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What do we have, Krystal.
Indeed, we do a lot of interesting stories to dig into this morning. So Trump making some very noteworthy comments on abortion that Republicans, Democrats a lot of response to that one. Joe Biden already out with an ad on abortion that we want to share with you as well. The Rock is saying that he regrets endorsing Joe Biden last time around, and he will not be repeating that what he describes as a mistake this time.
So kind of interesting.
There so very noteworthy comments from an RFK junior state director his state drive of New York saying basically, vote for RFK Junior in order to elect Trump, so bringing those comments and also the RFK Junior campaign's response to what she is saying. There, for the first time in thirty years, according to Forbes magazine, none of the young new billionaires on the list are actually self made. What does that say about us? It's about our economy, about
our society, about the future. Investors meanwhile, are taking over even more of the real estate market. Always important to track that Amazon is killing their just walk out stores. Turns out the technology never worked. It was kind of a farce, the whole thing. So we'll break that down for you net. Yahoo is announcing a date for that Rafa invasion. We also have some updates on what's going
on with the ceasefire talks. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren is saying that there is more than sufficient evidence to find that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Obviously that is very significant, and doctor Tree to Parsi is going to be here to look at how Aroan might respond to that Israeli attack on their consular building.
So a lot that's going on this morning.
Yes, that's right, before we get to that, we do have big things coming. I'm going to keep it.
I'm going to keep it short this time, it's coming. If you want to be the first to hear about it Breakingpoints dot com, you can become premium subscriber and you can help support our work as well as some other major plans that we have for the coming election season. We really appreciate you. But as CHRISTL said, we're going
to go ahead and start with abortion. So Trump had quite a bit of a dust up yesterday releasing some new comments, although not particularly all that new, for what his abortion policy would be if he were elected president.
Here's what he had to say.
Under my leadership, the Republican Party will always support the creation of strong, thriving, and healthy American families. We want to make it easier for mothers and families to have babies, not harder. That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments
like IVF in every state in America. Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, including the vast majority of Republicans, Conservatives, Christians, and pro life Americans, I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby.
What could be more beautiful or better than that? Many people have asked me what my position is on abortion and abortion rights, especially since I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of something that all legal scholars both sides wanted and in fact demanded be ended Roe v.
Wade.
My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land, in this case, the law of the state.
The law of the state. So a couple of very noteworthy things there. Politically.
Number one, I'm very pro IVF we want babies buke of the Alabama law. Number two is there has been significant pressure from Lindsey Graham and other lawmakers, which we're about to get to, for Trump to embrace some sort of national ban. Previously, he privately had told some advisors that he may embrace a sixteen week band. But Crystal, as you always talk about here on the show, the polling has actually moved significantly away from that towards the
rogue consensus. And yet, hilariously enough, this statement, which I mean, I would say, is the national pro life discourse and has been for decades now.
Just leave it to the states.
That's why I want to get rid of Row versus Wade was enough to then invite an attack from the largest pro life organization here in the United States, as Susan B. Anthony List. So let's go and put this up there on the screen. The pro life president of Marjorie Dan Filster. She says this quote, we are deeply disappointed in President Trump's position. Unborn children and their mother deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of
the abortion industry. Dobbs clearly allows both states and Congress to act, saying the decision is back to the state seeds national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy.
If successful, they will wipe out states. Right.
So a bit tortured and confused logic here we went from again, I just want to reiterate, leave it to the states is the pro life mainstream position articulated by basically every Republican nominee since nineteen seventy two. And then Trump comes out and says it despite having ended Row versus Wade, and now the pro life groups say, oh, actually that's not enough, and really what do they want.
They want to straight up national ben on abortion, which is stunning crystal because a they're obviously lying to us the entire time that this was actually in the discourse pre Row versus Wade.
But they're not giving up.
I mean, they are pushing this to the hilt, regardless of how unpopular it is.
Yeah, So just to reflect a little bit on the Trump statement, a clear attempt to try to please everyone. You know, there was a little bit of red meat thrown in there for the pro life crowd, painting Democrats as extremists on the issue, you know, making up things about eight even after the baby's born.
Kill the baby.
So there was that, there was you know, clearly he can read a poll on IVF, so he wants to put on there upfront.
Though.
We got to protect IVF, which presumably would come from the national level. But you know, Republicans in Congress have blocked any attempts to actually protect IVF at the national level, and he doesn't go so far as to say he would do that. Somewhat contradictory to that is the idea we should leave it all to the states. But then again, he doesn't actually close the door on any sort of a national abortion ban. What he says is more descriptive, like you know, Roe versus Wade was overturned and now
it goes to the States. It was more descriptive of what had actually happened, versus really affirming what his position on the issue is. To me, it's just really clear this has always been he's been all over the place on abortion since he entered into the public eye. You know, before he was running for president, he was and we'll show you the timeline of his evolution on the issue. I guess he was described himself as a very pro choice.
It was clear when he was running back in twenty sixteen that he was really unfamiliar with the contours of the debate with where he was should position himself if he was now going to stake out this new pro
life position. We've had tons of reporting about how he instantly knew once Dobbs came down, even though he was the reason that Dobbs did come down, he instantly knew this was going to be a big problem for Republicans, and so he's really kind of trying to search for a message that's going to work for him and work for Republicans, and frankly, I've said this before, I just
don't think there is one. I don't think that it's a box you can message your way out of, because the reality is so jarring and so stark to people. So it's not like you can you have this theoretical philosophical debate that was the land the issue was in
before Roe versus Wade was overturned. And so now it's my sense that the best thing that Donald Trump could do on abortion is just to try to sideline it, to try to talk about it as little as possible, because the more you're talking about this issue, this is the one issue where Democrats have a very clear advantage
over Donald Trump and over Republicans in general. So the more that you are talking about this, the more that the landscape is and the political landscape is defined by abortion, the worse off you're going to be politically.
Kind of, no matter what you say. At this point, I.
Think this is the best he could do, and it's still not a particularly strong position, and because it also highlights a lot of the intracoalitional fighting. For example, let's put this up there on the screen here, you got Lindsey Graham I mean, who is no social conservative traditionally, but even he says I respectfully disagree with President Trump's
statement that abortion is States rights issue. Dobbs does not require that conclusion legally, and the pro life movement has always been about the wellbeing of the unborn child, not geography. I mean, these people are just saying it out in the open. They want a straight up national policy on
the issue. I would remind everyone Lindsay Graham pulled this exact stick in twenty twenty two, introducing the fifteen week ban, which I believe was very influential in keeping the policy alive and well the debate ahead of the midterm elections, and of course that is what ended up being the single most potent issue when it came to the poll. So, I mean this also demonstrates too the problems that the Republican Party has the Susan B.
Anthony List.
Look, it's not powerful nationally, very powerful within the GOP and specifically within the primary electorate. Only Trump really is the person who can go out there and actually retaliated and attacked her and Lindsay Graham immediately after this statement and get away with it. There's not a single other National Republican Mike Pence also said that Trump's statement was quote a slap in the face.
Again despite the fact.
It's very easy go and look what all these people were saying in the nineteen nineties.
Leave it to the states. Leave it to the states, that's all we want.
But I saw a very insightful piece of analysis Crystal which said that if Republicans realized that leaving into the states meant that in red states, even Kentucky, that they would lose abortion by twenty points, they never would have said that in the first place, because they assumed that they were going to win. They never understood deeply the inherent unpopularity of their position. But one person who does is the Biden campaign, and the Biden campaign releasing a
absolutely new, devastating ad against Trump. This has thirty million dollars behind it and it will be playing in every single battleground state.
Let's take a listen.
This is one of our willow boxes.
This is just filled with some of the things that we had started gathering for her while I was pertinent.
Yep, here's for a little baby book.
Let's just the outfit that she was gonna maybe wear home from the hospital.
All of these.
This is.
The blanket, the chewing, then her little footprints.
It's okay.
I'm Joe Biden and I approved this message.
Brutal ad for those just listening. It depicts a Texas woman, Amanda Zurawski. She was she was developed an infection when she was eighteen weeks pregnant. The doctors were denied her a medical abortion. She ended up going into sepsis, being admitted to the ICU, almost dying twice, and is unlikely
to be able to bear children in the future. This is exactly the type of case previously that we had previewed with another Texas woman who again these are people who wanted to have these babies to keep the baby, were denied medical a procedure that was outlawed by Texas law and is being highlighted now very reminiscent of that Kentucky ad which was very, very influential in a Democratic
victory in twenty twenty two Crystal. And it just highlights again and again that with this issue, you know, you can try and states rights your way out of this, but even when people in Ohio or people in Georgia are looking at Texas, Georgia is a state where something like this actually could become the law or could continue to be so, and is one where it could very much be influential, even if it doesn't mean that Texas itself is going.
To go blue.
Yeah. So, and even if you support the states rights argument that Trump is making here, that means he supports what Texas is doing. It means he supports the six week ban in flo Florida. And what the ad highlights is something very real, which is even when you put in these exemptions for let's say the life of the mother, well, how do you draw that line? How desperate do the circumstances have to be before you will actually, you know, perform the procedure to save the mother's life and health.
So there have been stories of women who are basically told to, you know, go wait in the parking lot and bleed out further so that the medical team can feel confident that they're in accordance with law and they're not going to be you know, taken to court overtreating her.
So this is a very real issue, and you know, let's be honest, most political ads at this point were so honora to them, like they don't make you feel anything this ad makes people feel something because everyone can relate to, you know, the heartbreak of wanting to have a family and having that door closed because of some legislative, bureaucratic decision.
It's outrageous.
And so that's why I feel like, you know, this is the one issue where learly Democrats they really have a huge upper hand. And it's very emotional and it's very motivating because people feel this sense of loss that they had rights that have now been taken away from them, that things are going backwards for them, for their loved ones,
for their daughters, their sisters, their wives, et cetera. So it's extremely potent, and you know, I just think it's I don't think there's anywhere the Republican Party can be on this issue at this point that's going to work out for them, because even if people feel like a Trump, he's more of a moderate on this issue. You know, he's not like one of these hardliners. Look at who the Speaker of the House is, you know, Mike Johnson
is a hardliner. Look at some of the people who were in his administration last time and who will be in his administration this time. Look at some of the powerful voices inside of this coalition, and it's not crazy for people to think, like, I don't trust you on this issue, and you are the reason why we're here in the first place. You know, the Biden team already has their SoundBite of him bragging about overturning Roe versus Wade.
That's really all they need.
So no attempts to spin it at this point or you know, try to make it seem like he's more of a moderate on the issue. I just don't think that that is really going to register for voters if they are voting on this issue. Just to underscore Soccer what you were saying about the Kentucky ad which really many observers in that state attributed that ad to Andy Basheer, the Democratic governor, being able to get re elected in Kentucky. Now, listen,
Kentucky's an unusual state. It is very read at the federal level, at the state level, it can go back and forth. But still in this era, for a Democrat to get re elected in the state of Kentucky is quite extraordinary. And it was another heartbreaking abortion story about a young girl who was raped and she says, you know, Daniel Cameron and forced me to would have forced me to have that baby. So these emotional stories seem to really land with the electorate, even in a state like Kentucky.
