Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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We have personal indeed, we do lots of interesting news breaking this morning. We are going to be taking a look at this blockbuster New York Times.
Poll that woof yikes bad for Joe.
Biden, really bad for Joe Biden. I mean, like down double digits in Nevada bad for Joe Biden. So we'll dig into that because there are a lot of other interesting numbers besides those top lines. We also, in light of those that news, we're going to show you Biden's favorite news anchor basically pushing the alarm button and saying, hey, you are on a path to defeat right now. So there is a lot of freak out totally justified on
the Democratic side of the aisle right now. We also had Trump back in the courtroom yesterday and what was probably the most essential testimony in this hush money case of Michael Cohen. Will tell you what he said and what it could mean. Also, GameStop is back, Raring, Kitty is back, He's back.
What was the percentage in place yes as of this morning, game stop up about seventy five percent AMC stock up one all thanks to mister Keith Gill himself.
Very interesting times we're living in, Yes. Indeed, at the same time, we've got some major developments with regard to Ukraine that we did not want to lose sight of, both on the Russian side and on the Ukrainian side, So we'll break those down for you.
A lot going on in.
Israel, of course, We're going to bring you a CNN report about detainees being tortured by the Israelis, an Israeli whistleblowerre actually bringing them these allegations.
Quite stunning. There.
We also have IDF generals revolting against BB their reasons really interesting. What this says about the divide in Israeli society. And we have Senator Lindsay Graham suggesting, hey, how about we just knew Gaza? How about that, joining a growing list of politicians who are suggesting just out and out atrost genicidal atrocities against Palestinians. We also are very excited to talk to Arjun Singh. He's a producer for lever News's new Revamp podcast, which I have to tell you
guys is excellent. I've been seeing as Praises Sager can vouch, they have really up their game, and he's done some fantastic reporting looking inside the Biden administration's unconditional support for Israel. And this comes at a time when we have yet another significant official in the State Department resigning over his moral objections to the policy viz. A vi Israel and the unconditional support, the flouting of American laws in order
to support Israel. And it's a Jewish man who resigned too. So it's quite an interesting role position that he is taking and worth taking a look at that as well.
He's the active duty US Army major. I mean, it's not something you just throw away, right, you know. I mean, this is an entire career. Somebody who's already reached that rank is spend a long time in the military, probably on a career track. That's not something that you just do lightly. We had similar resignations that happened in the past. It used to get a lot of attention here. I seem to recall whenever it was under Trump.
Under Biden.
You may be able to hear about it on a show like Hours, Yeah about it maybe if you're on Twitter, if you're on the right Twitter. But anyways, as Crystal said, we've got a great show for everybody today. Thank you to everybody who's been signing up for premium Breakingpoints dot Com And as we continue to tease, we do have a major, major announcement that is coming. That's all I can say at this point, but it's going to be a massive upgrade in our premium service. We're always thinking
about everybody, especially on the heels. We've only got two weeks to go a three year anniversary, which is pretty crazy. Was really reflecting on it yesterday. We finally got our personal YouTube one million plaques and I put it up in my office and I was.
Like, Wow, that's that's pretty cool. That actually meant something.
How were we it rising?
I think it was about two years so.
We've significantly surpassed.
The time we had together.
At oh absolutely Rising.
Yes.
Yeah, so it was to June of twenty nineteen when I officially started hosting Rising with you. I think that's like the official jump off point. And yeah, we left exactly two years later.
So there you go. Wow, twenty twenty one, so very very end.
So it's crazy three years to me, because to me it still feels like new, like gretty yesterday. Yeah, like you're still baby show, getting our legs under as et cetera.
So it's definitely flown by.
You're the ones that made it possible. Thank we love you, and we thank you. All right, let's begin with Biden. As Crystal said, I mean, this is something that came out yesterday would tease a little bit in our show, but we wanted to spend a lot of time here because I mean, this is the biggest flashing red sign that you could possibly have for Joe Biden. The polls have basically been steady now and steadily declining for him. Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
I mean, this is just stunning stuff. So here we have in the five key states, quote, young and non white voters expressing discontent with Biden, and the overall top line numbers here are absolutely brutal. So we have Donald Trump only behind Joe Biden in one swing state, and that's the state of Wisconsin, and that's actually inside the margin of error, so forty five percent for Donald Trump and Joe Biden at forty seven. But everywhere else in Pennsylvania,
Trump is up by three. In Arizona, Trump is up by seven, In Michigan, Trump is up by seven. In Georgia you have Trump up by ten points. And in Nevada you have him up by twelve. Oh so, I mean so massively outside the margin of error that there's basically only two options Biden is on track for like catastrophic loss or the polls are totally wrong again. And by the way, I do not want to discount that possibility, because it's not like the New York Times cien pol was all that correct.
I'll put that at the top.
In the past, it was off in the other direction.
It overstated in the last election. The last New York Times Siena Pol going into election date significantly overstated Joe Biden's support, including I think they had him winning Wisconsin by like ten points or something like that. It was barely Yeah, so who knows, like you have to hold that possibility out there actually given Democratic Party results, which have performed polls in a lot of these special elections, but twelve points in Nevada, that is way outside of
the margin of error. And also soccer, It's not like these poll numbers are you know, the only ones out.
They're not a big outlier.
We've been seeing even at the times when Joe Biden seemed like he was doing a little better in the national head to heads, the battleground polls that would come out, they've always looked terrible. But you know, this is considered really a like gold standard pole. They invest a lot of money, there's a lot of credence put into these polls, especially in Democratic circles, and for it to be this disastrous is really something.
Absolutely.
What's even more interesting, and of course counter narrative is where are these gains coming from? So I will read mister Trump's strength is largely things to gains amongst young black and Hispanic voters. Actually, Biden's doing pretty damn well amongst white folks, and even better if you want to
consider suburban ladies. Now, it says here the sense mister Biden would do little to improve the nation's fortunes has eroded his standing amongst the young, black, and Hispanic voters, who have usually represented the foundation of the Democratic Party. They found that the three groups want fundamental changes to American society, not just a return to normalcy. Few believe mister Biden would make even minor changes that would be good for the country. I can't say that they're wrong
given what we've had for four years. Right now, it says that amongst eighteen to twenty nine year olds, Trump is actually tied with Joe Biden. Amongst young voters and Hispanic voters, these are groups which previously would vote for Biden at what sixties almost seventy percent margins. I only have to go back to twenty sixteen to see Donald Trump only win some thirty percent of the Latino vote.
