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Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday.
We have an amazing show for everybody today, Extra amazing, Ryan, because that's row show is extra amazing.
Christel will be here tomorrow, that's right.
Christal will be here tomorrow with Emily.
So we've got the most ambitious crossovers of all time, the breaking point cinematic universe truly expanding here and making some big, big moves.
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We would never have scab writers. That's not what we do. So we got a great show for everybody today. We've got Ukraine. We're going to talk a little bit about what's going on Belgo Rod Russia, some crazy stuff cross border activity, accusations flying across the border, and then some new revelations as to why exactly the Biden administration reversed itself on the F sixteen policy.
We're going to talk about the debt ceiling.
Ryan, You're going to give us your extensive Capitol Hill experience and break all this stuff down. You've got a great historical knowledge of the last time this all went down. I think will be very useful for a lot of the listeners, just because it is a crazy situation. We're getting closer and closer possibly to doomsday scenario. We're going to talk about some new polling about migrants, about how
Americans are feeling about the border crisis. And then Ryan actually flagged some interesting stuff going on in Florida, well maybe going on on TikTok says it is going on. They say there's a labor striking Florida after e Verify was put into place. So we'll take a little bit of look that we're going to talk about twenty twenty four. Tim Scott, we're always, of course covering twenty twenty four. Here Tim Scott officially announcing.
Give you some thoughts.
Glenn youngin also thinking about throwing his hat there in the ring.
We'll see how that works. And then, oh, I'm just I love this story.
Uber's head of diversity has been put on leave for saying that people should not discriminate against white women.
And they called her manager, and.
Then they called her manager. They actually were the Karens. That's the most of it. This is a great story.
We're going to break it down and just to follow on to everything about how d on the I is a complete scam. But before we get to that, I just want to say thank you all to the Premiums describers who continue to sign up, support our work, our ability to have candidates where we've got RFK coming back, Marianne, several others. They'll be joining us in at the studio with the brand new desk, the new set.
Ryan.
I know you don't like the bricks, so they'll be gone soon. You got to be a little bit sad about it.
A little bit.
But what we could do is we can have open mic nights. That's right, because that's the vibe.
Like maybe dim the lights and all of that, Yeah, maybe maybe we should. We can We can add a little bit of income and help pay for the sets.
Now, actually, I think reduce prices if you make money off.
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Everything's being fabricated. It will soon debut, new graphics, new everything, and premium members get the official first look at the entire set. We're going to have a very special event for all of you. Check your inboxes to make sure that you keep updated. But let's go ahead and get to the show. As I alluded to. With Ukraine, extraordinary action happening yesterday, let's go this. Throw this up from the Wall Street Journal. Ukrainian backed troops have staged a
cross border incursion into Russia. The Ukrainian military intelligence identified the fighters as to volunteer groups of Russian citizens, kind of like those little green men that walked into CRIMEA right Ryan So what they said is that President Putin was the first to make the accusation after open source intelligence suggested that there was some major cross border activity
happening in the Belgarad region of Russia. For those who aren't familiar, it is a town that's about a half hour's drive of the official Ukrainian border, and it's kind of been a hotbed of activity since the start of the invasion. But actually really going back all the way to two thousand and fourteen, Belgarad itself has not been unspared in this conflict. Apparently the Russians accidentally dropped a bomb in the middle of the city, you know, not
that long ago. So goes to show you that great Russian military and how good it can be sometimes bombing accidentally their own citizens. But the reason why this is so significant is that there is basically no denying that these two groups, who they call themselves Ryan were like Free Russia, the Fighter.
Russia Volunteer cores so the Russian legion.
Or right the Free Russia legion.
But that is part of the overall foreign legions that are overseen directly by the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate otherwise known as hu are for those who don't know, hur has been the one behind all of the quote unquote covert Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil, and it's why many of the assurances by Zelensky and others that, oh, we've never attacked Russia, it's ridiculous, you know, ridiculous on its face.
So what do you make of the attack Ryan?
Approximately eight people or so were injured, doesn't appear to see too many killed. But the reason why it's important is that this is the first known incursion, or at the very least, this is the first and most brazen incursion yet by Ukrainian backed forces and really to facto US backed forces onto Russian soil since the beginning of the conflict.
Right, and they're not really trying to hide it now because they're doing this funny rationale where they're saying, yes, it's true that these are fighters are affiliated with US, but when they go into Russia, we have no idea they're no longer affiliated with US, and then they're acting independently.
But they also made clear through the entire operation that they had excellent communication lines open with these so they're basically saying without saying, because if you say that we have now invaded Russian with these troops then diplomatically and militarily. That is that is an escalation, even though it's just words, which is what's so absurd.
Are we really going to say that this didn't have anything to do with the f sixteens, like the one thing that they wanted, which, of course, you know President Biden said yesterday, oh we would never.
He gave me an assurance we won't use it to.
Attack Rush like the day after you see the most brazen and you know, here's the other thing, Like I said, they're not even bashful about it. A spokesperson for the Ukrainian INTELGENS director it said that the aim of the operation was to create a buffer zone to protect Ukrainian civilians. We expect that such an accidents will become more frequent, and I think this is the time to put in the same caveat that I always have for the NEFO folks. Everyone's like, how can you blame Ukraine for I can't.
I can't blame that.
It's it's judgment.
There's no judgment happening here at all. This is about strategic calculus and blowback for the United States. If I was that might be doing the same thing. And guess what though, if you experience the risk of you know, like some catastrophic retaliation, well that risk it should be one hundred percent.
Born by you.
And instead we're the ones who are supplying this army. We're the ones who are basically running all of their ops out of the Pentagon. That was probably the most significant thing that came out of those leaked docs, like we're literally running battle damage assessments for the Ukrainian military the way that we did in the past, for like our air strikes on Isis, except you know, we were actually trying to kill. We were the ones engaged in the fight against Isaac. We don't really have anything to
do with this. Yet the same level of military operational you know, capacity as being used to support them. So overall, once again the reason why this is important, put this up there on the screen. The Ukrainian government continues to deny any accusations of attacking the Belgarod region. They say that it's anti Putin militias, as I've said before, but they are slowly and really i mean almost completely at
this point, eroding any credibility that they have. And again people are like, oh, what are you saying you believe the Russians. No, I believe video is coming out of Belgarod of people getting shot, So I'm like, well, I wonder who's doing this.
I'm not saying the Russians are trustworthy.
But the real jump the shark moment for I think for the Zelenski government Ryan was when they immediately blamed the Russians that for those two deaths in Poland after their anti aircraft missile anti aircraft missile killed two Polish civilians, and they were like, this is Russia, this is why we need a no fly zone. And then immediately after it comes out, it's like, no, that was actually Ukrainian, Ukrainian anti aircraft.
And here's the other thing. They never even apologized.
They still deny that it was ever them, and we're all supposed to just brush past the fact that we're like, oh, like, we literally cannot trust you at all, Like you're a liar, and you are a liar specifically because you want to draws further into your conflict.
So how do we know?
Here's the other question too, how much command and control does Zelenski have over this? Because every time I read in the New York Times about how some strange men who happened to blow up the Nordstream pipeline, who may or may not have been connected to Ukraine. They're like, but Zelensky had no idea. So either that's false or it's true. Both are actually very troubling. Both are a big problem.
Sure, and Zelensky fair fairly new leader, Yes, overseeing a disorganized, young kind of military and country. So you could imagine that you would have in a country that you know, previously had so many different power centers or organized around, you know, regional powers and oligarchic powers. You can imagine that that is not the kind of thing that's easily going to be condensed into the power of just one president.
Could you kind of explain that, because I think that there is often a bias of people who grew up only in the West who are used to democratic countries. In developing countries and specifically post Soviet republics, power is very often not concentrated in the hands of just an executive.
It's disparate.
It technically says one thing on paper and actually works very differently in practice. And that's actually very typical for a post Soviet state like Ukraine and would explain why Zelensky really doesn't could run the show.
Yeah, the West came into all of those to Russia and the ones countries outside of it with what they called shock therapy, which is they took all of the kind of Soviet Union assets public assets, say whether it's the gas companies which then hired Hunter Biden later, yes, all the rest of the economy, and they held auctions and only you know, particular flunkies if you were close enough to the right people were able to be in
on those auctions. And so they were able to buy say gas prom you know, for pennies on the dollar, and then millionaire overnight they own Manchester United or whatever.
You know.
That's that's where.
You get Russian oligaux. That's where you get Ukrainian oligarchs. They always own some type of gas company or something like that, and so from that comes power. Because then we tried to just layer on top of this elections rather than kind of building the institutions and the culture of democracy from bottom up. We just said, okay, we don't have a communist party anymore. We don't have public
ownership of all these assets. We have private ownership of them, and on this date you're going to have an election, and so the aligous are like, okay, cool, here are my candidates.
You know.
The other reason I think, Ryan, that this is all important is it's about command and control. It's about whether if so a like I said, Zelensky had knowledge and ordered the attack, which I think is likely. I think he probably did, given the intelligence assessments this week.
This one privateer, Yeah, absolutely.
And you know why, it doesn't take a genius.
They just suffered a massive battlefield loss in Bakmode. And I actually want to spend some time on this as well, because I think it's very important for people to understand. Let's go into the next part here and I'll explain why I think it's important to put the whatever happened in Bakmo and then also tie it to the way that the US is continuing to increase its aid. So the Wall Street Journal says, to a Ukraine in a fight against Russia, allies are looking to a security model
like Israel. Now here's the problem, Ryan, I don't think a lot of people understand this. Before Ukraine there was one country in the world. They got more money from the United States than any other do you know what it.
Was called Israel? And it was also a high tech developed democracy.
It was always a little bit curious why exactly they needed that money. So they say NATO membership is not on the table for now, oh for now?
Why not forever? And then?
And European allies could create key guarantees for weapons and advanced technology. Now, the reason why I think that the F sixteens are now flowing to Ukraine, that they are engaging in these cross border Bolgarad attacks, and why they recently attacked Putin and all that is. Look, on the one hand, things are going well for them. They killed a lot of Russians in Bakhmut. They obviously had massive
success in their spring counter offensive. On the other hand, the Russians also killed a lot of them in Bakmat.