And the last point I'll make saga, as you mentioned, I think that's is very astutis idea of Like, well, Republicans probably wouldn't have even said they wanted to just send it back to the states if they realized, even in a state like Kentucky or Alabama, that would be a disaster for them in terms of the population and how.
They feel about the issue.
But I honestly think that the direction post Row has affirmed some of the most alarmist voices coming from you know, liberals, leftist Democratic Party, et cetera, anyone left of center who said no, no, the real end goal is to completely ban abortion for everyone. It turns out they were right, you know, for the most hardline elements of the movement, who are quite influential. They're the ones who organize around this, vote on this, to donate money on this.
Et cetera. That actually is the goal. And it's even further than that.
It's things like banning IVF, which is an issue that you know, a few years ago, no one would have even imagined was really on the table. Is taking us back to like the stem cell debates of the early two thousands, et cetera. So it turns out the most alarmist voices on this issue were actually correct about what the real goals, what the real end goals of the movement are.
Yeah, no, it's true.
And it's one of those two where the pro life people said for years it's not true, it's not true, don't worry about it, etc. This is you know, this is actually a popular issue. Well, you know, I got news for you. People didn't want to hear it. Back in twenty twenty two. I heard a lot of people in my mentioned saying otherwise. But I guess it's okay. We all find out who's right in the end. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is particularly hilarious.
A full timeline of Trump's positions on abortion. I really enjoyed going down memory lane so October in NBC News, Meet the Press. I am very pro choice. I hate the concept of abortion. I just believe in choice. Again, it may be a little bit of a New York background, because there's some different attitude. I was raised in New York, I grew up, in work, everything else in New York City.
I am strongly pro choice. Asked whether he would ban any abortion, even including partial birth abortion, Trump says no, I am pro choice in every aspect as it goes, but I hate it. February twenty eleven, he now says returns to sapack. When he's considering a twenty twelve run, he says, I am pro life, and that was basically it. August twenty fifteen, he is now divided over defunding Planned Parenthood. He says, I would look at the good aspects of it.
I would look because I'm sure they do things properly and good for women.
I would take a look at it.
February twenty sixteen, He then says he will defund Planned Parenthood, but now says he will still praise the group. March of twenty sixteen was the infamous Maybe there needs to be some form of punishment for the woman who are seeking abortion. He says yes that immediately he reverses that and says that's not his position. October twenty sixteen, he
vows to overturn a Row versus way. This is probably the single most impactful thing along the journey because that leads to the publishing the list of the Supreme Court Justices. January twenty seventeen, nominates Neil Gorsich to the US Supreme Court and says specifically about that that he would be nominating him for the end of trying to overturn Rowe versus Wade. Then we continue more and more down memory lane, where we see Amy Cony, Barrett, we see Brett Kavanaugh
and others. Twenty twenty two, he celebrates in a statement the overturning of Roe versus Wade and says, quote, I think in the end that is something that will work out for everybody, and this is the bridge to the future. This brings everything back to the States where it has always belonged. Now, since then he has had very different tunes. He attacked Ron de Santis for the six week abortion ban. He said, what did he say?
Said? It was cruel that he's had there. He says he's.
Strongly in favor of quote the exceptions whenever it comes to test and life of the not funny topics.
It's funny the.
Way that says, so now we're at now we're here, we're back to the States.
So they're my favorite.
My favorite was actually when he said he would defund Planned Parenthood but also praise the group. He said, millions of millions of women cervical cancer, breast cancer are helped by Planned parenthood. I would defund it because I'm pro life, but millions of women are helped by Planned parent.
It's like, dude.
The most revealing though, was that moment when Okay, he's decided I got to be fully pro life in order to win the Republican nomination.
I got to be fully in with pro life.
But he clearly doesn't know the contours of the political debate. So when he gets asked this question about Okay, well, should there be punishment for the women, he's thinking, honestly, a very logical train of thought, which is, all right, these people think this is murder ergo if you murder your baby, Yeah, there.
Should be some kind of punishment.
Not knowing that there's a whole, you know, philosophical way to sort of wiggle out of that very obvious implication of what the rest of the philosophy would you know, would dictate, and so he kind of stumbles into that and listen, like I said, it's clear he's not a true believer on the issue, but it almost doesn't matter because at the end of the day, he has done more for the pro life community. And you know he said this during his nomination process, he has done more
for the pro life position than any other Republican candidate president. Ever, you can't wiggle your way out of that. That just is the reality. The Biden team is gonna hang that around your neck as much as they possibly can. And it is potent. There's just no denying it. I mean, we just saw what was it in Alabama. Democrats massively flipped a state house seat running just on IVF in Alabama. Okay, as I was just mentioned, Kentucky, they hold onto the
governor's mansion because of abortion. This is playing out in place after place after place. So there's no doubt that it is potent, that it is motivating, that is very evocative, that is very emotional, and I think the more Trump is talking about it, the worst it is for him no matter what he says, because the record is what it is. He's the guy that got Roe versus Way to overturned and created this reality that now a very clear majority of Americans finds to be frankly horrible.
It's the irony because the pro life is almost certainly what handed him his election in twenty sixteen, because all the Republican coalition was united behind him against Hillary Clinton, and it might be what sinks him in twenty and twenty four. Let's go and put this final pulling up on the screen just to underscore a lot of what we're talking about here, and it shows you the shift from April of twenty twenty two when Dobbs happen. These are views on abortion, and then keep in mind this is
from Fox News. They say, which of the best describes your view on abortion? Always legal? Twenty seven percent legal most of the time, seventeen percent illegal except for rape, incestins, saving the life of the mother forty three percent, eleven percent always illegal. A year later, April twenty twenty three, now it's thirty two percent say always legal, twenty four percent say illegal most of the time. March of twenty twenty four. Most recently we shift even more. Thirty five
percent are now saying always legal. That's actually the Republican nightmare. The nine months of abortion combined with twenty four percent, you got a clear majority. Almost sixty percent of the public either saying always legal or illegal most of the time, and a slim forty percent saying illegal except for a rape incest case of the life of the mother, and always illegal. Keep in mind, too, even that's just raw
population figures. If you if you consider where that is disproportionately going to be concentrated and where they are, and you can transpose that on top of the electoral college and swing voters, it becomes even more devastating because you have independent voters in each of these states which are far more aligned in the always legal or illegal most of the time case than anybody who's going to be
on the other side of the issue. So I've seen Republican gymnastics on this now for many months, Democratic extreamists and all that. It doesn't it simply doesn't land because the ads and the stories that we continue to play here that the Democrats continue to bring up are just emotionally more resonant than the yeah, but partial birth, abortion
or any of that. Those are either conceptual or frankly, people just don't care as much as the idea of people like we played in that ad, a woman who wanted to have wanted to have a baby denied a medical procedure and now has a life changing infection and is weeping on your screen.
You're just not going to beat it. It's impossible.
Well, not only that, but that's the landscape that's being fought.
Yeah, over now right, you.
Know those are the that's the legislation that's moving forward. The bands are going to affect IVF under assault in Alabama. Questions about whether that's going to be the case in other states. Is there going to be a nationwide band like That's where all of the actually relevant political questions
lie at this point. So to try to say, oh, well, Democrats are the real extremists on the issue, Well, voters aren't seeing that because it's not Democrats who are aggressively pushing forward legislation that is so fringe and so outlier in terms of you know, what.
People actually think on the issue.
And you know, it is remarkable, and I honestly I
didn't predict how important this would be. I certainly didn't think in twenty twenty four that this would be such a potent and central issue that so many elections, special elections around the country, which would you know, would swing on this, that there would be every single ballot initiative that is pro choice, the pro choice side would win, and frankly that it would really break down what has been a long standing basically fifty to fifty gridlock on
the issue of choice. I mean, the pro choice side now has basically, according to Fox News, a super majority, a super majority. And it's not just the absolute numbers, it's also who's motivated to vote on the issue. Prior to Dobbs, it was always the pro life side that was more motivated, more organized on the issue. They were the ones who a, this is my single issue, this is you know what I'm making my political choices on.
That dynamic too has flipped where you now have I think more people on the side where you know that are pro choice, where this is their top or potentially even single issue that they're voting on. So it truly has been an extraordinary landscape shift. Now let's we're going to move on to some problems that Joe Biden is having as well. Let's not pretend like this is the only thing that's going on, the only thing that the
election is going to turn on. But I also don't want to under sell the record that we see at this point of how clearly voters have demonstrated in every single opportunity that they have that this is important to them and they're going to vote accordingly.
There is some ground being lost here amongst the coveted bro demographic. The Rock Dwayne the Rock Johnson giving an interesting interview on Fox News. Now we have to listen carefully to what he has to say. He doesn't necessarily say he regrets endorsing Joe Biden. He does say he regrets endorsing a politician and entering the fray of politics, but it is very clear that he sees that as a mistake, his entrance into the political fray back in
twenty twenty when he famously endorsed Joe Biden. Here's what he had to say.
You made that endorsement twenty twenty. Are you happy with the state of America?
Am I happy with the state of America right now? Well, that answer is no. Do I believe we're going to get better. I believe in that. I'm an optimistic guy, and I believe we can't get better. The endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one I thought was the best decision for me at that time. And I thought back then when we talk about, Hey, you know, I'm in this position where I have some influence and
it's my job. Then I felt like that, then it's my job now to exercise my influence and share with this This is who I'm going to endorse. Am I going to do that again this year? That answers No, I feel like and I mean, we could go down the well here, but there's in today's easy cancel culture world and cancel culture, woke culture, this culture, that culture,
the vision, et cetera that really bugs me. And in the spirit of that, you either in the spirit of that, you either succumb and be what you think other people want you to be, or you go, no, that's not who I am. I'm going to be myself and I'm going to be real. Maybe ask me something, A real answer is important, all right.
So that's where I had to say. People know, I've had a long and difficult journey with the Rock. I always like the Rock. I want him to run for president. But then he publicly embraced the so called will cancel culture that he is openly trashing. There he engaged in the Pylon on Joe Rogan. I guess Joe Rogan forgave him. He actually ended up having him on the show. So listen, it's up to Joe to litigate that. I will personally
not forget it that he entered that. I understand that he's in the Hollywood sphere that he started posing for pictures with Jeff Bezos. But now he says he won't. Now he says he won't endorse Joe Biden. So I don't really know what to take of it. I guess what we could say is this, this man is he cares monst about his image, about selling his Teremana tequila and all that other stuff that he was promoting there
on the table, and his energy drink. And clearly the Biden brand is bad for business, according to the Rock, who I think ultimately just wants to sell as many products as possible and keep his very very high Q score approval rating with people, and so for that reason appears to regret endorsing Joe Biden.
Crystal.
I think that is very accurate and suit analysis. I also think perhaps this is yet another lesson and don't base your vote on celebrity endorsers, and I don't think that most people do, because if they did, Hillary Clinton would have been president of the United States. So I'm not sure that this is a warning that the American people really need. But you know, I mean, listen, he's not paid to be a political analyst. Uses a lot of words there to say basically nothing like I don't
even know what his real point. I don't know why he endorsed Biden in the first place, and I don't know why he's not endorsing him this time.