I mean, right now he's on track to win fifty and if you segregate that out and make it just men, it's probably on track to win.
A pretty large majority of those votes.
I mean, that's a massive realignment that's happened just in the last eight years. Now Here, also amongst black voters. It says that Trump is currently winning about twenty percent of black voters. That would be the highest level of Black support for a Republican presidential candidate since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four. And Gaza, of course, is one that we can't erase. Inside of this, we see significant dissatisfaction from President Biden's left on the
issue of Gaza. But Chrystal, I'll let you go on this, because what you flagged is that Gaza is the only thing where left voters are really abandoning. It's actually a lot of very centrist types who are like, I'm done with this guy, I can't do with it.
Yeah, So I'll read you what at their ride up and then we can talk about a little bit more. They say, mister Biden's losses are concentrated among moderate and conservative Democratic leaning voters who nonetheless think that the system needs major changes or to be torn down altogether. There's so many things in there that, in your language, sagas counter narrative.
First of all, the fact.
That these quote unquote centrist voters just want like, don't mess with the status quot very much. Actually, these voters are like, man, screw this whole systems doesn't serve anybody like I hate this, dude. I don't care if you're threatening you with Trump. It's a radical view of the country, even from people who are self described as moderate or
conservative Democratic leaning voters. Trump wins just two percent of mister Biden's very liberal twenty twenty voters who think the system at least needs maje or changes, compared with sixteen percent of those who are moditor or conservative. However, so most of the losses from Biden's twenty twenty coalition are
coming among those more centrist or more conservative Democratic leaning voters. However, the one exception is on Gaza, where you do have erosion among Biden's support with young and more progressive voters.
That's what they say.
One exception is Israel's war in Gaza, an issue on which most of mister Biden's challenge appears to come from.
Is left.
Around thirteen percent of the voters who say they voted for Biden last time but do not plan to do so again say that his foreign policy or the war in Gaza was the most important issue to their vote. Just seventeen percent of those voters reported sympathizing with Israel
over the Palestinians. So if you take the pool of voters who say I voted for Biden last time, I'm not doing it again, thirteen percent of them it's over his policy Visa vi Gaza, and overwhelmingly it's because they find him to be too too support of Israel, too ambivalent to the humanitarian concerns of Palestinians. So just problems really across the board for Biden and Sacer, you know, is zooming out because you're right to point out that much of his erosion, if not all, of his erosion,
comes among the young and among non white voters. You know, thinking about young people in particular. Not only do you have obviously Isra's Warren Gaza, which we've talked a lot about and political impact of that as well. But you know, the real case that the Democrats make is you got to vote for us to be a bulwark against Trump. Trump is going to fix your public life for nearly
a decade now in term of political public life. And so if you think about people who were coming of age when Donald Trump was, you know, running his campaign and assending to the presidency like he doesn't feel abnormal to them. This has been their adult life. So this idea of like, oh this is you know, this is extremely abnormal and we have to do everything we can to forestall this potential result of Donald Trump is sending
again to the presidency. It just doesn't carry the water with them that it may with older voters who have a different conception of what the American president should see should be like in a much longer you know, personal history and experience of what that office looks like. Where Donald Trump still feels like this giant abnormality in American politics, and so I think that's part of the generational divide
here as well. And then look obviously Biden being old and enfeebled and the people feeling really bad about the economy, these are terrible things for him that you know, maybe he should think about potentially running on an actual plan to deliver from people on the economy versus what is clearly not working, which is just saying abortion and Trump is bad.
Yeah, no, you're right.
I mean literally all you have to do is look at any of the signs that matter most, and I think that's the ability to make it. You have huge problems with wages. They always brag about their unemployment rate. Unemployment rate doesn't matter when you have millions of people who've even dropped out of the workforce, underemployed, not making enough wages to keep up with inflation. I've got it right here in front of me. Even the front page of the New York Times this morning is high interest
rates are hitting poorer American's hardest. Yeah, you think, you know, imagine having to explain that to your New York Times subscriber audience, like, Wow, I had no idea that it was so difficult out there that, Oh, it turns out if you're twenty eight or twenty nine. Great point, which is, if you're twenty eight or twenty nine, only a couple of years younger than me and basically.
Your entire adult life.
Donald Trump really became a true political figure with birth rhythm.
That was twenty eleven.
That's been more than a decade now, it's thirteen years of your entire political life that you've known about this guy. You've seen all the I mean, look as somebody was there, you know, young and coming up in the business. Seeing what he did in twenty sixteen, that was crazy. This time around it just doesn't feel crazy anymore because it's not. We live through the presidency. I know what it was like.
Wasn't that bad a lot of people for especially when you compare the economic data, You're like, listen, it was unambiguous. I definitely was better off under Trump. Now, there's a lot of factors. But you know, I'm here.
The Biden administration basically wants to sit there and.
Let you explain to them why it's not their fault it's actually Trump's fault and democracy and abortion and all that. And I won't discount that. I think it is very important. But the truth is, is it just not landing, And I don't think it should. Let's put this up there as well on the screen, because we, of course were leaving out RFK Junior in some of this analysis. They also included RFK Junior in the three way or actually
in a five way race. So here's what we have in Nevada, and this is with RFK Junior, Jill Stein and all of them who are included. In Nevada, Trump is up fourteen percent with RFK Junior on the ballot. In Georgia, Trump is up eight percent with RFK Junior on the ballot. In Wisconsin, Trump is up, it's up by one percent. With RFK Junior. Michigan, Biden is only up by three. Pennsylvania, Trump is up by four. Arizona,
Trump is up by nine. Now keep in mind that you might be tempted to say, oh, this means that RFK Junior is taking more away from Trump or from Biden. It's actually not true. He draws equally according to these cross tabs, both from Joe Biden and from Donald Trump. It's just that the lead for Trump gets exacerbated when you also include Jill Stein in some of these, where you see both the libertarian candidate and Jill Stein draw
significantly more away from Joe Biden. So it is clear now too why Joe Biden has been so undemocratic in the Democratic primary and others, because it is very obvious that any any third party ballot is just devastating for him because it gives people options. The less options that people can have, they're gonna be bad for him. Trump too, by the way, I mean, even though he is leading in this, it's not like he isn't winning in these cases.
