Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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We have an amazing show for everybody today. Well, we have Crystal.
Indeed, we do many interesting stories to dig into this morning. We got a bunch of new battleground state polls. What is the state of this race? Continuing to look very difficult for Joe Biden. We've also got some interesting numbers about how people feel about the economy and how the economy has treated them. Also and some new important housing numbers there as we also break all of that down for you. Got a little update on that Red Lobster story.
Seems we've been snookerd. It was not endlesstrimp that took Red Lobster under. It was classic corporate rating, private equity, corporate greed, all of those sorts of things, So we'll get into that and show you exactly what actually happened with Red Lobster. Trump is trying to clean up some comments he made about birth control restrictions. This continues to be a huge source of potential danger for the Republican Party and for Trump specifically and trying to retake.
The White House.
So we will talk about that and how Americans feel about it. We also have a bunch of updates out of Israel and Gaza in particular. Hamas still very strong, very present, the US apparently sounding alarms that many people like us have been sounding for many months that hey, you know what, when you slaughter a bunch of children and women and civilians and annihilate everything, all you're going to do is make people more motivated to join Hamas.
And now we have reporting that indicates they have gained thousands of new recruits.
Just over the past several months.
At the same time, three new countries are recognizing the state of Palestine and Israel. BB in particular is completely freaking out and punishing Palestinians for the actions of these three countries, and that peer situation as predicted, completely ineffective. No aid breaching, starving gosins from the peer At this point. Ken Klippenstein has been covering this very closely from the beginning, so he is going to join us to break down what exactly is going on there.
Yes, exactly, that's right, all right, before we get to that administrative Now, this is going to be the last call for everybody, all right, So this is the last week for you to be able to sign up to Locals. If you're an existing premium subscriber, you're going to lose your supercast access after this week, So make sure that you click on the email and you get yourself set up. If you have any issues whatsoever, big or small support
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Let's go ahead and start with twenty twenty four and these polls where the situation continues to be bad for Joe Biden and it all shockingly comes down to the economy.
Who could have known that.
Let's put this up there on the screen. So here we have from Bloomberg and Mourning consult in more head to head pulling just confirming basically every single other poll that is out there and the same story. So let's keep this up here, please, just so I can read off of it. This is the head to head matchups Donald Trump Joe Biden in the state of Arizona forty nine, forty four, Georgia forty seven, forty four, Michigan forty six for Biden, forty five for Trump. One of the only
states whereas Biden is actually leading. Biden and Trump tied in the state of Nevada. In this particular one. In North Carolina, Trump is up by seven. In Pennsylvania, Trump is up by two, and in Wisconsin, Trump is up by one.
Now, basically all of.
This comports with the general election polling that we've seen from various other high quality pollsters.
Crystal and in fact.
This morning, the Cook Political Report put out its own state by state polling, which includes RFK Junior and lo and behold, there is only one swing state in the entire country where Biden is even tied with Trump, and that is Wisconsin. According to them, Trump is up by a minimum of three in every single other state. The most shocking of one is he is up by nine in the state of Nevada, up by eight if you include RFK Junior. Ooh, that's the state that he won, by the way.
I mean, I guess if you're in cote mode for the Biden team, these are a little bit less bad than the New York Times one yes, which chat him losing by I think thirteen points in Arizona. Some of these are a little bit, you know, a little closer. He's in the ball game, certainly in those industrial Midwestern states.
And there's some interesting ironies here into the way that this map is shaping up, because one of the things you do see consistently across the swing state polling is that Biden is tending to hang in there a little bit better in those industrial Midwestern states Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Why because the demographic is older, and wider. Now that is the polar opposite of the way the Democratic Party has been portraying themselves, the demographics they've been going after.
I mean, we're talking about since the Obama coalition, where the thought was, Okay, we do well with young people, we do well with a diverse electorate.
Now they're most solid.
Joe Biden's most solid and consistent base of support is old white people, and those are the states that he
does the best in. So, I mean, it is a real reversal of the trends that things have been having, and now things can change, but consistent in this polling and the polling you just referenced, Sager, is that those new swing states of you know, the sun Belt, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada has been a swing state and has been pretty solidly Democratic actually for a while, in part because of the machine that Harry Reid built and the strength of unions there, but because those are also places that have
more young and more working class demographic in particular in Nevada, they are the states that Biden seems to be in the most trouble in. So you know that even as the margins are a little different, pulled the poll, that trend seems to be fairly consistent.
Absolutely, and that is a shocking development.
This is an inversion of all of the traditional rules of Obama era politics, and we're basically watching young black and Hispanic voters drift at least marginally much more towards Trump, which is what is accelerating his lead in the Sun Belt states. That's how you explain why Florida is not even considered a swing state anymore. In fact, a lot of the dynamic economies, especially down in the Sun Belt,
we've seen huge population in growth. A lot of those people are turunding much more Republican, while the industrial Midwest, the strong support of older white voters, boomers basically who have especially becoming more democratic, and also the college educated, is what is keeping him in the game at all. Because remember, he can win those states and not actually have to win any of the Sun Belt, and he could still see the presidency.