And guess what.
The Russians are the ones with a population that can easily backfill all of those dead people. They have an industrial base, they have an intact economy. Their homeland is not ultimately, you know, basically decimated or scorched earth, whereas Ukraine has lost twenty percent or so of its entire territory. It doesn't have an industrial base, massive refugee crisis. They're drafting fifty five year olds. I mean, things are not going well over there. I think even Zelensky would admit that,
which is why he's constantly begging for AMMO and for weapons. Well, one of the things that we're trying to do is basically pump as much into Ukraine as possible to make sure that they can maybe make some more gains.
In the Spring Offensive.
From what I've read so far, Spring Offensive looks like it's still probably coming. The issue for them right now is that the ground remains still muddy. I was reading an excellent analysis yesterday about how muddy ground actually can persist all the way up until June, and that heavy rain is still forecast in the regis could we still could be waiting for a week, maybe two weeks, three weeks something like that. They're really waiting for the conditions
on the ground to get better after that period. That's kind of the off switch for USA to Ukraine. Maybe, So they're trying to pump as much into Ukraine as possible to kind of freeze the conflict where it is right now with Israel.
But here's one of the dangers that I think that comes from that.
You know, it's not like we didn't suffer the consequences for sixty odd years of our policy towards Israel in the Middle East that has caused not only about consternation there, it caused real issues. I mean, go back and read some of the original justification for why Osama bin Laden and all of them wanted to attack the United States or Chechens, you know. And there's the point I'm making is it wasn't a costless decision, right, not only in
terms of money, but also geopolitically. So are we signing up for basically a guarantee of Ukraine security forever? And if that's true, then you're basically, you know, giving them de facto NATO membership almost at that.
Point, because Israel has sort of de facto NATO membership in a way. Yeah, I mean, we basically have so many different interlocking gant security guarantees. And then you want to what do you wonder who are the Palestinians in the Ukrainian question? Is is it Russian speaking Ukrainians? Who are then? Because before the invasion, the Russian speakers in Ukraine were treated in a way that here in the.
United States we would find appalling.
Just like if we ever see anybody saying like, no Spanish, you can't seek Spanish here, We're like get out of here, like this.
Is a melting pot.
If they won't speak Spanish, they can speak Spanish, So, you know, attempts to ban the Russian language and things like that. So is that what they mean by you know, or does that flow from that that model if you actually put up this last element here, let's.
Go to the next one, guys, please, Yeah, this is like.
The vision that some war policymakers here in the United States have for and have for how this war could end. And it's not crazy, like it's no, this is actually this is actually by the most likely ending. They call it a freeze. So if you think about, well, actually Israel Palestine a decent one.
Or South Korea, that's really what they.
Point is South South Korea, where they basically have never signed a peace treaty, but Israel Palestine too. There are just sort of lines that people recognize, not as legal lines that that demarket different countries, but lines over which we're not going to shoot at each other. Yeah, right, and so then that Russia keeps territory. But doesn't quote unquote keep territory.
Yes, but there's a lot of perils to that. I mean, first of all, North Korea. You know, it didn't work out so well for us. We were like, ah, we'll contain it hermit Kingdom, it'll collapse on itself. Well, turns out they actually not only survived, they also created nuclear weapons, and now they can bomb and destroy Los Angeles if they want to. And we have this basically mad men, not even they're pretty rational, but they're also crazy, and
they have nukes. And it's forty five minutes away from Seoul, which is one of the most dynamic and incredible cities literally on planet Earth, with massive amounts of GDP and companies you know, making awesome cell phones like maybe somebody one just got and and those are all in danger. And also people forget this, we have spent billion, hundreds of billions of dollars. We have bases all over South Korea.
We have thousands of US troops who are stationed on the peninsula at all times, specifically in case there's ever a jump off between North and South Korea. So once again it's costless, but I think we've spent more in South Korea than anywhere else in the world might be.
Right after World War.
Two, and when you're at a state of perpetual war because you've never declared peace, it also erodes whatever democratic institutions you have inside there. South Korea, for that reason, was a series of military dictatorships in.
The coups until seven.
Yes, absolutely brutal, horrific place to live for anybody who was remotely critical of the government, because they would use well, look.
These North Koreans are right across the border.
They're going to come marching into Seoul, so therefore we need to crush the scent. You could see Ukraine developing that type of authoritarian culture if.
They're constantly under threats.
Because it makes sense, like Abraham Lincoln was not the greatest democrat at the height.
Of Civil War, Well, let me flip it to where I would actually say it was probably worth it in South Korea.
Ain't know why.
It's like I just said, because they got cool companies like Samsung and a lot of its driest a lot of strive Korean cars. They have incredible technology. They are a great because they spend a ton of their money on defense. They're not moochers in any way, they draft their their their own men have mandatory military service.
Like this is not what Ukraine will do too, will be one more place where we can dump all of our excess military capacity.
They're certainly that.
But there's what I would posit is, I don't see the next Samsung no offense coming out of Ukraine, Like I'm sorry in terms.
Of like a well, maybe they'll get wiped out, but for ten fifteen years, I mean wiped out by AI or whatever. But for ten to fifteen years, Ukrainian engineers and software developers were the thing that was powering.
So you're right back.
But a lot of them left. They don't live in Ukraine anymore.
Actually, so those from what I've read, are the very first people who actually left.
They had connections already.
Here, or they went to the West, they already had dual citizenship or any of that. So look this again, it's not a slight I'm just saying out of one of the most corrupt countries on earth, like I'm doubtful that we're going to see it. And also, frankly, you know at this point, like this is a down market region of Europe which is already down market. GDP relative to all of Asia. Sorry, you're opeans, I.
Mean South Korea is massively corrupt to South Korea was massively corrupt to us and just milking the I think this.
Is a good point, So I guess people can turn it around. But I would just point general trends and directions and just be like, well, which way am I betting my money on. I'm betting on Asia, and I'm looking at so what some of the things that are happening here and the Israeli and the South Korean model. I think the two things that you and I can't agree on where they cost us a hell of a
lot of money in the long run. And not only that, we signed up for security situations which have definitely imperiled us.
I mean, you know, and again that can be worth it.
I think it absolutely is worth it in terms of South Korea, but we should not We should acknowledge that, you know, one of our major cities, Los Angeles or Hawaii for example, one of our states is literally at risk of annihilation because of our relationship with that country. I think that's a balance and a trade that is probably worth it in the long run, given the amount of economic activity and cross cultural connection and all that we have. But that needs to be a conscious choice
by the American people. And I don't think that is a conscious choice right now for Ukraine. And if they want it to be that way, well you got to sell it to us. Then you've got to come out and say, like, all right, guys, we're signing up for one hundred year commitment here and that we're going to we're going to turn Ukraine in the next South Korea. It's like, okay, well, are we all ready for you know, a billion or not a trillion dollars or so to
be spent in terms of economic development there. That seems like a big, big lift and not something necessarily that has a democratic support.
So they have to sell it to us first.
Right, None of these wars were like declared and voted on, right, NGO, And so Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden met in the White House yesterday. Here's Kevin McCarthy House Speaker. After that meeting the President, he said that he's willing to cut spending, but he also wants to raise revenue as well.
Are you willing to talk about that?
No, Just to be clear, why when you talk about raising revenue. If you look at the fifty year average of America, how much money have we brought in by revenue? That would be roughly about seventeen percent of GDP. Right now we're bringing almost twenty percent of GDP in revenue. Now, how many times does that happen in modern history? Only twice in nineteen forty four and in two thousand. So you're bringing in more money at a higher percentage than any other time.
Can you explain?
First of all, that was his reaction right outside of the White House. But we have a thread, Ryan, could you break this down, I think for the audience, let's put it up there on the screen. These are just about what exactly the GOP wants and can you put it in plain English for everybody.
So basically, what the what Republicans are saying is that spending increased significantly under the Biden administration. So therefore it's unfair to say that we're going to do the normal cost of living inflation adjustments because we did such significant bumps over the last couple of years. So therefore we need to spend less and that that's the thing that might get Republicans hung up completely is that and you can move to the next one.
So people, if they want to read this while we're talking.
They're saying Republicans are saying, we want to spend absolutely less, like not just as a percentage, not just a slower rate of growth, but less than the year before nominal right, and they want to spend that. They want to spend more on the Pentagon. So if you want to give more to the military and you want to give less overall,
then you have to give a huge amount less. And if you have already agreed accidentally in a state of the Union not to touch medicare and soil security, that limits you to discretionary spending, which is like the EPA.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, it's veterans.
A lot of that is veterans, which is what is also getting Republicans hung up because they're like, oh, no, no, of course we're not going after veterans, Like okay, So you keep saying that all these things you're not going after, and that leaves them with rights app and then they want to go after some of the some of the climate tax credits in IRA and for Biden, that's a red line he's and he wouldn't have the votes for that in the House, House or Senate anyway.
And so then they're stuck.
Now they're back to then, well, okay, what can we do about food stamps again? And then they're going to say, well, and we're only going to do work requirements for able bodied people without dependence. Okay, the number of people getting food stamps in that situation is very slim, really and there, and the amount they get is like nineteen dollars or something, okay, twenty dollars a month.
Yeah, So this is this is where he's talking about if we can go to the talking about both are agreeing on permitting reform. This is one where I'm pretty pro permitting reform.
Ryan. Can you steal mean?
Okay?
Can?
I was gonna say, can you at least steal man? Or where else I am on this for because I don't think people understand this.
It has to do with it.
Okay, it's framed by its detractors as just about oil, but it's not just about It has to do with all clean energy. And so as somebody who is very anti the current regulatory regime around wind, solar, and nuclear, especially nuclear, permitting reform to me actually does look like an incredibly good idea, but maybe explain it to why people are opposed.
Yeah, I'm a kind of a heretic on this right.
But to make the argument against permitting reform, what people say is like, look, they're already telling us we have five or ten years to cap emissions at what are already catastrophic levels that are putting humanity at risk, like existent of an existential crisis like that.
