoints dot com. On the AMA, you can submit your questions legal questions for two legal experts that we will have here on the show who will answer them, and then we will also break some of that down for you as well. So it's an opportunity for the

premiums to ask questions. We will answer them live and also just have a fun live primetime special here at a normal times, So we'll be starting around seven thirty seven forty five from Eastern time, depending on when we think Trump will be speaking, but the four of us will be here at the desk, so you live analysis. No regular show tomorrow. Instead of regular show, we're doing the evening primetime live stream. If your premium sub submit

your questions ONAMA. If you want to ask questions, become a premium sub and you can do exactly that second of all Spotify video. That's right, and so that's another reason to become a premium sub. You can watch the video fully on Spotify, and just so everybody knows the full video audio all of that, we will post the second day on the Spotify channel as well as on our normal podcast platform. So if you can't join us live, don't worry about it. You can take everything the morning

of whenever you wake up. We'll publish it as as early as possible, so if you can't stay up or have something to do, you can watch it that morning, and then Counterpoints will be moving to Friday, so we will still have content for everybody all throughout the week. Don't worry, it's still going to be a lot of fun, and of course you can become a premium sub Breakingpoints dot com for the AMA feature to head off the inedible, use the AMA feature within the supercast website. Yah, whenever

you become us subscriber. But okay, let's start with the actual news. Let's get to the show, all right, yett, Let's put this up there on the screen. In a surprise to absolutely nobody, Trump surges to his largest lead ever over Ron DeSantis after the news of the indictment breaks, showing that most Americans don't think Trump should be allowed to serve as president again if convicted. But amongst Republicans, his star is not waning. It is what bursting? Is

that how you would say? Rising? Okay, all right, floating? Rising, that's a good word. Well, it used to be a good word. Okay. So Republican preference for Trump over DeSantis has increased after Trump's indictment to fifty seven percent. Desanti is sinking to thirty one percent twelve percent undecided. Keep in mind, this is not even in a multi field poll. This is in a direct head to head and it is a surge of twenty six percent in that one to one contest, and a contest, not only does he

attract majority support. Previously he had forty four percent, now up to an outright fifty two when even pitted against a wider ten candidate field. So that's the two headlines. Not only does he surge against head to head in Ron DeSantis, taking fifty seven percent, but also even in a multi ten candidate race where you have some of the declared and potential GOP GOP challengers to Trump, he still is at a fifty two percent. And actually this

doesn't account for the ASA Hutchinson search. Right, Yes, I apologize. Keep out in mind for anybody who's asking exactly who the hell that is, we will bring you the details.

For Ron DeSantis. There's even worse news, which is that Trump only drops by five percent in a multi candidate field, Desanda drops by ten, just showing you once again that in a multi candidate field, a large percentage of people who are quote unquote anti Trump, even though that's not actually that many of them are still not entirely wedded

to Ron DeSantis. So, I mean, the overall headline is that this is a brutal and terrible poll, not only for Ron DeSantis, but for anybody who's even thinking about challenging Trump, you know, CC, Nikki Haley, Vivik Ramaswami, Mike Pompeo, Asa Hudginson, I guess who will talk a little bit about you in the next block. But overall, I mean, shocker, he's a lot more powerful than he was before after the indictment news. Who could have predicted this. I think

that this is even more movement than I expected. Yeah, I mean we're talking just to underscore this. The last time this polster was out in the field, it was just two weeks ago, and there has been huge movement since then. So Trump was ahead the last time two weeks ago, but it was forty seven to thirty nine, much much closer than what it is now. And as recently as February, DeSantis was actually narrowly ahead of Trump

in this poll. Now, I think with all of these polls, as we're moving forward and thinking about how to interpret them, et cetera, what's important to keep in mind is not what the absolute numbers are. It's what you see in terms of the movement. Because as we've talked about the Republican primary polls so far, they've been really wildly divergent across different polling methodologies. But if you see significant movement within one single poll, that tells you something here is

really happening. And you know, I think it seems pretty clear this indictment has really strengthened Trump's hand. It has forced all of the Republican candidates to basically rally around him, giving him the strength. And it's important to keep in mind too, this is probably the first of several indictments. So it's not like you can say, Okay, we'll get through this. If you're round the Santa all right, we'll get through this. Yes, he's dominating the new cycle now,

but then we'll be able to move forward. I'll be able to talk about what I'm doing with the Florida legislature or whatever. No, this is going to be the dynamic that is playing out the whole time. And even after we get whatever potential indictments are going to you know, come down here, then you're also talking about legal wrangling. You're talking about potential trials, You're talking about different you know,

motions to dismiss in front of judges. This is going to go on and on and on, at least throughout the Republican primary and potentially throughout the entirety of twenty twenty four. Just as a side note here, you know, there's also some interesting news here in terms of a general election. Yes, a majority of voters, you know, they think he did it. They think it should be disqualifying.

But then when you're like, all right, Joe Biden versus Donald Trump head to head, there has been zero change there. Biden has a two point lead, which is within the

margin of error. So it's basically a jump ball. Even with everything that's happened so far and general electorate side, this hasn't moved the needle whatsoever so so far, And of course things can change if he ends up, you know, being found guilty of these things, or if you know, another indictment related to the documents or January sixth, or faked electors or whatever comes out, maybe that shifts things.

But most of the general electorate audience kind of already has these things priced in, is my reading, at least of the initial polling on this front. Yeah, I think you're right, which is, you know, look, anybody who didn't like Trump, this is not going to change anything. Anybody

who was on the fence about Trump. I also don't think this particularly changes anything because it's baked into it is like, yeah, he really looks like a guy who is a stand up dude, pays his taxes, on time, and would never ever do a book of what, would never ever try and disguise a payment via his own personal lawyer, even to the respect of the details of

which we will get miired in. Unfortunately, just because of the historic nature of the case for us, most people you said this in our initial reaction, they're like, they're not taking much away from it. What I find more interesting, though, is Desanta still looks to be full steam ahead. He gave a speech two days ago in which he basically brushed off the polls but also tried to defend Trump because that's what so many people, especially Republicans, wanted to

see from him. But he's still in an odd area. Still can't say Trump's name, He doesn't ever talk in specifics. He just talks in wide generalities. Here he is, let's take a listen. We resolve to lead by conviction, not by polls. I have never taken a poll about any of these issues that I've championed since I've been governor, didn't on day one and still having to this day.

A leader doesn't respond to poles. A leader gets in front of issues, identifies what needs to be done, sets the vision, executes the vision, delivers the results, and guess what happens when you do that? The polls change in your direction. So now he turns around purely for political purposes and indicts a former president on misdemeanor offenses that they're straining to try to convert into felonies. That is when you know that the law has been weaponized for

political purposes. That is when you know that the left is using that to target their political opponents. And I can tell you this, these soros back das. They are a menace to society. They are a menace to the rule of law. Speaking Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is that an important state? You know, somebody can tell me about that. Now, why is the governor of Florida and Harrisburg? That's an interesting question. Well the second one. First of all, in the pole thing,

there's just no way that's true. Let's all just be honest. It's impossible. All politicians are some of the most politested people. That's why it is almost a verb at this point, like or I mean in that like poll tested candidate in terms of the way that we think about them. Second, though, in his response to Trump, he still can't say the

man's name. Yeah, who which former president. This is where trying to play the game of being on Trump's side but never actually mentioned his name, not coming to his defense in the same way that a Marjorie Taylor Green or a Matt Gats or any of the other die hard actual MAGA people would just shows you the disadvantage that he is. And then the poll just shows you

something very clear. Republicans like Trump. They love Trump. You know, at fifty seven percent, he is like, by and far the leading candidate to the extent that you might be able to beat him, you have to win over not just a little bit, a lot of the people who love him and see him as under persecution. How can you do that if you're not willing to really like

go in a full throat of defense like that. Well, the funny thing to me, listen, I don't talk about like, oh I don't take a pull and not pull tests like you're literally giving a pull tested answer about the Trump thing as you're claiming that he full tested answers because he saw it happen the first time around. When Trump put out his truth social that was like, oh,