And I should clarify a little bit, Joe Biden will still win young people, he will still overwhelmingly win black voters, he will still win Latino voters.
What I'm speaking to.
Is which parts of his previous co are drifting away and those younger and more diverse parts of the coalition are the parts that are drifting away, most of them to the couch, some of them to third party candidates, some of them to Trump. But the part of his base that has remained them both solid are older white voters. Again, Republicans overall will still win that demographic, but of the portion of them that voted for Joe Biden last time, that's the piece that has remained the most rock solid
through this period, while other parts have drifted away. And obviously the election last time was extremely close, so he can't afford any drift. If anything, he needs to pick up some disaffected suburban Republicans who's still been hanging in there for whatever reason. But I am sort of doubtful that there's a lot more of them.
To gain it thinking of the disaffected suburban Republican who voted for it. Nikki Haley, she gave a talkie yesterday where she was asked, are you going to vote for Trump?
Here's what she had to say.
As a voter, I put my priorities on a president who's going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account, who would secure the border. No more excuses, a president who would support capitalism and freedom, a president who understands we need less debt, not more debt. Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I have made that clear many, many times. But Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump. Having said that, I stand by what I said in my
suspension speech. Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me, and not assume that they're just going to be with him, And I genuinely hope he does that.
Okay, So there it is. Crystal Nikki will be voting for Trump.
Will I will say this for everybody who has got an anti war dream like I do, and has hopes possibly for a second Trump administration. The thing that should always give you the most positive The neo cons are very comfortable with him coming back into power. In fact, Michael Tracy's been doing a great job on this. Trump was recently asked about some people who potentially would work in his administration, and he listed Mike Pompeo, Tom Cotton, and even possibly Nicki Haley.
Now she might forget vice president. He's ruled her out for that. So everybody out there, let me just you.
Know, preempty I told you sos and say they're rallying to Trump because they believe that they can at the very least snooker him and most likely he's just apathetic in terms of governance and they can get their access to the government again.
So it's very possible, you.
Know, not only that these suburban people would vote for Trump because of an endorsement, you know, something like this, but also that the traditional machine behind him, you know, of the traditional Republican Party, who you know doesn't like him stylistically, still believes they can get a lot of what they want from him.
One hundred percent.
Yeah, I mean, this is the man He had John Bolton and Mike bombay Ow in his administration last time.
So I don't know.
Still williamselves with Donald trumping some anti war hero has always been nonsense to me. But you know, with regard to Nikki Haley specifically, this is as many politicians, if not all politicians are, as an incredibly craven person. So why does she make this decision? There were two possible lanes open for her. One was to say, Okay, I'm going to vote for Trump and try to remain relevant
in the like Republican political sphere. And I think probably the fact that she's being floated for potential cabinet positions, some people even talking about for her for vice president and Trump shot that down. I'll think that is an active likely scenario. But she feels like she still got a lane in the Trump administration. In the Trump world, we've seen before people you know, Ted Cruz and others who've been vociferously opposed to Trump and said extremely you know,
aggressive things against him, et cetera, et cetera. Lindsay, once they make nice, they're welcome back in. So she sees a lane for herself there, and she thought that was more fruitful than the other turn, which would be to go you know, full sort of like anti Trump, never Trump resistance liberal quote unquote that lane and try to get some media gig or whatever, double down on her corporate board sitting, et cetera.
So she apparently thinks.
It's more fruitful for her to go in the direction of potentially being in a Trump administration. And so you can't read into this any sort of like actual principle or moral It's all about, like what is the craven political calculation.
You know.
The other question is there's been a lot of chatter saga about she's still getting votes in these prime like a good number of votes in these primaries, some of them. And so the question was, oh, are these voters, like, do they really just hate Trump and they're just gonna not, you know, come into the fold. And then the reverse of that analysis would be, Okay, well, now that Nicky's endorsed him, they'll come right along. And I just can't see that those individuals were like particularly tied.
Into Nicki Halee anyway.
So in terms of electoral impact is what I'm trying to say, I don't think this woman has any sway with any actual set of voters. So I don't think her endorsement actually matters except that it makes her in a position where she could potentially be in a Trump cabinet position.
Later, well said, that's right, and then let's turn to what again is animating all of this, which is the economy.
Let's put this up there on the screen.
I mean, what we see here is there is an inability right now of the intelligensia in Washington to understand why Americans put huge blame on Biden for the economy,
so they like to point out how statistically they are wrong. So, for example, in this recent poll from The Guardian, they say fifty five percent of Americans believe the economy is shrinking, fifty six percent that the US is experiencing a recession, and it says though the broadest measure of the economy GDP has been growing, it's like, hm, well, how is
it distributed? Forty nine percent believe that the S and P five hundred stock market is down for the year, although the index is up twenty four percent and twenty twenty three and is up more than twelve percent this year. It says forty nine percent believe the economy is unemployment is at a fifty year high, even though the unemployment rate
has been under four percent and near fifty year low. Overall, Americans put blame on Biden for the state of the economy, with fifty eight percent of those polls saying the economy is worsening doing too mismanagement from the presidential administration. The reason I cannot stand stuff like this Crystal is again is it's continuing to try and tell people that to deceive their lying eyes and look, I agree, who out there knows what the S and P five hundred is
up for the year? What are they really being asked here? What are they actually being asked? Do I feel as if I have more money today than I did previously?