He's winning only a plurality, not nearly. You know, any sort of outright majority in any of these states.
Can we put those numbers back up on the screen, because I just want to emphasize the Nevada numbers, which are stunning. Okay, look at this Trump forty four, Biden thirty thirty percent of the vote in a state that you won pretty handily. It wasn't all that close in the end. Last time around, RFK Junior pulling eleven percent. Map said, who's I guess anticipated to be the Libertarian candidate?
Their convention is what this weekend?
Something like that in any case pulling two percent and Jill Stein pulling one percent. Thirty percent of the vote.
Zejilani floated on Twitter, which I think is an interesting theory that part of why Biden is doing particularly bad in a place like Nevada is, I mean, for one thing, you have this younger, more working class, and more diverse electorate where you know, they're looking at the interest rate phenomenon, the fact like I'm never going to be able to afford a house and now am I ever going to send my kids to college? And young people are looking
like what future do I possibly have? And you know it's directly downstream of that that you see these huge gulf emerge in favor of Donald Trump. It's really I mean, it's really astonishing if these polls are anywhere close to correct, like it's.
Something dramatic, dramatic.
Would really have to change in favor of Joe Biden.
You know.
The one other thing that I just want to point out because it's a particular annoyance for me, is I saw all kinds of you know, centrist types on Twitter, like scolding the lad dare you criticized Biden over Israel and your gosslame the election?
Blah blah blah.
Just first of all, people have a right to criticize the president, especially when he's enabling with our tax dollars atrocities. So just from a moral perspective, that position, to me is completely bankrupt. But second of all, it's not even consistent with where the biggest problems are for Joe Biden.
Where's the scolding of the moderates and the centrists in the conservative leaning Democrats who are fleeing him over a variety of issues, but I think economic issues in particular, and just their sense that he's too frick and old as well. Where's that scolding and freak out and you know, preparing to blame them and throw them under the bus for handing the election or being secret Trump supporters or whatever.
So there's a lot in here that really does dispel some of the media narratives about the contours of this election. But given how close it was last time around, it is true that any one piece of this coalition eroding away from Joe Biden, any one piece, could be fatal for his reelection chances.
And when you have multiple piece.
Basically the only people who are really strong with him and been consistent are like old white people.
Yeah, that's pretty much it, right, And.
So when you have erosion everywhere else, what do you think the picture is going.
To look like?
Absolutely?
You know, I would be remiss too important about Nevada. You know, the gas price in Nevada is still four dollars and forty cents a gallon, and actually it's five twenty in California. I don't know how you wow out there, that's crazy, But Nevada, I mean, the economy in Nevada has always been very, very sensitive not only to gas prices, tourism, high inflation. That's going to affect people who are coming in lower overall consumer spending. That's what they're particularly vulnerable to.
So it would make sense to me also that they're very attuned. Their housing market has also always been crazy, basically see since two thousand and eight. So all of that comes back to the actual fundamentals.
Here you have.
Again we'll play CNN's Harry End and it's just always amusing to see people in mainstream spaces.
Have to grapple with what's going on. And here's what he had to say.
I think it's essentially saying that we have a divide between the Sumbout and Great Lake battleground states. All Right, you know, these are all six states that Joe Biden won last time around. They won by the closest margin of enery states. He wont look these sumbout battleground states. Frankly for the Joe Biden campaign. These numbers are an absolute disaster. The smallest leaders in Arizona for Donald Trump, He's up six. Look at this nine in Georgia, thirteen
in Nevada. My goodness, gracious, my god, that is a huge lead. No Democrat has lost that state since John Kerry lost it back in two thousand and four. About these Great Lake battleground states. This is something that the Joe Biden campaign can work with. Look, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump up three, but that's well within the margin of error. Wisconsin, donald Trump up one, well within the margin of error. And actually a Joe Biden lead well within the margin
of error up a point here. This they can work with the Joe Biden campaign. This the Donald campaign. Donald Trump campaign absolutely loves and it looks like a lot of the other polling out of the Sunbelt battle and the Trump coalition is changing. That's basically what's cooking here. This is at least one of the big reasons why so this is among likely voters in these in all
these battleground states we just spoke about. Back in twenty twenty, eighty four percent of the Trump campaigns, the Trump coalition was white. Look where it is now, it's seventy eight percent. The non white portion of the Trump coalition. It was thirteen percent in twenty twenty. Look at this now it's nineteen percent.
Yep.
I mean, he's laying out exactly and it's just the stunning nature that comes to him is amazing. You also, we have some of the quotes just from people it's always good to hear actual anecdotal Why exactly I am the way I am right now, let's put this up there on the screen. This is, for example, somebody who's voting split ticket and Brian Dickinson. He's a twenty five year old registered Democrat. He says, Jackie Rosen has been around a long time. He said he was considering splitting
his ticket and voting for Trump. I think she's a very good Democrat. Let's go to the next one.
I love people now.
This guy, Terry Crabtree. He is a disabled, fifty two year old from Maricopa County. He says, I'm not a party person. I am more for the state, and Diego has done a good job for the state.
I cannot democrat Bay.
He's a Democrat, and he says I cannot stand Biden. I think he ought to be in prison. I think Trump should be in prison as well. I hate being given those two choices.
Relatable sentiment.
Next one, this is Joseph Gonzalez. He is a sixty year old Hispanic truck driver in Milwaukee. This is of Tammy Baldwin. He says, I think I like what she's basically doing. But on Biden, he says, I do not like what Biden is doing. He's failing for the United States one please. And what you see in all of these is that you basically have a lot of people
who are willing to split tickets. Because what we didn't show you is that in the same poll that had Trump winning every single swing state, the Democrats are up in every Senate state. Bob Casey beating Dave McCormick. You have Jackie Rosen, She's up over her opponent in Nevada. I mean, you actually have a case where, I.
Mean, this would be nuts.
So let's say this is correct, where Trump would win not only the popular vote with the electoral college, but the Democrats would actually be actually win every single contested election and keep the US Senate.