I'm about to be indicted on Tuesday. Of course, the timing wasn't exactly right, but anyway, there was a rush to his defense from a lot of Republicans, and DeSantis was notably really quiet. And then when he did say something and took a little jab at Trump with a little like, well, I don't know anything about hush money payment to porn stars, but you know, and then he

went on and gave his full tested answer. So he learned from the backlash that he got, and then he tried to craft the answer that he thought people wanted to hear from him, and it just really reeks of finger in the wind type of politician. And again I kind of I mean, I don't really like Rond DeSantis at all, but I have some epathy for him because

I think it's an impossible position that he's in. I really, do you know what really motivates and galvanizes the Republican base at this point above everything is seeing the way that the people they hate are triggered and upset and how much they hate Donald Trump, right, And how do you beat a guy who's actually getting like indicted and arrested by these people? Like there's no level above that.

So yeah, I think it's an impossible landscape. I think the media landscape is going to be impossible for these Republicans to navigate because all they're going to get asked about from here on out, almost exclusively, is how do you react to this indictment? How do you react to what Trump said about X or Y or Z? How do you react to potential charges about January sixth or fake electors, et cetera. One other thing I wanted to pull out of this poll that I do think is relevant.

You know, I said before it, and I do think that this is true. You know, all of these charges, the specific specifics of them, were going to get into and I think that they matter a lot on a substantive level in terms of the politics of it. I think it is a rorshac test of just how do you feel about Donald Trump going in? But you know, the potential charges that the public finds the most persuasive in terms of thinking that he actually did it is

actually the classified documents piece. And there is some news that just broke that they have more evidence suggesting that he was directly involved and potentially moving some of those documents and even reviewed some of those documents after they'd been asked to turn everything over and after they had claimed that he had turned everything over. So that's the one where people are most persuaded that he actually, quote

unquote did it. The next one is inciting the January sixth attack, And so you know, I think some of the other charges are sort of more persuasive to the American people, But again, I'm not sure that it really makes that much of a difference. If you think Trump is a criminal and he deserves to be held accountable, you're unlikely to look at these particular charges and be like, oh, but not like this, but this one is wrong. It's like, no, people want to see him held accountable, then they're going

to be fine with basically what I charges. They're thrown at. It asks for other GOP voters. They're coming to Trump's defense, not just in the polls. Let's put this up there on the screen. Trump has been raising money like nobody's business with his campaign list. He's raised twenty four or four million dollars in just the first twenty four hours after his indictment. Keep in mind, that's just after the

news of the indictment broke. Just go ahead and wait until there's television cameras showing him in handcuffs potentially or has a mugshot released by the City of New York or the State of New York while he's being prosecuted. And then after his press conference, which if you think Trump did not time his press conference exactly for a primetime in this country, then you don't really know anything about Donald Trump and how much he understands the media.

This is a fundraising bonanza for the Trump campaign. They are probably stronger than they have been in a long time. So anyway, you know, look value judgment aside. Those are just the facts. He's surging in polls and he's making a ton of money, so everybody else who was hoping that might bring him down maybe, but not an indication of that yet. Yeah. I do want to say though, like it's this is not all like, oh, this is great for Trump. On a personal look, he faces potential

prison time. I'm sure the man does not want to go to pre stressful so on a personal level, I'm not saying he's like celebrating this. I have no idea what his mindset is. There's some reporting that this is, you know, deeply like unsettling to him, and he's stressed out about it, even as he's trying to project, you know, a sort of public bravado. All we can talk speak to is the politics of it. First indications are for the general election, it doesn't make that much of a difference.

Now I do think that that could potentially change, so I want to put that out there. I think it's really clear though, the impact that it has on the Republican primary, and it makes it very tough setting for anyone not named Donald J. Trump. Absolutely right, Okay, let's go to the next part here about Trump and any of the news that has broken. First of all, just an inside look into the actual process through which Trump wasn't diet and let's go ahea and put this up

there on the screen. I encourage people to go through and read it if they're interested. Article is how Alvin Bragg. Alvin Bragg resurrected the case against Donald Trump. What it points to is a couple of things. The original investigation by Cyrus Fance, who was the Manhattan DA into Trump,

had stalled over a year ago. Eventually, after he left the office, people who were inside the office had came to Alvin Bragg after he'd been taking the job, and they said, hey, look there actually is some quote there there. You should look at this investigation. The original DA's office is a decision not to prosecute Crump was controversial within the office. A lot of them are people who really wanted to go after Trump for the hush money payment.

At the same time, they had two major incidents. Number one was a meeting that they had with Michael Cohen where they went through some of the details around the hush money payment, the scheme, and the installments to which they thought that they could brand case. And two, apparently is they were looking not only at Stormy Daniels, where

they were also looking at other hush money payments. There has been some indication that it could include Karen McDougall, the former Playboy model who we've told you about, but there also could be other ones. It never came legally to light in the nature of these NDAs that were being distributed again all of it though. The reason why that they went for the felony case is just doing a just having bookkeeping fraud where you are mislabeling a

transaction on your books, that's a misdemeanor. For it to be a felony that mislabeling in the payment has to be in the prosecution right in the cover up of another crime. The theory is that that another crime, though is a federal crime, of which though that they have no jurisdiction. So that novel kind of theory of the case is exactly why Cyrus Fans did not prosecute over a year ago, but Alvin Bragg thought that he could do so and that he had some more information that

he could bring to light. And I think, you know, in general, it was an interesting look just at the pure like legal mechanics and how the case went through the office and why exactly, you know, April of twenty twenty three, we're still talking about a hush money payment from November of twenty and sixteen. Yeah. So the other thing that was fascinating here is when it was Alvin Bragg's predecessor, Cyrus Fans, he was really looking more into some of the questions about that didn't have to do

with the hush money payment at all. That had to do with Trump inflating his net worth and it was like business fraud in that direction of you know, lying to banks and potentially lying the irs about how much he was actually worth. And that was the piece that they couldn't quite put together. Michael Cohen has been apparently instrumental in considering any of these charges the whole time.

And Cohen didn't have as much insight into directly the operation of the Trump organization and whether or not these assets were inflated and you know, potentially you know, criminally criminal way. And so that was where Alvin Bragg when he takes over the office, where he was kind of struggling because he felt like Cohen didn't have strong enough information, They couldn't quite put the pieces together, and so and he only had a few weeks. The clock was ticking

when he took over. He only had a few weeks to make a decision about whether or not to charge. They already had the Grand Jurion paneled and they were already working through the evidence there. So he decides, we're not going to move forward with this one, much of the chagrin of a couple of the prosecutors who were involved, who ended up sending him a letter, say, you know, expressing their upset that they weren't moving forward with that

particular direction, and they ended up resigning. And by the way, the New York Times got their hands on that letter and that had been reported out previously, but then Bragg settled on Okay, well, Cohen doesn't have insight as much into this whole net worth situation, but he directly was involved in the hush money payments, and so they start

pulling on that thread. And that's how they and they you know, staff back up because they'd lost some of their key prosecutors, and that's how they end up, you know, in this place. So basically, the press had sort of left these potential charges for dead because the initial investigation floundered,

went nowhere. Alvin Bragg pulled the plug. The whole time he was insisting in the media like hey, we're not done here yet, but it seemed to the press like all right, this one has kind of like fallen apart, and you know, behind the scenes, they were actually working through this hush money piece, and that's how you end up where we are. There you go. So that's inside now.