That's the that's the argument.
And there's a lot of climate sciences that says, yeah, actually that could be right, and that if you do permitting reform that is geared toward fossil the fossil fuel industry, and the fact that API of the American Petrolium Institute
left its watermark on Joe Mansions, permitting reform really poisoned it. Well, So to explain that, so to speak, So oftentimes legislation is written on K Street by lobbyists, and Newt Gingrich helped bring this about in nineteen ninety four by when he took over, he gutted the amount of staff that the public has, so the public gets what it pays for, and so members of Congress outsource a lot of their
legislative writing to k streets. So the American Petroleum Institute wrote Joe Manchin's permitting reform legislation, put their watermark on it, and forgot to take it off when they circulate it.
So what is your pro case for permitting?
So the pro case is that we have learned from recent in inflation politics and also from the yellow vest protests in France that turning around climate politics by forcing working class people to pay more for energy is just maybe in an ideal world where you're an authoritarian and you can just crush all dissent.
Can do it, but it's not going to work.
It's going to produce popular revolt, and your policies are going to be repealed. So what's the point of trying to force through a policy that's just going to get repealed amid anger. The only way you're going to get there is if renewables and clean energy can compete and are cheap cheaper than fossil fuels, and so you're not going to be able to keep everything in the ground
by force. The way you're going to keep things in the ground is the way you're keeping coal in the ground now in the United States, which is companies look at it, and they're like, it's not worth the money it takes to dig that out of the ground keep to.
Burn natural gas, and so we'll do. No one is saying natural gas is great, but it's a hell of a lot better than coal.
And so the argument for permitting reform is you can't you can't get enough wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewables online at scale in order to drive the price down. If every single neighborhood can look at a transmission line and say, you know what, we prefer actually not to have a transmission line. Oh really, that's that's interesting. That's surprising. We've never met anybody who would you rather not have construction in your backyard.
Yeah, that's what. That's our choice. Yeah, it's And if.
We want to have nine billion people on the planet who are using this much energy, we're going to have to get the energy from somewhere.
This is important for people to get because this is like one of the biggest wars in Washington right now. And that's another reason why I was pretty annoyed with Biden whenever he phrased it as like some massive giveaway to the oil industry. Sometimes two things can be true. Industry can want something, it can also still be good, you know, whenever it comes to cost, and like what
you're laying out here, the way our regulatory regime. I've talked about this before in terms of like nuclear reactors, Like we haven't had a new nuclear reactor built in the United States or at least has come online in the United States as the nineteen seventies. There's one currently in the works. It takes it way too long to build, and it costs way too much money. Now, some of that is definitely on the companies itself. A lot of it, though,
is also on the government. And there's some crazy breakthrough technology happening right now in the world of nuclear reactors. They're looking at him that are so small they can fit literally inside of a truck, I mean nuclear fission technology. And most of it is happening the research not in the US, and it's specifically because they don't think they
can do business here. Unfortunately, the Europeans, while they sometimes have a better permitting regime, they also are anti nuclear ideologically, and so we're really not seeing the uptake on this in the world's most developed economies. The Asians are the ones instead who are like, hey, come over here except Japan.
You know.
Now Japan is.
Out also because they had a little bit of a situation.
Well it was their fault, Okay, I'll maintain that, but that was one percent on them. The problem though, also Ryan, is that the way that this all fits is, as I understand it, this is a major Republican priority, but they are also not willing to trade on some revenue raisers. And this is where let me call out the Republicans
here because this stuff drives me absolutely crazy. They specifically shot down closing the carried interest loophole, which is literally only beneficial for people who work in private equity and venture capital who.
Are multi multi multimillion.
Just so they don't have to pay a tax which is equivalent to income tax like you or I or anybody else would and can pay dramatically lower on their millions of profits.
So, like, let's be clear, that's number one.
Number two where they're talking about here is wonky, But it's about pharmacy benefit managements.
Can you explain that one? So the people and these these.
Are the new folks who are really in the cross hairs of everybody in Washington because like some of the Earth Insurance companies and drug makers, who are some of the two of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, were.
Like, who can we take out?
Right, it's like a pharmacy benefic managers And these are the folks who are basically middlemen and are negotiating.
All they do is at cost, right, Like that is literally all they do is at cost of prescription drug.
And it's true.
And yes, sure, you know, nuke the pharmacy benefit manag It's not going to save everything, but it'll it'll do something, right, uh And and it's it's hilarious because the public is clamoring for something, and the insurance industry, in the pharma school industry like here's something you can do.
Yeah.
And finally Congress is like, yes, sir, yes.
And there was a really funny part of Ryan here that we were talking about yesterday. Let's put it up there on the screen about how there is a growing sense of regret within Democratic ranks that the party missed an opportunity to neutralize the debt limit when they fully controlled Congress and White House for two years.
Oh yeah, you think what a stupid you know.
My favorite part, Ryan is that the best it's been explained to me. The reason why they didn't do it is because they would have had to put a number on it, and by putting a number on it, they would have thought they thought that would be a bad headline. So they were not willing to sacrifice one bad headline for having to now cut all the programs that the past while they were in office. And look, the ball is in the Republican's court, there's no question. I mean,
they are completely controlling the playbook here. You know, Biden and all them bent the knee almost in every way. Speaker McCarthy also spoke at the Capitol yesterday after he returned from the White House.
Let's take a listen to what he said.
So what we would like to do is, sit down. We have to spend less than we spent last year. And you got to know why the Democrats spent six trillion dollars. They brought us inflation more dependent on China. We've had three of the biggest four banks failures just in the last couple of months. So what we want to do is a limit of the amount of spending that we could do in the future, about one percent.
That is an idea by Joe Manchin. Get our supply chain working again, so work requirements for only able body people with no dependence.
Okay, So what do you get from that, Ryan is that he's drawing it out when he said able body people. But the problem is, I just don't see how you reach the overall top line numbers here. So I think that the TLDR is we're trying to explain to everybody here like what exactly they want, Well, the White House doesn't want. And the consequences, I mean, we've talked about ad nauseum at this point, but are very grave from
what I have seen. One current estimates as one point five million people could lose their job within just the first forty hours that we would have Medicare and Social Security payments that would stop on June eighth if they let the crisis drag on, not to market, not to mention a very likely market drop of some twenty percent or so on the S and P five hundred. But here's the other thing. Nobody knows it could know. Absolutely
nobody knows how it would go. Even the fourteenth Amendment now and all the consideration on that stuff, it's up in the air. Because Biden decided that he wouldn't do it, and now it's maybe on the table. So overall it's a very chaotic situation and it's not good. Where do you think things will progress from now?
I think it depends on what Republicans are willing to say yes to, because I think that Democrats, if Biden agrees to something, there will be enough Democrats to that. You know, you get a hundred you maybe get a hundred Democrats in the House right to go with it. So what's your sense on how many Republicans there are who would take a deal that is good for them.
Let's say your freezing spending and you've got two years worth of caps and that you can fight it out in the next election against you know what the status quote was. It's a huge win, but it's not everything they wanted. Do you think that there will be a revolt? That seems to be the big question.
I don't know. There's no quote. You know.
The other idea that I heard floated to me by somebody was, hey, man, I don't think we'll DeVault. They'll probably just do some one month extension or something like that to September, which I mean it's possible.
I'm not so sure.
Though that the the you know, far right people when like the freedom caucused type people in the House would go for that. So I genuinely don't know. I don't know what they would be willing to agree to.
It could get an extension, like Democrats vote for an extent.
Dems would definitely vote for an extension, and it's possible they could say.
Look.
The other thing is that I kind of said this to Crystal yesterday, is I really think that nobody's gonna budge until the markets crash.
I think something's going to really crash.
That was by the way, I kept wondering, why do they keep holding these meetings at four thirty pm or five?
Yeah.
Somebody looked at me like it was an idiot, and I was like, does they don't want the markets to crash?
And I was like, oh, that's so obvious. That actually makes ten.
So the reason why everyone, if you're wondering, why these are taking a place later in the day, is because they have to wait until markets closed so that there's no reaction to what they do.
For Biden, he's like four o'clock, man, I'm done.
Yeah, I know. The guy never works passed forth there.
That's why I was shocked sin since one is Biden have a five thirty pm meeting on his calendar. But yeah, this apparently is the answer. Let's go to the next one here. These are some interesting polling Ryan around the border crisis and probably one of the more vulnerable areas for Democrats right now.
Let's put it up there on the screen.
CBS poll asks directly, do you think the Biden administration should be tougher or easier on migrants who are trying to cross at the US Mexico border? Fifty eight percent actually plus four from April say tougher easier, only twenty percent. You know what's fascinating is that even amongst Democrats, you've got forty one percent saying tougher, twenty percent easier. GOP is eighty four eleven, Indy is fifty four to twenty five.
And then you've got the racial breakdown. Ironically, Hispanic as well, which is often held up as some monolith, you know, community, is also at forty one percent tougher, just so everybody knows. I think it's an interesting breakdown, Ryan, in terms of broader and how much people are thinking about it. Put the next one up there on the screen, because people's feelings on this are more nuanced than you would think.
So for example, if you ask people, would you favor housing migrants or think there are facilities to do so, there at fifty two to thirty seven. If you say housing migrants willingness versus space concern, most people are very much in favor of housing them. However, in terms of some of the bigger breakdown, like do you think that you should be tougher, well, then yeah, the vast majority
actually say yes. For example, you know Ron DeSantis got a lot of heat for sending migrants to Martha's Vineyard. They say, do you approve of migrants to sending northern states? They say, yes, you think we should involve parts of the country those places have more space and resources. People don't like it whenever it sends a political statement, but on his face they're very much okay. Kind of what's spreading migrants to places which don't have to bear the brunt?
For example, I know it was a big thing with Martha's Vineyard, and they're like, yeah, you're dealing in you know with what we deal with literally in like thirty minutes in l Pass or in Ego Pass or any of these other places.
They say, in.
General, what you find is a more nuanced view of the migrant immigration situation than I think is genuinely presented by the media.
So what do you make of it?