And the answer to that, as we definitively showed what was in our Monday show for the net worth chart, is you have point seven percent more under Biden your net worth where under Trump you had up to twenty Now, there's a lot of reasons for that, but you know, empirically these people are correct now whenever they say I feel the economy is shrinking, they're not looking to the top line GDP number As to whether you know the SEP five hundred market cap is.
Up almost completely irrelevant right live.
Yea, it is irrelevant to their life.
I mean, yeah, it matters and like some broad thing, but like, what does it really matter? Do I have more spending power today than I did before? The answer to that, again, no, especially whenever we look at inflation compared to wages. The same with unemployment, They're like, well, unemployment is near a fifty year low. I'm like, well, you know a lot of people dropped out of the workforce. We know that for sure. That's one of the reasons
why the way unemployment is calculated is very problematic. And two there's another question to that, Do I like my job? Do I actually feel as if I am working what I want to do? People don't think of things in terms of technicalities. The way that they feel, I actually think is much more real, you know, compared to whatever these stats are. So tell me which is wrong. The stats are the way that millions and millions of people feel about the economy.
Yeah, the stock market one stuck out to me in particular because there's a good reason why most Americans are not particularly in touch with what's going on the stock market. It's because ninety three percent, this is a new number, ninety three percent of all stocks were owned by the top ten percent of Americans.
That's a new record high.
So it shouldn't be a surprise that most people like I don't know, it's not performing well for me. And so you know, I'm gonna just assume, which is like sort of sweet, that the stock market is somehow correlated to how I'm doing in my life, and I'm seeing some problems here, so there must be some problems there.
Right.
Of course that's not the way it actually works, but yeah, it's it's an interests. It is very emblematic of this effort to sort of like gotcha the American people and convince them that actually Biden's been great. They just don't understand and they don't get it for their own lives. And obviously there are many other, much more relevant indicators of how people are doing under the Biden administration that are pointing in the opposite direction.
Now, I wonder why people would feel as if things aren't going so well.
Oh.
Home sales fell again in April after high mortgage rates are dampening activities. Sales are previously owned homes have decreased from the prior months to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of four point one four million.
And if we go to the next one, what do we have?
Another shocking development, aspiring homeowners face the lowest home buying affordability since nineteen eighty five. The median household now needs more than forty percent income to cover payments on a median price homes. You know, include things like I don't know, health insurance, which also continues to go up, education inflation. Whenever it comes to tuition, and you're looking at a mass unaffordability crisis that was already crisis, only ten times
worse with the gasoline of inflation. Even the people over at CNN can understand this whenever they're not writing for the Bit or they're writing for the business press.
Let's put this stuff there.
High inflation made finances worse for sixty five percent of Americans last year.
So how many of these, you know, do we need?
And this is by the way, from the FED, from the Economic well Being of US Households Report for twenty twenty three, seventy two percent of adults at a record higher saying they're quote doing just okay, it's actually below what the pre these highs were whenever finances were better, and in terms of inflation being made worse, over sixty five percent have been attributably done worse due to their financial state. So people are skipping meals, they're skipping medical care.
Credit card data is in an all time high. Yeah, they're talking about childcare, inflation, education, and flight. Basically, there's inflation in every sector of the economy which you need to just survive, like at a very basic level, including food and gas. Somebody sent me Los Angeles photo of seven dollars and twenty cents a gallon. Now, I'm sure that is an outlier, but that's still nuts, Like, how does that even possibly exist?
Yeah?
Yeah, And there are some efforts under way by the Biden administration to sell more oil into the market to try to lower gas prices because they realize this is a big political.
Problem for them.
One of the things that that article from CNN pointed out that I thought was really interesting is the people who have fared the worst are people who have young children in particular require childcare. And any of you guys who have kids know childcare is extremely expensive. It is a huge burden on family budgets, and you know, it makes sense. Not only has the price of childcare continued to go up, but you also had this period during COVID where it was very difficult and it was a
juggling act. But you know, you had parents at home war so they were able to take some of that cost burden off. You had the child tax Credit in place, you had the other COVID social safety net pieces, and so for families in particular, and specifically families with young children, financially that was a huge help, and you've now seen obviously all of that stripped away and real deterioration of finances for families with kids. You know, there's a lot
to say economically. Obviously, I think people tend to, you know, attribute more blame or credit for the economy to the president than he is. Not a magician, there's no magic wand but it is also accurate to say that there have been some massive economic missteps under this Biden administration.