In terms of the details itself, Trump spent the weekend going and doing time tested strategy going after the not only the Manhattan DA but now the judge, let's go to put this up there on the screen. He writes, quote, the judge assigned to my witch hunt case, a case that has never been charged before, hates me. His name

is Juan Manuel march On. We has handpicked by Bragg and the prosecutors, the same person who railroaded my seventy five year old former CFO Alan Weiselberg to take a plea deal plead, not get plead guilty even if you are not ninety days fight us and core ten years life in jail. He strong armed Alan, which is his judge is not allowed to do, and treated my companies which didn't plead viciously. I am appealing. So that just gives you an insight a little bit into the legal strategy.

Daily Mail also reporting this morning that Trump is likely to hire a First Amendment lawyer in the case that there is a job gag order that the judge has on the case, both from the Manhattan DA and from Trump himself, which would put him obviously in a difficult position and actually would be legitimately interesting from a First

Amendment law perspective. It's like, well, how much of it is criminal, how much of it is in the public interest, and should a defendant be allowed to speak publicly about what's happening? So anyway, also in terms of the details. Here's what you guys need to know about today. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Trump is going to speak at mar A Lago on the day of the expected arrangement. As we already told you, we will be covering that live here in primetime on

the Breaking Points YouTube channel. But today, at exactly noon Eastern time, Trump will be leaving from mar A Lago to the City of New York, where he will reside in Trump Tower while he is there. From that point Tomorrow on Tuesday, around two fifteen pm Eastern Time, he will be taken to the Manhattan Courthouse. They've apparently going to block off the entire street before he is taken

and arraigned. Not only rained, but it's likely he'll be processed, mugshot will be taken, etc. So all of those proceedings will be happening tomorrow, But the initial transfer to the state of New York, to the City of New York, where Trump will reside for a single night before returning tomorrow Lago on the day of, is all going to happen today. It is likely that he will take questions and possibly speak to the press at that time, Monitoring

that right now very closely. What, of course, what Trump is doing is he's turning this all to a show. Why do I even know all of these times off the top of my head, because he tells us, He's like, I'll be there, be there at noon, just so that the cameras can come, they can set up, they have a press thing. You know. Also, invitations have been going out to MAGA allies from across the country to mar A Lago to join him at the press conference. In

a Republican strow of show of strength. They're saying, we welcome and we are excited and welcome to host you here at Marlow. They're turning it into a major your campaign event. And you know, given the amount of money that they are now making off this, why wouldn't they At the same time, Crystal, people like Jim Banks, the prospective senator from Indiana, the congressman who's a MAGA person, endorsed Trump in the middle of the indiability Stephonic and

others know majorly coming to his defense. Lots of MAGA ally Sarah Huckoby Sanders, who apparently refused to endorse Trump initially coming out to his defense, not necessarily endorsing so you know, the coalescing around Trump all continues. And let's go to the next one here too, though, because the legal jeopardy that Trump faces is not just in this case as he kept alluding to, it continues in many of the other cases. So right now the Justice Department

and the FBI have actually amassed new evidence. This is according to the Washington Post, pointing to possible obstruction of justice by Trump in the Classified Documents investigation. They are increasingly suspect that Trump actually went through the boxes after

his subpoena. Similarly, there was a report this morning from Brett bayer over at Fox News that several of a secret SRVIS agents who are on the detail for Trump are going to be subpoenaed and are going to be brought before a grand jury or brought before investigators where they will be asked specifically whether they witness Trump going through the documents with the handling of said documents and

all that. That's before the Special Council Jacksmith and all of us leaves aside the other investigation into January sixth with Mike Pence is now being asked to testify before and then, of course the Fulty Fulton County investigation where after we met the kookie for woman, it's been silence over there. Yeah, I know what's going on, right They locked it down over there. Well they should have been

after whatever the hell happened over there. So there you go. Yeah, and I mean, yes, it is going to be quite a ride here. I think this is the first of a number of charges that Trump is likely to face, but we'll have to see how that all unfolds. The last thing that I want to say on this put this last piece up on the screen, is that, you know, let's keep in mind we don't know exactly what the charges are going to be. We don't know how wide

ranging they're going to be. As well. There's reporting Michael Cohen provided Manhattan prosecutors with documentation about a Trump hush money payment to a second woman, expectations that would be Karen McDougal, though we don't know for sure who claims to have had an affair with him. That's according to Lanny Davis. That's what he told CNN. That is Michael Cohen's lawyer. That suggests that Alvin Bragg's case could be

broader than the storm Meet Daniels payment. So We'll have to wait and see exactly what is contained in these charges. How many are there? Thirty five five thirty five different counts, which, as Soccer pointed out before, you know, each individual payment to Michael Cohen, because it didn't come in one lump sum, would be one count. But is there you know, are there additional charges related to the Karen McDougall affair. Is there stuff in there that we don't even know about?

That certainly possible as well. So we'll have to wait and see. We'll be watching with a lot of interest to see the specifics of the charges and what the name. Some insight into that. I actually spoke the former federal prosecutor and one of the things that they said is that that is kind of a mob played book. It's one of the ways that they will inflate the number of charges against the suspect if they really really want to go after them, is do the multiple count charges

instead of the all encompassing charge. Its actually up to a prosecutorial discretion in terms of how you do that. They're like, look, clearly this you know they're trying to throw the book, and this is what throwing the book look trying to make a big show. Yeah. I mean, look, it's a fun number. They were a big show too. Yeah, everybody's like thirty. Everybody listen, life is a show. Wwe apparently just got bought. So you know, we could all learn a little bit from what happens in that, not

to say that it isn't real. Of course, let's talk about Asa Hutchinson, all right. Never before has Asa Hutchinson been so teased as we have in this show for the big announcement. He is, former Arkansas governor is in fact running for president, seeking the Republican primary nomination. Let's put this up on the screen. The New York Times had an interview with him. They say, Asa Hutchinson announces presidential bid. The former governor of Arkansas, prominent Trump critic

within the Republican Party, has been testing the waters in Iowa. Now. To give you a sense of Asa Hutchinson, he's kind of like politically, I would put him in like the Mike Pence Lane, very socially conservative, certainly like led the charge after Sandy Hook in partnership with the NRA to make sure that absolutely no gun legislation passed, was involved in passing a complete abortion ban within his state when

he served as governor. So this is a very like, you know, certainly conservative right, hard right figure in terms of his politics, but in terms of critiquing Trump, he's been one of the more vocal folks out there. And unlike an you know, Desantists or Nikki Haliy or whoever take occasionally these little passive aggressive jobs at Trump, Asa Hutchinson is not afraid to make a full throated case against Trump and some of the actions that he's taken.

He's really the first kind of explicitly anti Trump figure to enter the race here. Larry Hogan took a pass. Liz Cheney so far has not you know, stepped up to jump in here. So he is the one who's the most vocal in terms of his critique of Trump. He says that he said, mister Trump and those who supported his efforts to overturn the results of the twenty

twenty election should not have positions of power. He stood against the RNC censure of former Representative Liz Cheney and Adam Kinziger of Illinois for servings the only two Republicans on the House committee investigating the January sixth attacks. He called Trump's election denial a quote recipe for disaster for the party, and he was one of the few Republicans to issue a statement after Trump's reported indictment last week

that did not dismiss the charges as political. So he thinks there's a lane for someone to be hard right on the issues but explicitly anti Trump and sort of like you know, in the resistance vein in terms of his Trump critique, and so he is stepping into that race to filled out wide. You know, the thing is about Hutchinson's that, as you said, he is socially conservative in some ways at the same time actually become a villain on the right because he vetoed a bill banning

so called Oh yeah, I forgot about that. He's actually a little bit more of a libertarian. I would describe him as like a libertarian traditional three legged stool conservative, like a fiscally conservative, socially conservative in the old way but not necessarily in the new way. And then also anti Trump, more of a Reagan esque. I mean, look, does his candidacy matter. Maybe, I mean it will be a fun test of somebody, like it will be a fun test of the ceiling on the Liz Cheney vote.