That's totally within the possibility with.
Am absolutely is and I think it's another.
So the Democratic cope, which is with some basis right, is that Okay, yeah, we've been seeing these poles that are bad for a while, including before the midterms when we outperformed. Let's not forget that. But you know, when it comes to voters actually going to the polls, they are backing Democrats, and the polls are understating Democratic support go, we don't buy these polls. There's just an Axios piece this morning about how the Biden team genuinely doesn't believe
the polls. They think it's all well and good. They think they're perfectly fine, and that is the basis for their reasoning. Well, what you see in these polls is that no, no, no. The fact that we're voting for Democrats at the state level, for Congress, even for Senate, that has nothing to do with Joe Biden. Joe Biden is a different matter altogether, and there's a different sentiment
when it comes to him. And so that's why it's so interesting to hear these swing state voters who are saying, no, Actually, I like Ruben Gag, I like Jackie Rose. I think she's a good Democrat. I think she's doing good job. Tam Baldwin, I'm good with these sort of like more generic Democrats, but I have a specific negative sentiment about Joe Biden. And so at least according to these polls, you could see some remarkable levels of ticket splitting that
we haven't seen in years. I mean, the whole trend has been in the opposite direction, where people are party line voters, and it's all tribal, and it's all just divided by what your party affiliation is, and so there's very little splitting of the ticket between you know, presidential Canada Senate candidate or on down the line. These poles say, no,
Joe Biden is performing uniquely badly among all voters. And so you could very well see, if again these polls are accurate, a situation where the rest of the Democratic Party ticket does great. The ballot initiative, abortion ballot initiatives for you know, on the pro choice side do fantastic. The congressional people running for Congress, for the House, for the Senate, etc. Do great on the Democratic side, and
Joe Biden gets his butt handed to him. That is a real scenario that is on the table right now. I just want to go back and make one comment about the Harry Enton analysis there where he had you know, the sun Belt States versus the what used to be called the blue Wall States piled you know, industrial Midwest, and it's very clear why Biden is kind of hanging in there in the Blue Wall States versus getting obliterated in the sun Belt States, which he won last time
with much fanfare. And this was the new Democratic Coalition, et cetera, et cetera. It's because those Sun Belt states are younger and more diverse, and the industrial Midwestern states have more older white people, and that's who Joe Biden is continuing to.
Do well with. So that's why you see that divide.
And I think that Harry Enton is right to say, listen, if you're going to make a stand and you're going to try to eke out your narrow path to two seventy, the place to really place your bets is, you know, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania versus Nevada, Arizona, Georgia.
Yeah.
No, I think you're absolutely right. And look, let's not erase it's still you know, it's only May. There're several months ago. Abortion has scrambled everything. Recent evidence suggests that we should not undercount Democratic support. Further, recent evidence says we should not underestimate Trump support in all of these So we genuinely have no idea. But just to underscore how big of a problem this is, let's put this up there on the screen.
This is what the elector College would look like if there were no toss ups.
According to the RCP, polling average, Joe Biden would win two hundred and twenty six electoral votes. Trump would win a stunning three hundred and twelve. I mean, we have not actually seen an electoral college victory like that in a long time in this country, so that would certainly be something to wake up on. Whatever in what is it November fifth, twenty twenty four, Please don't prosecute me for election missing.
I'm just speculating.
I'm not putting it out there, but let's put the next one there up on the screen. This is also important to highlight because this is from an anonymous Twitter account. You miss voted a great guy, by the way he says, or know who it is. We are back to twenty sixteen. People want to tear down the system entirely or want major changes. This highlights what you said. Most Americans think
that the system needs to change. The system needs to be torn down entirely fourteen percent, Major changes fifty five percent, no change twenty seven percent. And I think really what you see too, is with Trump support about who they think is going to bring more change.
This has always been Trump's fundamental strength.
Twenty five percent of people think it's going to tear down the system entirely, and a major forty five percent of people think he will bring major changes. Trump was the chaos, shake things up candidate, and this gets right as he aptletely correct. Twenty sixteen is the correct metaphor because twenty sixteen was a status quo or a change election.
Twenty twenty was kind of It was a change election, but I guess change away from the chaos, and this kind of validates a theory of politics that basically posts nineteen ninety six. Every election, almost for the last twenty something years has been a quote unquote change election. It's just that who and what we think of change in that time is what really motivates people to come to the ballot box. This is a totally different switch from
the early center. I'm reading a book right now called crand Expectations, which is all about the United States from nineteen forty five to nineteen seventy two.
It is fascinating for me to.
Think and put my head in a space where Americans not only had faith, but a deep love and affection for the institutions and for the status quo. We don't live in that time anymore. It is we're really living through nineteen thirties again or in nineteen twenties, like complete
just dissatisfaction, chaos, not just from protests and others. We had a brief period in the nineteen sixties, but this is a sustained period of people wanting change now for so long that it is it is very reminiscent of a very long time ago in American history.
Yeah, this theory of recent politics is that you have this yo yo effect between almost even like presidential personality. So you have you know, George W. Bush, who presents us this sort of like sider you know, yeah, low iq relative, you know, plain spoken whatever, and then the backlash to that brings you Obama, the professorial error diite like you know, incredibly rhetorically gifted, et cetera, et cetera.
Then from Obama you go to you know, the populist rabble rouser at least that's his affect, Donald try tr so, you know, told, whereas Obama is this picture of sort of like civilized sophistication, Trump is this you know, rude, crude reality TV star. Then you go to Biden. So from the chaos of Trump, then it's like, ah, can we just have things be like a little bit normal
and like not crazy every single friking day. Joe Biden the picture of like boring standard normalcy in Washington, d C. That, especially, you know, coming as he did among like COVID and the chaos that was going on there and the incredible dissatisfaction with you know, the state of affairs during COVID,
he's able to come in. And then what these polls point to and why they're significant, is the landscape's really different from twenty twenty, right, And by the way, you know, the sense of like normalcy and the back to brunch pitch it.
Didn't really work out. Still a lot of chaos.
