5/8/25: Trump Hypes UK Deal, Trump Plans Gaza Occupation, MAHA Civil War, Libya Deportations & MORE!

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Good morning, everybody, Welcome to Breaking Points. Emily, how are you this morning?

I'm good, but when the bottom bar comes up, everyone is going to see why. I'm not amazing. Good, but not amazing. Yeah, because we missed one critical thing.

We fumbled the bar the ball here on the A block. Otherwise it was a full M show in honor of M.

Yeah.

I didn't do that on purpose, but I spent all day yesterday trying to make sure we can have an M title for every show because at a certain point it just and I was like well we have to do this now.

Yeah, but Chris, I screwed it up because I did the FED block.

So sorry, I'm still blaming Jerome Powell.

It's still his fault.

He didn't have to speak yesterday. You could have called it money. It's your fault too.

And you know what else, you know what else?

We added a story to the show and it's a story about Maha.

Oh my gosh. It's just the level of consistency across the board. This was meant to be yesterday.

The stars were aligned.

Yes, so everyone enjoyed.

And there's some stuff going on in Maha that we are only beginning to scrite the surface of. Trump's original surgeon general pick was pulled after Laura Lumer and others I guess criticized her. And the new person who he has picked is Casey Means whose brother CALLI means. The two of them have become very like prominent on Tucker and Joe Rogan whatever. I as an outsider, we're like, oh, the Laura Lumer is probably gonna be happy like Nicole Shanhan.

It's so messy and we have to try to get closer to the truth on this one. There's all kinds of rumors flying around. Yeah, so we'll bring you all of that, of course after we do the black that I'm just going to call money, but Crystal called Fed. Yeah, Jay Powell spoke yesterday, So lots of updates to talk about from the Fed and on the economy more generally.

Yeah, we're supposed to get some sort of a UK trade deal announcement this morning, so we'll see what that entails. Whether it's an actual deal, more likely it's like the outlines of a plan to effectuate a deal down line something like that. Yeah, it's a plan, it's the what a concepts of So yeah, that's right. We also have some very significant news with the arts to the lease. Trump making some pretty wild comments about the Houthis that

As if that's a model I still follow.

Yeah, wild, nothing but success.

Wild, So get into that.

Also, Republicans are making more clear what sort of cuts to medicaid. David Day and actually got the scoop on what they're looking at. Specifically with regard to cuts to medicaid, they are significant. Any one of the options would entail millions of Americans getting kicked off of that program. So obviously we're going to dig into the details there. We have some updates with regard to migrants and where they're being sent. Mark or Rubio had said, Hey, we're looking

This became quite urgent.

There was a flight that was scheduled, lawyers got involved, they went to a judge. A judge has now blocked any migrants from potentially being sent to Libya, but Libya's toward is like divide it between two different governments. Both of those governments said, hey, we have nothing to do with this, We would not accept these migrants. So anyway, there's a lot that is sort of mysterious and interesting

Yeah, So, Breaking Points obtained a document from inside punch Bowl News and we have basically we're ready to reveal their entire business plan because for partnerships in twenty twenty five. That's the document that we got our hands on and got some comments from the White House because you may remember, just a couple of months ago there was a big

But it is so so gross.

And we have some great excerpts pictures from this document that we obtained that I think as well worth taking a look up.

Yeah, the documents are not indicative of punch Bowl being particularly unique in terms of the DC ecosystem. They just simply expose how banal and how commonplace these relationships are, and you know how much money is at stake as well.

It really is.

It's a fascinating look inside the beltwet meeting, specifically the world of these sort of niche newsletters which are just printing money because they're not that expensive to put together. But the whole business model is, hey, if you can tell advertisers, you know, my my tip sheet is read by Mike Johnson, my tip sheets read by John Thune, my chip tip sheets read by Chuck Schumer, then advertisers will pony up big bucks to get their messages just in front of those basically handful of people.

Yeah, in this case, Google gold min Sacks and just our last teaser here, So you stick around for the block.

We have the actual price.

First of all, we have their email open rates, we have their subscriber numbers, at least the ones that they send the corporate partners or prospective corporate partners. But then we also have the pricing levels that they offer newsletter sponsorships for. And that's what you're really going to want to stick around for because it will make your eyes pop out of your skull. So make sure to stay tuned that block.

Yeah.

All right, with all that being said, let's turn to the economic news. This broke yesterday evening and could put this up on the screen. So Trump expected to announce some sort of trade quote unquote agreement with the UK. Most of the experts are sayings probably isn't going to be a finalized agreement because it will be more like a framework including issues that they intend to resolve, but we don't know the specifics at this point. Trump said that he is going to make this announcement in the

Yeah, and like you said, we don't know much yet, but I think your Starmer is in the now Mark Carney category as well, where they're recognizing that the economic benefits they can get their own people, because the disadvantages the costs of this are going to are likely going to be if they don't handle it diplomatically and in

In the UK. I sort of doubt it.

I don't think he necessarily will be able to do that, but it's probably better than him doing nothing. Or making some type of like petulant virtue signal stand while people end up not getting any benefits.

To the economy.

Yeah, we'll see how the politics play out.

Because Donald Trump's not popular in you know, certainly among cure Starmer's based in the UK, and as I was saying before, you know, Mark Carney, the reason he was able to win was by positioning himself as an oppositional figure to Trump and someone who would be a steady hand. When we talked to David Dole about how, you know,

Trump needs us for the markets too, because everyone's waiting for deals. It's not just about the one deal. It's about the one deal showing that there are actual deals coming, and that is obviously yet to be seen.

So we will pay attention to that. But Crystal J.

Powell, speaking of the markets, Jay Powell popped out yesterday and made his announcement.

Yeah, that's right, so holding interest rates steady and sounding some very significant warnings about where he thinks the economy is and where it is heading.

Let's take a listen to that.

If the large increases in tariffs that have been announced or are sustained, they're likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slow down in economic growth, and an increase in unemployment. The effects on inflation could be short lived, reflecting a one time shift in the price level. Is also possible that the inflationary effects could instead be more persistent, avoiding that outcome will depend on the size of the terariff effect.

Tariff effects, on.

How long it takes for them to pass through fully into prices, and ultimately on keeping the longer term inflation expectations well anchored.

So you know, Fed chairs, theyre always try to be very neutral and mild mannered in their comments, but he's sounding a warning about the tariffs, and the tariff position has really put the FED in a tough bind because on the one hand, you see slowing economic growth that's always saw with the GDP numbers and some other indicators that would push you in the direction of let's lower

So he's in a bind.

So he's basically saying, hey, we're holding where we are until you know, we until we see what's going on.

Yeah, I mean, this wasn't surprising at all. It's kind of exactly what everyone was expecting to see from J.

Powell, though you never totally know.

But this muscle is connected to the black we're going to do un Medicaid because a lot of the economy right now is going to hinge on Donald Trup's ability to pass this big tax cut bill, and his ability to pass that big tax cut bill is going to depend on his ability to actually make enough cuts without going into the political weeds of cutting Medicaid in any way whatsoever, which, as Steeve Bannon will tell him, a

The barrels is the trade war, the tariffs.

The other barrel is the tax cuts, and if you can't if you can't have that, that's a big problem.

Interesting.

Yeah, that's an important note there for sure, Scott Bessant. Part of maybe potentially why they're anxious to announce this UK trade deal is we talked yesterday about how they said, Okay, we're going to meet with Chinese negotiators with regards to trade, and we all just happen to be in what Switzerland, We just happened to be there.

So we're going to get together with them.

The Chinese, by the way, are saying the US were the ones that requested the meeting, which is an interesting note as well. Scott Bessant thought yesterday really downplaying expectations for what could come out of these talks.

Markets really took notice of this as well. Let's take a listen.

On Saturday and Sunday, we will agree what we're going to talk about. My sense is that this will be about de escalation, not about the big trade deal. But we've got to de escalate before we can move forward.

Well, they said that they would not talk unless the reciprocal trade tariff of one hundred and forty five percent was removed. Would it be likely that you would be able to go back to the President and say, to show good faith, we could drop this down in the interim to fifty percent.

Could that be in the cards, Laura, I'm not going to negotiate. You're on TV, You're one of the most popular the anchors in the world, So I'm not going to give away our strategy. And look, everything's on the table. It's up to the president at the end of the day.

So you know, seems like those talks are very preliminary, long way from any sort of a deal actually being struck with China, of course, that is the really main focus in China. Of course, subject to those one hundred and forty five percent taros effectively.

Cuts off trade with China.

No, I'm sure there is going to be some because the terraffs and other nations are much lower ten percent. I'm sure there's going to be some of China shipping to other places that ship here. They call it trans shipping, they call that. Yeah, and that was already being done and I'm sure that will only expand to try to fill the gap of trade that is just being completely blocked from China. But it's still going to have quite a significant impact.

Well, which is why if they're still doing trade deals with every country that was hit by the reciprocals, that means they're going to have to do deals with places like Cambodia, Vietnam and some of those places where things are being shipped.

First from China and then into the United States.

So the level of unpredictability here, I mean, I know things feel like since what was Liberation Day, April second, it's been more than a month now, we've sort of slipped into some sense of normalcy, and it's we're almost numb to what we're in right now because everything changed so quickly. But the level of uncertainty in the economy is hard to even capture with words.

I mean, it's it's or not on the woods, that's for sure.

Yeah, and you know, there have been concerns about looming shortages, retailers sounding the alarm about that. You know, we played the director of the LA Port or executive director of the LA Port, whatever his title is, saying basically, it's already way down. You know, the shipments are receiving from China. We expect it to be much worse. I saw indications yesterday that, you know, there's vastly diminished activity at some

Well, the scare mondering is happening now. But I can tell you that I get real time data every day on whether there are shortages, and I can report that there are still plenty of things on the shelves. There were a couple of weeks where shipping from China was lower, but now shipping from a lot of other countries is going way, way up. So people don't have to be worried about what the scare mongderers are saying. These policies are on shoring jobs, on shoring production. You could see

In the past.