I don't know what the relevant.
Issues are outside of like you said, he now has assessed that whereas previously he thought that was good for his brand, now he no longer feels it is positive for The Rock's personal brand. So I don't know that you could read too much into it other than that, Other than I guess it's not quite as safe in Hollywood to be affirmatively pro Joe Biden as it was the last time around. I guess that's all you could really read into it.
There was also an interesting moment when Rogan interviewed him and he was talking about Biden, and I forget exactly what Rogan said, but it was something about, like the people behind Biden and The Rock seem to like laugh and giggle at that like, very clearly he doesn't think that Biden is a strong leader. That was basically all that he had to say. It's not exactly true that he hasn't entered politics before. I mean, I've even said this,
he spoke at the two thousand Republican National Convention. I mean, this is somebody anyway I could go down the rabbit hole. I think the only thing we can truly assess is that for probably one of America's most popular celebrities not wanting to endorse Biden again.
You can frame it however you want.
Oh, I'm not endorsing anybody, Okay, but you endorse somebody last time, you're not doing it this time around. Well, that is an indicator of where he thinks his brand is going to be importantly positioned, whereas last time around he didn't think that he would suffer as a result of it, and I've seen some organic pushback against him.
So I don't think we could take away from it more than that, only that people who are very astute at seeing where the popular wind is blowing consumer sentiment, People who have hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, they don't think quote unquote supporting Biden is good for business this time around, at least from a popularity perspective, and I would pay attention to that. I think that is probably an important takeaway for what the overall trends
is now. I would also say this, right, which is important in something we tied back to yesterday, is that Biden appears to be consolidating a lot of support crystal amongst older voters. So it could be that you and I are having a conversation here about national trends, about young voters, about how the overall actual American population feels, but that doesn't translate to the American electorate.
Not everybody votes. In fact, most people don't vote.
A huge proportion of the voting of the voting eligible public simply stays home. So it could be that there's two kind of separate conversations.
That are happening right now.
Yeah, I mean, well, you know, Hollywood famously has their finger on the pulls, so we should really pay attention to which way the breath is blowing there. I think Republicans are so funny when it comes to Hollywood also, because the minute that the Rock or any other Hollywood celebrity is behind affirmatively behind a Democrat. You know, all these Hollywood liberals who cares about they're out at touch,
blah blah blah. The minute one of them even shows like a sliver of interest in their party or their positions. They're falling all over themselves in Oh the Rock.
He really knows what he's talking about here.
He's got his finger on the pul It is kind of funny to me, but ultimately, I think the whole situation is relatively inconsequential outside of the vibes of It's just not cool in any respect to be a Biden supporter. But you know, it's not like Biden really based his presidential campaign last time around on any sort of cool factory. Didn't have that like Obama rock star vibe. It was just like, all right, well, I guess you know, Trump sucks, so this is the guy we got. What are we
going to do? That's what he's betting on again. He's got more baggage this time around. People unhappy about the economy, people you know, young people obviously tortured and horrified by his Israel power policy. Progressives as well. He's got a lot of issues here. I don't think the Rock is probably chief among them.
Yep, fair enough, All right, let's go on to RFK. There was a lot of consternation yesterday. RFK Junior, a New York state staffer for the RFK Junior campaign, was caught on video appearing to say that the RFK Junior campaign really was a front to trying to hurt Joe Biden and to help Donald Trump get elected. And ensuing drama happened with Democrats saying see, we told you so about RFK Junior, and then RFK Junior's own campaign then disavowing her.
But here's what she initially had to say.
So there's no Biden voters in the house, right No, okay? Good things I guess will change over time because you do have to only pick one candidate at the end of the day. But the Kennedy voter and the Trump voter the enemy mutual enemy is Biden. Since Biden is counting on us with Bobby in the mix, my thought is for the Republicans, see Bobby right now. Now, he's pulling from both sides. Right now, he's actually pulling a little bit more from Biden, which explains why the DNC
is kind of ganging up on him. Most of the Northeast is going to go blue. Why wouldn't we put our vote to Bobby and at least get rid of Biden and get those twenty eight electoral votes in New York. The card's a little wrong. It says twenty six electoral votes. Give those twenty eight electoral votes to Bobby rather than to Biden. Who are they going to pick? If it's a Republican Congress, they'll pitch Trump. So we're we're rid of Biden either way. Does everybody follow that?
Okay?
Okay, So this got a lot of attention because it was immediately picked up and it was clipped and it was put out there by Democrats. They're like, this is evidence, you know, one hundred percent that the entire RFK Junior campaign is a plant to try and to elect Donald Trump.
He's a spoiler. That's what everybody had to say.
But you and I were discussing this afterwards, before we even get to the polling, and I was like, you know, it just seems like RFK Junior has a lot of hanger honors onto his campaign. I mean, it's not exactly the most well oiled machine. At least what we've been able to see so far, and it is clear. I
mean it's true too from some of his donors. Some people who support him are trying to do it as a supporter, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that is what he is trying to do, and in fact, there's not actually a lot of evidence to support that.
So what do you think, Crystal, So, first of all, the comments are very unfortunate for they fuel be good good. She's so clear, you know, when you listen to it, she's like, all right, none of us are Biden supporters. Can She even suggests that if you want to help Trump, go volunteer and canvas in Pennsylvania. But if you're in New York, you know Trump can't win in New York. So the way to help Trump is to vote for RFK Junior. This lady had a PowerPoint made up, she
had literature she was distributing. She's been posting the same stuff on our social media too, by the way, And it's not like this is an inconsequential person. She's the director for the RFK Junior campaign in the state of New York. She's apparently been brought on in particular to try to obtain ballot access in the state of New York. So she's busy trying to collect signatures to get him
on the ballot. So that's what she's you know. In addition to this little spiel that she was giving, she even sent out a hashtag that was like hashtag block Biden. I mean, it's just as overt as you could possibly be. So it's a problem for the RFK Junior people because of course the Democrats are going to seize on this. They've been trying to make the case that RFK Junior is just a spoiler trying to get Trump elected. That's really what he's in the game, that's what it's all about.
And so you know, I can't blame them for seizing on this and saying, see, look, I told you so here she is out, you know, saying the quiet part out loud in the open, and then they can point to whatever previous Trump donors who are now giving to RFK Junior and say case closed, this guy really is just a trojan horse to try to get Trump reelected. Now, the reason why I don't actually think that that is
the case. I think she's you know, as I said last time we discussed this issue, I don't doubt that there are people affiliated with RFK Junior donors potentially backing RFK Junior who have that logic in mind. But I don't actually think that that's what he personally is up to, because if you were running to try to take votes away from Joe Biden, you would position yourself a lot differently than how he is. Most of the issues he's
led with code as right wing. That's why he has a much higher approval rating with Republicans than he does for Democrats. When I look through his Twitter timeline, more of his criticism was lobbed against Joe Biden. Now you might think, oh, see, that proves that he really is against Joe Biden. But actually, if you're trying to win over Joe Biden voters, he'd be a little more friendly towards Joe Biden. You would position yourself more in the
anti Trump lane. That would be the way to get more anti Trump people who are disaffected with Joe Biden into your camp. So, if the goal is to be a spoiler to try to get Trump elected, I think he's doing a very poor job of that. Frankly, I still think it's very likely at the end of the day, and there are multiple poles by the way that you know that, even at this early stage, bear this out.
In spite of his name being Kennedy, the fact that his approval rating is so much higher for Republicans leads me to believe that at best it's a jump ball. And it is also possible that he at the end of the day does take more votes away from Donald Trump. So that's why, even though these comments are very clear and very hard to dispute, I actually do think that this is kind of a one off, you know person. I think she's hired as a consultant, freelancing saying her
own thing. Maybe she got approval from the RFK Junior campaign to say, to advocate for him, however she feels fit. I don't doubt that there was that level of like coordination and connectivity here. But I'm not convinced that this is the central goal and mission of the RFK Junior camp because if it was, I believe they would be positioning themselves in a much different way than they actually are.
That's exactly right.
Yeah, he would be attacking Trump and to try and be friendly to buy I mean, and let's put this up there on the screen too, just to highlight this, if you take a look at what it looks like for polling whenever you include RFK Junior, it is Trump and Biden who are tied at thirty eight percent with
third parties that are mentioned. But I should also note that while Yes, Kennedy may be pulling away some votes from Joe Biden, we are still seeing that Biden has a major problem with people like Jill Stein, other not Sure Cornell West. The third party challengers go far, far beyond just the RFK junior question. And we have seen also some polling where we've seen a reduction from RFKJ or voters that pull away from Trump and can actually limit Trump's cap of vote and make it easier for
Joe Biden. Let's say, if other more left wing challengers are not there on the ballot, so does it inject some chaos in there, absolutely, but that does not necessarily prove what a lot of what she is saying. Let's put this up there too on the screen though, As we said, Democrats, and this is a former Pete buddhaj Edge campaign manager, Liz Smith, Democratic Operative. Her job these days is appeared to go after RFK Junior. She's saying RFK Junior is a spoiler for Trump. He was urged
by to run by Trump balies like Steve Biden. He's being propped up by Trump's largest donor. His campaign now caught on tape saying that their top goal is to stop Joe Biden. RFK Junior's campaign had a response to this that we can go and put there up on the screen.
Let's go ahead and read Amaryllis Fox. She says.
As an independent movement, our supporters, volunteers, and field organizers come from all sides of the political spectrum. Rita Palma was hired a couple of weeks ago as a ballot access consultant responsible for scheduling volunteer shifts during our upcoming signature drive in the Empire State. She has no involvement in or access to electoral strategy nationally or in New York. The video circulating was not taken at a campaign event.
She was speaking as a private citizens, and her statements in no way reflect the campaign strategy, the sole aim of which is to win the White House with votes from former Trump and Biden's supporters alike. We're looking into whether any misrepresentations were made and our campaign champion's freedom of speech for all of our supporters. So it really does kind of hit home exactly what you were saying.
This is somebody who was hired for ballid Access. Maybe she has a you know, a private, you know, reason for signing on to the ballid access. Good drive for RFK Junior. But you know, at the end of the day, so what like, you got to get people to actually come and vote for you. And that's something that these Democratic operatives and even the Trump people who attack RFK Junior, they never quite seem to get there.
At the end of the day. You should just convince people to vote for you. It's that simple.
Yeah, well that is really the most important point is you know, instead of having this oh who's thet spoiler for et cetera, et cetera, it's like, all right, well, just you know, if you're a candidate for president, do better win offer an agenda for the American people that actually resonates with them, and you won't have to worry about Bobby Kennedy or Cornell West or Jill Stein or you know whoever the libertarian candidate ends up, which might also be RFK Junior.
I don't know, and you'll be fine.