World still feels incredibly unsettled, maybe more so than ever. So what is the Biden pitch this time? Like, what is he really selling other than just I'm not Trump and you know, abortion, that's it. So according to these polls, that's not going to be sufficient for a group of voters that overwhelmingly are like, now, we got to do some things that are really different at this point because
this direction we're going on is an absolute disaster. And you know, if you're thinking about who's going to overturn the apple cart it's not Joe Biden, it's Donald Trump. And I think you know, plenty would argue like, Okay, we'll change for change sake is not good and chaos is not, you know, just inherently a good thing. But if you look at the number of people who say we want major change or to tear the whole system down, those people are overwhelmingly going for Trump, and they make
up the bulk of American voters at this point. So in some ways I think that that those numbers are almost the most insightful into what the political climate is right now and why it is really not a political climate that is conducive to the re election of Joseph Robinette.
Biden well said, you don't have to take it from us here.
You've got Joe Biden's favorite political commentator, which is always very difficult for me to say. Farid with Zakaria over at CNN on Saturday giving a monologue that Biden almost certainly saw, in which he sounds a very dire warning.
Let's take a listen.
None of this is playing out as I thought it would. Trump is now leading in almost all the swing states, But behind those numbers lie even more troubling details. As someone worried about the prospects of a second Trump term, I think it's best to be honest about reality. I understand that polls are not always accurate, but in general they have tended to underestimate Donald Trump's support, not overestimated. I doubt that there are many shy Biden voters in
the country. Perhaps the most worrying new trend for the Democrats is that far from being the more unified party, they are now bitterly divided over the Warren Gazo. Bernie Sanders has said the eruption of pro Palestinian protests could be Biden's Vietnam, and even invoked the specter of Lyndon Johnson choosing not to run for re election in nineteen sixty eight, because with the opposition to that war, the
analogy is far fetched. America then was itself sending hundreds of thousands of troops to Vietnam, with more being recruited from college campuses every week. But there's no denying that the party seems more openly divided than it has been in decades. Only thirty three percent of Americans said they approved of Biden's handling of the Israel Hamas War, which is now opposed both by people who think he is too soft and people who think he is too hard
on Israel. Meanwhile, Republicans seem to be uniting behind Trump. Whatever opposition he faced in the primaries has largely melted away. The one that troubles me the most is on the question of who was the more competent. Joe Biden led Donald Trump by nine points in twenty twenty, but Trump now leads by sixteen points in January twenty twenty four.
Look, can't really dispute a single word of what he says. We also have an interesting interview with Charlemagne, the God.
Who did for The New York Times, interestingly.
Enough, which perhaps represents some of the sentiment that we saw the bleeding way of black voters for Joe Biden. This is for what he had to say about why he won't be endorsing Biden again.
I'm not endorsedon because I just feel like I've been burned with that before. You know, because you put your name on the line, you endorse somebody, You tell your audience this is who you should go out there and vote for, and your audience goes and does it. And then when they don't see these things that they thought were going to get pushed through, they don't understand civics.
They're not thinking about that.
They're like, all they know is Charlemagne told me to vote for this person because this was going to happen, and this didn't happen. I think they said the numbers like twenty two percent. I don't think that twenty two percent of black people are going vote for Donald Trump. I think the biggest thing that people are going to have to fight against this year is the couch. And that's what I've been saying. I keep saying it over
and over, like this election is three options. Republicans who are to crooks, Democrats who would have couch because they don't fight enough for nothing in the couch, and the couch is voter apathy.
Crooks versus the cowards versus the couch. That's what pres due, to be honest.
With you, He's right.
I mean, look, we've had the problem is is that I actually think a low turnout election plays out in Biden's favor because it just means that the people who love to vote and who vote in every election, boomers and white suburban ladies, those are the people who are going to vote for Biden. Whereas I think, as we showed back in twenty twenty, high turnout election generally meet. In twenty sixteen two twenty sixteen, millions of people who had.
Not voted as the nineteen eighties came out and voted for Trump.
It's part of the reason when the polls were so off, they've not only came back to the polls, they brought even more people who had never voted before in twenty twenty. If we have a lower turnout election, lest it was a forties or fifty percent this time around as opposed to two thirds last time, I think it plays out in Joe Biden's favor.
But look, you never know, right, Yeah, there's a lot of confounding.
Stuff, and Charlamagne doesn't bring up any specific issues there, but I know in the past he's talked about, you know, great disappointment over the promises that were made over voting rights in particular, and then there's just you know, they said that during the election because they wanted to make sure that black voters turn out to the poll and signal that you know, we're on your side, et cetera. And then to his point about them being cowards not just on this issue, but on any number of.
Issues that you could take a look at. Let me get there.
There's just nothing but excuses for why we can't do this. We can't do that. Sorry, we tried, We want to, but we're with you, but we just it's just too hard. Except when it comes to funding worse then you know, then it happens. Then the bipartisan magic comes together and
whatever needs to pass comes to pass. So you know, you can't blame him for feeling like I was made a set of promises I used, I trusted that I made a set of promises and effect to my audience saying like, I think this is the person who can deliver these things that you're interested in, and I'm just not going to put myself in that position. Again, you
really can't blame them. Just quickly going back to Free Zakaria and his commentary about the Israel's assault on Gaza, there were some interesting numbers in this poll as well. They asked the question about who do you sympathize more with the Israelis or the Palestinians. Democrats Now a plurality sympathized with the Palestinians, which is an extraordinary shift from previous years. Up to this point, you have thirty five percent who say they sympathize with the Palestinians, over twenty
four percent who say they sympathize with the Israelis. The remainders say don't know or both equally. Republicans very one sided. It's seventy two percent sympathize more with Israel, six percent to sympathize more with the Palestinians. And the other thing is huge h divide, which won't surprise you, guys if you've been watching this coverage eighteen to twenty nine, you got forty seven percent who say we sympathize more with
the Palestine, so very close to a majority. Owned twenty three percent say they're with the Israelis sixty five plus opposite majority. Fifty five percent were with Israel, only fourteen percent were with the Palestinians.
So you see.
Huge both partisan and generational divides in terms of how they're viewing this conflict. And to Frei Zakaria's accurate point, this has really Joe Biden's policy here is not popular with the Democratic base and has really divided the Democratic coalition and created not just apathy but utter disgust among some certain portion of that Democratic base.
So you know, these are.