Inside of the GOP. Second, you can guarantee, as you know, he was on Meet the Press, and he was all over the he was all over the Washington Press Corps with his announcement. But in terms of you know, in terms of his reception amongst the GOP base and others like, there has just been very limited bounce from any of this. A you know, he's the former governor of Arkansas, be Sarah Sanders is actually a vocal critic of him, and

many others are inside of Arkansas. So the extent to which he would have any real political constituency is basically non existent. Now. I don't even know if they've done any polls which include his name. I was. I don't see anyway in terms of the in terms of the people who have name I D and who are anti Trump, Pompeo usually rates at like three percent. Mike Pence is

always the highest. He's at seven, and he's a very you know, it's a very consistent seven almost across every GOP poll that we look, like, Nicky Haley is between one and two percent. Ramaswami does not even come to one percent. And uh yeah, so aha, Hutchinson, We'll see for those of you who are watching succession, he's like a Connor Roy type figure. I am not I have no idea what that means, but I'm just looking at

these polls. I'm looking at a real clear politics, and you know, they've got their tracker of where everybody is and taking all the different polls into account and averaging them. He I don't somebody has certainly pulled his name, but he's not listed among the polls that they have here. And to give you a sense of the potential support, Liz Cheney is at two percent in the average of

polls here. So taking the explicit anti Trump lane, you know, I mean politically is basically like everybody else in the field more or less, but probably actually worse than Trump on the politics because he probably supports cutting social care bat care that I don't know that for sure, he absolutely will, Okay, So anyway, he's That's why I put him kind of the Mike Pence lane in terms of

his actual political ideology. But I think the fact that Liz Cheney is at two percent in these polls when her whole brand at this point is basically being anti Trump, shows you how much appetite there is for this type of politics in the Republican with the Republican primary electorate at this point. So anyway, that's Asa Hutchinson, that's the bet he's making, That's how he wants to have an impact on this race. And I guess we will see what the voters have to say about that soccer, Yeah,

we will. At the same time, I can't help but notice that Asa Hutchinson, who has zero chance of being the Republican nominee, is pulling it nothing in currently in the Republican primary, is getting lots of media attention. Meanwhile, the only declared Democrat in the race, because remember Joe Biden hasn't even declared that he's running for president, has been almost completely shut out. And Mary and Williamson, I gotta say, she's got a little bit of a bump

in the polls here. That's kind of noteworthy. And does I don't want to overstate things whatsoever, and I don't want to be naive about any of this, but does have some echoes into the early rise of Bernie Sanders back in twenty sixteen. Let's put this up on the screen from Newsweek. The headline here is Mary and Williamson making gains against Joe Biden. New poll suggests. So the very first poll that had her name in it, she was at four percent, and just a few weeks later

she's now made it into double digits. She's at ten percent. That's actually almost exactly the same trajectory of Bertie early in the race. His very first poll was four percent, and then a few weeks later he hit ten percent, and then he went up from there. Obviously, the dynamics are very different because you're talking about comment president. On the other hand, it is effectively a head to head,

one on one. So you know, it's interesting that clearly, even as she's been nearly completely shut out by the media, voters are hearing something from her that is making them interested in an alternative. And the other thing I'll say Sager here is well, I certainly think it is a longest of long shots to imagine that Marian could actually supplant Biden. I think she is being a bit underestimated.

People forget that this was a woman who was, you know, a national figure, a best selling author in her own right before she ever took up politics. So there are a lot of I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who's like mom and Grandma loves Mary and Williamson. So she has that. And then you also just have Biden is making a lot of mistakes now

with regard to the progressive base. People are very upset with him on a number of issues, and you have a majority of the Democratic base that is saying they would like someone other than Joe Biden. So there is

clearly an organic interest in alternative candidate. So I think to just dismiss her out of hand or to shut her out of the media as they have is kind of outrageous and it shows you that, you know, the thing that they really look for is number one candidates who are going to say the things that make them comfortable and that also have the sort of like in the club credentialing that the corporate press. You know that

the corporate press esteems and takes seriously. Yeah, look, I mean ten percent, as you said, look it's a long shot, it's always going to be difficult taking on and come to president. That is still pretty high. I mean, if you consider what an insurgent candidate would look like, that's higher than everybody, than DeSantis and the higher Yeah, that is higher than everybody but Ron DeSantis in the Republican primary,

they get plenty of media coverage. It's higher than Andrew Yang ever got in any major Democratic poll, So it's not nothing. And at the very least, well, if they allow a debate to happen, that would qualify you for the debate stage, which is I believe old what was the old metric? You have to be polling at least

two percent, something like the SAX amount per money. I doubt she would have any problem with the money, So okay, polling wise, I mean she at least she at least checks the box to what she was, much more so than what she held in the twenty twenty primary. So anyway, I think it's interesting. Probably anything else to say about it, Yeah, I think again the media piece of this, it really irritates me because think of how much press Nikki Hiley

has gotten with tons. Yeah, and she's at what three maybe four percent on a good day in the polls, and it reminds me very much of last time around in twenty twenty in the Democratic primary, in which candidates they took seriously as real contenters and which ones they completely tried to dismiss because Andrew Yang. Obviously at the beginning they tried to completely bl blackout they'd like him,

get his name wrong. They just like leave him out of poles because they didn't want to talk about him. When he was out polling some of their darling Bato and Commlin whatever, he'd be pulling ahead of them, but they just pretend like he didn't exist. And so so it's partly they take credentials as gospel number one and number two like this particular type of DC credentials by the way, and number two they don't want a platform anyone who's going to say anything that they find to

be uncomfortable. Everybody knows I'm friends with Marian. I'm not a disinterested party here. And so I also have some insight into the fact MSNBC, which is supposed to be like the progressive lean left what I lean forward network. I don't think that she's gotten a maybe she's gotten one request wow from MSNBC, whereas Fox News is beaten down her door. So again it shows you who they decide to elevate and who they decide to try to quash.

The one thing that I will say, which I think is a real positive, is every year that goes by the mainstream corporate media gets less and less powerful, and they have less control over what people think and what people see and what people hear and what ideas they're open to. And so I think that's why you see some bump here in the Marianneah, it's certainly very interesting. Oh, let's go on to a very troubling piece of news

out of Russia. A prominent pro Russian military blogger, Vladen Tatarski, whose real name was Maxim Fomen, has been killed by a blast in a cafe in Petersburg where he was giving a talk. We have a little bit of video from this incident, just a warning. It is obviously, you know, it's a scene from a war where basically there's a massive explosion in the middle of Saint Petersburg's put this up there on the screen. We'll play it for the audience for those who are just watching. You can see

how the cafe just gets completely blown out. And yeah, I mean he was killed by the explosion. We don't know quite a bit about the details, crystal, about any collateral damage or although, but clearly it was a targeted terrorist attack. Now in terms of the reports about who

and how he received the bomb. It appears to be, or at least the reports coming out out of Russia, and you know, I always take these with a grain of salt, is that a woman brought the bomb to a meeting and hit it inside of a figurine, presenting it to Tatarski as a gift before he was then blown up and killed by figurian of himself, by the way, Yeah, figurine of himself, which is you know, that's that's pretty savage, brutal.