So the question is whether this situation is able to persist. It's also funny, I mean what he's saying there, Well, trade with China's downshore, but trade with these other countries is up. It's because of what we were exactly talking about.

Now.

A lot of companies did stock up in anticipation. That was part of what played into the GDP numbers in the first quarter. A lot of companies knew that something was going to happen, and so they aggressively imported what they needed to import so that they could have a sort of backlog and storage to be able to weather the store. So that will help to buffer especially large companies that were able to do that and to get ahead.

Yeah, absolutely, Chris. So also this tear sheet, this Ford tear sheet. If we put this on the screen. A three.

This is import because we had that clip yesterday of Mark Pocan going after Scott Bestn't asking who pays tariffs? Yeah, and Scott Bestnant was really insistent about not answering that question.

He was trying all kinds of clever ways to get around that question.

The CNN headline is Ford will raise the sticker price on cars imported from Mexico. It just said it didn't expect significant US price hikes. There you go, that's evidence right there to the point Kevin Hassett was just making let you see something, you try it, you see what happens, and then maybe you pivot.

Yeah.

Well, Ford says they're going to hike the sticker price for three US models that they import from Mexico by about two thousand dollars each. So I would say that's significant.

The price by two thousand dollars.

And that is another question too, is we saw this during the post COVID inflationary period. Is there were genuine inflation pressures, and they were also companies that were like, oh, people think there's inflation, I can raise my prices.

I'm going to raise my prices.

And by the way, when the put costs for those companies went down, did they bring the prices back down?

Of course not, of course not.

And I actually saw that there's industry jargon for these types of practices.

It's called taking price.

So it's such a common practice that they actually have like industry jargon for what it means. It makes sense, of course, if you're a capitalist and you see you can get away with raising your prices, You're going to raise your price. So that's how you can also feed an inflationary spiral, even above and beyond the direct impact of the terraffs, which is also quite significant.

Yeah, and you know, this is where it obviously should factor into the Trump administration's decision making process.

I think it's unfair to let some of these corporations off the hook.

Not that we do, but it's such a small part of the media conversation here is like they take the economic procarity that everybody is living in and just squeeze every little drop out they can, and disproportionately end up sending that money continually to executives away from workers. They increase prices for customers, they pay themselves more and more,

That you could do.

It's not really I guess I shouldn't call it industrial possible. There are all kinds of things that you could do to make this trade war actually help workers and customers and pass those costs off in different ways, And there's not a ton of conversation happening about what could be done creatively in that big, beautiful reconciliation package Trump is hotly anticipating. But it seems to me like that would be a missed opportunity.

Actually, yeah, there's no doubt about it, And I mean with regard to the corporations doing what corporations do. I mean, I obviously we're going to call them out here, but also you know, it would be like expecting to a snake not.

To buy you liked And so that's why you need.

Government policybers to protect workers, to protect consumers, and to understand the dynamics and incentives that you're creating and so what you're likely to have. Also as a situation where if you are a large player in particular, and your competitor is suffering more from the terrorists and the import taxes for whatever they import more from China, etc.

You have two choices.

You could hold your prices steady and then you undercut them and then you steal their business.

That's going to work out well for you.

Or you could take price and also up your prices to match them, knowing that you can get away with

Whatsoever.

There's one more piece of market news we wanted to bring you that is kind of unrelated to the terrorists, but also really significant to put this up on the screen while I was keeping our eye on what the impacts of AI are going to be. Wild story yesterday about the rampant use of chat epute whatever cheating in college we could have.

We'll do that conversation another day.

But in any case, Apple stock price significantly fell after they are a top executive there said that it is considering injecting Safari with AI, and the big news here injecting I know, I'm going to.

Vaccimate it with a vaccinate in the ai Jab.

In any case, one of the big notable comments that was made here is that for the first time ever, Google searches are going down. These people are using, they're asking CROC, chat GPT, They're not going to Google, And I mean I can attest to that it is like better at Google effectively that.

When you're using AI, you and Sager obsessed with AI. With the I feel like Kyle uses a lot too, but like chat GPT.

Kyle loves making images with Groc, loves who among us sends hours over there, just like what if I did this? Yeah, it's really up to some young thumbnail game.

I have to say, I mean, what can't Groc do? But seriously, this story is incredible.

And Stoller was monitoring Google stock price yesterday and he had a great post on big his substock, which is a great subscribe about how basically the markets were saying this is his headline, Wall Street tells Google to break itself up because the markets were reacting to this information as it was being And he had an interesting point too, which is that as the day went on, you could see people kind of grappling, investors grappling with what it

Is that crazy? I mean just.

This is like the wildest way for Google to have their stock prices crater, as a stolar put it. And last though, Crystal, Apple and Ford remind me of something we covered this about a month ago when the Ford CEO around Liberation Day did an interview talking about how they suddenly realized none of their parts for any of their cars were like made in the United States at all, Like they had to get from so many different places. They made assemble them in the United States, but they're

At least I do.

It's like, it's not just I'm not saying that Trump administration solution has been executed well, because it hasn't been. But they also hold the economy hostage to their shitty business.

Models, and it's like the same thing.

Actually, I think it's the same thing with Google here too, and we're all held hostage to their complete monopoly that you know, you see their stock tanking when something obvious happens and it's like, are they prepared for that?

What does that mean for Google? I don't know, but Stolar makes a good point.

He compares it to Standard Oil, compares Google potentially standard Oil, which created when it was broken up, all of these more efficient, broken up companies in its place, And so this actually might a really positive piece of news, although it would be quite a transition period for the US economy and certainly for Google.

Yeah, I mean with regard to AI, there's there's a lot to say there. But I feel like if we had a functioning society, we would have a really aggressive national debate about how far we want to go with this and how much we want to limit it. And I was thinking about I'm old enough so that I when I first started driving, you could print ount the map quest oh directions, right, but I still had to occasionally you screw up the map quest directions.

It was bad to go to the map. Oh, it was bad.

You got to open up the map, You got to figure out where the hell am I. You got to stop at the gas station ask the guy like how do I get to this place?

At that place? And yeah, it was it was rough.

I much prefer being able to navigate and to just have the phone and be like, Okay, you screwed up, here's another route whatever. But I will tell you I was a lot better at knowing how to get places.

Oh, this is a thing.

Everybody who has had both excret knows. Is the thing like I have to use GPS to get to places that I've been, you know a lot of times, Whereas at that time when you had to actually think and use your brain and engage, you were able to navigate places. And I feel like with AI you can kind of extrapolate that to your entire brain.

Yes, yes, there's research on this, and Nicholas car started writing on this when was the Shallows was like twenty eleven.

That's right.

Yeah, And actually there's a decent bit of research about how your brain atrophies in different ways when you start outsourcing critical parts of it to computers. It's not to say that we should never allow anyone to touch a calculator.

Obviously I don't agree with that.

But there's so much that we're going to lose so quickly and not even have a baseline. You know, there are people who don't remember map quests, don't know map quests that are very much alive, like your kids.

Probably you have no idea what it is, like, what what the hell is not what you printed something out?

Like what he's talking about.

It just gives me so much PTSD about like coming late to soccer games because the map quest was hard to get to the But in all seriousness, like this is a real problem. But thankfully we have a surgeon general who will be on top of it.

Oh yeah, yeah, we thinking all these things through very deeply. With her lack of a medical license, all right, we'll get.

To that later. That's a deep teas they're coming to.

You know what on the road, Biden certain general was excellent on that. It was really good on this.

You know what, You're right about that, and you're right about that. He was very thoughtful. You put out a warning. He basically said that social media uses should be treated like tobacco, alcohol, like that kind of seriousness, and we're like, okay, anyway.

Thanks Ivbolt, kiddo, mail it in for a little while.

I would be quiet, good luck, You'll be fine.

All right, Let's go ahead and get to some very serious topics. But starting with you know, we were talking yesterday about how Trump has basically taken the Houthis up on their deal to they to back up for a second. Okay, Houthis have been doing their their operations in response to the Israeli genocide in Gasa. During the ceasefire, the brief Gaza ceasefire, they stopped all that. When the ceasefire ended, they resumed activities, but just visa v Israel, they were

Bomb us, we won't bomb you.

So apparently Trump decided to take them up on that deal and decided to stop bombing them, and in response, they are not supposed to bomb us either, even as they continue their hostilities visa the Israel. So Trump gets asked about this yesterday and has just about the most Trumpian answer of old time.

So let's go ahead and take a list of that.

But so we do we take their word for it. It was, you know, we hit them very hard. They had a great capacity to withstand punishment. They took tremendous punishment, and you know, you could say there's a lot of bravery there that it was amazing what they took. But we honor their commitment, and they were they gave us their word that they wouldn't be shooting ships anymore, and we honor that.

We honored the brave, very brave.

We honor their commitment.

I mean, it's just like it reminds me of some of the things that Trump would say in his first term, Like when he was talking about Putin, He's like, what you think we're so you think we don't have by killers?

Yeah, they were so innocent here or yeah, or the way he would you know, talk.

About meeting with North Korea or meeting with the Taliban, Like I feel like we got a little more of this Trump the first administry. This was a bit of a throwback, but it's also funny just in the context of, you know, a bunch of lefties, Hassan in particular, have gotten a lot of shit for talking about the Houthis and being like, you know, it's brave what they're doing. And here you have Trump and being like, they're very brave. What can I say, I honor their commitment.

Imagine Barack Obama calling the Houthies brave.

Imagine how Republicans, thank God, honoring the bravery of the Hoho thies.

You can't, you just can't.

Cannot only Trump, only Trump, We would still be talking about the scandal of it to this day. I'm not even kidding it is.

It's kind of a crazy thing to say.

But sorry, Hassan, but like, it is kind of crazy from the president who's in charge of the United States foreign policy.