When you look at who's fleeing the Biden camp. As we said before, most of those people are actually more on the moderate to conservative side. But of the lefties and progressives who voted for him in twenty twenty and who have left the Biden camp, it is overwhelmingly over this one issue.
Yeah, it's Look, he's got coalitional problems all over the map. He can't really afford any of them, not really inspiring or speaking to the wants and the needs of concerns of any and so you get basically a total collapse.
I mean more and more.
This just looks a lot like Jimmy Carter that I've said previously. His only saving grace is some sort of hidden abortion you know phenomenon, which is a hell of a thing to you know, to bet your entire political future on. That's stunning. But that's that is the choice that he has decided to make. Yah, It's the most apathetic choice you could possibly make. But it makes sense for what some an eighty two year old man who would be if he were to be reelected.
Yeah, they're they're opting for just running on abortion and Trump is bad, and really avoiding campaigning anywhere where they can see this descent, including as we covered yesterday, very possibly moving the entire DNC online to avoid recriminations from their own voter base. I just listen for people who are a little younger. I don't know if you could understand,
like Obama was the candidate of like the College. The whole idea was these younger generations are going to be firmly in the Democratic camp, like it's done as they come of age. Republicans are totally screwed. There were books that were I think it was what James Carvell wrote this book forty more years based on this concept of you know, these young people are growing up and there'll be a bulk of a voting population and then it's
over for the Republicans. So the idea that a Democratic president cannot even go to a college campus disaster, utter and complete disaster. All right on the other side of a ledger, we have one Donald Trump who's spending his week in a Manhattan courtroom, and as I teased earlier, the prosecution had their star witness on the stand yesterday. That would be former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who was at the center of these quote unquote hush money payments.
You know, he was the one who interfaced with them and facilitated them.
He actually actually he had a mo I forgot this. He mortgaged his house to be.
Able to make the payment, and then Trump pays him back.
You know.
The legal question here is were those payments properly recorded and should they have been logged instead as a campaign finance expenditure. And the key legal question there is whether they were exclusively to benefit the campaign or whether there were other reasons along with it could also have a campaign benefit, But were there other reasons for making these payments? For example, wanting your wanting to avoid your wife finding out about your affair with a porn star. Alleged affair
with a porn star. He still denies it. Okay, let's put this up on the screen. In terms of what Michael Cohen had to say, he says Trump was primarily concerned about presidential election when he sought to bury Stormy Daniel's testimony. He says that Cohen testified after he told Trump Daniels claims might resurface that fall. Trump grew angry with him, told him to quote, just take care of it. He said to me, this is a disaster, total disaster. Women are going to hate This is really a disaster.
Women will hate me.
Guys may think it's cool, but this is going to be a disaster for the campaign. At the time, Cohen explained, mister Trump was pulling very, very low with women. He was pulling very poorly with women, and this coupled with the previous Access Hollywood tape. So that's an important piece
of context. Here is this Stormy Daniels you know story potentially coming out happened in the wake of Access Hollywood when there was real concern about it, how women voters were going to view them and whether they, you know, would totally take his campaign. When Cohen asked how Stormy Daniels claims might impact Trump's relationship with Milania, Trump told him, quote, don't worry, He goes, how long do you think I'll be on the market for?
Not long?
Cohen recounted, So basically the implication they're like, if Millennia leaves me, like, I'm not going to be on the market for long. Some woman is going to snatch me up right away. It's not going to be any issue she divorces me, is you know, allegedly allegedly what I have been here? And Cohen concludes he wasn't thinking about millenia. This was all about the campaign. So that's his side
of the story. The defense is going to talk and already has talked a lot about you know, Michael Cohen is a convicted felin for it wasn't convicted for lying liar, So that's a challenge. And you also have listen. There was a tape that Cohen has that relates to Susan McDougall's she used the other Karen mccaron McDougal.
I always get that wrong.
I don't want to call her Susan, but anyway, sorry Karen Karen mc Karen McDougall, and the payments that he facilitated with David Packer in National Choir or whatever. But
he doesn't have any direct documentation of these conversations. And these conversations are really really critical because they do get at that question of whether this was directly a campaign expenditure or whether it had to do with the campaign, but also with I want to hide this from my wife, So it becomes kind of a he said, he said, and who the jury believes wants to believe, et cetera.
So in any case, this is you know, this was this case from the prosecution was really building to this moment with Michael Cohen, and this is the story.
He had to say.
That's right, and right ahead of the testimony, Crystal Trump had this to say.
This help comes from Biden in the White House.
By the way, and they have the top equal here because he can't when he can't win two sentences together.
He's the worst president in the history of our country.
Can't speak, can't walk off a helicopter, can't walk off a play, can't walk off a sage.
And the only way they think they can win is that.
They can do something with trub because we have.
An incompetent, the worst president in the history of the United States.
Trump has been really enjoying doing these press conferences in the trial. He seems to think that it makes him look strong. I actually think, though, the more that we continue to look at a lot of the polling, Crystal that if anything, it's either a.
Distraction or as long as Biden is.
At the center of attention, and people are feeling macroeconomic conditions, not thinking about Trump in general. Most people don't give a shit about his political about his court appearances or whatever.
If he's convicted, maybe, you know, it be another story.
But the more consequential legal cases, the ones that people really care about, trial is not likely to happen before the election. The Trump people seem to think is a net good for him.
I don't. I'm not going to go that far.
I don't think it's a good thing to be on trial or to have people talk about affairs or even the thing is with Michael Cohen too. With Michael Cohen, the only reason he turned on Trump is because Trump refused to pay him. Trump didn't want to continue to pay his legal expenses. That was it. It was that petty of a manner. And after that he flips on him.
He starts pleading guilty, cooperating as a federal witness, and now you know, turning and embracing like the diaper Don conspiracy and all this other stuff.
But what doesn't besmirch the diaper Don considracy.
But what's important to remember is that up until twenty eighteen, whenever he flipped, he was the most ardent Trump defender.
It was on television. I used to deal with him.
I was a White House course, But I want to see this idio walking around the White House grounds consultly.
Mister Trump is the greatest businessman of all time.
These are just you know, the classic hangar honors of politics, of people who surround the super rich and the wealthy. So it's very difficult to take him as a serious person, especially with so many of his utterances.