Just go out and like actually win voters over and you'll be good to go. But yeah, Liz Smiths, actually they've they've realized at the White House they've got a problem with the third party vote. And I think they have an even bigger problem with the third party vote now that Joe Biden is enabling a genocide in the Gaza strip because young voters are typically more open to voting third party to begin with, and now he's got a massive issue with young voters, voters who are just
absolutely disgusted with him. Now RFK Junior is just as aggressive on Israel, if not more than Joe Biden. But you know, Cornell West Jill Stein is very likely to have ballot access in many states as Green Party nominee. You know, they've got their act together in that regard. In fact, out of the three candidates, she's the one with the clearest path to being on the most ballots
in the most states. So they've affirmatively hired Liz Smith to run their operation of trying to undercut anyone who is running third party and try to shame and cajole any voter who's considering voting third party because they realize they do have this issue and that pole that we put up earlier.
It actually was kind of a good poll for Joe Biden.
The top line without the third party candidates had him leading Trump by three. I believe that's either inside the margin of error or just outside of it. But it was actually the best result for Joe Biden in that poll in quite a while. So it was a good poll for him. But then when you add in all of the third party candidates, then you know Trump then is basically tied with him or has the narrow edge.
So it is a big problem for Joe Biden. I'm not sure that RFK Junior himself is going to be a negative factor for Biden, but there there's a lot of jockeying with the Biden campaign and with the Trump campaign to try to persuade voters like, no, he's really a liberal, No, he's really a right wing and I think some of the supporters of RFK Junior ranging the political spectrum reflects the confusion around what his true political identity.
Let's move on now to the sclerotic US economy, and there is a major flashing red sign as to how and what people are doing to make a lot of money. It's actually a pretty good indicator of what our society rewards. Let's go and put this up there on the screen, and it turns out that none of the Forbes billionaires who are under the age of thirty are self made
for the very first time in fifteen years. So since two thousand and nine, there has always been a member of the under thirty Forbes billionaires who actually generated their massive wealth on their own by starting their own company. The statistic is due to many of the past self made billionaires aging into their thirties, but they are not being replaced by others in a similar financial situation, and in fact, hefty inheritances are now starting what is the
Outlet is calling the long anticipated generational wealth transfer. The world's youngest billionaire is in nineteen year old in Brazil college student with a net worth of one point one billion, who has a minority steak in her late grandfather's electrical equipment company, accompanied by her older sister who also holds a minority steak, accompanied by a pair of twenty somethings from Ireland who have a networth of about five billion
each same thing family money. You've got the sons of former Tata Group founders as well, same thing, inheriting their I think their grandfather maybe great grandfathers minority steak in their company.
I think the list can go on and on.
In every single case, every billionaire who is under the age of thirty has inherited wealth. On top of that, if you actually take a look at the overall list, it is striking to me that the world's richest man is no longer a Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, who say what you want, they actually started their own companies. It is LVMH, the head of LVMH, the guy who sells luxury goods like Louis Vuitton and others, basically selling it to middle class folks in order to flash wealth around.
That is now the most valuable and richest person on earth. So the reason we wanted to spend some time on this, I think crystal is this is the sign of a sclerotic economy. Many of the previous self made billionaires in their twenties and others in the twenty tens, where people like Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey or the other tech founders. You may criticize those companies and the creation now, but at that time it was genuinely entrepreneurial and it was adding a lot, at least in GDP wise to the
US economy. But we don't even have that anymore for the very first time now. And it's not just here, it's all across the globe because America is the leader now. It's even if you look at the new entrance to the Forbes list, it's all private equity guys, financialization and hedge fund traders. Those people would disappear tomorrow and not a single one of us would know in terms of the economy. Not the same with Amazon, not the same with Tesla. But that's what's actually being rewarded right now.
Yeah, that's so true.
And I do think it's noteworthy that most of these young billionaires they're not even inheriting the money from their parents, they're inheriting from their grandparents. Like so it shows you that this trend has been we've been headed in this direction for quite a while.
And you know, it ties in.
With also some of the corporate failures that we see, like it Boeing, where even within a large established corporation, it's not innovation that's rewarded by the market. It is financialization, it's cutting costs, it's union busting, it's you know, pretending like you're a Wall Street stock trader instead of a company making planes. It's putting Nikki Haley on your corporate board and all of the you know, the direction that
that entails. That's the reality of our economy now. And so many of the quote unquote best and bright is you know, the people who have abnormal skills in terms of science and math, et cetera. So many of them decided that the way that they could make it big was go to Wall Street and become you know, glorified gamblers. And even at the corporate level, it's not like corporations have really been competing to.
Offer the best product.
They've been competing to gain the system and generate anti competitive advantages. You know, that is one thing the Bide administration is doing that I support, is trying to roll some of that back and force a more actually competitive marketplace versus what CEOs now are rewarded for is how can I rig the market? How can it create a monopoly so that workers and consumers have no choice? You know, that's reflected in the fact that you have very little innovation across the economy.
That's just not the thing that's rewarded.
And then the other thing that is very reflective here, especially in American context, But as you said, Sager, and you know, for better or worse, America really sets the stage for the rules of the game economically around the world.
You've had now years of very low taxation rates and especially these gigantic loopholes where you can pass these large fortunes from generation to generation with very little in the way of taxes being paid back into the societies that you come from, especially in an American context, and so you build these massive pots of generational wealth that get hoarded and you know, very little shared with the rest
of society. So we've got this massive, almost unparalleled, historically historically inequality, levels of inequality, and you know, this is some of the sclerotic, ossified results that you end up getting at the end of the day.
Yeah, it's very it's very bad.
And it's one of those where if we are having i mean, look it's a lead again, it's who is getting rewarded. Like if you're a very ambitious person and you're going to college and you're looking out there. Uh pre A lot of people were inspired in the twenty tens. They're like, I'm going to go start my own company. Well, if you're looking at this and nobody's even getting rich starting their own companies.
You're like, well, should I do that?
Or should just go work at a safe job where I can work from home make a relatively upper middle class salary.
That's not really something that you want to reward.
Or worse, you're like, well, if the only way to become a billionaire is to go work on Wall Street, so be it. That's just the way things are right now, let's put this up there on the screen. This is similar to the conversation here. Business Insider writing quote millennials
in gen Z's trendy new splurge is groceries. They say that younger generations are now spending more on groceries than other categories, according to a McKinsey report, and according I mean, look, I would take what McKenzie says with a grain of salt, but here, at the very least, what they are saying is that the increase in grocery prices that are we've seen with inflation are being disproportionately felt then by people who are in the lower end of the income spectrum
and not at the height of their earning potential, and that they are having to spend more on groceries simply in order to maintain like a medium.
Quality of life.
You can take it the other way I've seen previously. People will be like, oh, well, this is like the new avocado toast. Criticism of the millennials are like, oh, there's spending fourteen dollars. It's like, oh, they're spending too much money on groceries. But if you think about it, you know this is something. Spending more on groceries actually indicates that you're eating out much less, which is already
a significant behavioral change from where things were previously. So it's like, if you spend money on going to brunch here to being criticized. Now, if you spend money buying food, maybe even marginally better food than you previously would have done, to still try and save money from eating out and to have some enjoyment in your life, you're also being criticized here.
Yeah.
I love the way that they are framing this as some sort of like decadence that you're eating how dare you spend money on groceries? It's to your point. Yeah, that's the advice anytime there's like a financial call, how do I save money?
Et cetera.
So one of the first things they say is stop eating out, eat at home, and then they do that, and then they're.
Criticized for that as well.
Not to mention, you know, the bottom line here is that millennials and Gen Z have been able to build much less wealth than the boomers, so they've been hit much harder by inflation. You know, it's still the case that your groceries, the same basket of groceries cost four hundred and forty five dollars more a month to purchase versus a year ago. So even as we have this conversation, oh,
inflation is coming down, it's not as bad as usual. Well, the prices are still really high, and none of these corporations are going to bring them down on their own, because why would they. They're making record break and profits. So yeah, I just think it's it's amazing the ways that news organizations find to smear people or you know, even indulging in like the most basic of luxuries, oh, an extra snack item at Trader Joe's is one of the things that they mentioned in this article, and now
you're being basically smared for that. And at the same time, you can trast that with these billionaire millennials and zoomers who inherited it all from mommy and daddy, and you see the massive gulf that has emerged between you know, people who did absolutely nothing to quote unquote earn their station in life, will never have to worry about money, will pass their billions down to their kids and their grandkids.
And the zoomers and millennials who didn't have mommy and Daddy's bank account backing them, and the way that they have really struggled to be able to get a foothold and just to be able to make it on a basic level.
Yeah, and we can also see how the grocery thing is actually fitting into an overall trend of reduction in lifestyle. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. This is from a new report from redfin showing what renters and homeowners are skipping essentials like meals in medicata care to try and keep a roof over their head. So they say, the top sacrifices that people have made
recently in order to afford housing. Keep in mind this is not just people who are homeowners, but this also includes renters where we've seen a major spike in rental prices.
They say took no or fewer vacations. You've got thirty four percent of people who are saying that skipped meals is twenty two percent worked, additional hours, shifts at my job is twenty percent, sold, My belongings is twenty Borrowed money from friends or family that I will pay back eighteen percent, dipped into retirement savings eighteen percent, delayed or
skipped healthcare and medical treatments fifteen percent worked. An extra job is fifteen worked a side hustle like food delivery fourteen percent, and receive money from friends or family that is not expected to be paid back is fourteen percent. So overall, across the board, you're seeing a reduction in lifestyle, skipping meals, having to work additional hours. Now, I have no problem with some of these things if it is to save up for something which is a luxury, or
to upgrade your lifestyle. But them here is that this is just retention of lifestyle. It's to live exactly the same life, So you have to live the exact same life that you were living four or five years ago, but you actually have to give up a lot of things to just maintain that. That's not the way that things were supposed to go on an upward trajectory. You're working a side hustle so that you can move into
a bigger house. Cool, I think that's awesome. But having to work a side hustle or something like that so you continue to make rent in the same place that you've been living for five to ten years with no hope of being able to buy a house. That's a very very different story. And that's actually what comes across to me in some of this data.
Yeah, housing is so key is such a central part of this story too, because really the top line from this piece is that they found that half of renters and homeowners are struggling to afford their monthly housing payments.
I mean, it's just it's.
Insane just to have a roof over your head, and not like any sort of luxurious fashion, but just a roof over your head. People are having to skip meals. People who are working full time on all the things right, and by the way, you know, if they went to college and did that thing that they were told to do. They've also got these giant debt payments hanging over them
from the jump when they start their careers. And then, to add insult to injury, they got to be smeared when they quote unquote splurge on the trendy new thing buying groceries. So, you know, we've said this a lot of time. We've got another story here about housing that
is really important. But this is such a central determinant over whether or not people have sort of a basic, stable, not even luxury, but just stable lifestyle, able to eat meals on a regular basis, able to, oh my god, actually maybe go on a vacation once a year.
Imagine that.
And the fact that housing is so extraordinarily high in so many places with no signs of abating, has really stolen those sorts of you know, simple splourage is simple luxuries, basic living standards from entire generations.
At this point, there.