Number one, I think the rolling back of the COVID social safety net without keeping any of those pieces in place, not fighting for the social safety net part of the build Back Better agenda so that people felt a direct impact in their lives during this administration was a huge mistake. And so one thing I've been saying for a while is, you know, when you look at the big picture in the long term, actually like some of the things the Biden administration is doing there DJ is trying to break
up live nation. There's been great action in two places, in particular regard to labor is a huge improvement, not saying it's perfect, huge improvement in that direction and giving workers more power and a more even landscape. That's great, But again that doesn't hit immediately for the majority of Americans right now. And second of all, some of the you know, industrial policy that could pay dividends longer term, but in the short term may even have negative impacts
on Americans. So some of the medium to long term agenda, yeah, I think is good, and I think, you know, we'll pay off if it's pursued over the long term, although I don't think it's enough. But the short term micro picture was completely abandoned and ignored, such that when you look at people's bank accounts, when we look at the net worth chart that you were showing before Soccer, it's really clear. And then of course you add on top
of that inflation. Now, the argument in the beginning was, oh, the inflation is one hundred percent because of these social safety net programs over COVID, Well, we now know that just wasn't true. There may have been some contrivers. I'm not going to say that was absolutely irrelevant, but you had a number of other stories that were far more important. One supply chain issues and two corporate greed. Great inflation. We now know there was a price fixing scandal in
the oil industry. Why aren't they talking about that? Why aren't they talking about that? And there's a lot of tools that the president could use to go after that, and there's a lot of rhetorical tools using the bully pulpit to talk about that, but they don't. So people are just left with the understandable and clear cut impression that this administration has failed them economically and they're just not wrong, yeah, and.
That they care more about other countries than they do are yeah, which I think is true true.
At this point.
The fair thing to say about that is that's clearly both parties, right.
But this is the guy who's in the White Office right now. So what are you gonna do?
I have this great thing in front of me.
It just came out this morning from Gallup and it is the percent change in the number of people from Biden in twenty twenty who said can manage the government effectively to today. In twenty twenty, it was fifty two percent. Today it's thirty nine, So a minus thirteen point difference in terms of people who think that the government can be managed effectively.
For Trump.
Trump is actually up by a single point now. He was at forty eight percent in twenty Twenty's up now to forty nine, so he's had no net drop while Biden has had a thirteen percent drop. He's also had a drop in several of the areas which matter a lot to him. Is likable minus nine displays good judgment in a crisis. Minus nine is strong and decisive leader. Minus eight cares about people like me. Minus seven is honest and trustworthy.
Minus six.
Trump is basically static on all of those. He's only changed on cares about people like you, and is honest and trustworthy, which, hey, you know, I don't think he's ever going to win either.
That's getting a bright Yeah.
Well, your point is one that we brought up before in terms of people tend to think of like, okay, well what's dragging bi and down? Is it the economy or is it the you know, Ukraine, Gaza, unconditional support for Israel.
And I've come to think those.
Two things are much much more linked than is typically understood because number one on the attributes you're talking about, you know, part of why people don't think he's like caring and compassion anymore is because they see this endless slaughter that he's funding and fueling and shipping bombs to
et cetera. But also that sense, and I think this is the most normy and very real and very like legitimate reaction, which is, we see where your priorities lie, we see where you're sending money, we see where your focus is.
We see the.
Way that you're, you know, marshaling all the resources for this country that.
We don't live in.
And meanwhile, I'm telling you I'm struggling and you're doing nothing about it. So those two things are really tied together. This sense however you feel, however these voters feel about Israel and Gaza, etc. The sense of you care more about that than you do about me, I think is I think it's real.
I think it's legitimate. I think they're correct.
It's hard to it's honestly hard to deny when you hear the like visceral emotional language, even that Biden uses horrors were committed on October seventh, like people deserve to
be humanized. I'm not saying that, but where's that same visceral emotional language when it comes to Americans who are struggling and are looking at this and are like, that's great that you care about them, but like, how about a little bit of that for me, and how about fighting for me in the same way you fight to ship two thousand pound bombs to you know, carpa bomb babies in Gaza.
Just this morning, new report out.
Anthony Blinkoln, Secretary of State, just returned from Kiev in tears over what he saw in Kiev, as we have watched basically an entire rollback of the Ukrainian counter offensive. The Russians, by the way, just if anybody's tracking it, now taken more territory than the Ukrainian counter offensive in just the last couple of months. And he's like, you know what, now we got to use US weapons to strike inside of That's to the emotion part, that's what
they care about. They care more about the integrity of Eastern Ukraine than your ability to buy groceries.
And you can call that, you know, rhetorical.
And all that, but I don't know how you can't look at the policy and not say it's true.
And more and more people are feeling it.
We always love these segments, you know, over at the view they're trying to grapple with some of the things that are happening in the country.
Charlemagne comes on and previously we covered this.
He's before he said I'm not going to endorse Biden this time around. I don't like either candidates and he really gets read the Riot Act by Sonny Houstin and it's a very revealing episode between the two.
Let's take a listen.
Let's get real. Now. You have a massive platform reaching millions of listeners, and you and I talked about this before you endorsed Joe Biden back in twenty twenty, but this time around you say you're not going to endorse anybody.
Charlemagne.
Now is not the time, in my opinion, to set this one out.
Yeah, I just say that.