And yet and yet here we are.

So but I guess a little bit of good news on that front too, and cannot be divorced from the broader context of the administration heading to Oman this weekend for negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal.

We have some updates on that front as well. Yeah, we do.

But before we get to that, I want to talk about this report from Reuters, which is deeply troubling and really significant. Let's put this up on the screen so they were able to get this exclusive report that the US and Israel are discussing a possible US led administration Gaza. Let me repeat that, a US led indefinite administration occupation, you could say, of Gaza. Let me read you a little bit of this report, because just the utter insanity

I'm sure that'll be easy, no problems there.

According to the discussions, which remain preliminary, there'd be no fixed timeline for how long such a US led administration would last, so we're talking about literally good last forever, which would depend on the situation. On the grounds of hive sources said. Those sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in that Washington established in two thousand and three, shortly after the US led.

Invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein Emily. How did that go? Can we check back in on that? How? How did that work out for us? A great idea? Did we execute it well? Did it? You know, foment tons of terrorism and horror for years to come.

I think we were able to successfully win the love and affection of the people and establish.

A demonstians accomplished is what I heard.

What we did was spread democracy, and democracy is contagious, as you know.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, especially in the Middle East.

I just.

These words, they.

Truly, I mean, a few things are shocking to me with Trump at this point, but he ran in opposition to the Iraq War.

This was one of his.

Campaign innovations, calling Jeff I mean, we all loved watching him call out Jeb Bush to his face on stage or his brother going into Iraq, And that was one of the ways he really did separate himself from the pack and really did seem to represent some sort of a break from the traditional Republican establishment, and now here you are talking about perhaps the most disputed land on the entire planet, and we are going to administer it indefinitely.

I just I literally cannot get over it.

And of course we fund one side of the dispute in that conflicted territory to the tune of billions of dollars a year. So trying to pitch that to the Palestinian people, you're already.

Going to be I mean, like, well, what are you talking about?

This is just basically the same thing as giving Israel the land percent And I can't tell if this Reuter story is a leak from people who think it's a really good idea or people who think it's a really bad idea.

I couldn't tell genuinely in the.

Story if this is a trial balloon to try to acclimate people to this idea, or it is to try to blow the whistle and say someone needs to stop this. My instinct is that this is people saying this is a really great idea, let's slowly try to acclimate the media and the public to This is a quote from the article. The quote, high level consultations have centered around

The word viable is incredibly vague. That could mean a million different things, and it could mean a million years for as long as for as far as we're concerned, because viable is going to be in the eyes of the US beholder and Israeli beholder in this case. And it's very hard to believe that Benjamin Netanyah, who's coalition won't always be in power, but believes you know, he was totally at odds with Joe Biden about the question of a two state solution, doesn't believe in a two

That's right, How did our viable government in Afghanistan workout? How did that one go as well. I mean, I just I had the same question about who was leaking this and why? And then the other question I have is Trump te's this big Middle East announcement?

Is this it?

I think?

So?

I think that's I think that's exactly what it is.

You do, Yeah, I mean, I don't even know what to say. I don't even know what to say. But it's consistent with what he's been saying all along about we're going to we are going to own Gaza.

So this is this is the roadmap to the Gaza Rouvierra. Basically, Yeah, that's right.

And you know, again, I think you have to take him seriously. I think he got this idea in his head and his eyes lit up at the idea of like the beachfront property or whatever. And now here we are planning some indefinite, endless occupation of Gaza.

It's just it's just an absolute horror.

And at the same time, the israelis now the mask is totally off.

You know.

In the beginning days, Emily, I'm sure remember we had all these conversations about like, well, what's the day after the war.

And what's the plan.

And of course Phoebe would never say you know, he would always oh, well, it's just we're just focused on the hostages.

Also, by the way, update on that in a moment.

Stay tuned for how much they care about the hostages and what a priority that is for them in this new expanded Gaza operation that they just authorize. In any case, they have now made it plain the goal is we want to we want to permanently occupy Gaza, we want to flatten Gaza. You and Ryan covered this earlier this week, and some Democrats are starting to be a little bit more vocal. Senator Chris van Holland, who have to say,

So he has been a vocal critic here for a while.

He's now going one step further and saying that the Israeli plan is brazen ethnic cleansing.

Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.

I want to talk about the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. It's now been well over sixty days since the net Yahoo government imposed a total blockade of humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza, not allowing any food or any other humanitarian assistance to reach the over two million civilians there. With holding food and humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war is flat out illegal under international law. It is

And Ben Gavier, of course, very influential in this administration, and you know, very much in line with what many members of the net Yahoo government and frankly much of the Israeli public also won at this point. And you know, we are more than two months since any food, water, medicine has been allowed to enter the strip more than two months, and you've got roughly two million people there. We really don't know how many people there are are

Let's put the next element up on screen. This is a tweet from drop site, which looked at times of Israel report from yesterday May seventh, and crystal this just makes your stomach sink. The headline here is leaked Israeli document rescuing captives ranked last in Gaza war goals. A leaked military is really military document shows that rescuing captives in Gaza is listed last amongst six official objectives for a planned ground offensive in Gaza.

And let's just go through these six.

Because if you're reading these as steps, and I think that's a correct way to read them, by the time you get to six, it just again it makes your stomach sink. One defeating Hamas, two achieving operational control over Gaza, three demilitarizing the territory, four striking Hamas government targets. Five

Yeah.

And secondly, I mean, because this tweet says, despite repeated public claims by Israeli leaders that freeing them is the war's top priority.

But you know what, there's been mixed messages on that.

They've kind of tried to have it both ways, saying that the hostages are their priority, but also that the top aim of the wars to eliminate Hamas, and those goals are not necessarily categorically compatible.

That's exactly right, and that is what many hostage families and many Israelis recognize, and that really has been the focal point from what I can tell of a lot of the protests. You know, if you ask Israeli Is according to the polls, it has the war been too brutal on Palestinians. The number that say that is like four percent. I mean, it's shockingly low. But there's been a lot of descent around the issue of what the impact is on the hostages of this all out assault,

That time period.

That is how you actually get the hostages back is through diplomatic negotiations and a ceasefire. Hamasas said from the beginning, we'll do an all for all exchange. You release all of the Palestinian hostages prisoners that you're holding, we will release all of the israel High hostages that we are

Was always for the sake of this goal that again was unattainable without complete and utter civilian destruction, because we knew, I mean, we could tell in the early stages of the war that Hamas was not going to be defeated without that that they were already reconstituting within what would like six months was about six months, they were already reconstituting control and like government authority in particular areas of Gaza,

Those were the questions.

I think that we were haunting a lot of the families of the hostages.

All right, let's go and get to this update with regard to run negotiations. Jd Vance. This was in Munich yesterday. Correct that he was speaking, getting asked about it, returned, he returned to un By the way, the tone the time much so.

Different, much softer. Yeah, it's interesting.

Little chastened was kind of yeah, what did you make of that?

Well, yeah, it was interesting because he started off by acknowledging, you know, the elephant in the room and breaking the ice, cutting through any tension, and so I wasn't sure if I was going to be invited back, and his tone overall it was a conversation or not a speech, So I think that helped it. The tone be more a little bit more that's the right word, maybe chastened or just like buttoned down.

It was a bit more relaydance that was on stage with Tim Walls. Yes, it was very much like a very nice, moderate dude, like, you know, we're trying to get along here, whereas the first speech was very aggressive.

Yes, it was very prickly and abrasive.

And this was him I think, realizing that you can catch more flies with honey.

And I think also the trade war has changed the dynamics. We're also they feel like they need Europe to side with the US against China, and so there's there have been some shifts there.

In any case, he.

Did have a really good quote where he said, basically like the point is not US versus Europe, and I don't want things to seem that way though you can understand why the Europeans, by the way, interpreted that earlier Munich speech as in US versus Europe. But he's saying that's not the point. The point is that we actually

Don't forget too that the signal Gate chats that leak down where Jade Vance is trying to make the case against the strikes in Yemen by being like, oh, we're just bailing out those chromy Europeans again, and Hegseath I think was the one that chimed in, right, Yeah, who was like, yeah, we you know, we can't stand them. I mean there was a lot of euro bashing going on in that chat. Yeah, and they read those as well, so I'm sure they were were also not super happy about the contents that messages.

Super quickly I pulled up the quotes because I think it gives a good flavor of his tone. Yesterday he said, quote, I wasn't sure if after February I'd get the invitation back. Everything that I said there applied as much to the previous American administration as it did in any government as it did any government in Europe. So he was saying sort of humbling himself and saying, well, not himself, but humbling his country and saying the Biden administration was just as bad as I.

Think you guys are. It's like Biden's a Armer's same thing.

Biden administration wasn't kidnapping students off the street for writing up its.

But then that part always goes on set.

Yeah.

Then he then he goes on to say it's not Europe bad, America good.

Both Europe and the US. We got a little off track. So that's a night and day Tonal difference. But he was in conversation this.

Time, so I guess it's not like a scripted speech attack. He was talking to some guy up on stage.

Gotcha, Okay.

So in part of that talking to some guy up on stage, he gets asked about the status of the Iran nuclear negotiations.

Interesting comments here. Let's take a lism.

So there are a couple issues with the earlier agreement, the jcpoas as it's called here in the United States and I assume in Europe. But here here are the two big issues with that agreement are. Number one, the enforcement or the inspections regime was incredibly weak, and I don't think that it actually served the function of preventing the Iranians from getting on the pathway to a nuclear weapon.

And that's what we're negotiating towards. So what did you think of his comments there? Emi language? What was now worthy?

Yeah, I mean really interesting because they need the buy in of Senate Republicans who have been hearing these leaks the broad contours of a potential Trump are on negotiation and saying that sounds exactly like the JCPOA.

The Foundation for Defensive Democracy is very hawkish on this.