I mean, one of the big concerns that the left has been forecasting over the last decade is what they call eco fascism, that there's going to be so much popular resentment toward migrants driven by climate collapse around the World war in climate collapse, that you're going to have countries in the developed world, you know, the haves are going to keep out the have nots, and that you're not going to just see demagogues pushing for walls in
the United States. You're going to see that, you know, all over the western and developed world outside of the Western world. And so I think that this is a step in that direction. I think you're going to see this. I think this is going to be where popular opinion is.
At the same time, we're facing labor shortages and we're facing you know, birthright issues that are going to make it so that ironically, the countries that are able to bring in the most young people who are able to work are going to be the ones that are going to grow in the twenty first century.
So yeah, this is where I'm not so sure.
I always this is this is a quasi libertarian argument that I hear sometimes and it's like, well, what's wrong with higher wages? I think higher wages are great. I mean, there's no real you know, labor shortage has frankly been one of the best thing that's ever happened for the American working class. There's a lot of dispute on this, but there is some evidence, some evidence, is what I'm saying,
And again it is in dispute. I should be honest that part of the Trump administrations at least reduction in overall migration had an impact on the overall wage inflator had an impact on overall wage increase from twenty seventeen till twenty twenty. Obviously, twenty twenty things got a little bit wonky posts that I don't think you can say that the current wage conditions really had anything to do with immigration or not, just because of the madness of
what happened with COVID and everything. But from before that period, yeah, I think there's good evidence on the birth rate question that one is where and look, I think all of this presumes that this is almost puts like immigration on the same footing as legal versus illegal, and I think that that is where some people like me and I have the most objection. It's like, look, I think it's not necessarily the best position, but I think it's a defensible one to say, oh, we need more immigrants in
order to take jobs, et cetera. It's like, okay, well, then you need to come here in an orderly process, like it can't be. For example, you know, we had thirty thousand slots for asylum that people are allowed to apply for. We had one point five million people apply for that. That's insane, you know. And then here's the
other thing. It's not fair to them either. These are people don't even speak any English, paying some coyote to drag them across Mexico, many of them being raped and killed in the process.
Then they get.
Here because they think they can just like waltz across and go to work, and it's like, oh, it turns out you're living in a shantytown in Mexico for the next two years. So I mean, that's not a good situation for them. For child, for a single mom or single adult male either. I mean these none of these things are good I think right now for.
Anyone, right right, we say you got to go through an orderly process, but our system is incapable, it's insane or uninterested in producing an orderly process for them to go through. And so so you're seeing states start to respond to. Governor Ron DeSantis earlier in May sign into law in new immigration bill which by July is going to require all companies to use Everify, which is basically requires you to run your employees through the federal system.
If you don't, the fines are extraordinarily largely I think ten thousand dollars a pop or something like that.
Also requires hospitals to take kind of the.
Immigration information from patients who come in, and other ways to tighten the screws around the immigrant population. Here's how some of the local reporting has been unfolding even before it has gone into actual official effect.
But a new immigration crackdown by the Florida legislature and Governor Ronda Santis is.
Now making it harder for them to live and work in the States.
And even though the policy is not yet an effect, CBS do's Miami's Garberto Arzola shows us how it has already shaken the undocumented community along with employers they work for.
Our recent survey from the Migration Policy Institute says they're around eight hundred thousand undocumented immigrants right here in the state of Florida, many taking jobs like construction and agriculture, but that may not be for long. Around South Florida, labor workers are becoming more and more scarce by the day.
According to some employees.
People aren't showing up to work because they're scared of being deported.
And critics say Senate Bill seventeen eighteen.
Is to blame none of the desk, mister speaker.
According to the bill, businesses could face up to a ten thousand dollars fine per undocumented employee, and the state could revoke their license For construction workers like Jose, he says, half of the workers are already gone.
Many workers are leaving thinking they're going to be deported, so they're going to other states.
And if you notice, that was TikTok, So this is a this is a big thing on top. It's a local news.
Report that went on a TikTok and these types of reports have been going viral and it's creating an impression.
That might not quite yet be justified by the numbers.
But I wanted to play one more just so people have a sense of what's going around.
TikTok.
Here's here's one more that's really been making the rounds roll this side.
Hello everyone, this is an update. Today is Tuesday, May the sixteenth. It's not Sunday. There is my truck with grass and this is a construction site here in Davenport, Florida, twenty miles from Orlando.
And this is all you see.
It's nine am. Usually at this time. There's a lot of people here working, all kinds of contractors doing their job. Roofs of course, a lot of noise and loud Mexican music. This is what you hear today. So it is happening. It is not fake. It is not a joke. You see one contractor there. This is all thanks to run the.
Santas anecdotal obviously, but we don't know if it's fully there. That said, it's probably not a surprise, I mean, because this was long predicted. I mean, looking here at Tampa Bay Business Journal, they have a headline that just came out literally yesterday saying immigration law could significantly impact Florida's construction and agriculture industries. Here Again, though, I'm just like, Okay, yeah, that's true. It is true that enforcing the law will
have consequences. That doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. It just means like, okay, well, then we need a process through which we can rectify this mismatch in the way that apparently all construction and agriculture operates with under the table illegal labor and we're all just supposed to be cool with that. That does just doesn't seem like a good status quo. And look, I'm not saying it doesn't have consequences, but you know, maybe consequences are worth it.
Well, we have a Yeah, people have a couple significant complaints about life in America right now. One is that housing is too expensive, very true. Two is that food is too expensive.
All true.
This policy, we'll.
Drive up the prices of all of those things substantially.
I think.
I think the big mistake we made came actually ironically, when we hardened the border and made it much more difficult for seasonal laborers to go back and forth between Mexico and Central America and the United States. Because we had this incorrect sense that people who were coming here to work the fields, to work construction jobs and sending money home didn't want to live in Mexico or El Salvador in Honduras.
They really really wanted to live in the United States.
And it's kind of a chauvinistic, almost quaint cute like the idea that really, our country is so awesome that everybody wants to move here. No, in fact, they wanted to come here, work really really hard for four months, send money back home, relaxed back at home with their families, you know, do work back there, and then come back make American money again, you know, send money back home and keep that going. We did that. That worked for like one hundred years or something like that, and then
we said, no, not doing that anymore. So now all of a sudden you had all of these migrant labors who are now trapped north of the wall, north of this hard, hard border. So then they send their they send for their families to come up with them too, and you start then then they start building roots here in the country. And so we've always had a system where, you know, we don't pay fifteen to thirty dollars an hour for fruit pickers like.
That, but I think we should and I look if strawberries cost more, like they cost more, and I think that's kind of where I'm getting at. It's like, I just feel like some of this is almost reverse chauvinism, as in the idea is that strawberries can only be picked by people who don't aren't from here.
It's like, well, wait, why not. I mean people will do anything for the right wage. It's just that the wage is.
Low and the second, but we have a system that the second that wages start to rise, our system, our our fed chair whoever it is, and whatever party is going to watch it. Like, you know what, we have too many people working. We need to push wages back down. So we have built a system in which wages can't
go up. And so the only thing you can do is then allow people to do labor arbitrage, where you know, the amount of money that they're making in the field isn't a lot if they're going to live full time in Florida, but would also but it would allow them to actually have a nice life and send enough money back to Guatemala.
No defense here of the Federal Reserve or I'm more saying like you have got look, something has got to give.
In my opinion, i'd rather the FED give and not you.
Know, US immigration law, where you actually effectively have a complete lawless system and we have no idea how many people are even here in the US illegally literally none, because it's no proper census. And then yet somehow we do have a census, and yet they also count. Whenever it comes to the electoral college. Some would go and riddle me even though they can't vote, Riddle me that one. I still have never exactly gotten in my head around that,
and I think that generally comes. And look, you know, I hate bringing personal stuff into this, but you know, it costs my parents thousands of dollars to become citizens of this country. It's a pain in the ass to go through the green car process. You can't just waltz into any other country on Earth and just say, you know what, I'm staying here, I want to go to work, and you know, and you can't do anything to me.
Try doing that in literally anywhere else, and they will, they will laugh at you and throw you out almost immediately.
Do I think we should be above that?
Yeah, But that doesn't mean that we have to have such a permissive system as.
What we have right now.
I have nothing but empathy and compassion for people who want to come here. Obviously everybody on earth, a lot of people on Earth at least want to come to the United States. But that also doesn't mean you have a right to do it based on your terms. It's supposed to be a mutually beneficial transaction, not something where
it's just up to one person. And you know, I guess you know of what populous itself doesn't get a real vote, And I think that's where some of the what you referenced earlier, that is where the tougher mindset comes from. You're like, hey, hold on, They're like, this is not fair. And I think that's that's what's reflected I think in the polling line.
And I guess who's going to do who's going to do these jobs?
I mean, I just see no.
Reason why Americans got I mean, listen, I mean if they were paying, if I was younger and I came from a different background, and if it was eighteen dollars an hour, like maybe I would do it, you know, or maybe a lot a lot of Americans would do it, like there's a lot of there's no reason why American citizens can't do these jobs.
It's just a lot of them don't want to because then we're cheap.
Then strawberries and orange juice just become luxury items for the super rich.
And I agree that that doesn't necessarily mean. I mean, listen, eggs, for example, have not gone up in priced since nineteen seventy. You want to know why, and it's because of an aggressive government subsidy program.
Well, I see no reason why.
Recently when we had to kill a build, well we had, we had crazy egg inflation.
We're actually below overall inflation.
Fun update for everybody, but overall, in the aggregate, egg prices have not risen for a long period. Why because we just decided to society. We're like, yeah, you know what, we're just not going to So I don't know why you don't necessarily can't do the same thing for other products. Although you know that's the big government part of me.
Now you're talking if you want massive government subsidies to lift low income people up into a middle class.
I've always wanted that. That's all I've ever advocated for on the show.
Works for me, Let's go to the next one. Here Tim Scott throwing his hand in the ring. We put together a compilation of his pitch. While he thinks he can be the guess the new Reagan in this race against Donald Trump.
Here's what he had to say, Oh.