So in terms of the details and others, I know that you've been speaking to our friend Igor, who is inside of Russia and who can analyze some of the Russian media for us. What does he have to say? Yeah, so shout out to Yegor Kotkin. You can follow him on I think he's got a substack and certainly a Patreon, so this analysis all comes direct from him. So in terms of who this dude was, he was one of these very prominent military bloggers. He had over half a

million subscribers. I guess they call him on telegram, and he was one of the more sort of like violent, psychopathic of the military bloggers. Now, according to Yegor, there are people who are more ghoulish in his words, but they're almost all anonymous. So he's the most prominent, like known, outspoken,

very aggressive military blogger. He's one of these who he's not a direct Kremlin mouthpiece, so he has been critical from the right like he at times of the Kremlin, like the once War, brutality in the war, more violence in the war, et cetera. He's actually from the Donbas region, and before the most recent revolution in Ukraine and the start of this latest separatist war, he was actually in prison for robbery in eastern Ukraine, so that's kind of

his backstory here. You know, listen, it is very likely that this was done by Ukrainians in a very similar manner as what we saw the you know, a previous outspoken pro war figure who was killed about a year ago, and there really is no alternative explanation for the way that she was blown up. It's most likely that it was the Ukrainians. You can't rule out that it was

the FSB because this guy has been critical. Now, the reason that Jegor says he is more suspicious of the Ukrainians is because it's not just you took this guy out it's you took him out in a cafe with a lot of other pro war He was there giving a talk to a lot of other you know, pro war Russians who came to hear what he had to say. So you're not only killing him, you're killing, maiming, injuring,

and potentially killing other bystanders who are pro war. And you're doing it in a cafe in Saint Petersburg, which is the birthplace of Ladimir Putin. Yeah, so there's a lot of symbolism here that suggests it's probably more likely to be the Ukrainians than FSB. But again, you don't want to entirely rule it out. So that's kind of the way that he is viewing this whole situation, which in a lot of ways makes a lot of sense.

Of course, it makes sense, and we already know, you know that the U. I mean, look, most of us can already guess three months from now seeing and honestly source New York Times article Wars as like, well, you know, it might have been elements of the Ukrainian state, but Zelenski never knew about it, and US involvement was never there. The CIA, of course, had nothing to do with it. I don't know if any of that is I mean,

it is troubling whenever the stuff stuff is happening. I mean, just imagine if somebody was killed in downtown like New York City or in downtown Washington, people would be outraged and up in arms, and they would really want to know and get to the bottom of it. Now, of course, look like they are waging a brutal war in Ukraine. I'm not saying that they don't deserve it. What I'm saying, though, is that all of this is just embroiling in a situation which we may not be able to control. That's

really what the dangerous part of it is. Going back to the assassination of Dugan's daughter on Russian soil, the bombing of the Crimean Bridge and now here the bomb blast in downtown Saint Petersburg in a cafe in a Sunday. You know, I love how Reuters phrased it too. The second assassination on Russian soil of a figure closely closely associated with the war in Ukraine. As you also said, I did some more reading. I mean, one of the

things is who would kill him inside of Russia? Like you said, Sure, it could be the FSB, but the FSB buy and large. You know, they're allowed in general in Russian society. They seem to be okay with allowing criticism from the right, from the more pro the war wing, so they can be like, look, we're being responsible. See like all these craziest wants to do this, we're not

actually doing that. From the left though, there are all these horrific stories of anti war protesters and college students getting sentenced to years in Russian for like retweeting criticism of the war. So you can see which way law enforcement is. It's almost entirely geared towards the anti war movement, not towards the pro movement. Initially, when the Dugan assassination happened, I've speculated, I was like, look, it's possible, you know,

like maybe they wanted to take him out. But you know, as all the intel and the reporting came forward, it looked pretty clear that it was a Ukrainian attack, and you know, given the circumstances, I guess you can't rule it out. At the same time, look, you know these movements, these have internacing stupid conflicts all the time. You know, these revolutionary type paramilitary organizations where they kill each other,

so you can't rule that out either. But troubling nonetheless, because you can bet that the Russian government already, you know, they're already pointing the finger. At least some figures are at Ukraine, and many of them and especially inside of the Dunboss where the war is going on, they're all like it was Ukraine's fault and this guy was already

from there, so they could have used as a retaliatory attack. Yeah, the last detail here, even the cafe, like so much of this seems to have been very intentionally chosen for its symbolism, which is what led Yegor to feel more suspicious that it was the Ukrainians than any of the

potential other explanations. Another piece of the symbolism here is this cafe apparently has ties to the leader of the Wagner group, and so you know, if it was the FSBU wanted to assassinate this guy, you'd more likely do like poison. You know, there wouldn't be this blowback with because this was obviously directed at him, but the audience was a target in a way as well, So would you really be targeting your own civilians who are supportive

of your war effort. That can instill fear in the broader population of even you know, like going to any of these talks and you know, doing sort of like public support for the Russian war effort here. So those are some of the pieces that make it not make so much sense from the FSB potential perspective. But again, you just really never can be one hundred percent sure. Yeah,

exactly right. We've got some updates here for you with regard to Dominion's lawsuit against Fox News, and I got to tell you right now, it sure looks like they got the upper hand. Significant ruling from a Delaware judge that came out on Friday, and long story short, this thing is set to go to trial, and some of the pieces of Fox's potential defense have also been ruled out. The judge basically saying, it is not disputable that what you were putting on air was You can't argue that

it wasn't. It was clearly wrong. It was clearly a misstatement of fact. So that piece of your defense you're not going to be able to go with that leaves and let's goad and put this report up on the screen that the ap headline is Judge Dominion defamation case against Fox will go to trial and reminder Dominions suing Fox for one point six billion dollars. This judge ruled that it was quote crystal clear that none of the allegations made by Trump allies and Fox in the weeks

after the election were true. So now what Fox is going to have to argue in front of a jury is that they did not show actual malice. That's the legal standard that is required for Dominion to prove in order to actually win this case. And the definition of actual malice is that they had to have known it was false or acted with a reckless disregard for whether

or not it was true. And of course, SAG we have seen some of those internal messages already that certainly seemed to indicate that at least some people at Fox knew that what was being put on the air at times was total bullshit, and yet they went along with it anyway. So actual malice a very difficult standard to prove, though, because in some ways you have to get into someone's like inner thoughts and mentality in order to show definitively that they knew this was false and they did it anyways,

so that is a task that is ahead of them. Yes, that's right. On its face, it seems like a difficult one. But also, guys, this is a Delaware jury. So look, from what I heard I asked around people inside a

fox are deeply unhappy with this ruling. They had been holding out on a settlement specifically to see if they would be able to get not only if they were going to go to trial, but if they could go to trial in the way that they wanted, because now they are not talking about the facts of the case, they are only talking about actual malice, and with the actual malice standard, the fact that they have text messages that showed consternation within also the overall branding of that

they are either going to have to settle for a massive number. Dominion feels very confident going into this legally that they will prevail, and so they are either going to have to pay very close to what the initial lawsuit is, or they're going to have to take it all the way to the jury and basically roll the dice where if they're going to pay a billion or whatever, then they might as well drag it through court and

make it as long as possible. But yeah, overall, you can make no mistake like the Murdochs and Fox News and all of them are very very upset about this ruling. Don't forget. I mean that is almost equivalent to an entire year of profit within the network. About a billion is what they make in profit overall. Ear flap on the rest, it's not nothing, yeah, exactly, So you know, from they're already facing financial problems because of just diminishing advertising,

not specific to Fox, the entire cable network. On top of their overall business is literally on the backs of geriatrics who are dying, you know, no offense to them, but just natural aerial table. And so the long term prospects of their network's not great. Fox Nation is already also not going great. They have a high burn rate in terms of cash with acquisitions, and then on top of that they might have to pay now over a billion dollars. So not good times for the Murdoch family

right now. They are paying a billion. I think at this point, no matter what, it's only a question of what the margins are. I think that is probably correct. And they've also kind of placed a bit of a bet on rhnd De Santis in the Republican primary. I don't think that BET is really working out thus far. Now, that doesn't mean they want to switch horses here the moment that they feel that they have to. I do want to say, you know, read the Fox statement here,

just for the lawyer's sake. In a statement, they told the AP that Fox will continue to fiercely advocate for the rights of free speech and a free press as we move into the next phase of these proceedings. So they're framing this as a First Amendment free speech issue, which in a sense it certainly is. But yeah, I think they have the fact that you have such explicit statements from so many of these Fox hosts and producers

makes things difficult. There were also some other details that were in this report that underscores again the difficult landscape

they face. In particular, Dominion went at length through you know, they fact checked all of the claims that were being made on Fox, and they sent emails to basically everyone within the organization, some like thirteen hundred emails that they sent out, so literally thousands within the Fox organization of here's where you're wrong and here's what the actual facts are. So pretend to pretend like oh, we had no idea.