Some of their folks have been making that criticism and I think the Trump administration knows that they need the buy in of a significant part of the Republican coalition, and they're not going to get that for the JCPOA,

I also think it was a way to distance the Trump.

Plan, say this is this is totally like, this is way better than that, So it's not as well.

It's not impossible that they land on especially if we're grading on the curve of like conservative Republican Party lawmakers, it's not impossible that they land on a solution here that is much better than your typical Republican or maybe even your typical Democrat would have negotiated.

But that's obviously it mays to be seen. They're negotiating in Oman.

It's the weird thing of the Trump eras that because of the oddities and the coalition, and because of Trump's very eccentric, to say the least, approach to these negotiations, they sometimes end up in good places.

We'll see, yeah, we'll say fingers crossed that they just you know, get back into something approximating Jacboa, but are able to put some rhetorical flourish on that keeps most Republicans on board, because I do think that that is a genuine risk, given the fact, you know what we're about to transition to block on the Medicaid cuts, the block on what's going on with MAHA. There are cracks

We shouldn't just go to war with Iron, which of course would be an utter disaster.

They have been flipping out over it.

As soon as it became likely or possible that Trump was going to pursue a broad plan or a plan that broadly resembled JCPOA in some way or another meaning allowing for some enrichment for at least civilian purposes in the agreement.

Yeah, quote unquote civilian purposes.

And that's it's not that they don't have a point, that that's something that people should absolutely be concerned about.

But is it realistic.

No, in all likelihood, it's not realistic to start, let's say, thawing these tensions or cooling these tensions without coming to some sort of agreement that has in an agreement, you have to like give and take a little bit, and you end up with no agreement whatsoever.

And the administration has been all over the map with regard to enrichment. Jd Vance there seemed to say no Enrichmond. Others have said no enrichment. Tonal Trump got asked about it and he said he's not sure, so which is good.

I'm glad.

I'm glad he said that.

I think whit CoP's gone back and forth as well.

Yeah, I think I think that's right too, And I'm not I don't remember if it was in clip we played there or not that jd Vance made a comment during their saying like that no country has ever had civilian enrichment and not ended up with a nuclear weapon, and that.

Is just not true at all.

Japan, Brazil, Germany, Lens are among countries that enrich uranium and haven't pursued nuclear weapons. So not that part was not particularly encouraging. But we'll see where it all goes.

Hey, that's a rare glimmer of optimism. I suppose the best.

You're going to get for me, Crystal. All right, let's go ahead and move.

Speaking of not having glimmers of optimism, let's move to the quite drastic Medicaid cuts that appear to be part of the big, beautiful bill that Republicans are in the process of negotiating.

David dan Over at the American.

Prospect getting the scoop here on the specifics of the Medicaid cuts that the Republican Caucus is planning on making.

Let's put this up on.

The screen, and guys, I'm just saying, I'm going to take my time.

To go through a little bit of this because this is so important.

So he says, I've obtained a list of the Medicaid cuts in the Republican reconciliation package. The big one is that they're going to raise premiums and copays on beneficiaries at or above the federal poverty line. That is what helps pay for the tax cuts, and that's what he has here in this text. He says the most potentially explosive item on the menu is cost sharing above one

In DC, is not part of the menu.

This is a.

Backdoor way of achieving something like that reduction on the backs of individuals who get Medicaid.

There are other provisions in here as well. There are some changes to.

The Affordable Care Act that would also increase premiums and raise out of pocket costs for people who enroll through the ACA market places, so that is significant. There's some changes here in terms of work requirements. That also you know what has been found previously with the Medicaid work requirements, in particular recording the Kaiser Family Foundation. This is also in Dane's reporting, is that sixty one percent of US adults on Medicaid already work. Large fraction of those who

The goals you might imagine with that.

Instead, it just pushed people out of the program because they couldn't go through all of the bureaucratic red tape in order to get in. So bottom line here is that they are planning on making Medicaid more expensive, raising premiums, making people who are somewhat above the federal poverty line pay in, and doing some other tweaks around the edges, including these work requirements, in order to reduce the cost

Any one of these options.

They find would yes reduce the federal deficits somewhat, and also would reduce Medicaid coverage by millions of people. Anywhere from eight point six million people to two point three million people would be cut off from Medicaid and you would have a significant increase in all instances in uninsured people.

So that is where we are and what we're looking at.

This is a trip war for Republicans who want to need to, by their own strategic intentions, pass a tax cut bill in order to we could disagree with their argument here, but in order to supplement the terif regime and the trade war.

They don't believe.

I mean, they've said this over and over again that they need a tax bill to have their intended effects in the trade war. And you know, you could go and look at that and say, well, then maybe you should have done the tax bill first, and if you got it passed, then done all of these tariffs at the at the sort of wild levels, unexpected levels that a lot of you know, even the administration sort of admits were very radical because they ended up walking them back.

They did spend saving, probably spent more money than they say, I'm not kidding, not genuinely.

Not out of the question. Yeah, it's they've they have not come anywhere near what Republicans expected Doche to do.

Like they actually thought they were going to cut with trillion dollars or some absolutely they really thought that.

I don't think anyone thought two trillion was possible, but I think, I mean, the federal budget is a while thing, and I think even like some Democrats will yeah, you could probably do that, but the way they went about doing it, it's kind of exactly what you would expect when you let oligarch run wild in the federal government with a bunch of like no fighting twenty year olds, right, because it's the same argument that people made against drowing

You have to find the rare person who knows the bureaucracy in order to take on the bureaucracy.

Otherwise you end up not being efficient at all because you don't even know where to look, you don't even know what to do. And that's sort of been an interesting, like ez Recline argument against DOGE is that it's not efficient to just come in and make cuts. Some of these cuts end up being inefficient, and then you end up maybe spending more money than you even cut. But the bottom line is congressional Republicans now have to come up with a budget that allows them to do these

Then he goes on to say maybe for non citizens, that sort of thing.

And so he was assuring the US citizen American tax pair, your Medicaid, your Medicare is going to be safe. The only things we might make are tweaking around the edges to affect non citizens or fraud. So they might be able to make the argument that work requirements are going against fraud whatever.

I mean.

Medicaid spending is about nine percent of the federal budget as of at least twenty twenty two.

I mean, is a huge amount of money.

So it's irresistible for devis at hawk Republicans to want to cut Medicaid. But if you cut Medicaid, you infuriate a lot of people who put their rightfully or wrongfully, their trust in the Trump Republican Party and Trump in particular. How do they get to the tax cut bill with enough votes even to pass the House. The slim margins that they have genuinely a mystery at this point.

Well, and most of the tax cut bill is just to give away to the rich. I mean it's you are literally cutting health insurance for poor people to pay for a tax cut for the rich. That's what you're doing. And there was even some acknowledgment. Remember there's some leaked Republicans to Axios. I think saying like that's going to be a tough one for us to be fige on yep, because that's it's so politically toxic that it is hard to imagine doing something more unpopular.

We have the C three. This is Don Bacon.

Yeah, and put Don Bacon up on the screen. Don Bacon is in this. He's Nebraska right in this swing district. Has not actually announced whether he's running for reelection. Again, I don't think there's any way wins. I just you know, I don't think it runs the way that this year is shaping up. This is one of the districts actually Bernie Sanders went to as well, recognizing and very smartly recognizing that him and others in similar positions would be

Personally as well.

So that piece has to be in, and then to make up for it, they're increasing the Pentagon budget, so it's not coming out of the defense side of the ledger.

That would be the other place you could.

Look if you don't want to take healthcare away from poor people, Well that's off the table.

They're upping the budget over there.

So that leaves you with forced to make really quite significant cuts to Medicaid that are going to that Trump promised he wouldn't and that are wildly politically unpopular and more importantly, are going to be really devastating to millions

So that's part of the background here as well.

Yeah, I mean the politics of those were Republicans even you know, I went back, so I wrote about this yesterday.

There was a sensitivity around it.

If you go back and look what they said, you'd be like, wow, that's really interesting because even at the time, I think they realized how just disastrous, how important it is to the seniors and the working class people who hate the government, and maybe saw some like hope in the Tea Party movement because they were like, yeah, term limits and like screw the big banks after the recession,

Yeah, And I guess, Emily, can you speak to I mean, because the other side of it, you got the Don Bacon's on one side who were like, I'm about to get tossed down and may not even run for reelection.

Because it's looking so bad.

Then you have people who are genuine fiscal hawks who have signed on to some letter saying like no, we need steep Medicaid cuts. So they're trying to balance all of these pieces, which is I guess why leadership is going to Don Bacon and saying like, just trust does It's going to be fine. They'll work it out in the Senate. It's not going to be that bad.

Yeah, well the Senate, I mean they're not. That might be their best option.

And I think that's sort of what Mike Johnson is getting at because he's ruled certain quote unquote cuts out and that leaves them with like waste froggen abuse work requirements, and to quote Rick Perry, here, there's a third thing. I'm just forgetting it, but I have it right in front of me because Dan posted it. But yeah, they're going to get on whatever, like they're going to find some outline, but that outline is then going to be taken. And Dan put it a great way, and it's similar

That's what they're gonna be able to say. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

If you get it down to unless it's just on like non citizens or something. But it doesn't matter if you add work requirements. That's still making poor people pay more for health care. And there's ways you can message it very effectively in some populous red districts, but it's an uphill battle, a real uphill battle, and it gives Democrats a huge gift with a very polarizing political environment and a polarizing president.

And I just want to say with regard to work requirements, I said before Arkansas tried this, so this has been studied and it really should be seen as a similar tactic to what does is doing with Social Security, where they're just making it so you can't you can't get someone on the phone, you go to the field office, the field office has been closed or the field office has a three hour long line, so you're making impossible

Yeah, it is to put it in a corporate a bill with a corporate tax cut, which by the way, I mean taking the corporate tax rate from twenty one to fifteen percent.

Don't need and it's a can of room to open it.

Now.