Nor Charleston, And for those of you who wonder if it's possible for a broken kid and a broken home to rise beyond their circumstances, the answer is yes. And our nation our standing at a time.
For choosing victimhood or victory. Victimhood or victory victimhood or victory, grievance or greatness.
I choose freedom and hope and opportunity.
Will you choose it with me?
Will you join me as messengers of hope, as missionaries to believe that the strength of our ideas can change our nation again?
I will.
Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.
Certainly something is he running for vice president?
There?
What's your read?
I think he's genuinely running for president. So I don't know if a lot of people understand this, But people who are in the Senate love Tim Scott. They love this guy personally.
I don't get it.
But John Thune the number two Republican in the GOP caucus. He spoke at the introduction for Tim Scott, endorsed him. A lot of others fellow senators really want him to run. On a personal level. He's built up a lot of relationships with them. But honestly, I think he believes it. And here's the thing. It only takes maybe one billionaire, maybe named Larry Allison to underrate your entire campaign. For where the guy who's worth like what is he worth today?
Like ninety billion or something like that, the founder of Oracle. Here's the other thing. Trump himself is welcoming Tim Scott into the race. Put this up there on the screen. Trump says, good luck to Senator Tim Scott entering the Republican presidential race. It is rapidly loading up with lots of people. Tim is a big step up from Ron to sanctimonious, who is totally unelectable. I got opportunity zones done with Tim, a big deal that has been highly successful.
Good luck Tim.
Here's the thing everyone was trying to understand, like, why is Trump not attacking Tim Scotty attacks Roun DeSantis. It's obvious Ryan, because he knows Tim Scott is not a threat to him, and DeSantis actually is. Thus, the more people who jump in the race, the better off he is. He even alludes to it. It is rapidly loading up with lots of people. He's not an idiot.
He knows that. That's why he won in twenty sixteen.
And guess what they're proving him right, Tim Scott's in the race, Chris Christie's want to throw his hat in the ring. Chris Sinunu, the governor of North Dakota, will save you the next one. Glenn youngin plot twist, will do a whole block on that in a second, also thinks that he wants to throw his hat there in the ring. And you know, look, I gotta be honest here, this down market Reagan pitch from the nineteen eighties, It's like, who is this for?
I get why stan At.
GOP voters wanted, but how can you look at the politics of Donald Trump and his popularity with the GOP base and think that's what people want right now?
Even DeSantis, what do we just do.
A whole block on immigrates one of the strictest immigration laws in the country.
Why Because he knows that's what GOP voters want.
This comes from a place of being on the back foot, of feeling like we got to take something like that's not the forward message that that people are want.
I mean, it didn't win in twenty sixteen, and.
It's not nineteen, you know, nineteen seventy nine right now, It's a very different time.
And I think Tim Scott there is doing a bit of a kind of racial politics bank shot. So what I what I hear from that is he's telling Republican voters that a you are none of you are racist or bigoted because you're all supporting me. And you know, you saw Herman Caine rising in what twenty twelve, nine ninety nine, like yeah, in ways that were very explicit where people are very explicit in their in their support from But then secondly, look at the rhetoric.
That he used, vic versus victory, victimhood and then grievance.
See I read that as a shot is Trump. I'm surprised you read that as a shot at the left. I read I mean, it can be both, but I do think that Trump is locked into that.
I read it as as playing into the kind of Trump supporter or Republican mindset that look, yes, slavery was bad, Yes redlining was bad, but we had the civil rights movement and everyone is equal now in the United States. Stop playing victim and stop just leading with your grievances. Let's be more optimistic, let's look, let's look for opportunities.
I guess when you put it that way, I thought that.
That was kind of how he was coding himself. But I feel like it's a much more of a twenty twelve message.
Yes, and that's than a twenty twenty four right.
Yeah, I'm totally with you. I think that I will I would say it said. I read it as a shot at Trump. At least that's how I saw the initial.
Report and I could see that.
But because the grievances, maybe it's double Yeah.
It's a double entendre. Let's put this up there on the screen. It's important. As I noted before, some of the people who were spotted at the VIP section, one of them Mark Sanford, uh, which is a yeah appellation trail, Mark John Thune, as I alluded to, and billionaire Larry Ellison, the multi billionaire Republican donor who loves Tim Scott. Scott is like made in a lab to appeal to some of these Republican voters who are like, we just want, you know, a really nice guy, like somebody who's not
like Trump. And the problem is is that that's not what the voters want. And you know, even if you saw the energy, I mean, there was not a whole lot of at least to me, you could Yeah, my personal observation, I was not seeing a lot of organic enthusiasm there. And he really kind of had to go the crowd into cheering, whereas Ryan. I'm not sure if you've been, but if you ever been to a Trump event, you don't have to go.
Those people been doing anything all right, Like.
They're like, yeah, they've been tailgated, Yeah, they've.
Been tail And it's so hard to explain to people who haven't been to various different political events, but Trump events are something like literally it's like being at a concert, it's like being at a football game. You if you've covered politics professionally as you and I have, there is nothing else in all of politics like it. Some Bernie rallies came close, I will give him that.
Bert.
Bernie also kind of became a bit of a lifestyle thing. But Trump and Bert like they are in another league compared to what I'm seeing at right.
And the concert and analogy is a good one because you have a lot of people in the crowd who are hoping he'll play certain stuff.
Yes, that's right, play the hits me.
Yeah, he's got his You know, you can't always get what you want. That he walks out or what walks away from.
They love it.
Then some of them then go to all of them, but then some of his rifts they want to hear those two.
It's like, oh, is he is he going to do the toilet riffs? Right? That's a good point.
Snake that one. I used to know the snake by heart. I can't say it anymore for those who don't know. It's a great old Trump is. Let's go to the next part here that you flagged Force Ryan and put it up there on the screen of Virginia Governor Glenny Younkin is reconsidering his twenty two twenty four bid.
Now.
The reason why this is interesting is he had already ruled it out in April. Whenever he was asked whether he was going to run for president, he said, quote, listen, I didn't write a book. I'm not in Iowa, on New Hampshire or South Carolina. I am wholly focused on the Commonwealth of Virginia. However, apparently that has changed in the last few months. Why well, it's exactly what we
covered yesterday. It's because DeSantis, apparently to youngin in too many others, is looking rockier, and Youngkin is thinking, Hey, why not me?
He says.
Quote one of his top advisors told Axios he's reconsidering.
He'd be in his own lane.
He's not never Trump and he's not Trump lt a top Virginia GOP strategist, told Axios there are quote serious discussions happening on re engaging in the presidential race.
I did take.
Notice, and that definitely Ryan after he dropped this like Morning in America type video on Twitter two days ago, and I was like, what are we doing here? You know this ain't about Virginia, and can you also explain the convoluted gubernatorial process in Virginia?
Right, this is why you kind of would want to run for president.
Right, you can be governor again, but not consecutively exactly. So he's out after this one term and so yeah, he's got to find something.
Else to do or go back to Carlisle.
And yeah, so I think that if you think about Ron De Santis as sort of like a quirk that was keeping the kind of Champagne of the Republican primary.
In the bottle.
Without this, without his strength anymore, it's uncorked and everybody, everybody's coming out because now, like, we're not going to hold back for DeSantis anymore, because DeSantis seems kind of blood in the water, which is a real quite a reflection because that if you think back to when he was saying he wasn't going to challenge Trump or De santas DeSantis was, he was doing better, doing much.
Better, I mean, and look, a lot can change.
De Santa is literally not even in the race, and apparently we're writing his obituary, which you know, we have to be careful of, right, be like, look, he is certainly entering at a disadvantage, but you know, we've never seen him go up against Trump. At the same time, though, I view it in the same way that I look at the Tim Scott decision, which is, at the end of the day, Tim Scott entering the race is it's
a zero sum game. He thinks I'm better than Ron DeSantis, I'm the guy who can go up against Nikki Haley doing the same thing. I Vivike Ramaswami doing the same thing, Asa Hutchinson doing the same thing. And what do we learn from all of those people? At an individual level, all of them are doing the right thing. But on a macro level, if you really believe that Trump is such so awful, then you're actually drawing votes away from Ron DeSantis. There's no question about it. You're just splitting
the field and Younkin. Look, I don't think Youngkin would ever place that high in a Republican primary, but four percent, five percent?
Why not?
Also, I don't know people remember this, Virginia is a very important Super Tuesday state and of which Marco Rubio won last time. I believe it was the only state that even won in twenty sixteen. Well, they've got a decent amount of delegates. So now you just robbed Desanta's of a headline probably or maybe reduced his headline that he would have gotten otherwise in a sweeping victory. So again pointed this out yesterday. Obama is the reason that
the Klobachar and Budaj edge dropped out in twenty twenty. Right, But the GOP does not have that same forcing function for somebody to come in and be like, hey man, you had your chance, it's time to go.
Nobody's doing that. No, RNC has no credibility.
And Trump himself he wants as many people in there as possible, and it looks like he's getting his wish right.
And one thing that was keeping people out was the nervousness that Trump was going to turn them toxic, right like he did the Rubio Yes, or to Christie it's to some degree.
Yeah.
And so for him to welcome Tim Scott and tells other candidates come on in and.
I bask in my love, that's right. I only hate Ron de sanctimonious, not you. You're fine.
Yes, And look, I think it's a problem for Ron.
I think it's a big The biggest loser in all of this is Ron DeSantis, especially if Young Cain comes in, because what do we just point out? Young Kin not only could draw from him politically more important, he could draw him from the money like he has. You know, not only is he personally wealthy, but he knows a lot of these traditional GOP donors. Northern Virginia is like the hotbed of you know GOP consultants number one too, literally used to work for the Carlisle Group of private
equity defense contractors and all that. So he would have money well enough to draw stay in the race, and he would have enough money to stay throughout the time period and also draw money away that would otherwise go to Ron DeSantis for donors who otherwise would not want Trump to run. So overall this would be a huge blow to DeSantis.
For Youngkin himself, I'm not sure.
I'm not sure what he has to lose by running, actually, since he can't be governor anyways, so he's in a tougher spot than most.
Let's go, oh if you want.
We got a new dispatch from the de I Chronicles.