Has been some significant change in the investors moving into the real estate market. We'll go ahead and skip ahead, guys to the second part here. We'll put the Bloomberg tear sheet up, please, which is C five. We are seeing Blackstone. This is a deal just announced yesterday, which is part of the reason I really wanted to make sure that we got this is at Blackstone, the major investment group is now signing a ten billion dollars deal. Quote is the latest bet that property is near lows.
The firm will acquire the real estate owner apartment income rate. They're planning now to invest four hundred million dollars into the portfolio. So the reason that it matters is that we're seeing continually gobbling up more and more shares by institutional capital into apartment into real estate and basically into the housing market. This is increasing now to a point where what we are seeing is that this bet that single family landlords and others can be rolled up to
create consistent rental income that is coming to you. They can try and reduce the services. It's a basic economy of scale argument. But the reason it matters is that this is one of the largest real estate managers in the entire US that wants to continue to invest in property and to roll up said income. And it actually comes at the exact same time that we have seen the apartment landlord air that they now acquired, that there's been more investors than ever that are moving into the market.
So we actually have some interesting Redfin data that came out just last month. It shows that investors bought some twenty six percent of the country's most affordable homes in the fourth quarter. That is the highest share on record. They say that elevated home prices and mortgage rates, which sluggish rents have made low price is increasingly attractive now to investors. Investors bought eighteen percent of all homes that's sold in the fourth quarter, slightly up from a year before.
Overall investor home purchase had dropped a bit from the year earlier, but still maintain the highest share than ever before on record. And especially it is in Florida in California that investors are hungry from homes and are still just not able to find properties to purchase from an increase housing shortage. So you've got the shortage, you've got the highest number of shares on record. Some of these
may be small time investors. I don't necessarily think is a problem with that, but whenever you reach the ten billion dollar level, then I think we're looking at a very significant problem. And now we're looking at a point where if you're renting in this country in the future, especially in a big city, there's a good chance that your landlord is a large.
Private equity organization and you may not even know it.
That's right, and they're making it more difficult for people to get their first foot on that ladder of home ownership, which is really a central dividing line in American society between haves and have nots. Are you a homeowner, are you able to build that basic wealth for yourself and
for your family moving forward or not? And so buying somewhat fewer homes because there are less homes to buy, but as you pointed out, as a share of all of the homes that are being purchased, their share continues to go up, and it makes sense from a capitalist perspective. Part of the reason why people are struggling to be able to afford a home right now, in addition to the astronomical prices themselves, is, of course mortgage rates are
up from where they were previously. That doesn't impact these large institutional investors as much because they're buying large not getting mortgages. They're coming in with all cash now. The interest rates still affect them.
In other ways.
They take out loans for other things, potentially the costs of flip in the house, et cetera. So it impacts them some, but they're at a massive advantage because they can pay all cash and not have to worry about the cost of those high mortgage interest rates. So it's a huge disadvantage for just regular people who are trying to buy a house, and really will will be one of the most consequential developments you can imagine in terms of, you know, the how the economy shapes up moving forward.
We've also covered here the way that these companies increasingly use algorithms to basically rig the market and the facto and this is, you know, the legal allegation actually is that they're de facto colluding with each other to artificially lift rent prices in a lot of markets across the country. And there's also a lot of documentation about how these large landlords, I mean, they're impersonal, they're anonymous, they never
have to look you in the face. They have to look you in the eye when they're kicking you and your kids out your apartment, or when they're jacking up the rent to make it so that you're having to skip meals and you know, can never even imagine going
out to eat or going on a vacation. They don't have to look you in the eye when they're doing that, so they're perfectly happy to squeeze you for absolutely everything you're worth, to delay maintenance to basically you know, in some instances, as documented, actually have your living conditions be unsafe if they can possibly get away with it. So it really is a nightmare scenario in a lot of ways.
One of the things that we were talking about yesterday is how this divide between the housing halves, the how ownership in terms of ownership the haves versus the have nots, may also be driving some of the political voting behavior
that we're seeing that's otherwise head scratching. So why is it that older voters, at least according to some polls, and let's take it all with a grain of salt, but some older voters seem to be more favorable towards Joe Biden, whereas younger voters, who have been moving left and voting more and more democratic in the modern era, have been moving away from him. You'd be hard pressed to find a story that doesn't fit better than this story of housing haves and have nots. Younger voters by
and large haven't been able to purchase homes. They're struggling, and the economy has made it very difficult for them. If you're a boomer and you have your home or your silent gen and you have your home and you're building all this wealth, and you've seen your housing price, do nothing, go up and up and up and increase your wealth. You don't care that market interest rates are high. You're doing just fine. This economy is actually working pretty
well for you. So that could actually be a really key political dynamic that's largely ignored that's playing out right now in this election before our eyes.
I definitely think you're right. And it's interesting too.
I was just noting from one of my notes I forgot to mention, is that this Blackstone deal is just a continued acceleration. They had just done a three point five billion dollar deal to take a company called Tricon private, which has some thirty one thousand single family residents across the US and Canada. Now this adds thousands of more apartments. So when we consider the have nots and others, the entrance of all of this in we've got to find
some sort of regulatory solution we've highlighted here previously. There are some state local efforts actually to try and to keep large institutional capital outside of the real estate market and not allow them either to own large segments of single family house or to not allow them to at least be the first bidder. But we haven't seen anything
be taken up like that on the national level. I think whoever is willing to do it, if you can get housing prices in this country or at very least rental income and all that down in this country, or even stable, I think some people would be happy with that. That person would have a political winner on their hands. But it's just not in our lexicon right now. Luckily, some states are doing it.
Yeah, there is a little bit of a conversation happening in Congress, but it doesn't seem to have nearly the national momentum that it does because, let's be honest, there are a lot of powerful, wealthy interests that are rayed against it, and that's always going to make it difficult to be able to get something through the Congress. Let's go on move to another business story that is kind of funny, to be honest with you pit this up on the screen.
So you may.
Recall that Amazon rolled down with great fanfare these quote unquote just walk out grocery stores where you go in you just put the stuff in your car. They allegedly had this high tech that was scanning things as you're replacing them in your car. You walk out, it charges your card, you get your receipt, you're done.
You don't even have to go through a checkout line.
Well, they just announced that they're killing this just walkout tech, and the reason is because it never actually really worked in reality, This you know, sophisticated AI et cetera, et cetera, was really powered by somewhere around one thousand human beings who were watching and checking what you were putting in your basket and making sure that you were getting charged for the right things, who were based in India. So shoppers were reporting, you can come back up on me.
At this point, shoppers were reporting that they weren't getting their receipts for hours and hours, and like, what is going on here? Now? Listen, it's always in any sort of AI model you have to use human beings at the beginning to help the system learn. But apparently the
tech was so clunky. It really wasn't learning. They were continuing to have to rely on human beings surveilling you as you shop and having all sorts of problems with the design of the store and having to make sure everything is precisely in place or else it didn't really work out. I bet there was a high mistake rate as well, if you're having to rely on these sort of like you know, tech cluges and human being reviewers
in order to make this work. So ultimately, the idea of this just walkout technology was basically a fantasy and a fairy tale. And I think it kind of tied in with what we were talking about earlier how all of these companies have moved more towards you know, financialization than actual innovation because apparently they didn't have the chops to get this thing to work.
Yeah, this is actually hilarious because there was one here in d C. And I actually went to one, and the entire experience it was exactly as you said. I didn't get the receipt for a long time, and I just wanted to try it and I'll just see how it was. The whole thing actually felt very creepy, and I'm very glad that the technology was not nearly as dystopian as they made it out to be.
It wasn't AI.
It was just a bunch of guys in India and Bangladesh reviewing footage then ringing it up, and like you said, there's a huge amount of human error that can then result in it. The funny thing is, too, now that they are closing, they have blockbuster deals if you have, by the way, been able to take advantage of this.
For example, they're selling.
Like olive oil, like a leader of olive oil right now in DC for like two dollars, So people are just going through and stocking up taking advantage.
So if you have one in your area, I highly recommend they take it.
Knowledge of that, guys, this is the place.
It's an expensive place. It's expensive.
I think people were getting roused sauce as well, but this does highlight I'm.
Not really a fan of that.
But anyway, godhead, I've never even had it. Apparently it's expensive. Okay, that's apparently what I've been told. This is when our producer found which is amazing.
Let's put this up there on the screen where you have a cashier at a I think it's a coffee shop there that is zooming into New York City to help you with your transaction from the Philippines.
And apparently though, this is not.
The first time that this type of technology has been debuted, and there's a lot of various self service type places where if you do need a little bit of a human help, you can have somebody zoom on the screen there that actually can help you ring them up. They have some security features and others where they can help open the door for you and all that. But you can pay them only five to six dollars per hour
to operate like that. So why wouldn't you try and take advantage of your you know, in one of these types of businesses as opposed to paying a actual human being that is there. Now, look, I still think it's creepy and it won't necessarily take off, but if enough people do it, and if they could refine the tech into some sort of I don't know, like a hologram or a bigger screen or something. Maybe they need a screen as big as hours that's over here, they could make it work.
It is just clear though.
That things you know, we're promised AI and all this awesome future of the Jetsons.
It's just a lot more dystopian than that.
Yeah, it's being used to make life shittier, not better, by and large, you know, with exceptions. Soccer likes his Apple Vision pro thing, right, that's tease for future. We got a little update on that for you guys. But the company, according to the gentleman who tweeted this ount, who has a substack by the way, is called Happy Cashier. It's apparently operating in five different Asian fast food places
in New York City. And so, yeah, when you're doing yourself checkout situation, which of course now has become totally commonplace in all sorts of different restaurants, CVS, gircure.
Store, whatever.
If you're doing that you have trouble, I guess that's when you get the call in, the zoom call in from the Philippines to assist you with your transaction. It's not only any different than we've all become very accustomed to the fact that call centers are so many of them are outsourced that when you're talking to someone trying to solve whatever problem you have on the phone, these
people are likely dialing in from another location. But it does show you that, you know, the idea that service sector work would be immune from certainly from technology, we already know that is not the case, but from offshoring is obviously not true as well, because hey, why not why pay an American worker, you know, higher minimum wage and have to deal with labor standards when you can get someone who's less expensive overseas and you know, who
really cares about labor standards From the company's perspective, who really cares about customer experience? If all of my competitors are going to do the same thing, you're not really going to have any choice anyway.
So there you go.
Absolutely, this ties in with something that is unfolding in California, which we covered previously. You guys might recall they have established a fast food industry Council in California that uses something called sectoral bargaining to basically set standards throughout that industry or workers in terms of safety, in terms of wages, in terms of hours, kind of every aspect of the
working environment. This is similar to a model that's used more commonly in other countries, where it's almost in lieu of it's in lieu of shop by shop unions. You set one single standard for the entire industry. Then everybody's competing on the same level. You have representatives of business and workers who are on the council, and so they come to some support of agreement. Okay, so that's the backstory.
So California, as part of this Workers Council, they establish a twenty dollars per hour minimum wage for fast food workers. And this is not your little mom and pop small businesses. These are large chains that have been doing quite well, that have record breaking profits in many instances where you know they can theoretically afford this level of labor cost.