I'm just like a total you need a like a flat tax basically a type of person. And we probably disagree on that, but I just believe that's the only way to close loopholes, and closing loopholes is the only way to get corporations to pay their fair share and to pay like to put revenue into the treasury. But to do this, to add this into a bill that's

It doesn't necessarily affect that many workers either way.

They can make this argument that's about onshoring bringing jobs back, et cetera.

But at the end of the day, Democrats can now say, in a corporate tax cut bill, you cut medicaid like it's just a disaster politically, there's no question about it, and they have.

This happened again in twenty seventeen. Paul Ryan was out there, this is just going to be my little rant for just a brief second. Paul Ryan was out there talking about how he was going to get taxes down to a postcard and that is like, actually a very I think that would be if you're talking about like doing it via a flat tax.

That is a very just.

System of taxation, wouldn't require corporations to actually pay their fair share if it had the right policy incentives in it.

And not that I trusted Paul Ryan to do that, but genuinely.

If you say, we have this mandate and we're going to revamp the tax system, and you end up with the TCJA, which is a tax hit bill in twenty seven.

Yeah, and then you end up with whatever this bill is going to be.

Right, you have all of if you claimed this mandate from political heaven right now, and you have the generational opportunity to do something like doge, and you're not going to take it to do any we know it's just because lobbyists would swamp them. You can never have a fair system of taxation because lobbyists will swamp you, and then you lose and you have no courage or backboner spine, and that's how we end up with these awful third ways.

Yes, some of that I agree with.

I think if you actually got rid of all of the corporate like deductions of the poles and whatever and had a lower like top line rate, but they actually had to pay it, like, there is a version of that that I would support, because many of these corporations pay nothing, yep, because they availed themselves of so many of these loopholes that exist in our tax gat All right, Well, you know who understands some of these things. No our hero, our heroin Laura Lumer. Laura Lumer who was also.

He was an invite out for tomorrow's show.

This is like, uh yeah she does. That's right, Laura. We would love to talk to you tomorrow. Genuinely.

Laura Lumer and David Dan are heavily featured. Yesterday was the show and Duffy show tomorrow today and David Dan And this was.

The difference between when I planned shows and when you.

Plan I guess so I only loves her some show Duffy, I don't know. All right, put this up on the screen from Laura Lumer. So this is so funny to me always how she praises this, but anyway, she is hammering, uh this Trump ally Paragon Health CEO Brian Blaze for as a as a Rhino saboteur because he's pushed for aggressive Medicaid cuts. I'm going to read you her post

God Forbid Sea screenshots below.

Brian Blaze doesn't want you to know this, but he is propped up by millions of dollars from the COC network's anti Trump war chest. It's currently pressuring congressional Republicans to defy the president's ironclad pledge to protect Medicaid, a program critical to the Hartley and voter supropelled Trump to his election victories. Blaze's insidious push to eliminate provider taxes would gut Medicaid funding, hitting Americans the hardest in rural

She frames it.

She frames this as like it's a betrayal of Trump's promises, when, of course, like obviously Tonald Trump, if he didn't want Medicaid to cut be cut, could just go to Mike Johnson and John Thune and be like, we're not cutting Medicaid.

That's not happening.

But definitely yeah, but obviously she's got a frame it in terms of like he's betraying Trump and Trump's promises and endangering and intentionally endangering Republicans for the midterms.

So that's that's her play here.

Clever framing. Though.

Let's throw this next hairsheet up on the screen, because Republicans are going to be sort of flailing around. Basically that Republicans are are looking to offset the tax cuts again by selling some public land. This is actually a

Increase the Pentagon budget.

So you have to make up all of that as well, and increase the ICE budget and the detention the you know, the budget that goes to like these private prison contractors that stand up detention centers. That's being increased massively. So it's not just the tax cuts, although that is the most sizable piece of it. But you're all so upping you know, the police and the military and so ICE yep. And so now you're like, maybe we can sell off some public lands, some public assets to fund tax.

I'm sure that's going to go over well.

Yeah, this should be an easy sell back come at their districts over the course of the summer.

But again, like the pressure here is so high, the stakes are so high.

They can only lose like three votes or something, and you have the Don Bacons of the world, who may not be running for reelection. He's actually criticized. Was it Haigseeth the other day that he came out and criticized. He's been critical of the administration in some surprising ways, which to me signals he doesn't think he's running for reelection or he's at right now. I mean, it's like you said, could he even win reelection?

I don't know.

I think they've given him a lot of bandwidth to criticize the administration because they recognize the situation that he's in and they want him to run again because I think I think he's probably dead man walking in terms of getting re elected anyway. But if anyone could win the seat, he's like the only one that has a pre so I think they're willing to give him a fair amount of bandwidth, is my read.

We'll see what they do for Republicans in that situation as they approach votes, which probably I'm guess gonna be around fourth of July.

So we'll follow it all.

Shall we get to this very interesting story with regard to the surgeon general. Okay, I'll start from where we are, and then we'll back up and do some of the backstory here. So put Trump's announcement here up on the screen. He pulled his previous surgeon general nominee and has now announced doctor Casey Means to be nominated our next Surgeon General of the USA. Casey has impeccable MAHA credentials and

So good.

There's another. Just gotta gotta love that one.

So a way Shakespeare. This is Shakespeare.

It truly is.

So she and the drama is as of yet unresolved. There are many acts I guess to go in this in this drama, but doctor Jeanette gets pulled after criticism from Laura Lumer and others.

I think who by the way now says she's been hired by Donald Trump himself about four times, but his staff has always thwarted lumour the hiring process.

Really I just saw this, Okay, interesting, So anyway, the original one gets pulled because of you know, backlash from Lumer and others, you know, feeling like she had been she was too pro vaccine, that sort of thing, right, She was like too sort of normal in terms of the medical establishment. So they didn't like her, so they pulled her. There was also some question about her LinkedIn page said she graduated from a different medical school than

You know, they make the.

Podcast Circuit Rogan Tucker very tied in with the MAHA movement and so and you know, have voiced all of the right skepticisms of vaccines.

Will show you Joe Rogan clip where.

Casey Means is saying, like, you know, vaccines may cause autism, the same nonsense that RFK Junior pedals and is aggressively pushing.

With his you know, his study that he's conducting.

That seems he's already come up with the answer of what he wants that study on autism ultimately to say. So that's kind of the world that she comes out of, Emily.

So I think maybe a good place to begin is with this clip of Calli and Casey Means on Joe Rogan's show.

Yeah, and actually Robert F.

Kennedy Junior told people to watch their parents on Joe Rogan Show kind of held it up as a good example or a good explainer primer on what MAHA is all about. So if we roll this stop from Rogan it's C seven, you'll get a good flavor of sort of what they're all about. And we can go a little bit deeper given that she's now nominated for surgeon General.

So let's go ahead and roll C seven.

Yeah, I bet that one vaccine probably isn't causing autism, but what about the twenty that they're getting before eighteen months? Like, we don't look at it in synergistic you know, And so that's a big problem. And this is where the cult of the science, and I say the science specifically,

So I think that clip actually encapsulates a lot of caliing Casey means in just the two minutes.

That you heard.

So to Crystal's point, they did kind of come out of nowhere.

CALLI means and I always confuse their names, by the way, Yeah, CALLI means the man. They're brother and sister, So CALLI means the brother.

Sort of has this whistleblowing story of how he used to be a pharma not pharmer, I'm sorry, a food lobbyist, so working for some of these like awful corrupt big food.

Companies like Coca Cola.

Coca Cola, right, and so he started doing like kind of whistleblower threads on X and that started to get a lot of attention.

Now, his sister nominee for Surgeon General.

Her personal story and she explains it on that Rogan episode basically is that she went to med school and I think it was Stanford prestigious, and I think they come from a pretty well off background.

I think their dad is also a doctor something like that. Right, And you wrote some book that Laura Lumer did not like about gay people.

Yes, it was about a flamming kid.

I don't know what that's about anyway.

Laura Lumber said that it was about trans people, but apparently it's just about gay people.

We don't even need to get into it.

But she went to med school, did five years of a residency and then dropped out because she says she had this sort of awakening as to how and this is very popular Maha will.

It's very popular argument.

Our medical system is obsessively treating symptoms for the sake of profits that go to pharma ag big food and end up corrupting the medical system, rather than treating causes in ways that don't benefit pharma.

So ozembic is a good example. They talk a lot about it.

Instead of asking people to spend more time cutting out sugars or carbs, or you know, doing a lot of physical activity, we.

Just give people ozempic.

And whether or not that's true, that's the argument that they have. I think there's actually a lot of truth to their criticisms and actually to RFK Junior's criticisms of the corruption in the system. But do they then pedal appropriate solutions. That's where the question becomes much more significant.

It's very well and diplomatically put because well, and here's here's the thing.

You know why, Yes, yes, how I feel about these people?

Yes, because she Cali means an Arcade Junior and the Maha crew, like, they'll talk a lot about the profit motive and the corruption in the system, et cetera. But then your solution has nothing to do with getting the profit motive out of the healthcare system.

And in fact, both Cali and Casey Means have.

Their own for profit healthcare companies that their solutions, whether it's to COVID or anything else, just happened to bolster their own it's convenient profit making direction. It's like, well, how what if we applied the same analysis you're applying over here?

What if we apply that to you?

What is that?

You know?

What does that come out looking like?

So in any case, these two individuals apparently a lot more controversial in some of the MAGA and Maha world.

Yes than I really expected.

This was like overturning a rock and seeing beneath the surface that there's all kinds of like bugs fighting each other. Yeah, and I don't mean that that wasn't to imply people or bugs. It's just to imply that, like beneath the surface of Maha, there's this raging battle for the soul of Maha because the close close stakeholders have like this is a very tight knit circle.

I think it's a fair way to say, not just online but offline.