Right, that's right, we have our favorite dispatch from the DEI Chronicles. And what's happening here? I just I love this. It's everything to me. Put this up there on the screen. Uber has now put its Asian diversity chief on leave after employees, mostly led by some black employee groups, complained about sessions called Don't Call Me Karen that were intended to explore the American white woman experience. So she was put on leave after black employee or I should not
say black employees. Some black employee groups, which maybe represent some portion of black employees at Uber, complained to management that they felt like they were being lectured about the American white woman experience and that it was inappropriate for that to be included because they did not view Karen as a slur. Now, I would not put that in
a racial slur category. But if the overall, if the overall ethos of Uber is we don't judge people by the color of their skin, and we want all employees to be aware of the personal, individual struggles that each individual human being is outside of their race, then don't call me Karen Session seems perfectly appropriate and fine, now, especially given you the amount of sixteen nineteen nonsenses most of these companies force upon their employees on a weekly basis.
So one, you know, don't call me Karen Session though, was apparently though enough Ryan to trigger some of these groups and has now led to the capitulation by the CEO of Uber, who has put this lady on leave and is now ignited a crisis within the company and
is causing lots of consternation. It is also humorous to me because it shows you that the DEI in practicality really means basically like whatever white fragility Robin diallonjello nonsense that it is, it doesn't actually mean real diversity, equity inclusion. And that's why I reject the term and the entire practice, and I think it's a complete grift in a farce.
What did you make of this?
The kind of funniest part of it was the way that the language was the same, going in both directions, just with the shoes on the other foot.
You have this.
So the DEI boss responded to the complaints by quote telling the women that while the conversation may have been uncomfortable, sometimes being pushed out of your own strategic ignorance is the right thing to do. That is exactly what DEI bosses say to white people who go through these sessions and come out and say it's you made me feel bad about being why And they say, look too bad.
Got to be uncomforted. You have to be.
Uncomfort because in that discomfort is where you find your insights.
Instead, all evidence says that in the discomfort you become more racist, right right.
Right, So I mean forget the actual evidence, but what they say is that the discomfort is a good thing. So she used that same line back to these women who are protesting, saying, sometimes being pushed out of your own strategic ignorance is the right thing to.
Do, okay, And that didn't work for her. That blew upright in her face.
So they're not allowed.
To be uncomfortable, but you have to be uncomfortable, got it, So it seems like discomfort.
And then to go later one later, as they're applauding the fact that they got her suspended, one of the women is like, this sounds a little bit too much like what police do. Oh so there there was a little bit of maybe the kind of regret at their victory. Yes, that it might have creeped into the carceral territory, because then you're reproducing the same abolition anti abolitionist tendencies that you.
Are fighting against.
Got it.
But separately, can we step back for a second and note that all of these managers and workers at uber are getting paid by the exploited labor.
I was a mouse, Sadie Black and Brown. I was about to say that which.
Is their job is to figure out how to extract as much money from struggling gig workers as possible so that they can then pay to have these sessions where they accuse each other.
That's the great irony of it all, isn't it?
Is that all of that is built upon ten nine to nine contract labor of which they have spent and built a multi billion dollar business exploiting. Now maybe you're okay with that, but I would just say that when you look at the at the very basics on the both on the consumer level and on the worker level, we have gotten to a very bad place Because has anyone taken an Uber lately? They're actually really expensive. They're
just as expensive as cabs. So now ubers are just as expensive as cabs, except now the driver doesn't have any benefits. And it's like, yeah, I mean, look, I like the technology. It's nice and it's convenient. But somewhere in the happy middle, we disaggregated driver from benefits and we basically rolled up that benefit into a company stock called Uber, and that is what is paying for all of this nonsense happening when they're supposed to be doing work.
So it's this is a good view into what's real exploitation being you know, a highly paid black executive at Uber having to sit through it. Don't call me Karen or somebody who loses their job has no opportunities except but to drive for Uber, and you know, just burns their car into the ground in terms of its depreciating value while driving from two am to you know, the two am to six am shift for drunk people.
Right, sounds pretty miserable.
And absorbing all the risks.
Yeah, like right that the people who are executives at Uber are not the ones who are going to get vomit in the back of the.
Car and then be like, no, they only vomitated on half the car, so here's half the reimbursement or something
like that. And look, yeah, sure there's some benefit or whatever to some people who want to drive Uber and all that, but you know, we have to still get to a better medium as a society about making sure that people who are not people are not taken advantage of and don't have access to the very basics of benefits and are protected, you know, even from you know, they're the ones who have to buy the cars, maintain the cars and all that, and it can be it's a real issue, you know that I've seen for a
lot of people and what is Uber.
It's Google Maps with PayPal on it. The actual innovation of Uber is exploitation. They're just figuring out ways to take all of the risk involved in the actual work right and put it put on them the work or the contract or they don't want to call them an employee, and on a more metal and extract all the profits.
One of the.
Reasons why you know a session like don't call Me Karen may be valuable for people.
Is what did we all just go through? Put this up there on the screen.
This lady in New York City who was accused in a viral video of like stealing a city bike from a couple of black teenagers or young men who had surrounded her, was ridiculed and defamed really online called the
New York City. Well, it turns out that records provided to media outlets and to others show that she genuinely did pay for the city bike in question at the center of this viral fight, and now is looking to actually sue some of the people who defamed her online as some sort of racist, which is leading to ryan a bunch of deleted tweets across the Internet from people like no, I never said that, and from media outlets adding to substantial and large corrections as to what happened here.
And you know this, every time I see one of these things, I think the same thing. It's like, yeah, you know, not a great look for either party. But I wasn't there. I have no idea what preceded it or came after. I'm gonna withhold judgment. And it turns out, yeah, that's exactly the right move. And so jumping on some viral venue and immediately, you know, Karen, and all of that doesn't genuinely lead to the best results. You know,
if anything, what have you underscored? For a lot of people, There probably are scenarios where people are not Probably they're definitely our scenarios where people falsely accused black youths of committing crimes. And now though you have set up a situation where people who always want to disbelieve that are because like, no, this is just like the NYC cam or vice versa, where every single time that you see somebody in this scenario, you're like, oh, well that person
is lying or you know, we want to try. And we've gotten to the point now where the default whenever you see these videos is I'm gonna withhold judgment and I'm not going to jump to conclusions because we've been burned so many times on fakes, which was the exact point of the Don't call Me Karen session.
And it reminds I think everybody a little bit of the Nicholas Sandman case, the little kid with the maga hat.
Yes who and the drums is one of the richest people in the country.
Now because yeah, he's good for him.
But one thing they both had in common, and I don't say this in a diffamatory way. You watch the video and they both they both look like.
Punks in the video, right, what's happening here? Yeah? Like none of them, neither, neither of them looked good in the end.
To me, I was just like, what are your odd situation? Yeah, to find yourself?
Yeah, right, and the nurse the crying, and they're like, she seems all yeah, seems.
To me it seemed a bit historyonic, although apparently she's pregnant. You know, she's willing to.
Pregnant and just finished a twelve hour shift, Like, that's more more work than I've done in twenty years.
Rre including never been pregnant. Yes, it's not doing it.
Pregnant, so but so, and just to explain to people how how this all unfolded. So the way that these city bikes work, you know, you you use them, everybody's used them.
Probably you put your phone in there, you pay for it, it's yours, you unlock it.
Apparently the kids like grabbed her bike or and kind of like nudged her until it locked again. She then like unlocked it a second time, pulled it out.
And if she would have lost it to that.
Kids, if she would have said, you know what, fine, you take it, she's liable for like twelve hundred dollars if the kids don't return that bike.
And if you're the kids and you didn't sign one, just keep it at that point.
And so what she was able to show through her lawyer was a receipt that she had it for two minutes and then ended the trip, and then a receipt again that she got it and took it home.
Got it.
And so that really fits with the story that it was hers, because that changes everything because now now these are this is these are people in an urban environment who are competing for scarce resources. She had it first, like those are the rules, Like she had at first, go get your go, get your own scooter.
Yeah, I look, I think it's sad. I hope that you know.
I think public confrontations of any kind a make me deeply uncomfortable.
And b I do my absolute best to avoid them at all costs.
And right as that was going to say, that would be my advice is and I would just walk away.
You know, you really don't want it sucks, but it sucks. It sucks.
I've been there, you know where you're just all you want to do is say something or whatever, and you're like, you know what this is. You know, all this is going to lead to is trouble. That's not a justification for the behavior. It's more on an individual love. Yeah. And uh, the meta takeaway is that the don't call me Karen session seems.
Perfectly via people. People needed it.
Yeah, it turns out people did need it because.
Strategy ignorance backfired here.
There's major strategy.
It turns out all of us do need to be or instead of being uncomfortable and having this, we can have more helpful societal wide lessons, which is, hey, why are we all talking about diversity, equity inclusion at UBER when we have a black workforce.
Which is struggling.
Maybe we if we flip things on that end, it would be a little bit better.
We could also be like, look, imagine if this is your mama, and like when you're on a train, you see a pregnant woman, you stand up, you give them a seat.
Why you would hope So even if unfortunately people even if it.
Is your scooter, Yeah, the pregnant nurse coming out, you know what, damn and thank you.
For your service.
I'm with you one hundred percent.
Hi Stager, what are you looking at?
Well?
There's been a lot of media lying about Ukraine over the last few days, somehow trying to spin their defeat in Bachmann as some sort of real victory, trying to say giving them F sixteen's.
No risks to the United States.
But perhaps the most insane story that has received basically no scrutiny is a dishonest trick pulled by the Biden administration to send them even more weapons and illegally usurp the power of Congress. Let's dive in the news broke over the weekend. The Pentagon is claiming, with a straight face, it has suddenly discovered it accidentally overvalued the amount of aid sent to Ukraine. This miraculous discovery means that they can actually send three billion dollars more to Ukraine than
previously thought. The way they achieved this was an illegal accounting gimmick by claiming that they had accidentally priced weaponry sent from US stocks to Ukraine at too high a value. Now, how exactly did they accomplish that? According to their methods, they originally price all Ukraine aid based on the dollar value it would cost US taxpayers to replace it, which you know, seems like the right definition when you pay for something and then you give it to somebody else.