So this came up as a conversation on the PbD podcast with guest Jesse Waters making some interesting comments about what he thinks McDonald workers should earn.
Let's take a listen to that.
See if you can do this in your head, you probably can. If you're making twenty dollars an hour to work at a fast food restaurant, right, is that is that six figures?
Are you making? Fifty is just to exit a few zeros? Okay? So forty k years?
Okay, well forty k years so and then if your husband or wife is also there, you're making one hundred thousand dollars as a family. Sure, both working at McDonald's eighty g That is okay, that's crazy. That is crazy because that job really doesn't require much. So it's inflating the entire you know, uh, labor sector and the happy meal and the happy meal unhappy, which I'm very unhappy about. But I believe Gavin Newsom will be president one day. The man is smooth. He's already currying up to the
Republican side. You saw him go on Hannity. He dive bombed a couple of Fox News events.
He's savvy, so a lot there soccer.
But first of all, the attempted math where he thinks, first of all, that twenty dollars hour is gonna night you six figures. That's his first initial reaction was like, dude, what? And then then you try living on forty thousand dollars in La Jesse waters and tell me how that goes? Even eight thousand dollars. You got kids, a whole family,
You tell me how easy that is to do. And then for someone whose whole job is like us to sit on their asses in front of a microphone to be saying that McDonald's workers it doesn't require much for them to do this job. It's just complete nonsense. They're adding way more tangible value and doing a lot more
difficult work in this economy than you are. So for him to sell, it's crazy for them to earn forty K a year for working full time and still at forty K a year, I guarantee you're gonna be rent burden. I guarantee you're gonna struggling to make ends meet. It's just what a bubble, What a bubble you are living in.
So I've got some math here in front of me. Jesse, do this one.
In my head, it was a little bit easier, So twenty dollars per hour. I'm going to assume this is a single filer in the state of California, forty one thousand, six hundred dollars working forty hours per week. After tax, you are netting thirty four thousand, three hundred and fifty dollars, which means that your monthly take home pay is two thousand,
eight hundred and thirty three bucks. The average rent fair market rent for a residential rental property in California today as of twenty twenty four, is two thousand, three hundred and.
Forty five dollars.
So if we take twenty eight hundred and we minus it by twenty three forty five, you have approximately three to four hundred bucks that is left over to pay for health insurance presumably that's not included here, to pay for gas because you're living in the state of California, we're talking about five six dollars a gallon depending on that, and you're driving a lot, you have to pay for internet, phone bill.
Do you have a single dollar left over at the end of the month.
If you're living on thirty four k a year take home, you're a single guy who is and you're working here at McDonald's, you are barely able to survive, and most likely statistically you're going to be significantly in debt, credit card debt specifically. So what do we learn from that
that's actually not a quote unquote livable wage. I completely understand here by the way, people who have concerns around minimum wage inflation and all of that, But what they ignore in the state of California is that we're talking here one about the sectoral bargaining that was put in place by the workers to achieve this, But two is that we already have an incredibly high rental market standard of living in others at a baseline level, which makes
it where the past minimum wage was not even close to being able to get you there.
So, if you put it in the context that I just.
Gave you, you can't help but take away that if you were working in one of these jobs that it's almost, i would say, basically impossible to quote unquote survive thirty four thousand dollars a year. You'd have to work a shitload of overtime, or you're going to have to do uber uber eats or something like that in order to supplement your income, and you are still not making a lot of money. To keep this in mind, people are doing uber eats and all this other stuff, are taking
a ton of depreciation on their cars. I think they have to pay extra fees. Could they have higher car insurance rates. There's a lot of phantom costs that come into any of these quote unquote side hustles too, So I would just again illustrate that it's not even close to six figures. Even as he is talking about if you have two people who work at McDonald's forty dollars an hour, that's going to be eighty three thousand dollars
a year take home pay after tax. That is roughly the national average for a household here in the US, but national average in California.
That's not going to cut it.
You need to be making one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to be living a seventy thousand dollars life on a national average in the state of California. So you're mostly below actually where you need to be.
Yeah, and God forbid, you have kids, right, and are trying to, you know, afford that. I imagine on a single salary, trying to be a single mom and on twenty bucks an hour in California. Forget about it. I just can't take the classism of this. You know, Oh, they don't they don't work hard. There's not much involved here. Have you ever worked a fast food job. This was not an easy job. It's actually a very demanding job.
And so this condescending notion that you know, Jesse Waters is working so much hard, contributing so.
Much more than I'm a McDonald's worker.
I just find that whole worldview to be so grotesque. I you know, maybe I'm old fashioned. I think if you are an adult, work in full time. You should be able to afford to live, to have an apartment and eat three meals a day. That's just me. I think that's where we should be. So the reality is twenty dollars an hour and many places in California still doesn't get you there.
But at least it's an improvement. We can put this up on the screen.
Some more details from the LA Times about what was passed in California. I sort of already went through this, but it says you're to California is new twenty dollars now a minimum wage for fast food workers. The pay increase was established by Assembly Bill twelve twenty eight. It applies to California and fast food workers employed by any chain with more than sixty locations nationwide.
Covers corporate owned and franchise location.
The state has more than four five hundred and forty thousand fast food workers, about one hundred and ninety five thousand of them in LA and Orange County, according to twenty twenty two figures. By the way, the previous minimum wage was sixteen dollars an hour, so they're getting a four dollars increase, which you know, I'm sure is significant for a lot of people, but is probably not going
to be life changing. Like I said, they probably need a significantly higher wage increase to actually be able to live in LA and in San Francisco and other parts of the state of California. And then the last thing that I pulled Sager is I looked up McDonald's annual grost profit to see, you know, whether or not they could weather this storm of the increased wage costs, which, again I want to remind you this wasn't set by the workers themselves. This was set through a council and
through a negotiated process that included these businesses. By the way, but McDonald's annual gross profit for twenty twenty three was fourteen point five to six billion.
That was a ten percent increase over the year before.
Twenty twenty two's profit was a five percent increase from the year before. Twenty twenty one's profit was a twenty nine percent increase from the year before. So if you look at the trend, McDonald's is doing okay. They're workers not so much so, God bless them. I hope that this helps make life a little bit easier for them as they're working hard in there.
Well, and let's not forget about the Panera bread bread exception that we are previously, which.
Is that's a real outrage.
Yeah, so to remind you, there was a specific carve ount. Turns out Newsom as buddies with the big Panera franchise holder in the state of California, and so they made this specific car ount in the legislation where if you have a bakery involved in your fast enterprise for some reason, undefined reason, this doesn't count for you. So Panera gets this, you know, just total corporate carve ound. That's the real outrage here, not that any of those workers aren't making
more money. It's that the Panera workers are getting screwed.
Well, actually, Crystal Pair, I just checked just to make sure it was. After the outrage, they then were like, okay, we will comply with the minimum wage law, but legally they still had no but only because that that story went viral, including on our channel and I think across the state of California, and people said this is complete bullshit that they said, okay, okay, we will raise.
Our minimum wage two twenty dollars an hour.
So in some ways it's a hopeful story where they can try and be corrupt, but if they get caught doing it, then guess what they're actually going to have to They're actually going to have to come into compliance.
So I'm actually somewhat pleasantly surprised by that.
So in spite of the fact that the IDF has actually withdrawn from southern Gaza at this point, BB making a clear yesterday the planned invasion will go forward. We could put this up on the screen. He was speaking in Hebrew here, which isn't all that useful for me at least, So I'll read you part of what he said. He said, today I received a detailed report on the
talks in Cairo. We are working all the time to achieve our goals, primarily the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas, whatever that means. This victory requires entry into Rafa and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. He goes on to say, it will happen. There is a date. This noteworthy for a
lot of reasons. Obviously, as we've covered before, you have over a million Palestinians who have been pushed into Rafa in dire humanitarian conditions, who have been displaced there Rafa up along the border with Egypt. Egypt has been very strongly asserting that they have a major problem with the
idea that the IDF would directly invade Rafa. The US government also so pushing back on the possibility of a Rafa invasion, originally saying hey, this is a red line, then sort of shifting and saying, well, you got to figure out the humanitarian situation first, but still raising a lot of concerns about Rafa. There were further questions after the IDF, as I mentioned before, withdrew from southern Gaza about what this meant.
But BB here.
Sager making it clear there's a date he set on this Rafa invasion, and in a sense I mean for his own political posturing. That always seemed obvious to me that he wasn't going to back off of this because the moment the war ends, the moment there will be a reckoning with him in his political future, and so he can't allow that to happen. Also, the most psycho parts of its coalition are very determined to have this full on onslaught into Rafa.
So that's where we are.
Yeah, we have evidence of that, we can put that up there on the screen. You could see it clear as day. Here we have Ben Gavier. He says, if the Prime Minister decides to end the war without an extensive attack on Rafa, he will not have a mandate to continue serving as Prime Minister, making it as clear as it gets for what is at least what is going on inside of his coalition. But at the same time, Crystal,
we have some developments with the ceasefire. We're getting conflicting news reports, so I'm not exactly sure where we stand.
Yeah, so let's put this up on the screen from CNN. There was a report yesterday. This is actually from Jerusalem Post based on a CNN report, but they said that Hamas rejected the latest hostage deal proposal. You know, they always frame this is like Hamas is the problem, but in reality, there are negotiations going on.
There's a give and take here.
Some of the issues that I've seen reported are you know, there's always this problem of Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire and BB obviously saying, listen, even if we get to some sort of a deal here, it's going to be temporary because we're still going into Rafa. So that's a sticking point. The number of hostages that would be released in the early phases of this potential ceasefire also so appears to be an issue. Israel has been asking for
forty hostages. This is all based on reports in the humanitarian category, meaning not IDF soldiers, and effectively, some of the reports indicate that there aren't forty hostages in that category who remain alive, which is horrifying, you know, and we don't know the circumstances under which they may specifically
have perished. But we're six months into a war that has been characterized by absolute annihilation, destruction, starvation, dehydration, cut off of medical facilities, etc. It's entirely predictable that alongside the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed,
that some of the hostages would perish as well. So this really confirms what a lot of people who were, you know, including the hostage families who've been pushing from the beginning, and some of the hostages themselves after they were released in the early seasefire, saying listen, the way you're conducting this war, you have no idea where these hostages are. You're not keeping them safe. Every day this
goes on is imperiling their lives. And so I think we have, through the number of hostages who have been killed at this point, sad confirmation that at least some of that was really true.
Yeah, it's really unfortunate that they're not being able to even account for a lot of them. As you said, it is predictable considering that many were killed outright, either on the ground or many of them said that they were being bombed. It's possible to and we don't know whether Hamas PIJ any of these other organizations what that level of treatment was like for these existing hostages. It's
obviously a very chaotic situation. These are many of these people could have been malnourished and all this other anyway, it's very devastating. We did, however, see an interesting clip that came out of the US State Department where again the great journalist Matt Lee just presses the State departments person over and over again, where he's like, hey, so if you were able to get aid in this time, why weren't you ever able to do it before? What
is the line? And he's completely exposed here. Let's take a listen.