A lot of these people know each other, work with each other now and RFK Junior is the figurehead of the movement. A lot of people have personal relationships with RFK Junior. And we didn't have time to put this in the rundown because it just kind of this was all happening last night. But doctor Jack Cruz, who was really big in Maha circles, and you know he's been on podcasts with like Andrew Cuberman, I think before is

DJT.

Donald Trump allowed Susie Wilds to put in the World Economic Forum and fabians inside the gates.

So this is not a random nobody.

This is somebody in Maha world who's like pretty significant and is already staunchly against this nomination for surgeon General.

The meanses have been very close the means. The meanses have been very close to Bobby Kennedy. Like that's obvious. Everyone kind of knows that.

Yeah, But they come across to a lot of people in Maha world as suspicious and her nomination when they thought that their other ally Calli victory had it just graded on these people who were already very suspicious of Calli and Casey Means. They do think the story is a bit convenient that both of them sort of dropped out of these prestigious gigs medical school residency lobbying work suddenly started infiltrating Bobby Kennedy world, which is quite interesting.

So they're very suspicious of the means.

They see them as people who may be compromised by the political establishment, and this just set that into hyperdrive.

So this is the one that was really shocking to be. Nicole Shanahan, who was K Junior's vice presidential pick and has been She has said some things that she was nervous about, but she's as far as I know, really held back on any significant criticism of him or AJJS or the Trump administration. She tweeted this, Yes, it's very strange with regards to Casey means being put in very strange doesn't make any sense.

I was promised that if I support.

RFK Junior in his Senate confirmation, that neither of these siblings would be working under AHHS or in an appointment, and that people much more qualified would be I don't know if RFK very clearly lied to me or.

What is going on.

It has been clear in recent conversations that he is reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions, and it isn't President Trump. With regards to siblings, there is something very artificial and aggressive about them, almost like they were bred and raised Manchurian assets. There is a lot going on in that one tweet. I mean, first of all, she has to be persuaded to support RFK Junior in a Senate confirmation hearing.

That's news in and of itself.

And one of the pledges that was made is that Casey and Cally Means would be nowhere in this administration the way right, because to your point, RFK Junior talked about them a lot on their campaign trail, you know, in big speeches. He would make a point of shouting out,

That's a good point. And by the way, paranoia breeds paranoia.

So when I mentioned like Intel a couple of minutes ago, the reason I say that is Robert of Kenneth Junior is somebody who is incredibly critical of the CIA for obvious reasons and is like actively taking steps to you know, get these files released that obviously the intelligence world does not want released. And we could have a separate debate and segment all about what's actually happening in that space.

From that world. And you see how that is.

You know, that's pretty pretty much people agree on that, Like, it's not a that's not crazy, and it's not a conspiracy theory. It's just yes, of course they would be keeping track and keeping tabs on someone like that, especially now that he's in a really big position of power in the United States government.

Now.

On the other hand, because some of.

That stuff is obviously just sort of true logical common sense, you end up with paranoid people finding other paranoid people. It's sort of a circle of paranoia that is trying to be a governing coalition and that is incredibly difficult to hold together, just in a practical sense, like not even based on the of Maha, just practically really hard.

Yeah, and such a great point, not in.

Ways that are entire like you, I think there are some really suspicious things about Robert F.

Kennedy. Is the shooting of Robert F. Kennedy. I don't think that's insane.

But if your gateway into politics is from those issues, then you end up sort of in these paranoid firing circles like Mexicans Standard spider Man means.

I saw Mike Flynn is now like who's who was? Like the number one QAnon hero is now like some QAnon people think.

That he's Oh boy, you know, I did came about some other.

Conspiracy in which he's the villain. So that speaks to the dynamic you're talking about. I just pulled up Laura Lumer's Twitter feed and she is going in. Oh is she She is going in on Casey means.

Yeah, she's fighting with Charlie Kirk about it.

Ooh, let me just I'm just gonna read you one of her posts because it's interesting. She says President Trump's pick for US SARCH. In general, Casey Means said she prays to inanimate objects, communicates with spirit mediums, uses shrooms as plant medicine, and talks to trees. She also doesn't even have an active medical license.

That is actually true.

The inmates are running the asylum. This is literally from one of Casey means newsletters. I had the entire page archived and took screenshot. She was just chosen by President Trump to service the next US search in general, take a look at this section on her newsletter. Casey Means said she was looking for romance. She would do shrooms, talk to trees, participate in full moon ceremonies, and to

I was just going to say, you know who we need to have on in all seriousness is Ryan?

Well, Ryan, Yes, we should have Ryan and Mary Anne talk about the merits of this type of WU as Casey Means has put it, like she's openly said it embraced the wo wou and just all of this stuff is unfairly derided by like snobbish elites. There's there's no question about it. Now, does the should the surgeon in general be somebody who's writing about openly talking to trees on her hikes? You know, Crystal, I'm less firm on that one. I think probably no, Probably about do you have.

An active medical license? How do you feel in that one.

Don't love that either. Don't love that either.

So her conclusion here is again is never Trump's fault, another failure by the geniuses who work for Trump on his.

Non existent vetting team. It's the vetting team's fault.

I guess there isn't a single conservative doctor in America doesn't have a history of being a Marxist tree. We are so doomed, aren't we, and then receives so uh.

If producer Mac just texted, the trees can talk if you believe that's right?

Yes, see what happened.

We learned today as we were prepping this segment. I don't want to take Ryan's thunder. You can ask him about this tomorrow, Crystal. But he is a certified or former certified Reiki instructor. So we're not anti WU here at breaking points.

No, not at all, not at all.

But I guess to make the political point, there have long been tensions and contradictions within the coalition which elected Trump, and it is true that like the Marian is a perfect example of this.

The like WU alternative.

Medicine hippie, like the anti vax thing used to be like rich La, people's true we're running in some of the same you know, social circles that used to be on the left, and so you know, when that group gets subsumed into the MAGA movement, there are going to be some you know, some beliefs that clash. And in any case, I don't know there's I'm still I think

We're going way too long on this.

But the final point, I mean, because like Alex Jones was popular on the left after nine to eleven because of his conspiracy theories, and that's another coalition or another coaltion that's been subsumed.

Into the broader Magat coalition and is really paranoid.

So again, like you put all of these eccentric puzzle pieces together and it's really hard to actually govern. And again it's not that there aren't good reasons to question government and elites. It's just as a working coalition, practically really hard to have so much eccentricity and distrust.

Yeah, I thought I can't remember who wrote Maybe it was Naomi Klein, I'm not sure, wrote about like a crank realignment where it's like, yeah, all the various conspiracy branches Naomi Woolf, Yeah, also, yeah, exactly, all sort of like coalesced within the Republican movement, and sometimes those conspiracies clash in important ways, and I think that's part of what's playing out here. That's right, Okay, let's go ahead

And that may be the case.

Actually, it may be the case that Stephen Miller is just handling this sport folio and Trump is like, do whatever you want to do, and that's how things are going. In any case, Let's take a listen to the president.

They're the questions, amnustriction sending mans to Libya.

I don't know. You'll have to ask Homeland Security please, So doesn't know.

Seems like a kind of important piece for him to have some insight into it at this point, but he claims he has no idea what's going on here.

So let's put this up on the screen. This has now sparked a.

Court fight because you first had the New York Times and one other outlet I want to say it was Reuters reporting that the administration was planning on shipping some migrants to Libya in an expansion of the El Salvador program, and they you know, it's pretty well reported out.

We talked about a little bit on the show yesterday.

Then lawyers started getting win from clients that they were being transferred and they were being asked to sign papers that told them that you know, required them to agree to getting deported to Libya. And most of the immigrants, I think all of the immigrants who were receiving these papers were from somewhere in Asia, different Asian countries that were being given these papers and being told you are going to be you are going to be shipped to Libya.

Haftar in the east. Half.

Tar's son, Saddam Interesting, was in Washington last week meeting with Trump administration officials.

Interesting.

Libya has a number of detention facilities for refugees and migrants, which human rights groups have described as deplorable. I saw others described it as a hellhole. Have warned that abuses are rampant, including torture, forced labor, and slavery. That's what these Libyan prisons are known for. So effectively, you get the New York Times report saying they're planning on dow This Marco Rubu had previously said they were going to

There was also a.

Flight that you know how you're able to look up scheduled flights. There was a flight that appeared to be the militi terry flight and then going to take these migrants to Libya. So lawyers intervene. They have this hearing. The judge says, you can't do this. If you are planning on doing this, this would violate prior orders. So it's blocked for now. And then both of the Libyan governments are in this divided country are saying no, no, no,

So that's kind of where we are.

Yeah, here's apart from the political the Politoco article. They say they've also worked to reach potential agreements to the Trump administration with countries to detain people deported from the United States, similar to the agreement they reached with El Salvador. And so when you factor that in the United States feels that it was getting a deal with the Seacott deportations, but it was also helping to fund Bucala's prison expansion.

In power because if you're in the midst of you know what's effectively you know, a civil war. You want to bolster your position as the true legitimate government of Libya with the US doing a deal with Trump the Trump administration seems like a pretty solid.

Way to achieve that.

Yeah, it's I mean, I'm looking enough how many people are registered lobbyists for Libya right now? I just went the fair doac of because that's typically how these sort of deals get greased. You you have some lobbyists whose client is one of these governments, and they make the introduction and then it goes from there. But Gunn has talked about this, Grinnell has talked about this, how you actually can't deport people to prisons with particular conditions.

You have to have conditions that are the same that are like in compliance with US. Yeah.

This was I mean, this was established during the War on Terror, where it was like, no, you cannot deport You can't send people to Egypt knowing that Egypt will torture them and then be like, well, we didn't torture them, even though you know that, you know this other country is going to torture them. It's the same law applies here. You can't say, well, you know, well it's up to Bucali.

So that appears to have been the plan.

Now it's interesting that both Libyan governments are denied that they would accept these deportation flights. That either could be Cya with regard to domestic population that they feel would not you know, like this arrangement, or it could be that the Trump administration asked them to say that they were not going to accept these deportation flights, because you know, when you look at the it looks quite clear that this was there. They were planning to do this if

This is the student who wrote.