That makes it difficult. And then within Fox News itself they have a fact checking operation internally called the brain Room, I think, and they had done their own fact checking of some of the election fraud claims and basically debunked it. All that also would have gone out and been available to all of the shows. So to claim that oh, we really belie leave this, or we really had no idea and this was just like an innocent mistake, I think is going to be difficult to convince a jury

of that at this point. Oh, it's going to be a big cering be difficult to convince me at this point that that was the case. Yeah, of course, it'd be difficult for I think for anybody. And like I said, taking then the account of a Delaware jury, so you already have a disproportionately liberal audio, a liberal jury pool

which is hate Fox News. So you put all that together and I would be very scared if they were Lord this is it's not existential, but business wise, I mean, this is a big, big problem, and very legally, they also are going to have to drag their asses through court and they are going to try and fight this, you know, to the end, because even if they do lose, you can appeal it, and there's caps on the amount of payment, damages, et cetera, that all of it can

come to is So it's not like Dominion is going to be getting paid. But this is a big drain reputationally and financially at the end of the day. The Murdocks never really cared about the reputation of Fox, you know, as a journalistic organization, or they cared about the money. This was always a money project and it's been tremendously successful over the years. That doesn't mean though that they're

not stupid and they can't see the future. And this very much is going to just at the very least limit the amount of cash available for operating expenses, hurting their profit. Yeah, and all that that you know, they own not just Fox, they all News Corp, all of these different places which they remain responsible for. I mean,

mine it is a money making venture at bottom. But I think actually, sort of uniquely to the cable news network, it was explicitly set up as an ideological project as well, and that comes through in some of the messages here too, Like I think it was Murdoch who messaged like, all right, well,

let's just try to put the election stuff high. Let's focus really hard on Georgia and do everything we can to help Republicans there on paraphrasing, and this weren't the exact words, but it was like very explicit, like, we want Republicans to win in Georgia and we're going to do everything we can. Now, listen, do the other two

cable news networks also push hard for Democrats? Yes? I don't even know that it makes a difference to make this distinction at this point, those two really did just follow, like the money sort of led them into the liberal positioning that they're in now. With Fox, it was set

up originally as an explicitly ideological project. I do think that that relates to another thing that comes through in the messages here, which is they were really quite terrified of the rise of Newsmax, in particular during the election fraud, Stop the steal Peak, news Max was getting hundreds of thousands of viewers and Fox was falling off a cliff.

And you know, these things can turn really quickly. Even with all of the years and the money and the investment and the brand name and everything that Fox has

going for them. They really perceived Newsmax as a sort of existential threat, and so that caused them, even as there was some desire in the beginning to rebut Trump's claims, that really caused them to make a U turn, it appears, and go in the other direction because they were so fearful of the audience, which they no longer had control over, which I also think is just revealing in terms of

the cable news landscape. There was this idea in the Republican primary, Fox's pick DeSantis, that's going to be great for him. They're going to be able to promote him and push him over the finish line. But they don't have that. If they ever had that kind of control over the Republican base, they definitely do not have that kind of control anymore. Oh absolutely. I recommend people go and read called The Loudest Voice in the Room. It's a biography of Roger Rail's but it's about the history

and the founding of Fox News. I always found it very interesting just to see exactly, as you said, the power that they once had not that long ago, we're talking about ten years ago. In twenty two, they were king makers. Yeah, for the Tea Party for the twenty twelve the whole decision behind the scenes about Rommy. They even had a meeting. Murdoch at one point was flirting with Obama because his wife at the time liked Obama, and so they were like, well, maybe little broker pieced.

Obama took this meeting, you know, very seriously. He saw Fox's number one enemy. It's just it's not like that anymore. Yeah. With the Internet, all of that has changed for the better because at least people like us can exist. Yeah, okay, indeed, all right, we got some elon moves. We got to report here. Okay, So, as we covered previously, as of April first, everyone was basically all the legacy blue check marks were allegedly going to lose their checks That did

not happen. However, one very prominent organization did lose their check mark on that day. That would be The New York Times. Put this up on the screen. The New York Times and a number of other outlets and celebrities came out and explicitly said, we are not going to pay for Twitter verification. We're not going to pay for it for our organization. We're not going to pay for it for our journalists. We're just going to go without. We are dead set against going for the pay to

play Twitter check mark situation. So Elon sees this, he replies to someone on Twitter and says, oh, okay, we'll take it off then, and then he goes on to say the New York Times being incredibly hypocritical here, as they are super aggressive about forcing everyone to pay their subscription. I'm not sure that those analogies really a hold up, but anyway, that is that's his take. So as far as I know, everyone else has maintained so far their legacy blue check mark. But New York Times now looks

like this. Put this up on the screen. They are checkmark lists for their main account anyway, mark of shame. A bunch of their journalists and even some of their other like I don't know, New York Times Business or whatever Twitter accounts still have their check marks, but it's it is. I can't help but be amused by the fact that the paper of Record is the one account that had their check mark stripped. Oh you can't help, but you can't help, but just absolutely love the entire thing.

But washing your post. Put out a statement this morning, Crystal, I'll have you know, saying that their journalists will not be paying also for check marks. Here's the thing on the merits, I actually think they're up. I don't think for a freaking check organization should pay for the check mark just because Actually, one of the things that the Washington Post said in his statement is, by the way, being on Twitter is not part of your job requirement.

The only time we pay for something is whenever it's let you do it for yourself. So if journals want to pay for it themselves, go for it. You and I have basically made a decision. We're like, yeah, we don't really need it. We're not Twitter first people. The majority of our audience is here on YouTube, We're on Spotify, on Apple podcasts, you know, Instagram as well. We don't pay for any of that, so 're like, to the extent that we use Twitter, it's either elite signaling or

to like make an annastment. I mean, I am adamantly opposed to paying for the check mark as like a matter of principle, because it does feel like and this is why a lot of people are reacting to it. I mean, it feels like a hostage taking kind of situation, and it's also like, okay, you're just paying to have your tweets boosted, like signal boosted. It's not like it's a real verification. You can still have all kinds of

impostors whatever. So I'm not going to embarrass myself by paying to get my tweets in front of more people, right, Definitely not going to do it. But yeah, the dynamic of everybody maintaining their check marks except for The New York Times is amusing to me. Oh yeah, I must admit, yeah exactly. So anyway, I think it is amusing, you know, from a perspective of just like yeah, we're just gonna yank it for you. And I find it also funny just from the emotional connection that so many people have

to their blue checks, like, look, take ours. I'm like, I don't care, man if it goes away tomorrow, they said April first, I was ready. I was like, okay, you know, and then it went away. It's still there. I was like, okay, it makes no impact or whatever on my life. I do know, though, the level of connection that so many elites, specifically bloggers, people who kind of made their bones on Twitter, developed the vast majority