I will tell you that the step that they are taking now is important, but it's overdue. It should have should have happened months ago. A lot of these steps should have been happened months ago. We're happy that they're happening now, but they need to be increased and they need to be sustained.
So I'll stop after this.
But in recognizing that, often hindsight is twenty twenty.
Shouldn't you have done put the ultimatum?
Or shouldn't the president have done that months ago?
So we have made clear to them for months what we expect them to do, and we have seen and we have seen them take steps at our urging, and some of those steps have been important, but they haven't been sufficient. And all I can say is that we welcome the initials that the initial steps they have taken over the past few days, they represent a dematic improvement, if fully limited. But we're going to judge them ultimately by the results.
So you could see it there right there, Chrysal, We're going to judge by the results. We'll see. But he's unable to answer the very basic question.
Yeah, Democrats have caught themselves in a complete trap here with their nut and Yahoo bear hug strategy. As led by the Biden White House, because their position has been oh, no, Israel's not blocking humanitarian aid, which they had to say because if they acknowledged that Israel was in fact instituting a siege, blocking humanitarian aid using starvation as a weapon of war, then under our laws we would not be able to continue transferring weapons to them. So they've had
to deny that reality. Okay, well, now you've actually not even changed your policy, but just threatened up potentially, possibly in some undefined way, change your policy in the future. And lo and behold you get some still inadequate, but notable changes from Israel where it's very apparent, Oh all that they're not blocking humanitarian aid was a complete and total lie. It was a life from the Israelis. It
was a lie from the Americans. So you're caught in this bind of what do we say about this now? How do we position ourselves? How do we acknowledge? Also the reality that we could have done this long before but just chose not to wasn't a problem for us, a sufficient problem for us when we were watching a dozen Palestinian babies die a day from starvation, But when our buddies aid workers whose lives deserve to be honored and cherished as well.
But that that was the line for us.
I mean, it speaks, it speaks volumes, and there's really no way you can get out of the implications of what we've all seen unfold. And I think actually to transition to some notable comments that Elizabeth Warren apparently made last week, and she's in a similar bind here because it's become so undeniable the amount of atrocities that have been committed in front of us, that, especially for democ it's anyone who wants to preserve an image as any
sort of humanitarian they have to acknowledge that. And yet they still haven't shifted from all out both arded policy support of Israel. So let me play these comments from her. She was answering a constituent question I believe this was in Boston about whether or not Israel is committing genocide, and she says, actually, yes, they are, that there is sufficient evidence, ample evidence, I think is the word that she used, that they will be found to be committing
genocide by the International Court of Justice. Let's listen to her specific comments and responses.
Constituent, do you think that Israel is committing a genocide.
So I think that what's happening now is there's going to be alarmed and involved debate over what constitutes genocide. When you ask a legal question, for me, it is far more important to say what Israel.
Is doing is wrong and it isra It is.
Wrong to starve children with a civilian population in order to try them them to your will. It is wrong to drop two thousand pound bombs in densely populated civilian areas.
I think I can.
Make a more effective argument by describing the behavior that is happening and whether I believe it is right or wrong, and look people in the eye and say, do you want to tell me if you think it is right and that it should be the policy of the United States of Americas support those actions. So that's how I analyze this.
Now. I did analyto question, said it was the answer, another facult question was the answer, no question to clarify.
So if you want, if you want to do it as an application of law, I believe they would find
that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do. So. What I'm also trying to tell you is I'm trying to get people past a label's argument which seems to throw out the screen and to get them to look at the behavior on the ground, to get them to look at the children, to get them to look at the mons, the old people and the people have been displaced, at the people who are living outside of the people who are drinking during the water and talk about what
the role of the United States is in connection with supporting.
The meeting the governments. But the people of.
Goes in that physician, so you can hear very clearly there she says, as a matter effectively of international law, I believe they will be found guilty of genocide and believe there is quote ample evidence to support that conclusion. But this raises a lot of uncomfortable questions for Elizabeth Warren because she has supported the Biden policy in terms of how she's voted.
She voted to.
Defund the number one aid organization on the ground in Gaza Unra, which has been essential in terms of, you know, at this present moment and previously as well, getting aid to Gaza's who are now starving to death. So if it's a genocide, you have aided in that genocidal policy. And she has continued to vote in terms of military aid to Israel. So you can see the discomfort in the way that we can put this next piece up
on the screen. Her spokesperson is trying to walk this back a bit, these comments, and I guess sort of nuanced troll on them, she says. In a Q and A Center, Warren commented on the ongoing legal process at the International Court of Justice, not sharing her views on whether genocide is occurring in Gaza. In January, the ICJ found that it is plausible Israel's committed acts that violate.
The Genocide Convention.
As the senator said the mosque, what is far more important than any label that comes out of this legal process is the question of whether it should be the policy of the US to support Israel's actions in Gaza. Center Warren believes from Minister nat Nan and his right wing war cabinet have created a massive humanitarian disaster in Gaza,
have not taken reasonable steps to protect civilians. As she said at the mosque, it is wrong to starve children within a civilian population in order to try to bend to your will. It is wrong to drop two thousand pound bombs in densely populated civilian areas. The Center has worked with her colleagues in Congress to push for a sea spot, the return of hostages, for conditioning aid to Israel, for free flow of humanitarian aid in Gaza, and for movement.
Toward a two state solution.
So you know, even in the interaction, you could tell that she was uncomfortable with having to actually say the word genocide, but also couldn't really get out of it. So now they're trying to walk it back a bit by saying, oh, this isn't really.
Her personal view.
She's just sort of evaluating this process that is unfolding at the International Court of Justice. But I mean they're the one that, from a legal perspective, make the determination. So if you think they have ample evidence that this is the genocide, why are you still supporting a Biden administration policy of aiding and abetting this genocide.
The whole thing is very silly in the way that she handles the question. It's like, lady, either say it or don't. Just put your opinion on the table. Stop trying to tap dance around this. Either you know you voted for it, defend the vote, say you change your mind that you don't believe it, or that you do this is I'll be honest again, I don't use this type of language specifically for this reason. I think international law is fake. I don't think anything it can be
proved or disproven. She's actually returning to her almost like did you notice that her law school route of like, well, if you want to look at the legal question, I'm like, well, this isn't all a question. I mean, I guess it is technically, but it's one of those with no enforcement.
You either support the policy or you don't.
And it's clear too that she is one where she's trying to square it with I think trying to keep progressive credentials or any of that and all that together, and she's just not giving her straight up opinion, which is actually my biggest takeaway, especially two in terms of clear up. If you believe it, then say it, you know, but have the courage to say it.
That's my all I would say.
I actually think that the fact that an Elizabeth Warren feels pressure to acknowledge that there is ample evidence this is a genocide is proof that the ICJ process has actually mattered, because you know, that sort of language, you know, was considered totally outside of the Overton window of mainstream
acceptability early on in this conflict. And I do think that South Africa's case, the fact that the ICJ, overwhelmingly including the American judge by the way, which was kind of shocking, found that there was sufficient evidence here to say, Okay, it's plausible, this case can move forward.
And of course we've.
Continued to see the evidence of not only what was done in terms of the annihilation, but the way that starvation continues to be used as a weapon of war here has made it very difficult for people like AOC, people like Elizabeth Warren, anyone who sees themselves as being a progressive, as being on the left, as being a humanitarian, to avoid the implications of that. So I actually see
it as consequential. The fact that you have a mainstream United States senator who's you know, actually now gotten to the left of Bernie Sanders in terms of what he's been willing to say it is pretty extraordinary. Now, again it's a little empty given her voting record, but this is toothpaste that Israel can't really put back in the tube.
You've now had a United States senator say that you are committing a genocide, I mean a state that was founded out of the horrors of the Holocaust, obviously a horrifying genocide, and now you're being accused by a senator from your top ally and benefactor of committing a genocide.
It is extraordinary.
It is It's something I could have just like Nancy Pelosi's signing on to the letter saying, hey, maybe we should condition aid to These are things that would have been unthinkable.
A year ago.
And you know, I don't know how to put a how to conclude this because on the one hand, you think, Okay, well, in the future this is really going to matter in terms of how things have shifted in US public opinion, et cetera. In the short term, I can't say that it's really going to make a difference viz a vi Joe Biden and how he conducts himself, because I think
he's such a locked in ideologue. But you know, the language that we've heard throughout this conflict about the way that Israel is becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage, about how they're becoming increasingly estranged from one of the two major parties in the United States, not necessarily the politicians, but the base.
This is all true and you can.
Ask South Africa, the white apartheid regime of South Africa, how it went for them once they faced a high level of global estrangement for their apartheid regime and crimes. All Right, guys, we've been tracking closely how Iran might respond to that Israeli strike on their consular building in Damascus.
Let's put this element up on the screen. There's been a very interesting report that Iran may have actually offered the US a sort of an ultimatum, or I guess issued an ultimatum saying basically, listen, we won't directly attack Israel in response if you're able to secure a ceasefire deal. Doctor Treeta Parsi, who's standing by for further analysis, put out this tweet taking a look at this report and
what it could mean. He said in part First, it's clear that Iran wants to avoid a direct confrontation with Israel, but it cannot evade it unless it secures a big win in the region. Tehran may suspect a ceasefire is already in the making, and as a result use that as a pretext to both take credit for it and
to avoid getting into a shooting fight with Israel. He continues, second, this is very risky, but also rather c If the threat compels Biden to finally put material pressure on Israel in order to avoid a regional war, Iran can take some credit for having saved the people of Gaza. He goes on to indicate that this may suggest Iran might have figured out how to target Israel in a way that is proportionate. It does not provide Israel with grounds
for further escalation. Striking Israeli consulates or embassies in the region Harry's tremendous political risks, and he continues to outline how it actually is more difficult than you may think to identify an Israeli embassy to target without causing other regional habit, contrary to what the Iranians perceived to be their interest. And as I mentioned before, Executive vice President at the Quincy Institute, doctor Trita Parsi joins us.
Now, always great to see you, doctor.
Good sessir, thank you so much for having me so.
First, tell us a little bit about this report of this ultimatum and how credible you find it to be.
So the report has been in the Arab media and it essentially says that in this secret talks that are not that secret any law between the United States and Iran, and some of it has been taking place in Oman, and the Iranian four ministers on his way to New York now and have apparently gotten a visa from the United States. That's been a tricky part in the past, oftentimes getting it at the last minute, if at all.
But the report essentially says that as part of the communications between the United States and Iran, and we do know that the Iranians sent a message to the US immediately after the Israeli attack on the Yronian consult in Damascus, that they have essentially offered an off round for both sides, which is that if the United States secures a cease fire, then Iran will refrain from retaliating, and that retaliation could be against embassies of Israel and the region, or it
could potentially be against Israel proper, and on top of that a vague formulation that it could also lead to a path towards greater understanding between the United States and Iran. Now, the White House has denied that this report is true. I don't know how much stock I take in that, given what John Kirby says on a daily basis at the White House Press of these days, and the Ranians have given mixed messages on this, so it's not clear
whether it is true or not. But what it does signify, however, is that there is a very interesting diplomacy taking place between the US yon in the background, and they're both in a situation in which they don't want a further escalation, and they're trying to calibrate to what extent can they continue to have some lower level confrontation, and to what extent can they afford to put pressure on their partners or allies or proxies, whatever you want to call it,
without causing too much strain between themselves and those partners. So we see from the Bider administration there's almost zero pressure that he's willing to put on Israel, fearing that any real pressure would actually cast him therely politically at home, a calculation that I personally think is a miscalculation.