But the new definition instead price is the weapons not at the original price, but then depreciates those assets over time, as if this is some real estate or heavy equipment that you can sell in the future, and not literal guns, bullets and bombs. A more simple way of describing this is bs. Of course, they have given themselves plenty of breathing room. The Pentagon now says that three billion is
just what they found so far. They told reporters in Congress, if they go back and depreciate all the weapons, they can probably find even more.
It's just a coincidence.
That because of the current political makeup of Congress that no more aid can pass to Ukraine legally, and the Ukraine itself says that they're running out of bullets and AMMO. Further, it just so happened to come in May, just months before the projected expenditure of all USAID was likely to run out for Ukraine. So what is so disgusting about this is not just the pen goan's accounting trick, is that this is illegal. Congress decides the power of the purse.
They have given the administration a lot of leeway, zero restrictions really on the type of eight. But even on this, the White House cannot stop listen to their ridiculous explanation when they are asked about it.
There was this very bizarre admission from the Pentagon this week of an accounting error that suggested that the US has at least three billion dollars that it didn't know it had that it can use for Ukraine aid. That's a hell of an accounting error and it provides a lot of.
Fodder to critics of.
Usaids the Ukraine and critics who say there's not enough oversight going on. Are you concerned about this accounting error.
Well, one thing I just.
Want to make clear that is not money that went out the door and disappeared. That is not a waste of that three billion dollars.
It is simply a.
Tallly of how much military equipment we have given them. And the way that the Pentagon was counting it was what's the replacement cost for the equipment we provide rather than just the actual cost of that equipment. Once you make that adjustment, it turns out we have and ational three billion dollars that we can spend to provide even more weapons.
Yup, turns out that's all you gotta do. They're not even lying about it. They're so brazen about their illegal costerer convention. The reason this is nuts is because three billion out of the forty billion dollars in appropriate funds from military aid. Do the math, that's seven point five percent. So are we really saying the entire military budget is so fudgy that you can make it look basically however
you want plus or minus eight percent. If that's the case, why do we keep giving them so much damn money just make them inflate their own books?
Also, how much should we.
Really even trust the Pentagon's accounting team. Seven months ago, they failed their fifth audit in a row where they weren't only able to account for thirty nine percent of three point five trillion dollars in assets under management. Not only that, after failing their fourth audit in twenty twenty one, they promised that they would do better, and it turns out they made zero progress in that audit at all.
In one year, the same number of areas that they were unable to account for did not change whatsoever.
And in one year period's a.
Pentagon grules account for this you already know they pretend it literally doesn't exist. Let's just relive one of my favorite clips from John Stewart's confrontation with a number two official at the Pentagon.
Doing like there is a lot of waste, fraud and abuse within assistance audits.
Waste broad abuse are not the same thing, So let's decompose these.
Please educate me on all.
Sorry, So an audit is exactly what you just described, which is, do I know what was delivered to which place? The ability to pass an audit or in the fact that the det has not passed on it is not suggestive of waste frauden abuse. That is completely false right there now is a question of it's suggestive that we can't we don't have an accurate inventory that we can pull up of what we have where That is not the same as saying we can't do that because waste, frauden abuse has occurred.
So in my world, yeah, that's waste.
How is that waste?
If I give you a billion dollars and you can't tell me what happened to it, that to me is wasteful. That that means you are not necessarily responsible. But if you can't tell me where it went, then what am I supposed to say? And when there has been reporting, I mean, this is not Look I'm not saying this
is on you and that you cause this. But I think it's a tough argument to make that gos it an eight hundred and fifty billion dollar budget to an organization that can't pass an audit and tell you where that money went. Like I think most people would consider that somewhere in the realm of waste, fraud or abuse because they would wonder why that money isn't well accounted for.
Stewart goes on to blast her to her face for justifying corruption, but you get the point you really believe they're just doing their due diligence or are they cooking the books for Ukraine? Maybe you're okay with that in this case if you're one of those NAFO people, But ask yourself this, what about the next conflict or the one after that?
What if you oppose that one?
You want to set the continued global war on terror precedent where the office of the President can just do whatever they want whenever it comes to fighting wars in
places that you did not even vote for. That is basically where we are right now with Ukraine, and given what we have covered this morning in terms of Ukraine's cross border activities, it's new F sixteens will soon make their way there their recent loss of Bachmun, you can rest assured this is only the latest last ditch effort to ship everything that is not nailed down to the floor over there.
For those who are.
Silent on this, I hope and I pray you live to see this same authority used by a president that you hate to prop up a conflict that you don't support, because that is how principles are supposed to work, and why you didn't violate them in the first place. I mean, it's just so obvious, Ryan, you know, it's basically there.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Cyber's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints, dot com.
Ran what are you taking a look at?
From the moment Joe Biden announces candidacy for president, the biggest risk the country faced was that he would wind up in high stakes negotiations with Republican congressional leaders and
those Republicans would fleece him blind. Now, for months, Biden insisted that he wouldn't ever be in that room because he simply wasn't going to negotiate with Republicans overlifting the debts, except he also poured cold water on the fourteenth Amendment and the Platinum Coin and all the other things which handed Republicans all of the leverage. Biden also had the chance to lift the debt ceiling when Democrats controlled Congress,
and he didn't do so. This was a rare opportunity for Biden to actually deliver this line and mean.
It, Senative, you can have my ins and how if you mike.
My offer is dith nothing.
Instead, Biden went into negotiations and also didn't make a serious offer of his own. He's made a few half hardened suggestions that a way to cut the deficit that would be better is to target hedge fund managers and the super rich, but when McCarthy objected, he just dropped it. So now he's negotiating the size of the cut and Democrats only hope is that Republicans can't get their own party together to agree on what they want. And they failed to seize the moment the same way they did
back in twenty eleven. And all of this reminds me of the last time Biden as Vice President intervened in high stakes Capitol Hill negotiation. Afterwards, Harry Reid ordered the White House to never send him down Pennsylvania Avenue again.
He did such a poor job.
He got a worse deal out of Mitch McConnell than McConnell had already agreed to give Harry Reid. The circumstances were similar. I covered this moment in my last book, We've Got People, and this came at the end of the year twenty twelve, so Obama had just stumped Republican Mitt Romney at the polls. If you remember in a post Occupy Wall Street campaign that centered on economic inequality.
Democrats picked up two seats in the Senate, expanded their majority to fifty three, adding Elizabeth Warren to their ranks. The Democrats won more House folks nationwide and picked up a net of eight seats. Republicans still held onto the House narrowly. Now, the Bush tax cuts were set to expire at the end of twenty twelve, creating what was called a fiscal cliff. If Congress did nothing, taxes would
go up on everybody, but especially on the rich. Harry Reid told me in an inner for that book that going over the.
Cliff was precisely his plan.
Reid said, quote, I thought that would have been the best thing to do, because the conversation would not have been about raising taxes, which it became. It would have been about lowering taxes. In other words, let all the rates go up and then bargain with Republicans to reduce taxes just for the middle class and the working poor.
MINORITI leader Mitch McConnell similarly knew that the difficult position going over the cliff would put him in, and in talks with Reid, he agreed to let rates on people making more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year go back up. McConnell had a strong sense that Reid intended to go over the cliff and put Republicans up against the wall. Reid felt like he had successfully.
Pushed McConnell to the brink.
So it was now Sunday, December thirty of twenty twelve, and Democrats only had to hold out until that Tuesday to find themselves in a dramatically improved political position, as the dawning of the new year would mean the tax cuts expired and automatically reverted to pre Bush levels. At that point, it would be Republicans who would be left pleading for those rate cuts. In desperation, Mitch McConnell reached out directly to Joe Biden, calling him on the phone
and explaining that Reid was refusing to be reasonable. Over the course of the day, McConnell and Biden struck a deal, a form McConnell aide told me, Biden gave Republicans everything they wanted in exchange for fixing the fiscal cliff problem. But just like today, the fiscal cliff problem was only a problem because Biden allowed it to be a problem. Harry Reid was happy to drive the car off the
cliff and then fight it out amid the wreckage. In the same way, Biden could just ignore the debt ceiling, invoke the fourteenth Amendment, and dare John Roberts to then.
Blow up the global economy.
On the morning of New Year's Eve, Reid was still feeling good about his position, ignorant of what Biden had given away. Then Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor and announced that he'd been in talks with the Vice President. They were progressing well and he was hopeful that they'd have legislation.
To move by the end of the day.
As details of the deal began leaking out, Progressive Democratic senators were floored. A large group of them, including Bernie Sanders, Shared Brown, Jeff Merkley, Sheldon Whitehouse, Al Franken, and Tom Harkin of Iowa, stormed over to Harry Reid's office.
The deal was awful, they told Reed, and it had to be stopped.
Reid told them what had happened, that it was out of his hands, and then McConnell had gone around him directly to Biden. He said he was working on improving it and would be in touch throughout the day. Now, none of the senators had any business scheduled. It was New Year's Eve, after all, so Bernie Sanders invited them back to his office in the Dirkson Building. The Heart Building has a popcorn machine, so our Harken asked his
staff to bring some buy. The crew ended up spending several hours together in Sanders's office, thinking through potential strategies of opposition, waiting to hear from Reed, and chewing on popcorn instead. One senator's phone rang and it was Joe Biden, calling to sell the deal that he had cut. In classic Biden fashion, he offered up a ten to fifteen minutes soliloquy, a meander argument that largely boiled down to you can trust me, I'm your friend, this is a
good deal. The senator could barely get a word in before the conversation ended. Moments after he hung up, another cell phone rang and it was Biden again. Unaware that the group was altogether, Biden proceeded to call each of them one after the other, delivering the same spiel. Ultimately, it fell to read to drag the progressive senators into line. Once it was clear that the White House was on
board with Biden's deal and McConnell was all in. That meant that there would be at least seventy or eighty votes for it. The Progressive block could vote no, but it would only send a message of discord and have no effect on the outcome. Reid told them, coaxing them to support the deal he himself loathed. In the end, all the Progressive Senators, including Bernie except for Tom Harkin, voted for the deal. It passed eighty nine to eight.