The ab ed and then was you know, arrested by like six some of the masked agents of the state. Court orders that she be there by May fourteenth. The Trump administration was trying to keep her in Louisiana. She has been accused of no crime, just co writing a campus op ed arguing for divestment. And this is really significant because the administration was really judge shopping and that's

Well, yes, and I think if the government this has happened a little bit with kil mar Abrego Garcia, you have to wonder why all of this information like the video FROMUS traffic stop and in Tennessee and additional information about like the restraining order allegations of domestic abuse, which his wife has since walked back. It's very strange to me that that stuff wasn't immediately presented when the media

We actually kidnapping.

We still don't actually even know what government agency did this, and so if we if they had more information, I think we would know it. At this point, I don't actually think the administration was strategically dripping out information on Abrego Garcia. I think they're they're just shooting first and asking questions later. Yeah, and flying by the state of

It took them a while story, by the way, but anyway.

It was a wild but anyway, they at least have the story. They at least have that allegation. And in this case, there's been absolutely nothing over the course of more than a month now since her arrest.

Yeah, nothing, And she really has been one of the cases that has captured people's attention because it is first of all, we have the video. Second of all, it is so preposterous the idea that you would write a notp ed for a student newspaper and be disappeared and vanished and you know, disappeared into Louisiana and attempted to be deported just over that.

Well not a crazy ap at either, like disagree with it, but not like an actual antisemitic screen.

Yeah, it was just like, you know, politely calling for divestment from, you know, by the universities. It's just really standard stuff in terms of basic campus activism.

And yeah, so I think I think you're right about that.

I saw some speculation also, like oh, maybe there's something else that we don't know about it. It's like, I do think we would know at this they would have dug something up if they there was anything to.

Dig up whatsoever.

So in any case, that's a significant win for her. Just one last piece here, just to keep an eye on, in terms of the conditions in our own detention centers, which are wildly overstretched and overcrowded.

Put this up on the screen.

We've had a fairly significant number of migrants who have died in custody during Trump's first one hundred days. These are still under investigation, so in many instances we don't know the details of what happened, whether they had pre existing conditions that contributed to these deaths, but certainly something to keep an eye on. Seven migrants have died while

You also have.

Allegations, significant allegations of mistreatment and lack of sufficient care in the detention centers here as well.

I still look at these k I think one of the big questions is whether this rate is outpacing what we've seen before. That's one of the questions that the Trump administration is going to face. A lot of migrants are, for understandable reasons, in poor health, and it's obviously incumbent on the US you know, this is part of the problem with the law that people. I don't mean that's the problem with a lot. I mean it's a problem

Who are absolutely crowded.

But are they then redetaining people for the sake of deportation at a rate that allows them to provide adequate medical oversight a big question for them going forward.

Yeah, let's turn to what's going on in the crypto world. You know, favorite favorite topic of mine here, Emily, I still am not over the fact that Trump launched and then his wife launched these meme coins days.

Before I mean literally like a day before he.

Was inauguryan it is Hunter Biden's art on sterils.

I mean Hunter Biden's art could not have imagined.

I mean Hunter Biden's damn it, I should have done that.

Yeah, I have I have a friend. I don't think he'll mind me sharing the story. I have a friend who was convicted of He ran for state Senate in Missouri Congress in Missouri. Yeah, and he was convicted of he was coordinating with the super pac. It was the

Agree the fact that this just happens and everyone just moves on.

This is like capitalism. You couldn't script it better.

Yeah, this is this is has to be in stage capitalism where it's just eaten everything.

It's eaten everything.

So in any case, but this article up on the screen, all right, so we are learning more about who exactly are the top Trump crypto buyers vying for dinner seats since he's giving away these, you know, the top crypto investors are going to get to have a special dinner with him, which just again astonishing.

More than half of the talks about maybe some maybe some business.

I'm sure just how much they appreciate the uh, you know, his his crypto savvy. Anyway, most of the more than half of the top holders here have used foreign exchanges that say they ban US users, suggesting many of the purchasers of these Trump crypto meme coins are based outside

Now.

An analysis by Bloomberg News shows that all but six of the top twenty five holders who've registered on the website's leader board used foreign exchanges that say they exclude customers living in the US. More broadly, at least fifty six percent of the leader board's top two hundred and twenty holders used similar offshore exchanges. The present prevalence of these likely foreign buyers echoes concerns that congressional Democrats have expressed about the essex of marketing the coin with the

It is completely insane.

It is insane. It is inane, absolutely insane. And again, if we were anything approaching a functioning society, there is no way that we would just permit this and go on and that this would be okay. We are talking about world historic levels of corruption endemic in this whole play, and.

I just I don't even know what to say about it.

It's so naked, it's so incredibly naked, and of course, the idea that this administr oh, it's America first and all for US interests, and how does that possibly comport with allowing whoever around the world, but apparently a majority of foreign buyers to outright bribe you through the mechanism of this meeting coin.

It's I mean, it's exactly what we said it would be all along. It's a complete and again going back to the Clinton Foundation, remember that the claims.

Actually, I think people on the left and the.

Right could probably agree, like left left and populist right, populist left and right coul probably agree that what Hillary Clinton was doing with the Clinton Foundation was completely insane percent.

That is what Donald Trump is doing with this mean coin.

Right, It's like a way for to pedal influence and access with what is no with no transparency at all. That's exactly what this is. So the concept and in principle it's very much the same thing.

Yeah, it's like country friends are just accelerated through the magic of crypto.

And it's always been again like this Donald Trump is were naked, and it like they've never really been particularly

I think it was of the Willard and talk to like Ulysses us Grant. But that's what it is.

It's it's getting access and influence to people in positions of power. And yeah, that's always I mean Trump divested from the Trump organization, I think in one point zero, in two point zero, and it's like, why why even bother. It's just like I don't even bother, Like just buy the hotel back, you know, might as well just like move the White House business to the hotel.

Well.

And I want to emphasize too, the way this relates to the tariffs, because and this has always been my contention with the that yes, there may be various people in the administration have various goals, but one of the primary goals for Trump is power and the ability because hey, this is a great marketing scheme for his cryptos shit coin. Because now everyone in the world has incentive to pay the money, give you your millions, come to your dinner and make the case for why they need this exemption.

That which is precisely.

Why the power to levy these terrors is supposed to be with Congress to avoid exactly this, you know, sort of direct favor trading and having to come and you know, petition the king. That's precisely why those powers are supposed to be with Congress. So it really fits together. I do want to say, Democrats, don't get off the hook here. Put E two be up on the screen. This is

So that's their that's their move.

Yeah, great, I love them. Yeah, classic, things couldn't be better.

Things could not be better?

And last one here before we get to Emily's breakdown of what's going on with punch Bowl. Jeff Stein great reporting on another facet of extraordinary corruption within the Trump administration, which is the use of put each re up on the screen. Here, guys, the use of pushing starlink as a tool in the tariff trade war. So Jeff sign says, we've obtained internal cable showing how the US government is pushing countries facing tariffs to clear the way from Musks Starlink.

So let me just give you a little bit of the.

Details here, because I think that is extraordinary, he says, less than two weeks after President Trump announced fifty percent tariffs on goods from the tiny African nation of Lesotho. Something we talked about here.

But I think you pronounced it incorrectly.

I think this was the whole thing when remember Lesotho was one of the everyone's like such a random country, right, and then everyone's like, you're pronouncing everyone's pronouncing.

Oh, so I don't say that the thh it's just t okay.

I'm sorry.

I didn't take apology at Lesoto, the country's communications right regulator held a meeting with representatives of Starlink after their

This is one of the complicated things about Elon Musk and it's with SpaceX and Starlink, and particular I think

And so that is a problem with having Musk and the meme coin.

Just be hovering over every policy decision that the Trump administration is making foreign and domestic, is you can never disentangle the influence, that's right, that their personal interest has in all this. And I think that's probably why the meme coin, and I think even like Starlink, is part of the background of our conversations, not our but like the national conversation about Trump.

And Musk, because it's never in the foreground.

I mean not often, although Jeff found a great example here, but it is always it's part of the landscape. It is a permanent fixture, and you can never go back. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. When you have Musk not divesting, you have Trump with the meme coin coin. It just it adds a permanent question mark. And that's what banana republics like, That's what happens in Banana republics. You have just these permanent question marks and you can't always prove things A plus B.

You can't do you can't do it in every case. But that's the problem in and of itself.

Yeah, and sometimes it does seem actually quite clear in this administration what is going on. Last thing I'll say, with regardless Starlink, just as a broader concern is you know, in the early days that Ukraine War, elon Mus comes in and so I'm going to provide access starlink access to the Ukrainians in their fight against Russia. And starlink has been extremely important for comms on the front lines in Ukraine.

And then there were certain.

Things that Zelenski did that he didn't like, and then he decided to pull access, I think in crime or whatever. Whether or not you support the decisions he made in that instance, it was very troubling to realize this man is basically doing foreign policy as like a private businessman.

And that's just to underscore I remember his meeting with India.

Yes, absolutely, yeah, And that's just to underscore how important these this infrastructure is, how significant it is to our country to foreign policy. And you know, the fact that one business with the wealthiest man on the planet has so much control over it. I think everyone should be

It just makes me so mad because Musk, you know, leads this argument against George Soros's influence over the American government, and Trump will talk about the same thing too, And it's just frustrating because it exploits the genuine concerns of a lot of Americans who feel like they get the short shrift and like they get left behind in this economy that's designed for political elites and a spoil system that's designed to benefit elites over them, and they're exploiting

High ground in no way that Donald Trump yeah knows what he can't. Yeah, and he almost just doesn't care.

He's a he's like a he's Roy Cone, right, like he's a mob boss and he kind of rebels in that. But Elon Musk really like has an Arab sanctimony about him when he talks about these things, and I mean, he just isn't even trying to look like he's not part of it.