A similar condition exists on the Ivanian side.
They have ringed in the Iraqi and civil and malicious, but it has also cost them because of tensions that that tends to create between them on this ground. So again It's not entirely clear whether it's true or not, but it does indicate some very interesting developments behind the scene. And if it is true, then the question is how
we'll buy it and react to it. And one of the things I've porned out is that I find it very difficult for him politically to agree to this if the perception is that he is acting on their duress because of pressure from Iran. But he may still go in that direction while denying that the Yvanian ultimatum either as true or had anything to do with his decision.
Just in contact, could you frame it for how extraordinary it was to strike an embassy And is it even within Iran's option matrix to do nothing in the way that they have not yet responded to the US retalitatory strike in response to the killing of three US service members. Whenever it comes to Israel, is that even an option that's on the table?
What's your analysis there?
Excellent question, So let me start off with the first one.
This is an extremely unusual attack by the Israelis and a very very flavorant violation of international law. Striking embassies, according to the Vienna Convention, is completely off limits. It is as bad as when the Iranian students took the Ivanian the US embassy in Iran back in nineteen seventy nine. It ended up taking fifty two American diplomats hostage for
four hundred and forty four days. Now, what is so sad about all of this is that we've seen now a pattern in which just the last couple of months in which the Israelis have violated almost every international law and almost seemed to be doing so deliberately to just
a further weekend these international lawms. And it is quite noteworthy that it is only a couple of days after the Israeli attack, which was not condemned by the United States, that we also saw the Ecuadorian government take over the Mexican embassy in Ecuador to take a person who had fought as political asylum there. So we're seeing an erosion
of these international norms. But we should not forget that these are norms that have been very strong and extremely uncommon or countries to engage in attacks of this kind, and even in the many attacks that the Vanyas have been involved in against Israel, it has not led to those type of attacks. Now, these Raelis knew very well what they were doing, because they knew that the Iranian red line was an attack on their territory and their embassy and Concert is technically their territory.
And it goes to what you mentioned earlier on. The Iranians have taken.
A lot of hits from these Raelis in the last couple of years, particularly in Syria, without retaliating, and part of what they've said is that those attacks were on attacks against Syria, attacks against living On, they were not attacks against Yvan.
Even though Ivanyas died this.
Time around, they can't really say that because this is an attack on their soul. Now, whether they will respond or not is a very complicated calculation. But what is fascinating in all of this is that fifteen years ago the Yvani has had a very explicit policy in which they actually simulated ivrationiz it was called simulated irrationale.
They wanted to.
Behave in an extremely unpredictable and uncalculable way because they believe that that gave them a margin of security. If the other side doesn't know how you're going to react to one of your actions, you're going to be more careful because you cannot calculate what their next step is.
This is very similar to Nixon's mad Man theory. Today.
If you listen to what the Yvanian officials are saying, it's quite the opposite. They're saying that they're going to take their time, the response is going to be irrational
and proportionate. It's a complete shift, and it is a lot of people inside the Vanian regime hardliners that are very unhappy about this because they believe that this has weakened Van's deterrence visa the United States and ITEL and then pointing to this growing level of attacks by it as evidence that yvon is losing as the turns, and if that argument wins out, we may end up seeing an unpredictable reaction by the Irani is something that has
not been considered by most analysts on the Western side, and it can.
Lead to a very very dangerous estination in the region.
So I think it's important to remind people that both the Israelis and the Americans have assessed that Iran was not directly involved in planning the October seventh attacks. I think that's important to keep in mind that there are many voices here in the US that are constantly pushing for a direct war with Iran. But you have assessed here, doctor Parci, that neither the Iranians nor the Americans want this direct, larger confrontation. So what do you believe is Netanyahu's goal here?
What would he like to see play out?
Why did he choose this moment to launch such a provocative and escalatory attack.
Nathania who is the odd man out in this equation because he does have an interest in expanding the war, prolonging the war. The minute this war ends, he will likely go to jail. He's an extremely unpopular Israeli Prime minister, there will be re elections, and there's already criminal charges filed against him for corruption. So he has an interest in prolonging and enlarging the war, which completely contradicts what
Biden says is his interest. And this is part of the problem with Biden essentially deferring US foreign policy to Nithaniah. It is these Raelings that call the shots and the parameters of the negotiations that are currently taking place about the release of the hostages and increasing voices in Israel.
Point Nathaniah, who does not want to win.
The release of the hostages because if all the hostages are released, it will be more difficult for him to continue the war, and he does not want to end the war. And the United States and Biden has the same actually linked its policy to Nataniahu's preferences, and those preferences are in complete contrast to what Biden himself says
that he wants. Another mistake I think the Bide administration is doing in its approach to these negotiations is that there has been a linkage created between the hostage release and a ceasefire.
Now, on a surface level, that seems to make sense.
Of course, Hamas has to give up these hostages and in return get a complete ceasefire, but in reality that means that as long and the hostages are not released and NATANIAO is not trying to win their release, there's then a justification for Israel to continue. It's indiscriminate slaughter in God. This is part of the reason why the
American UN draft was rejected. It linked the two things, essentially saying there would be a hostage release when there is a seasfier, would be a seatspire when there's a hostage release. The UN resolution that was passed delay it and essentially said it is an independent and imperative to solve the slaughter in Gaza. Holding the hostages is not a justification for Israel to kill thousands of children and
other innocence in Gaza. And there's also an imperative for these hostages to be released, but they are not linked. Both of them have to happen, but they shouldn't be dependent upon each other.
Otherwise, as long as one hundred and thirty or.
So hostages are held in Gaza, there is a justification that for the killing of thousands of thousands of civilians and know what the country about the United States has signed on to that forma.
Well, doctor Parsi, thank you so much as always for your analysis today. It's been invaluable and I really recommend to everyone that they read what you're writing of our responsible state craft, and also make sure to follow you on Twitter because your reaction to these events has been essential in understanding some of the things that are unfolding.
Thank you so much for your time today.
Great to say, thank you so much for having me appreciation.
It's our pleasure, Thank you, thank you.
Last week we could not let the show end without revealing Sager's activities yesterday during the solar eclipses.
With someone on the screen.
I didn't ask for this.
This smar cringe posting no better way to see the eclipse. He's got his Apple Vision pro on there, so I guess I'll ask the series score, what does it actually look like through the Apple Vision Pro.
Well, it was great, Crystal, because I could. Here's the thing, It's a digital representation of the real world, so my eyes were completely shielded. Some people said that my cameras would get blinded and all that. I had no issues. I was able to actually put a nice dark filter using the environment's feature. Here's the thing. I'm being roasted into covering this. I didn't ask to cover this. If I knew that we would, I would have filmed it.
I would have filmed it for everybody. And this is just simply I was enjoying in the privacy of my home.
I decided to tweet it out as a joke.
I tweeted out as a joke because I actually shared the picture with friends. It was Marshall who said, DUJEI got to tweet that out and I said, okay, fine, So I did, and now here I am. But I will say the vision pro is completely fine, the cameras are fine, my eyes are fine. I am not one of the Yeah, I mean, I I believe so, I mean my eyesight is still very bad, I guess, but.
It continues to be bad, continues to improvement.
Not one of the You're not one of the people could put this up on the screen.
Apparently there was this massive surge in people googling why do my eyes hurt? And my eyes hurt?
My eyes hurt? Yeah, staring at the sun will do that to you. Absolutely a shocker.
So Donald Trump, I guess there's a throwback comment. That picture of him and Milania is still iconic, where she's got her glasses on and he's like looking up at the thing with no glasses on, doing the exact opposite of what literally everyone says you should do.
Classic Trump.
Yeah.
I mean, uh, maybe they're lying though about how dangerous it actually is.
I'd be curious.
I want to know what the actual stats are because they always say that, they're like, don't look at the eclipse. Don't look at the eclipse. Is it because you're just not supposed to look at the sun?
Period? Like what?
Like something about the harm radiation, and so every time that it comes around, everyone says that, But I've never seen a case somebody go blind from looking at the clips.
I think the thing is, I'm just like kind of making this up at this point, but everyone knows you can tell right away when you're actually looking at the sun, like it hurts your eyes in real time you're like, oh, I should I'm going to stop because this is not pleasant. But if you're in a totality or new totality, you could be looking at it and it wouldn't actually be having that same impact on you, Like I got to look away, but it's still having.
A negative impact.
I think.
I think that's the deal I we here in the DC area. I think we got with like eighty seven percent. You could kind of I mean you could definitely if you have the glasses on, you could see the sun. You could see it happening. But if you didn't, you could tell it was a weird. There was like a weird dimness. It's like a strange Kyle said the lightest having an identity crisis. That was like kind of what it felt like. I went in twenty seventeen to that one.
I went to Tennessee to see the totality, and I would like to do it again because it is a cool experience. I mean, it's crazy when it almost looks like a sunset and then things get so dark in the middle of the day. It is a weird, eerie, surreal experience that, you know. I guess I'll have to wait till twenty forty five, till the next one comes around in the US. But yeah, to me, it was worth it making the trip. We went with the whole family.
We actually like, we'reround on a lake and it was it was neat.
I enjoyed it.
Well.
The next map twenty forty four is actually going to be in Montana and you can go to Yeah, you can go to the National Park Glacier Now, I believe. I think it's great. Glacier National I think falls within the totality. I mean, I'm telling you that place is beautiful enough as is, so the idea of doing that with the eclipse that sounds pretty cool. Twenty years from now,
I guess I'm going to be there. I'm convinced because of the videos that came out of Austin that people were sending me of the actual totality the blackness, and.
I was like, oh damn, that actually sounds pretty cool.
So there's no comparison between being in actual totality and getting even a hybrid, you know, a ninety percent or whatever we got here eighty seven percent. It really is a completely different experience. So I don't you know, I don't think it's cringy that people who made the trek to Cleveland or Buffalo or Austin or wherever they were able to see it, weren't they But in Austin didn't they have cloud cover?
They did, but it didn't stop the darkness. So I mean they weren't able to see the actual like event. I think they were able to sum it depends on where you were. But the darkness itself, I mean you couldn't stop that. Apparently even night animals were howling or whatever, like coyotes and things like that because they thought it was So that's pretty cool.
I think that's cool.
So I see why people in the old times thought it was dark magic.
I get it now, Yeah, totally, maybe they were right.
All right, we're headed out, guys, Thank you very very much. This week Counterpoints, we'll be doing the AMA so please send in your special counterpoints, AMA questions for Ryan and Emily, and they will send that to you on Sunday.
Otherwise we will see you all later.
The keep
And keep it