It's actually, it's actually interesting. He talks some about how much he loved and worshiped.
Yeah, Donald Trump.
I've he talked some about that in this courtroom appearance, and how his fondest wish and desire was just to make Trump happy. And if he did something that was good and Trump praised him, man, that.
Just lit up his whole life.
Which is how you end up, I guess, taking the mortgage out on your house in order to pay a billionaire's hush money payments. And then yeah, he's like, he's sort of like the jilted lover. You know, Trump refuses to back him after all of his loyalty and won't pay his legal bills and whatever. And now it's a it's a total one to eighty in terms of his views of Donald Trump, and you know, becoming this star
witness for the prosecution. It is a wild situation given that of all the cases that are out there, many with much more serious allegation, all of the other ones with much more serious allegations than this one, this is it. I mean the other ones, it's there. They're not happening before election day. Now that doesn't mean that they're over. If Trump loses, He's still an incredible legal jeopardy from
all of those cases. So it's not like they're dead dead, but in terms of electoral concern, for all intents and purposes, they are. This is the This is the whole ball game. One other thing to note about the thought that we showed you of Trump, you had behind him a number of Republican officials, including Senators Tommy Teverville and Jade Vance and Congresswoman Nicole mally Takis.
Is that her name?
Yes? Okay?
In any case, you've now got like the new way to kiss the Trump ring is to show up and be there at the courtroom with him and give your own little press conference about what a which hunted is blah blah, blah, and JD obviously is like, you know, trying to position himself to hopefully be the Trump VP pick. Kind of doubtful that he'll get the nod, but you never know. So he was he, you know, was making his moves to get into the Trump's best possible graces.
That's right, JD was there. Vivike Ramaswami will be there today. Oh for real, Yes, Vecas on site as we speak.
Courthouse. Oh, here we go, okay, here, I have a full list.
Like an exclusively not exclusively everybody speaker. Mike Johnson will be there. Doug Burgham will be big Doug representative, Byron Donalds, vivike Ramaswami and Corey Mills. So Byron actually one of the Byron and Doug Bergham the only two people on that list who are prospective VP candidates.
I wouldn't put too much stock in either of them.
A lot of Doug Burgham chatter right now.
That's what they say.
I firmly believe that I think the best odds are a woman. I think Trump e last dephonic. You can you know I've been saying it here from I think he loves her, he loves how spirited here defense is I think she's also not a big enough star that she would ever eclipse him, so I would put my money on her. I also think that the race card is one that Trump just loves a bit too much. Tim Scott, you know very clear, Tim has been all
over cable TV kissing Trump's ass as well. Only if Trump feels totally electorally secure, I think will he pick somebody like Doug Burgham or jd Vance. But that's one where you know, given the nature of the election, it would be very difficult. Now it's certainly possible. Like, don't get me wrong, but he loved that man. I loves identy politics and he loves a media narrative more than anything, and a woman or a black person is just one that he couldn't get away from.
I mean, how did he make his pick last time around? He did it based on very naked monkey Vellyan political calculation.
Yeah, and he was right, and he was right.
I mean it was Mike Pence was a good choice for him in that moment. It was a very wise political choice, and I think he will make a very similar choice this time around, because he has a lot more to lose this time than he did last time. I mean, his freedom is really at stake hinged on the results of this election. So whatever he can be persuaded of in terms of it's the best electoral calculus for him. I think that's the direction he's likely to go on based on his history and also what is
really at stake for him. Last saying just about the Cohen testimony, I mentioned this before. CNN actually had this audio a number of years ago, but Cohen recorded this one conversation with Trump with in regards to these Karen McDougall payments. Now this one the structures a little different.
National Inquirer bought her story to. It was the whole catch and kill scenario, and Cohen was worried that David Packer, who's head of the National Inquirer, wouldn't believe him that Trump was going to reimburse him for these payments that he was going to make. So he surreptitiously recorded the conversation with Trump to play for David Packer to look, he's serious about this, He's going to repay you. I don't think he actually ever did, but in any case,
that was the purpose of the recording. So let's take a listen to this audio which was played in court.
I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David, you know, so that I'm going to do that right away. I've actually come up and spoke to me and I've spoken to Alan Weiseelberg about how to set the whole thing up with so whatere we were funding. Yes, and it's all the stuff, all the stuff because you know, you never know where that company, you never know where he's going to be, It's correct. So I'm all over that,
and I spoke to Alan about it. When it comes time to the financing, which will be listening, answer you will have to pay you, I'll no, no, no, no, no no, I got no no.
So there you go. That's, you know, clearly talking about David Backer. He's talking about how we Weiselberg setting up these payments, et cetera, et cetera. That's the one piece of audio evidence that they have that was able to bolster his testimony to the jury.
And yeah, I don't know.
Which way this case is going to go. I could really see either direction. I think it just depends a lot on who this jury is and how they're processing these various claims.
No, I think you're right. It's all going to come down to a level of reasonable doubt. I do.
And this is the problem with the prosecution's case from the very beginning. The plausibility of I just didn't want my wife to find out is enough and believable that you only need a single person who is there not only to buy the reasonable doubt, but also not to co sign the prosecution's extraordinary interpretation of New York finance business accounting law. Remember that's what's actually at stake here. So anyways, we will see what's happened. Let's get to
game Stop. So major breaking news. Roaring Kitty aka Keith Gill, the man behind the original meme stop craze on game stock, is officially back. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Roaring Kitty Keith gil tweeting for the very first time I'm in three years on his account, which then immediately sparks a seventy four percent increase in a single day on game stop stock. On top of that, AMC another so called meme stock is up over one
hundred percent. They say that game Stop shares actually had to be halted several times on the trading exchange because of how high it was going, and ever and continues actually to do so. Now Gil it appears, has not yet done a video on YouTube. We're all awaiting that. He recently was portrayed in the movie Dumb Money. Not a particularly great movie, but it's if you're on an airplane, you should watch it.
That's the way I would put it.
Dumb Money recently came out and kind of showed him as this endearing nerd, you know, in his basement who turned you know, what was it like, fifty thousand dollars into forty eight million dollars on paper. Eventually sells, gets out, subject of lawsuits, of congressional testimony. Most people thought they would never see him again, but for some reason he is officially back and back enough that it's always just amusing watching CNBC and all these business anchors actually grapple
with this. So here's how they handle the news of the return of Rooring Kitty.