I never said I was sending it out. Now, what's You're going to definitely voting in November. But what I like to focus on is issues, not individuals, like you.
Know when you why not endorse huh? Why not endorse Biden?
Because if I'm sitting here telling my listeners that, you know, you have somebody out there who is a threat to democracy. You have somebody out there who said they want to, you know, suspend the constitution to overthrow the results of an election. You saw this person, you know, try to lead an attempted coup of this country, and I'm telling people that this guy is a threat of democracy. Have
you ever read Project twenty five. There's only two candidates out there, So if I'm saying that about this individual, the choice is clear, right.
But one of the things that we've been talking about is the fact that getting facts out through the media has been very seems to be very difficult.
Because I feel like facts, yeah, yes, but.
We need you to do it on ashot.
Well, I think, well, the reality is I think both candidates are trash. So because I'm but I am going to vote in November, and I'm going to vote my best interest, and I'm going to vote who I think, you know, can preserve democracy. So if I think both candidates are trash and I don't feel like, you know, endorsing one, would you rather be endorse an individual or endorse the fact that, hey, we need to go out
here and protect democracy. And you know, when you look at somebody like President Biden feels like his base is pretty pissed off at him for a number now.
Help him out?
Well, no, I actually.
The form of you know, first lady called a play one time and she said, you know, when they go low, we go high. I think you got to rip that play up when they go low, you got to take it to the PA.
All right, So there we go, he says, both candidates are now clearly he's liberally he's going to vote for Biden. But it's funny too because on that one he basically says it. He's like, look, it's only two you know, I'm gonna say he's basically making a lesser of two evils argument. Fine, whatever, It's like, why is that not enough for you? They still can't even take that. They're like, you must bow before the gods, and you must pledge your fealty and put up your sword and be like,
I am for you, President Biden. It's one of those where if you always those ladies are like, all right, whatever, it sounds like you're gonna bo for Biden. So you know, we'll take it, like is that what you're saying? He'll try and dodge around it and move on. But it's just not enough them.
I don't get it. Well.
It's also like the focus on haranguing people who they don't think are like, you know, towing the line hard enough over maybe harangue the Biden administration over their policy failures. That have led to people abandoning them in droves. Maybe do a little bit of that, but we don't really see that. And there's a difference between saying, listen, this is how I'm going to vote for, but you look at the landscape and make your own choices and saying, I am not only voting for Joe Biden, but I
am advocating that you do so, and here's why. And I'm using my own credibility, which Charlotte Mane obviously has a lot of credibility, especially you know with his audience. I'm putting my credibility on the line to say it is worth it for you to get off the couch and go out and support this candidate, that it's going
to matter for you. And when he explained why he wasn't endorsing this time around, he said, basically, he felt like he got burned, like things were promised that didn't come through, that there was no fight even to try to because everyone can understand like politics is, you can't just snap your fingers and get everything done. We get that, but he felt like there wasn't even a fight to
get done many of the things that were promised. So I think It's very understandable then to say, listen, I'm not going to do I put my credibility on the line for you last night.
I'm not going to do that again.
Because I don't think you deserve it. So I do think there's a big distinction between listen, this is who I'm voting for. You guys make up your own minds, and actively advocating for one candidate. So you know, the fact that they can't even wrap their minds around not aggressively advocating for Joe Biden at this moment is is very revealing of how narrow and cramped the conversation.
Is on that show.
No, you're right, and that's and also, yeah, what's Alyssa fair doing over They're just sitting in the corner like you're supposed to actually have some sort of She's.
So meek on that.
I feel like everything she says comes with like a tone of apology.
Hope money, he's worth it. I hope it is all right. Let's go to the next part. Red Lobster. So there's some may a couple that we got to do over here because we fell for red lobster propaganda.
Now, I will say there were some inklings of that.
But this was according to the financials that were released by the company before their Chapter eleven bankruptcy. But now that we actually have access to the financial documents, something is very very clear. It's not Endless Shrimp that killed them. It was private equity that destroyed them. Let's put this
up there on the screen. Great report from the American Prospect where they write specifically how several observers have attributed to this to Endless Shrimp promotional deal, which the company had hoped it might have been a hit, but broadly speaking, the deal was a disaster that had raised costs for
individual restaurants without compensating increase in revenue. The company's current management are eager to pin its demise on Endless Shrimp, which totaled eleven million dollars in losses, but upon filing for bankruptcy, they also launched an internal investigation where in their majority shareholder, Thai Union Group, who is there also
their main seafood supplier. So it appears crystal that actually what happened is that this private equity giant in this new group, Tie Union, was dumping excess product into Red Lobster via Endless Shrimp basically bilking and destroying the company with.
Private equity rating.
They talk here about how they sold off huge parts of its most important assets, totaling some one point five billion, and that financially they basically did what all private equity raiders do. You come in, you sell off anything that you possibly can in terms of profit, You pay yourselves nice big bonuses.
Then it's a bust out operation.