Years later, Reid still regretted how it went down. He told me, quote, if we'd have gone over the cliff, we'd have had resources to do a lot of good things in this country, infrastructure development.
But it didn't work out that way.
Letting all the tax rates go back to pre Bush levels would have yielded the Treasury around three trillion dollars over ten years. Without the deal, taxes on dividend payments to the rich would have been set at thirty nine point six percent. Under the terms of the deal, they would be set at twenty percent instead, meaning that the super wealthy would be paying lower taxes on their passive dividend income than many working people pay on their wages.
It helped fuel the inequality that keeps getting worse, and it added trillions to the debt at the same time. Now Biden has another chance to be in the room, and so far he's getting out maneuvered, Sager by Kevin McCarthy.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Joining us now Lefong, friend of the show, a newly independent investigative journalist at leifong dot net.
I believe that or is it dot dot com?
Dot com dot com?
All right, lefong dot com, which we will have a link down in the description. I am a a member of said lefog dot com, and we are very happy to support your work.
Lee.
You're here to talk about very important story.
Let's put it up there on the screen, which is FBI surveillance contractors probed anti vaccine mandate activist. Lee, You've been on the forefront of exposing a lot of the hygiens that the US intelligence community the FBI have been doing by infiltrating groups and under the name of national security and others. So what did you find in this story and what bigger pattern is it part of?
Hey, thanks for having me.
This is the story is part of a two part series on the threat intelligence industry. This is a subset of the cyber security industry. And you know, when you hear the term cyber security, you might think authentication or passwords or what have you.
But this is actually a surveillance industry.
You know, this is a type of firm that goes into it specializes in going into the parts of the Internet of social media that are private. There are a number of firms here, about a dozen prominent firms that.
Specialize in this.
What they do is that they go into Reddit, forums, WhatsApp groups, signal chats, parts of the dark web. They make fake online identities to gain the trust of the admins or leaders of online organizations or organizations that have an online presence, and they get invites to these private communications. They sweep up the messages, the chats, the communications, and they monetize them. They sell them back, these communications, They
sell them to the government and to corporations. They say that they're looking for quote unquote threat actors, and you know, they're largely saying that, you know, we're looking for hackers and other kind of cyber criminals, but a big part of what they do is also look at activists. They penetrate activist groups, they research their tactics and strategies, and alert their potential targets. So, you know, this is a
very interesting firm. This is one of the many threat intelligence firms of Flashpoint, And you know, we obtained their marketing materials and some of their other documents. Also, I interviewed them at a recent cybersecurity conference, and you know, they have a history of going after left wing organizations, investigating anti pipeline protesters, anarchists, but also these groups, these worker led organizations that were protesting the twenty twenty one
vaccine mandate. These in this particular instance, these were workers in the airline industry, pilots, stewardesses, what have you, who were not comfortable with the twenty twenty one vaccine mandate. You know, these were essential workers, frontline workers, many of whom were the very first people to be infected with
COVID nineteen and then recover. So you know, they made I think the very reasonable argument that the vaccine mandate should not apply to them because there's no exemption for people who recovered from the virus and had natural immunity. They were protesting this that looks like surveillance contractors like Flashpoint were investigating them. They were getting into their private signal chats, They're looking into their private communications.
And so in order for the FBI to do some of this stuff directly, they would need warrants. They need some probable cause some of it, you know, some of it they can get away with. Others, like getting into private signal chats. I would think they would need some type of type of warrant for that, And so they end up these kind of surveillance contractors end up creating a kind of false distinction to me between the activity of the FBI.
That is prohibited and the activities private contractors which is allowed.
So what is the FBI's role in relationship with these companies and is there an argument to be made that they're actually they are just arms of.
The FBI and ought to be subject to the Saint laws.
Well, there's you know a little bit of a gray area here where we don't know exactly, you know, where the line begins and starts with the client relationship. You know, a lot of these firms are publicly contracted with the FBI. Flashpoint is publicly contracted with the FBI.
Has worked with them for many years.
Many of the other firms that I profiled are you know, working for other intelligence agencies and the FBI, but they're also working for corporate clients here too, And you know, I think that's right.
You know this, For the FBI to.
Directly monitor the private communications of Americans, you know that they require a warrant. You know, it's a Fourth Amendment issue, but using a third party to gain access to these private communications represents somewhat of a back door, right, So like you have a just like the FBI has a long history of using confidential and informants, confidential human intelligence and informants to monitor and spy on groups where they
might not have direct access. These private contractors, these private spies again represent a way for the agency to gain access to materials that they don't normally have any kind of insight into. And you know, we're seeing a greater demand for this type of surveillance after the Discord leaks. These firms publicly advertised Flashpoint. You know this this one firm that that monitored the anti mandate activists. They publicly advertised that they are looking into discord chats, that they
can penetrate discord communities. And after the Discord leaks, you know, there's just so much demand that we get into these private communications because again, these discord leaks appeared on a private discord server and you know, allegedly these documents sat there for months without the government knowing.
This was a huge embarrassment.
So there's more of a demand for these type of firms to go in and spy on game I communities, you know, activist communities, any type of community where potential.
Illegal or nefarious activity is happening.
You know, Lee, one of the things constant I kind of see throughout your work is just the exposure of the slow creep of the surveillance state, Like it starts with the FBI and the DHS and er a specific mandate and then you know, you helped with Ken Clippenstein expose that new and you know, disinformation complex. And now as part of your series, we're talking about anything from
vegans to anti vaccine mandate. It really just seems like they are willing to stick their tentacles into something if it goes against any basic established power center in the US or am I reading it the wrong way?
Well, look at it this way.
We have a massive infrastructure in this country, government infrastructure, and you know, government programs that fund an infrastructure that is based on surveillance. And there's this evolving mission that kind of skyrocketed since September eleventh to find, you know, potential terrorists, to find threats that are you know, vaguely defined by the national security state. And this is another great example of that that kind of fits into this
rubric flashpoint. This one particular firm started out as a small consultancy from a guy named Van Coleman who went out and who worked with people who were infiltrating moss and Muslim community centers. They were you know, dressing up and going in and recording these communities and then taking the information back and selling it to the FBI. Evan Coleman then spun out his own firm and went online and and and found you know, al Qaeda message boards
and you know isis online social media accounts. He would save all the information to these multi terror by databases and then go to US law enforcement and say, look, you know, I'm an expert. I have all these online communications and he's monetized that content.
You know, he's been accused of.
Helping wrongfully convict some Muslim Americans, like in the Fort Dick's case. But you know this that was fifteen years ago. Now today, as the War on terror has wound down, Flashpoint, rather than also winding down, has actually grown.
It's grown exponentially. It's a huge firm.
They just acquired another threat intelligence company last year. They're partnering with Google Cloud. They've they've got AI tools. And instead of targeting potential you know, Alcaeda suspects, they're monitoring environmental activists, They're monitoring conservatives who are concerned.
About the mandate.
You know, all they have is a hammer, So you know, everything looks like nails for these surveillance contractors. They need a new enemy, a new kind of threat to target, to monetize. And it's a lot like these other kind of mission creep of the security state that the Department of Homeland Security, rather than winding down some of its programs now it's kind of expanding. It's outreached and saying, oh, we've got to target.
Misinformation or disinformation online.
We need to create these new partnerships with Twitter and Facebook to censor really ordinary First Amendment protected speech.
And in your reporting, did you find that it was a connection to the misinformation disinformation world that allowed for the kind of an anti vaxxer surveillance Because as you think about the other groups that were that were targeted, all right, anti pipeline group, they're gonna they might blow up a pipeline.
I can see some potential violence there.
The anti abortion groups that you've that you've that you talked about being under surveillance, they've shot abortion doctors. Like, so you can step back and you can say, all right, I can intellectually see where they're going when it comes to like the potential for violence. Doesn't mean that it justifies kind of breaking Forth Amendment laws, But I see
where they're going. When it comes to the vaccine stuff, they might might be harmful to themselves, may be isshed, but who Like, I don't see the Are they going to blow up like the vaccine facility or something, or is it really it's it's flowing out of the disinformation complex.
I think it's likely it's flowing out of the disinformation complex, but really it's just like a challenge to power.
Right.
You know, you had big corporate centers endorsing these mandates, government endorsing these mandates. You know, for these airline workers, their own unions and abandoned them. You know, a lot I talked with a lot of these workers. You know, their union wouldn't even negotiate them, They wouldn't put some of these decisions up to a vote, and so they had to kind of these workers had to form their own organizations to protest for their rights.
You know, that's what that's their view. I think the same applies.
The same kind of issue applies to some of these vegan and animal rights activists.
These folks, you know, some of.
The particular groups I've been writing about, they don't have a history of any violence whatsoever. But you know, I published last week an FBI memo from the Sacramento Field Office depicting them as a bio terror threat under the weapons of Mass destruction Director of the FBI, you know, using just really inflamed and exaggerated rhetoric to justify this kind of national security crackdown on groups again just kind of exercising their First Amendment rights.
Got it?
Well, Lee, you're doing fantastic job over there, Lee Fang dot com. As I said, I'm a subscriber. I encourage everybody else to become a subscriber. We'll have a link down there down the description. We want to be able to support Lee's excellent work here. And you're welcome back on the show anytime, sir, So thank you for joining us.
Thanks for your support, yeh got it.
Great to see you.
Good to see you, man, And thank you so much Ryan for sitting in for Crystal.
Appreciate it.
Bro shows fun as always, Crystal. Like I said, we'll be on with Emily tomorrow. So Ryan, you've got Wednesday off. What are you going to do with yourself?
Sleep?
Yeah, sleep and take care of your job.
So there you go.
That that's what most people should be.
Doing, all right, So basically watch counterpoints and obviously watching counterpoints that's what Actually, that's my morning routine after I finally get to sleep in and put my earbuds in and I see what you guys are up to. Thank you guys so much again for supporting all of our work here Breakingpoints dot com.
If you are able otherwise, we'll see you all later