of their A lot of substackers are like this. Actually, not like Glenn and Tybe because they're genuinely talented, but a lot of people who built like big resistance followings and all that, they all got that through Twitter, and a lot of them are opposed Elon, so they don't want to pay either. At the same time, that's how they make all of their money, so I think many

of them will cave. The only blue feature ahead did I see that he was gonna make it so that you could pay for the check but that nobody would know about it? Well, there's no way because if you click on the check mark, it'll say this person is subscribed to Twitter Blue. I think I saw though, that he was gonna make who knows if this is true whatever, but I think I saw that he was going to make it so you could like secretly have the check mark and get all the algorithmic boosting and ability to

do the Twitter polls and whatever else. You can be poit but not the publicly shamed for paying for this nut. Right now, the only blue feature which seems interesting to me is long form tweet is the ability to break the character limit. But at the same time, once what am I published a lot I'm not a writer anymore. The laws really whenever some of them are the freaking read more. It makes me irrationally angry. I'll tell you

why I like them as some of them. During the SBB crisis, some financial analysts wrote like a genuinely very helpful blog post. In one tweet, I was like, oh, this is great. Actually, somebody sent me this. I said, this is great. This is one of the only times that I've seen one. And I've seen a few other explainers a sad or something. You know, Yeah, well it saves me a click. Okay, that's not a fan. That is the only one I've seen yet. That's the only

blue feature currently. Think about Trump's freaking long ass truth socials. That is not an improvement I'm for. I'm not actually for brevity generally. What's the famous quote about writing where the I think it was either Voltaire or Rousseau, and he said, forgive the length of my letter. I did not have time to write you a short one, because it's you know, it shows you that when you write a short letter or some of you have to think

about editing your words. You have to think carefully about choosing you to try and convey a big message in as few words as possible. We kind of do that all the time in our monologue, so I guess someone get it. But yeah, there's something about the magic of Twitter, about the short and the pithy thought that you can punch up of trying to express a complex idea in

what is a two hundred and eighty character. Yeah, at the same time, I don't think in many cases you can't express a complex idea to two hundred eighty careacters.

You know, to go back to the news outlets here, you know, to the extent that Twitter becomes less important for their journalists or their journalists or less vision on Twitter in terms of the management of these newsrooms, they'll be very happy, yes, because they've been very They've been frequently embarrassed and annoyed with the takes that their reporters are having and how much time they're spending and like

rotting their brains on Twitter. So I'm not even sure that it's like it's certainly for newsroom management, they'll actually be happy to see it was a no brainer for them to be like, no, we're not paying for you to like go on this service where all you do is make our lives more difficult in terms of the actual news gathering news distribution process. So there's that aspect of absolutely, yeah, there's no way, so maybe he's doing them a favor. Also, we got to talk about the algorithm.

So Elon open sourced the Twitter algorithm with some interesting results. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. What it shows is that actually there were some categories of people who were getting boosted. Now, amongst those is author is a power user. We don't know what the definition of that. Author is a Democrat, so a Democratic candidate to help boost politics. Author is a Republican. Okay, okay, so power user, Democrat, Republican. All of those seemed reasonable.

There's a fourth category, it says author is Elon. The funny part, though, is Elon actually replied to it and said, well, I had no idea that I was in there. I will be looking into it, oh and possibly at it. Okay. Well, given the fact, Crystal that he has fired people before for telling him that his tweets weren't getting as much engagement, maybe they wrote it into the code without his knowledge

just to say look what you're doing. So well, but regardless, it is genuinely hilarious that the open source code shows you that Elon's tweets are artificially being boosted outside of It's like he's not even just categorized as a power user, which is how you should do it. He's just author is Elon. It was like a special category in the code. So I did a little like, obviously, I'm not a

code or so reading these foreign language to me. I did read some coders who were analyzing this so and I don't know they're legitimacy or whether they're good coders and understand this fully or not. But the thing that I read is that it's not this particular part of the code is not actually directly boosting Elon's tweets or Democrat tweets or Republican tweets. It enables them to do an ab test of new features so they can easily see at a glance whether the new feature is good

or bad for Elon Musk personally. This is according to Colin Fraser on Twitter, who seemed to know what he was talking about. So, I mean, bottom line is basically the impact is the same. They're making sure that whatever do changes they roll out on Twitter are going to be personally beneficial to the owner of Twitter, which listen, at this point, he's lost like at least twenty million

dollars on this whole deal. I guess the least I guess the least that he can get out of it is a little signal boosting of his own tweets or not. You know, if you're going to lose that much money, you might as well get something out of it. So anyway, that's the latest on Elon. He never never does disappoint in terms of a fun segment. All right, sorry, really going to a well. Last week I brought you all

the case of Douglas Mackie. He's a pro Trump Twitter user who in twenty sixteen tweeted out a meme targeted at Hillary voters, telling them that they could avoid the line and vote by text. To most people, that sounds funny or lame, possibly a mix of both. But to Joe Biden's Department of Justice, they saw a crime. The very first week in office, they indicted Mackie on a charge of conspiracy to deprive individuals of their right to vote.

Prosecutors alleged that some four five hundred people call the number on the meme and that Mackie distributed. They honed in on Mackie's private messages, where he and other pro Trump Twitter personalities reveled in the reach of their accounts, hoping they could trick quote dopey liberals not to vote. Now. Is Mackie a good person? Probably not, But that's not

enough to put somebody on trial. Ultimately, this trial was about whether satire onl should be legal, even satire that is malicious, mean and targeted, whether that should be illegal or not. Here is the meme, and to be clear, Mackie did not even make it, He only distributed it along with many others. Do you really believe any reasonable person would see this meme and otherwise not vote? The

Biden Department of Justice certainly did. Apparently so did a jury of Mackie's peers, who convicted him in the Eastern District of New York on Thursday on conspiracies to deprive other American citizens of their right to vote. Already, the censorious establishment is doing backflips online over the victory of this case. Why the government even put out a victorious

press release about the verdict. Put it as a warning to anyone else who may do so online, but a closer scrutiny of the trial itself is necessary for the government to be truly ironclad in their case, they would have to prove that Mackie's meme crossed the satire line because people otherwise text it to vote rather than vote itself. Their theory of this case relied on the fact that

some foury five hundred people called this phone number. Yet when his defense lenge prosecutors to bring forward one single witness who said that they were fooled, they could not do so. Let me repeat, not one person was called to the stand to testify that their civil right to vote was actually deprived by this meme, despite having their phone numbers, and that means from the facts of the case.

On his face, all the government proved was a Macki post of this meme, that some people interacted with the same phone number, and that he may have been malicious in his attempt. As to the witnesses, the star witness at trial had nothing to do even with depriving anyone of votes. Instead, it was a dude named Microchip who

was part of Macki's group chat. During this testimony, Microchip cast Mackie as a leader of the group who distributed means targeted at liberals, but under cross examination admitted two key things. Number One, he was testifying because he was cooperating with the FBI and plead to a reduced charge. Two quote, there was no grand plan around stopping people from voting. So if there was no grand plan, there

was no conspiracy. Right. He can't prove a real conspiracy and he can't prove a single witness was harmed, then what are we doing here? Obviously none of these questions mattered to the New York City jury that convicted Mackie, but one has to wonder if the politics of the area played into that, and also to the wisdom of

bringing charges like this in the first place. Prosecurial prosecutorial discretion is a hell of a drug, and immediately with the precedent set, a lot of people are looking for similar examples and say, hey, why isn't this person in jail.

Many pointed to this tweet by Christina Wong, a liberal Hillary supporter in twenty sixteen, who tweeted, quote, hey Trump supporter, skip poll lines in election twenty sixteen and text your vote tech votes are legit or vote tomorrow on super Wednesday that along with the video that was viewed close to one million times. Now, if you ask me, that's funny and just as ridiculous as the meme that MACKI posted.