You saddle it with a bunch of debt and with a bunch of costs that it can't possibly make, and you drive the company into bankruptcy. And it is now very clear from all of the details in here specifically that the endless Shrimp promotion was actually a front by the majority investor group to dump excess products, all while stripping the company for everything that is not strapped down to the floor. And of course, you know, the people
who suffer are the employees. You know, like I said previously, people were abruptly told at fifty something red Lobster locations just the day of the like, hey, every single person here is fired.
Yeah, and they're completely screwed.
And so this is much more a tale of corporate greed into the way that private equity works in our economy than endless shrimp. It turns out dless shrimp was just the front that they wanted people to believe. Whenever we dig deeper, it is a much more complex story.
Endless strimp costs them like eleven million dollars. I was thinking, like, jeez, they must have been really hard about eleven million dollars star putting them under. I mean, obviously that's a lot of money for a regular person. For a gigantic corporation, you think that's like a little blip. Turns out that's right. They already are in for like eleven million dollars just in the bankruptcy legal fees. To give you a sense of the scale here. No, there's there's a long story.
There's there's a lot of villains in this story. The first blow for Red Lobster comes when the fishing industry consolidates, and you have similar types of monopoly consolidation in the fishing industries you see in a lot of industries. And there's a backstory to how that happened. There was some government action that was intended to combat over fishing that had a very deleterious effect on the industry because of
the way they went about it. In any case, you have this massive consolidation and then monopolies.
Do what they do, they jack up prices. Well, for Red Lobster, the whole key to their.
Business model is being able to buy seafood through their mass purchasing power at relatively low cost and sell it to their customers at a cost that is reasonable and affordable to them, and being able to do that at scale so that you can make enough.
That it works.
So when the costs of the fish, the seafood itself started to go up, they got in trouble. And it was Darden Restaurant Group that was the original founder and owner. So when they get into trouble, what do they do. They sell to Golden Gate Capital, giant private equity firm. That's when things really start to go sideways. And that
happened in twenty fourteen. And the big problem here was that they did what has apparently become very common with these private equity plays, is that they sold off all of the Red Lobster real estate out from under them. What that means and then they're, you know, Red Lobster, the restaurant locations are having to lease it back at these high rates that even when the market goes down and rents are going down, they're still locked in at these higher prices, and that was really the thing that
started to kill them. Then you had this other side story with Tai Union comes in and buy some share and there there's a conflict of interest there because they're the shroop supplier, and so Asaga was saying, they're trying to dunk their excess product, and there looks like they're jacketing up the prices on Red Lobster too to try to squeeze every penny that it's worth out of it.
But the big story here is about corporate rating and the fact that you know, these bad decisions were made so that the private equity company and their shareholders could get paid off in the show short term, but at the long term expense of Red Lobster making it so that listen, it is true consumer you know, food trends have changed, so Red Lobster probably needed to adjust their business model, but because of this real estate deal, they didn't have any cash or flexibility to be able to
do that and shift with the times and be able to you know, create a restaurant experience that would really.
Fit with modern consumers.
So now we have yet another hole in the suburban real estate landscape occupied by Red Lobster, and you know, the workers getting screwed, and a lot of loyal customers who still really enjoy Red Lobster are going to be sad to see those go from their neighborhood.
Absolutely, let's put this up on the screen for example.
And this is still proliferating, you know, as we said, because you actually have to read these financial documents to see the true missteps. There's Red Lobster files for bankruptcy
after missteps, including All you Can Eat Shrimp. What we now know is that it was basically rigged from the very beginning, and that this private equity deal, this Golden Gate company, which did some one point five billion dollar sale lease backs artificially inflate the books of the company on top of some restructured debt is really what killed it, on top of greedy executives.
With All you Can Eat Shrimp.
I mean, what's really becoming clear is it's a very convenient and it's a fun story.
Obviously.
That's why you know, I jumped on it, and I didn't know enough, especially of the background, until you got the full financials. Whenever you see it, you're like, oh, this is the story of every nice place in America that's just been wrecked over the last decade. All right, now, two part some discussion, let's discuss let's put this up there.
So I personally viewed this with some derision. I thought it was just another like dumbass woke MSNBC article, But we have since learned there may be something to it. It says why Red Lobster's downfall hits differently for black communities. So this is an op ed there, and it says a recent announcement, you know, blah blah blah.
Basically, it says that Bill.
Darden opened the very first Red Lobster south of Orlando, Florida, in nineteen sixty eight after Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated, as he had done with his first restaurant. He opened apparently during the height of Jim Crow segregation in Georgia, and insisted that Red Lobster always be fully integrated. So that's a nice history of the company. But basically what they are arguing here is that this one hits particularly hard because, according to him, that black people like Red
Lobster more than any other racial group. Now, I will just say I don't think that that is true, just based on my own personal observation. It may be true in some regional markets, but we are talking about a restaurant with over seven hundred locations, and just where I'm from, which is the last place I went to with Red Lobster, it was full of everyth nast, every ethnicity that College Station, Texas can bring to bear.
So that's all I say on the matter.
So it's so fraud because.