George Soros could never dream of the level of power and influence that Elon Musk has it and the government at this point. Yeah, all right, Emily, what are you taking a look at?

Okay, Well, we have a little exclusive here at Breaking Points this morning punch Bowl News, the media startup launched by three Politico veterans back in twenty twenty one.

We have a new document that.

Reveals new details of how that company is supporting its journalism by courting deep pocketed corporations obtained by US at Breaking Points. The document, which is offering twenty twenty five partnership opportunities is hardly an aberration here in DC. We're outlets from Axios to Politico take major cash from corporate sponsors, hoping to influence coverage and reach beltweigh readers.

The leaked punch.

Bowl deck, though, is rich with specific details about their business model, including a quote two hundred and ten thousand dollars going rate for sponsorship of punch Bowl's flagship daily newsletter two hundred and ten thousand dollars ahead of publication. A spokesperson at punch Bowl punch Bowl News told us at Breaking Points that a chart reflecting those numbers from the leaked document quote is an outdated price sheet that

So the deck that we got our hands on touts a.

Quote from house speaker Mike Johnson on March eleventh, saying he reads all of punch Bowls newsletters, indicating that the deck is recent to at least the spring. And actually we verified that punch Bowl was passing the deck along just within the last week. So in its pitch to potential sponsors, unch Bowl claims that the newsletter reaches two hundred and ten thousand inboxes every morning with a forty

Part of their media diet.

What a pitch to sponsor the site for a week, during which punch Bowl claims to get sixty five thousand impressions. The rate is thirty thousand dollars. Custom content will run sponsors of cool two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Summits and editorial events featuring two lawmakers go for three hundred and fifty five thousand dollars, which then drops to three hundred and twenty five thousand for editorial events that feature a single lawmaker.

Great deal.

Punchbowl describes its audience as being made up of quote elite influencers, including one hundred percent of Senate and House offices and committees, with a fifty fifty split between Republicans and Democrats, ninety seven percent Fortune, one hundred saturation, one

Day and throughout the evening.

Amusingly enough, as it seeks to appeal to corporate sponsors in the Trump two point zero administration, punch Bowl claims that it's quote not a legacy media organization, which allows us to be more nimble, more authentic, and more trusted by our core readership similar Beltway outlets. You probably remember, this came under fire from the Trump administration earlier this year.

A political newsletter, and Bloomberg.

So at the time, Levitt said, quote, I can confirm that the more than eight million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayer's dime.

Will no longer be happening now.

Just last week, if you read Political Playbook, you probably saw it was sponsored the entire week by Planned Parenthood, perhaps as a consequence of the outlet's rocky relationship with

Of your brand described as a quote true partner and the publication I mean it's amazing.

Punchball also uses a document to pitch social events, which range in price from one hundred thousand dollars to two hundred and.

Seventy five thousand dollars.

Quote a social gathering with Punchbowl News community members exposes sponsor brands to Washington's elite insiders. The deck says, adding quote, punch Bowl News will work to bring together a high level audience of DC insiders from across industries and the public and private sectors. Throughout the deck, Punchball highlights its previous partnerships with McKenzie, Blackrock and Goldman Sachs. One slide,

Yeah, I mean I said to you.

I was like, here, we are appealing to the unwashed masses like suckers, when all we need is to be like Mike Johnson watches.

Breaking Points sponsors by Walmart.

Yeah, I mean it's but yeah, this this is not a unique model to punch Bowl whatsoever. Political pro operates and these there's other like trade pubs where basically you know, they gather information that is very valuable to one specific industry and then expect those members of that industry toppony up very significant sums for those types of subscriptions. But the DC newsletter tip sheet business is so incredibly lucrative, and then you expect.

So lucrative two hundred and ten thousand dollars a week.

And they say, like almost they have almost forty staff members and their overhead is very low. And then to be raking in these kinds of you know, oh, you're going to pay three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to have some one day event with two lawmakers or whatever.

Google and Goldman have done it.

It exposes the very corrupt dealings between corporate America, the media, and these members of Congress who are also showing up at these events and participating in them.

Every consumer of the news knows that corporations, and any person with common sense knows that corporations want good press and they want good access in Washington.

Journalists have absolutely no right to give it to them. I mean, it's insane.

They have no reason to just give it to them, unless, of course, it's you know, genuine and vetted and reported out they have no reason to give corporations this access and good press, which they do. You see it again, like this has been going on for years. They will always embed a nice little ad when you're scrolling. It's not just the bar at the top that says punch Bowl am brought to you by Goldman sax or McKinsey

But at the same time, it's like, give me right.

Yeah they say in it, because usually they'll say that's not editorial content, that's an ad, but they say in this deck, the punchbol deck.

This is one of my big takeaways from it.

They say, we will do events on a mutually agreed upon topic, or we'll do custom content on a mutually agreed upon topic, and we will give you podcasts for It's those are editorial decisions that you're farming out.

That's right, you're selling them.

Yeah, I mean you can't look even if you are the most you know, the most honest human being being, trying to maintain your integrity. When you structure a system where you are financially rewarded for towing a certain ideological line or reporting something and not reporting something else.

Human beings are subject to those incentives.

They can talk themselves into it and why it's the right choice, and why it's noble, and why actually they really do believe in going in that direction. So that's why it's so important to understand the incentives of your business and the way that you're structuring, which is of course something that we thought about very intentionally here. But you know, one of the things that's ironic to me is in Trump two point zero they're trying to brand

You know, it's also like not the same as for example, Rogan selling express vps right, Like, these are massive corporations with significant public interest. I mean, it's like it's been political interest. And I always love when the whether it's Politico or Axios, their line is we are not this does not this is a firewall. It doesn't influence our editorial decisions whatsoever. But of course if that was true, these companies would not pay them. They would absolutely not

That's right, like this, like that's ideological.

That is a bias in and of itself.

Yeah, we're biased against that, and we're open about that, Like we don't just pretend to be like neutral. We are very against corporate influence. Yes, and so that's you have to recognize. It's just like brain did not to understand that that's a bias.

That's such a great point because to them. It's just like it's just the air that they breathe. Just this is the default, and so they don't recognize you're supposed to be adversaries. What an extorary bias it is and one that exists, yes, in both parties, so you can be very highpartisans but also very biased in the direction of corporations should get whatever they want.

Two final things.

White House confirmation that Punchable subscriptions were canceled quite interesting because that was you might remember when the USAID money was being tracked by all of the right wing sleuths on x Politico got hit pretty hard. A lot of unsubscribes from government offices where you get premium subscriptions to punch Ball that gives information that you pay a ton

That's technically out of date.

Sure.

I used to say.

The other thing that I noticed is like their numbers are pretty small, you know, but they don't need them to be big as long as there is long as the power players are reading their publication, small group of people, that's all it takes.

And small group of people with a lot of money.

Yeah, that's it. That's it exactly.

And I think Ryan made this point when we were talking about like the USAID political pro subscriptions.

I think he was the one that made the point of life.

Those publications, like the trade pubs in particular, that go deep in different industries where there's not a widespread news interest. But you know, if you're in this industry, like you need to of like let's say you're in the trucking industry, logistics industry, you need to know like what's going on and what's going on in.

Capitol hell, et cetera.

And so it does create a genuine need for that information that's important for lawmakers and important for those industries to understand what is going on. So probably the only answer to that really is like public funding of those type that type of information being created.

Otherwise it is going to be just like.

The politicos or the punch bowls or whatever the world that you know capitalize on the need for that, and the extraordinary benefit to a small handful of people that you know, justifies huge, huge sums of money being spent.

Fun little uh, fun little documentary.

Yeah, nice work on.

Lots of fun too. I mean I did almost the whole week. I think maybe I did do.

Yeah, you were a rock star this week. Thank you well, thank you for having all of us have lets of things going on our lives.

It's it's crazy. Yeah, across the board.

Appreciate you being able to jump in.

And I heard you and Ryan unilaterally decide that we're ditching the counterpoints. This is actually something we've been talking about because yeah, because it is like, you know, the original ideas you and Ryan show like it would be you know, it'd be different and be your own brand and whatever. But increasingly like we're all just we're doing a thing here, you know, and it's everybody's you know, it's very egalitarian. We're all all on and even footing here.

More to come in that space. I think, yeah, people, we'll be around, We will be around. Finally, Chris, I just want to make this point. We were talking about Livia earlier and I mentioned I was looking up at Fara dot gov. Is there any registered lobbyists. Indeed, there are registered lobbyists and I have for Africa Confidential actually notice one of these filings back in November twenty twenty three, and this is still an active registration if you go

The contract is curious and that it is.

Signed between CEO Alex Vogel, a former Republican staffer, and Josephi schmidz On behalf of the Libyan Parliament. Thousy Alnuari, the ambitious Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, is named as the principle. So to the point that farophiling. Actually, if you read it, you have to say what your work is going to look like. You have to say, like roughly,

Blah blah blah goes.

On to say that, so we'll look into it and try to get answers to see if that had anything to do with the attempted flight. Yeah, but we were talking in the segment about how those introductions between lobbyists are often how that happens, and come to find out, we see there is a lot being contract that is specifically saying they're getting paid for introduction.

So we will try to put those dots.

The sun was here last week, yeah, and then a flight was put on the schedule to shift my grids s Olivia.

So it could be nothing, I mean like it genuinely could be nothing. We're just you know, noting this, but we will look for answers.

A lot of journalisming this morning, Emily.

A lot of googling, nice Mark, all right, last saying, last thing, last thing.

We'll be here for the Friday show. Ryan and me. Definitely.

You, I think have some other things going on, so we'll see if you're able to drop in or not. In any case, thank you guys Breakingpoints dot com. For those of you who are premium subscribers, we super appreciate it. You have enabled the expansion and you know it's been I think really important in Trump two point zero to be able to have that extra day and give you