But now, by the standards of government is set any of the eight hundred and forty three thousand people who watch that video have been contaminated by Wang's conspiracy to prevent Trump supporters to vote. Now, curiously, Miss Wang remains free and clear to this day. To be clear, she should remain, and so so should Maacky people say stuff

on the Internet they don't mean all the time. Worse, this has been rewarded now by the FBI for wasting their time policing Twitter trolls rather than letting child sex predators like Larry Nasser go free. As I reminded everyone last time, the nanny state behavior of the Feds here

is something that reveals a very very deep rot. As Matt Tayeebi discovered, FBI agents whose salaries we are paying, we're spending their time flagging moronic tiny Twitter accounts joking, including one who said quote, I am a ballot counter in my state. If you're not wearing a mask, I'm not counting your vote, saying that every negative comment on the post she would add a vote for the Democratic Party.

Or another example the low follower user who tweeted quote I want to remind Republicans to vote tomorrow and included the wrong date. This was flagged by FBI agents who wanted Twitter to take it down. It had three retweets, and under the standard of the now established Mackie conviction, they can claim anyone who saw that tweet and misinterpreted it could have had their civil rights violated or a conspiracy to do so. The standard now has been set

and the gauntlet throne. We now live in a significantly less free internet. The best response to this from an individual perspective post less even if you're anonymous. If he screwed with somebody like Hillary, they will track you down to the ends of the earth and potentially throw you in prison for a decade for a crime of her running a terrible campaign. Ultimately, this is about elite protection.

They target those who make a mockery of them. When they make a mockery of us, they get rewarded, they remain free, they get richer than ever. And once again I'm not saying that he's a nice guy. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Chrystl. What do you take a look at? Well, I'm crazy the same The more Americans health for health insurors now than ever in history. But that was then and this is now.

Fifteen million Americans are said to be kicked off of Medicaid starting this month, leaving many without any health insurance and a healthcare plan that basically amounts to just pray

that you and your kids do not get sick. A devastating, unnecessary calamity being intentionally inflicted on millions by their own government, one that has been effectuated by Democrats and Republicans acting in concert, and which, outside of this Washington Post coverage I just showed you, has barely registered with the news media that is blissfully insulated from the impact of all

of these policies. As front of the show, Jeff Stein put it pretty remarkable that America temporarily constructed a safety net during COVID, including major healthcare coverage, food benefits, anti poverty funding for families and kids, etc. And then just systematically and slowly demolished it With regards to the millions about to be kicked off their healthcare, the process has

a bureaucratic and antiseptic name, Medicaid unwinding. Basically, during the pandemic, states could only gain access to certain federal dollars if they pledged not to kick anyone off of the Medicaid program. That means that women who had had a baby and would have only qualified until just after the baby was born, or they were able to stay on. It means people who may have missed their renewal notices and the male

were able to stay on. People who struggle to complete the mountain of paperwork in time to prove they are sufficiently poor to qualify they were also able to stay on, and that last category. It might sound small, but it's actually massive. HHS estimates seven million people will get kicked off of Medicaid who actually qualify due to issues like long wait times, bureaucratic mistakes like sending paperwork multiple times

and missing renewal notices. That could be an especially large problem because of how many people have new addresses due to housing instability exacerbated by the pandemic. Millions more of the working class fall into a giant coverage gap because they live in states which did not expand Medicaid, So those individuals make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but then not enough to actually afford plans on the ACA

exchange even with the subsidies. The Washington Post interviewed a single mom who was set to lose her coverage on just how devastates this is all going to be to her life. So Connie Bunch is mom to a toddler's son and a ten year old daughter who has cerebral palsy. Caring for a disabled daughter and struggling with her own health issues has made it nearly impossible for Connie to be able to hold onto a job, and certainly not one with health benefits. She was only able to stay

on Medicaid because of those Pandemic era provisions. That's a benefit that she believes actually saved her life. It enabled her to go to the emergency room one evening when her face began drooping, resulting in a diagnosis of Belle's palsy and also the discovery of several small brain aneurysms. Now Connie is also among the millions who struggle to afford insulin for her diabetes and medication for her high

blood pressure. After Medicaid unwinding, who knows how or whether this mom will even survive to be there for the babies who so thoroughly depend on her. But the truth is, gazing at this tangled healthcare mess is to realize how broken the system is. Even at its very best. A vast, expensive, dehumanizing bureaucracy is required to determine who checks all the right boxes and lives in the right state to be

worthy of basic care. It's actually going to cost dates quite a bit of money to figure out who they can kick off the program, money that, of course, could instead be spent making sure moms like Connie have the care that they need. Social safety net programs that only benefit the poor and working class are also incredibly politically vulnerable, as low income Americans have zero political sway in Washington

and little visibility to the national media. Consider how toxic it is for politicians to even consider cutting Social Security or Medicare, and compare that to how the child tax credit, rent for Baron's expanded unemployment, and now Medicaid for millions are stripped away while Democrats are in power with barely a whimper. Why Because Social Security and Medicare are near universal programs that every American feels they have a stake in.

Means tested safety net programs are ghettoized as welfare for the unworthy, and in the current political climate, they've also been blamed for inflation, even as for bank bailance and corporate subsidies is just accepted as a matter of course. What's more, the overwhelming majority of political journalists grew up in at least the middle class and have had zero

personal experience with any of these programs. They also live in class isolated bubbles where their only interactions with the beneficiaries of safety net programs are through the service workers who deliver their uber eats or care for their kids. Journalist Jeff Stein has made sure to document the stories of those for whom these programs have been a precious

lifeline which has now been cut away. He wrote a while back about a single mom who has slowly slipped back into financial desperation as program after program has been demolished. In her words, it was a weight lifted like I can't describe. I could actually buy what I wanted to at the grocery store living is so much harder now that this brutality is being inflicted quietly, surgically under Democrats

makes it all the more galling. After all, Joe Biden pretended, at least on the campaign trail that he was going to fight to get all Americans' healthcare through a public option. Now that was never as good a solution in his Medicare for All, of course, at LISTA was something. Now we watch him surrender fifteen million Americans to healthcare doom and he doesn't have a single word to say about it.

I will close with this, Our country is facing a life expectancy calamity that is unlike anything happening anywhere else in the developed world. The Financial Times recently crunched them of the data, and they found that Americans, on average have life expectancy as low as Blackpool, that is the most economically depressed town in all of England. What's more, while all countries saw life expectancy take a hit during COVID, the US took a bigger hit and has failed to

bounce back as other nations have done. Now, the causes of this are myriad, but I think in a way, the story of medicaid unwinding tells you everything you really need to know. In America, we don't actually value the

lives of everyone, not even close. The country is run according to a radical, elite driven ideology which says your human worth is equal to your market worth, and which is then actively intentionally sought to make every human of his life work to the market as possible, and that sick a moral ideology leads Democrats and Republicans alike to just accept these deaths as a matter of course. Republicans

don't really even pretend to care. Democrats pretend to care, but we'll do nothing that is even remotely hard or counter to donor interest to try to deal with the problem. And so millions get tossed out in the healthcare cold, and our elite institutions barely even register a loss. And zachar is singing a lot with regard to these fifty And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Just so everybody knows for inevitable question, we will be sending a link in the email today to all of our premium subscribers where you can ask questions for the stream, so all of that is going to be lined up. We're excited to bring you all the stream tomorrow. As a reminder too, you can watch the full show on Spotify for premium members Breakingpoints dot com. But I think

that's it. We'll see you all tomorrow night, primetime special Trump on Trial. Can't wait. It's going to be interesting. We'll see you then,