If you validate this particular like racial lens to the Red Lobster thing, honestly, it's very easy to delve into offensive racial stare. For example, let me read you this line from the article Black consumers are among the most loyal. Sure, we like fish and a good deal. Red LSS represented something like the strip mall version of the beloved fish Fry.
But we like being treated equally even more. But I will say we consulted with Colvin, who happened to be African American member, fantastic member of our production crew, and he said, I'm feeling this article. I agree this is a And I will say, independent of seeing this article in MSNBC, which of course we both saw we're like TONBC to find some like neoliberal, identitarian racial lens to
what this story of corporate capture and greed whatever. But I will say even before we discussed this, it was clear that Colvin, of the whole team here was definitely taken. The red lobster hit the hardest.
So why again, I think it's regional, which is, we live in an area which is very black, like in Maryland in the DMV, we have a much i think black per cap.
There's a very large black middle class in this area too, you know, not quite comparable to but it's similar to like around Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, but you know, growing up here, my personal experience comports with the article, you know, the arguments that are being made here.
So in any case, that's what I mean.
I just think it's regional. I think I think it's America. It's like olive Garden. You know, everybody loves alive garden.
Is the food good? No, it is a place to go, That's it. TG Fridays.
They're not going to do the like, you know, the the corporate reading part of the story, right they you know, they apply their lens. But anyway, I don't know. I'm not saying it's illegitimate. It just was a funny editor.
It's like black people love a deal. Everybody loves a deal. Okay, I like a deal. What are you doing any people love deals too?
Well?
You think we don't screw up some chain restaurants. It's like, come on, man, to go to a New Jersey. Yeah, what is it?
What's the town called Edison? Go to an Edison, New Jersey red lobster. I bet you find some Indians in there. Speaking of the election, head Ted Poles and all that, what is the single only thing that could save Biden at the point from dementia, from the economy. Its abortion, and it is the topic of possibly birth control. Now, Trump supposedly is supposed to know this, and yet keep sticking his foot in his mouth every single time that
he's asked about this issue. Previously, he was asked on a local TV interview they said, hey, are you going to do anything about red states that want to monitor women's pregnancies? And he said, well, we're just going to leave it to the states. You're like what, And this time around he's asked, are you open at all to banning contraception?
Here's what he had to.
Say, the whole issue of contraceptives.
Do you support any restrictions on a person's right to contraception?
Well, we're looking at that, and I'm going to have a policy on that very shortly. And I think it's something that you'll find interesting. And i'd say it's another issue that's very interesting, but you will. You will find it, I think very smart.
We're looking at that and you will find it very smart. Why don't you just say no? Next question?
Well classic, I mean, how many times have you heard him doing this that we're going to have something that you're really gonna love. I think you're gonna find it very smart. Like, you just haven't thought about it. You have no freaking clue what your position is, what you want to say about it. So you're like, oh, we're really looking at that very strongly.
Okay. So then he decided to walk it back. Yeah, let's put this Heilbart on the screen.
He then posted on truth Social in all caps, I would never advocate imposing restrictions on birth control and calls the reports based on his interview a Democrat fabricated lie. And this is why I'm just shocked by it. Where in general, I trust his political instincts basically on anything other than something he really cares about, like stop the steal.
I trust that he would.
Be smart enough not to ever say anything like this because he's given a boon to the Biden administry. Biden campaign immediately put this out Gavin News, every large Democratic Twitter account. Here we have a statement from the Biden campaign. It's not enough for Trump that women's lives we can put at risk, Doctors being threatened with jail trime, and extreme bands are being enacted with no exceptions for rape or incess. He wants to rip away our freedom for
access to birth control too. And this is one where not even the Alabama most right wing Mississippi state legislatures and all these people are putting anything like this on the floor. It should have been the most easy and basic layup. I would also note that interview took place at a CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh.
That is not the place to be.
Making comments about contraception. Considering that John Fetterman won some five to six percent on the heels of the Row versus Way backlash and first state wide, very clearly that is a major issue in the state. Of Pennsylvania. It's you know, they got popular democratic governor. You don't need to be messing with anything like this.
Well, I mean, you say, none of these states are considering banning versonpectively. It's not exactly true, though, because it depends, I guess, on how you define birth control, Like do you define the morning after pill as birth control as many people do, And then in any of the states where you have fetal personhood and heartbeat bills that would be banned. I mean, it's like the similar, similar conundrum with IVF, and so I was surprised that he hadn't
thought through what he wanted to say here. But I think he has realized that he tried to do the whole just like leave it up to the states, and then the states did a bunch of crazy stuff on abortion. So he doesn't really want to say that anymore. But he also doesn't want to say, oh, we should codify this at the federal level because he's not quite comfortable with what that would mean for the Republican base and what the implications.
Of that are.
So he just tries to dodge, but obviously, you know, leaves the door open for it. So yeah, I mean he's a mess on these issues, but there's also no good place for him to be. One thing that I thought really noteworthy in that New York Times article that we had up is they note that in a March poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which focuses on health policy, about just under half of adults said they considered the right to use contraception a secure right likely to remain
in place. Because listen, we know what the numbers are going to be, and we actually have some numbers we can put up here in a minute, we'll just hold off on that on Obviously, birth control is overwhelmingly popular accepted. It is a very fringe minority at this point that says this should be banned, let alone even just like made more difficult to access. The overwhelming majority people say it should be easier to access.