Yeah, so this is Keith Gill's first online post we've seen in three years. Roaring Kitty, as he's also known, was if you remember really the pied Piper of the Memestock frenzy. In twenty twenty one, he led those online traders to the infamous Game Stop short squeeze this morning, posting kind of cryptic photo of somebody just leaning forward, excuse me, in a chair, and that was enough to send game Stop up. As you said, more than one
hundred percent. It has been halted for volagility. A Robert Hu'm just sent out a note explaining this trading activity for GM has been only ten minutes. The rest of the day has been halted, and even with just ten minutes of trading, the stock did three and a half times the normal volume. But it's not just GM me guys. Other so called memestocks like AMC are also catching a bit.
It is one sign of overall appetite increasing. You'll also see that showing up in the options market, especially for the most volatile corner of that ultra short maturities, once really reserved for professional traders zero days to expire options have climbed in popularity among every day investors. These are one day bets on the direction of the market, which can offer outsize returns rewards and also outsize risk.
So you just got to love to see the translation of risk appetite. There ain't no risk appetite. Okay, everyone's just logging back into their robin Hood accounts and they're having fun, which was the entire point of the game stop craze. But I mean, look, I guess it just does show the power is still there, Crystal, if you want it to be.
For the Internet.
It was such a fun story at the time, the short squeeze getting the big investors getting screwed inspired the movie made Ken Griffin became a household name. There is still some h really shady stuff that went on with robin Hood.
All of that.
I think it was very.
Illuminating episode for everyone because you're like, oh man, the system really is rigged.
Absolutely, those are the pieces of it that made the story so compelling and so like illustrative of the realities
of our economy. So first of all, let's just reflect on the power of this one random dude who can post a meme and move markets to this extent, Like that's incredible, and especially because listen, we're used to like you know, the Fed or like Titans of Wall Street being able to do this, our Elon Musk, you know, a billionaire being able to do the same but here you have this guy who just through the force of his like persistence, basically was able to persuade people like,
we're doing this, You're coming along, screw what they say, We're all in, We're going to make this happen.
We're going to screw the shorts.
And you know, through just basically like his force and persistence being able to move markets in this way. And there's a few things that I always found really interesting about the story. First of all, it really revealed something that I think a lot of people intuitively know, which is how fake the stock market is to begin with. So the fact that you could have this on line movement and really you know, take it to big Wall Street players in a significant way, that was interesting and, as I said.
Sort of revealed how fake a lot of.
This Wall Street shenanigans really are in stock market prices, et cetera. But then you also had the other side of it, which was listen, right when they're on the verge of a real victory, the collusion that occurred, and the you know, top down crushing of this movement, and you know, they they made it so that on the robin Hood platform you can no longer buy the stock, you could only sell the stock, and that effectively, at least for the time, really, you know, crushed the movement
and ended it. So it was this Dave and Goliath story. David looked like he had the upper hand and then Goliath comes in and then you know, we'reing. Kitty himself as you were poorting to soccer, became the subject of all. I mean, he was really aggressively. They dragged him in front of Congress and lost. I mean, they went after him like crazy. You would think he was the you know, a villain of the central et cetera for his promotion
of the game stop stocks. So interesting to see he's still got it apparently.
Yeah.
I mean, his employer, mass Mutual was actually fine, like four million dollars because he was working for them and doing this stuff. On this side, he was a shit poster. It's not even really fair, to be honest. I mean, let's be real, like it's an amazing feat. He leveraged his Internet personality. His YouTube videos and Reddit posts turned
fifty thousand dollars into some fifties. Nobody really knows how much of a profit, but tens of millions and millions of millions of dollars for him and for his family.
I mean, that's that's the American dream.
To me, somebody like that, that's the best of online influencer. And he did it specifically by going after and beating these hedge fund managers, who, as the movie accurately portrays, are just the most like just the most the worst people in the US. They create nothing, they do nothing, made tens of billions of dollars betting and defeating and trying to destroy companies. I mean, Ken griff entire innovation is high frequency trading and basically getting an edge by
trading something three microseconds ahead of somebody else. Sorry, I don't think you're adding all that much, you know, to a value to the United States. But this man is worth what thirty forty billion dollars, one of the richest men in the United States. That's exactly why Gil became such a popular figure in his own right. And every time something like this happens, it does show you Again, let's get to the communitarian aspect of what happened back in twenty twenty one is where we just come out
of COVID. I'm sure you remember this too, Crystal. This was right after January sixth, so things were tense. I remember covering this and just being like, man, this is the first fun story I've covered in years. It was just it was great to just get wrapped up on it.
Now.
Not great for a lot of people out there. And let's be honest, you did lose a lot of money, but you know you're an adult. You know you should at least know what you're doing. And by Keith's own admission, you never told anybody to buy the stock per se. Let's put this up there on the screen just to reiterate, this is literally the meme that made it all happen. Appears to show a guy who is gaming leaning forward.
He has since tweeted out like twenty five different of his signature memes, which are like clips from movies and other things inspirational. Wolverine coming out of the tank and killing somebody, So maybe he's back. I would really love to see him actually do a YouTube video. We have one of those, we can put here on this green. So here you've got Wolverine in the tank coming out, you're seeing the god.
What is the metal?
The metal? I don't remember either.
Totally blanking on the name right now, Griffin.
You want to tell about the Wolverine origin story basically, right or is that?
I think that one's from Logan.
No, I don't think so.
I think that was an accident because I never watched Logan and I definitely have seen that.
Got it.
Uh, Okay, that was X two.
Yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense. I actually loved those movies.
The X Men movies were gat yeah, big mag Anyways, I think they're coming back actually, or there's some fusion of the universe with Deadpool. That's X Men origins Wolverine. That's according to our junior guy in the control room thing.
There we go.
We appreciate you, Ian.
So it's one of those where the memes are back, the stocks are back.
This will be a fun story.
Hopefully, maybe this time around they can crush somebody else Wall Street Person's dreams.
But we'll see.
And we want to give everybody an update and get some of the fun stuff into the show as well.