But so that's one question. The other question is do people.
Actually feel like this is at stake or do they just feel like this is some sort of like BS democratic scare mongering that your rights are going to be taken away when they don't really buy it. So it was surprising to me that you actually have a majority of people who say, now, I actually think this is at risk. I actually think it's a danger that we could end up in a situation where birth control access
is curtailed, restricted, or outright band. That's what makes these Trump comments, you know, particularly potent, is that you have a really unpopular position combined with an actual existing fear among the electorate.
Yeah, no, I think you're right.
Let's put some of those numbers just to get hit at home for everybody, and you can see it quite clearly. I mean, this is as basically as bad as it gets, you know, for for Republicans, the easier to people who want birth control pills to be easier to access is seventy four percent. More difficult access is five It is actually less popular than banning IVF. Just so everybody understands, including you know, it's like abortion. As you can see,
fifty one percent want easier to access. Only twenty eight percent want more difficult to access. But twenty eight percent is not nothing. That's you know, roughly like a fourth or so of the country, plus or minus whatever the margin of error is. This is basically within the margin of error and has a easier to access net even
amongst Republicans at fifty six percent. So just again, how everybody understands how fringe of a position this is, and why if there is anything that's going to sink Trump, it is going to be this issue. And coming back to you know, I guess you know, we can add some of our polling caveats here. Even though I do think I would probably give the odds to Trump right now. Is you know, you look at these state by state poles.
You see a state in Arizona, and you see carry Lake down by thirteen percent and Trump up by five eighteen percent of people were really going to split ticket eighteen percent. I don't know, man, Not in my lifetime, not since twenty ten, have people been splitting tickets like that. This whole idea of you know, oh, I like my local guy and the local Democrats different than the national Democrat. That's very gone. You know, in our politics. It's been a long time since anything.
Like that happened.
I mean, I just yeah, I don't know, I just want to.
I just don't know.
It would be a massive reversal of modern political trends, which started even before twenty ten, but it really started to consoliate in twenty ten that politics was no longer local.
All of these like blue dog.
Democrats who were hanging in there in these very conservative districts. They got wiped out because at the end of the day, people were like, okay, sure, like especially with some of the pork barrel type politics going away where it was no longer as easy to insert like my bridge project or whatever.
In that too, they banned your marks for right decades, so it.
Was, you know, less, there was less for them to be able to bring and be like, well, this is why you should vote me, even though you despise Democrats. People were like, yeah, but at the end of the day, you're voting for Nancy Pelosi for speaker.
So sorry, I'm going with the other team.
That has been consistently the trend fewer and fewer swing voters and fewer and fewer ticket splitting voters. We have seen a little bit of a reversal of that, like trend going a little bit in the opposite direction in the past two elections. But to have it swing that much where I have that many split ticket voters, and like, do people really feel.
That negatively about you? I just I don't know. I just genuinely don't know.
I'm trying to be extremely humble about any prognostication in this election cycle, because you know, the midterms, we heard something very similar about it was the acadomic numbers, and that was gonna be the big deal. I really believe that, because I think material politics, et ceterat. It didn't turn out to work out that way. Now this time you got Joe Biden on the top of the ticket. Maybe at a presidential election it's different. I just genuinely don't know.
And then the other thing to throw into the mix, of course, is all of these special elections which seem to be going really well for the Democrats. So does that mean anything for Joe Biden or is that completely disconnected from him?
Again? Who knows.
But the fact that Trump tried to clean this up, I mean it doesn't matter at this point because he said the thing it can be run in ads.
He opened the door to it.
Democrats got everything that they wanted out of that little local news conversation that he had.
So this is a strategy. Puts C three up on the screen, this Arris sheet.
Democrats are trying to make everything out of this that they possibly can't.
Who can blame them?
I mean, this is very potent, very real for voters. They're going to hold a bunch of votes trying to tee up contraception as access as a campaign issue. And you know, Republicans do themselves no favors by they'll vote against this. You would think like something that literally five percent of the country is like, let's make contraception, contraception harder to access, and Republicans will vote with that five
percent of the country. But they say, oh, well, we worry about what this means for you know, is this open the door to the morning after pill and not being an infringement on state rights, et cetera, et cetera. And they don't want to give Democrats any sort of a political sense of a win, so they'll vote against this, and Democrats will use those votes on the record to say, look, these people want to take away your birth control. Can they get people really energized around that issue?
Do they focus on it?
I don't know, but I mean it's a wise and correct political play, There's no doubt about that. I also say that in some states this has become relevant as well. In Virginia in particular, there was legislation that was passed through the House and the Senate to protect access to contraception, and the Republican governor vetoed it. So Virginia is looking like a swing state this time. Even though I've Biden won to buy ten points last time. We've got polls
that show that it's very close. These sorts of things could come into play as well.
Absolutely,