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Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do we have Former President Trump has a court date today. We will tell you what to expect and also what is going on with his legal team and the judge that's been assigned to the case and all of those details. We also have new details about the Ukrainian counter offensive and
how that is going. New numbers about the economy, foreclosures are rising, and also outwn with San Francisco really struggling already seems to be in that sort of like doom loop situation, So we'll tell you about all of that. We also have some new legal wrangling between Tucker Carlson
and Fox News. They actually sent him a cease and assist and Chuck Grassley making some pretty interesting comments on the floor about President Biden with regards to those alleged payments with Barisma five million dollars Ukraine, etcetera.
So we'll tell you about that.
We have James Vanderbeek, he is the actor who became famous in Dawson's Creek, to talk about the Democratic primaries and how he became Fox News's favorite Democrat, how he.
Feels about that.
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For all of this, We've got RFK Junior later on today that we'll be interviewing. We'll be releasing that interview separately, so if you're a premium member and others, keep your eyes glued on the podcast feed that's going to come sometime in the afternoon.
But with that, Crystal, let's get to the show.
President Trump expected in a South Florida courtroom this afternoon at three PM for his arraignment with regard to those document charges. A lot of questions in this case about the judge that has been assigned, Judge Aleen Cannon. Let's go and put this up on the screen so you
might recall she's the one that was involved previously. She's a Trump appointee, a very recent actually Trump appointee, and she ruled that there needed to be a special master to go through the documents that were being pulled from mar A Lago. She also that basically blocked the prosecution from being able to continue to go through and evaluate
those documents. At that time, a panel of three judges, all of them appointed by Republican presidents came in and basically said that ruling was wrong and overruled her in quite strong terms. So there are a lot of questions about whether she is should recuse herself from overseeing this particular case, which was apparently randomly assigned to her. Let me read a little bit from that article that we
just had up on the screen. This was Isaac Chottner interviewing a legal expert about the question saga about her refusal. So the governing code around when a judge should recuse says they should take themselves out if the judge's impartiality quote might reasonably be questioned. Now, this legal expert says, the fact that a judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned
doesn't mean that the judge is partial. The public may simply not trust the impartiality of the judge because public trust and the work of the court is a value as important as the work itself. The rule says the judge should not sit when we can't fairly ask the public to trust what the judge does. That rule is
especially important in this case. One thing the prosecution can do is move to recuse Judge Cannon on the ground that in light of her experience in the search weren't case last year, her impartiality might reasonably be questioned.
The way that this works.
Just as a technical matter, which I'm learning about in real time, is it's actually on the judge herself to decide whether or not she should refuse. The government can ask and send like a nice note of like, hey, we think maybe you should recuse, she gets to make the ultimate decision. Now, there is a process where if she says no, I'm good, I'm staying on the case, where the government can appeal, but it is unlikely that those appeals. Those appeals succeed rarely. They do succeed sometimes,
but they succeed rarely. And you also risk sort of like pissing off the judge who's important to your case. So it's a little bit complicated for them. One note on just what is going to happen today with this arraignment. So in addition to Judge Cannon, who, as I said, Trump appointee, who was seen as taking this very favorable ruling towards Trump and being overruled by a bunch of
conservative judges. In addition to her being appointed, there's also a magistrate judge who was appointed to be involved with this case as well. They're sort of like you could see them as like a helper judge. That's the individual who will be overseeing this particular arraignment today, but overall randomly, this judge canon is the one assigned to that.
Yeah, there's a lot of focus here on this judge, and I think it's interesting because this is previews exactly what we were trying to show everyone yesterday, Even regardless of how you may feel about said judge, this sets up even more legal fights and wrangling which was going to take a lot of time, and you can expect to hear quite a bit about in the coming months, which you'll of course make it so that there is not necessarily going to be a quote speedy resolution to
this trial. Yes, that's actually where I think my main takeaway is. I was like, man, the level of wrangling here over just beginning in an initial appearance over just the judge previews all of the procedural fights from here to come, from yes documents to Supreme Court challenges to the heels.
And as you said yesterday.
The people who aren't lawyers are like, why should I care about this? Well, you should care because it just shows you the level of wrangling just in this one case, let alone, what could come forward in the January sixth case, if that has ever brought against Trump, and how none of that may necessarily be resolved come election day twenty twenty four.
I think it is very likely and people need to really take this in that election day is going to be both about, of course, the future of the country and who's going to be president, etc. And also whether Trump is going to spend the next four years in the White House or in prison. I mean the charge it Listen, the jury's going to be in South Florida. That gives you him a better shot in terms of
jury selection. That's probably his best chance, yes, is that they're able to land some hardcore Trump supporter on the jury who just isn't going to convict basically no matter what, because the facts as laid down as we know them at this point, if it was anyone else, that'd be open and shut. I mean, I just don't think that there's any denying that, given we literally have him on tape being like I'm committing crimes here. Guys, look at
me committing crimes. So that makes you know the stakes certainly for his supporters who want to see him be a free man. That makes the stakes very high politically in terms of the timeline as you're laying out soccer, this is going to take a long time to resolve, and he wants it. His team is going to push
for this to take a long time to resolve. They're going to fight on the jurisdiction, they're going to they're going to be all kinds of motions that they file to try to drag out the process because he knows really his best chance at maintaining his freedom is to be back in the White House where he can pardon himself and have control and you know, be off the hook at least while he's there, you know, on Pennsylvania Avenue. So they're going to do everything they can to slow
this down. So it's you know, it's an it's a pretty wild dynamic here that we're looking at in terms of the details for today, Just so you guys know what is going to go down. Put this up on the screens from NPR. Just what will happen at his arraignment. It's scheduled for three pm Eastern time in Miami. There's not going to be a lot that the public is going to be able to see. They talk about the courthouse is actually connected to an underground garage, so he
can be ferried in. It can provide a secure spot for him to be taken to be electronically finger printed, just like in New York. We're not expecting handcuffs, We're not expecting a mugshot, which you know is not really necessary for such a high profile figure. We are unlikely there are not going to be any cameras in the courtroom.
We're unlikely to see a lot of what happens. And so you know, it's it's there's not going to be a lot that comes from this court appearance today, expectedly with Trump.
You never know, but that's the expectation.
Last time that we did this in New York, there was we hadn't gotten the details of the case yet. So we're all kind of waiting with Baita brought to see, all right, what are the details of the charges? Are there things in here that we don't know about? And when the statement of facts came out, you know, revealed that basically it was what was already in the public record. We already have the charges here, So again and there's not an expectation that we're going to learn a lot
more about this case. They do say some reporters will be allowed to watch and share electronic updates, so we will get some account coming out of the courtroom of what happens, but no camera and no expectation that we're going to learn a lot more about what additional evidence the government may have.
It's simply it's more of a procedural matter than it is one that is in any way similar to what happened in Manhattan. We're going to get it, like you said, the thirty seven charges, but we already know all the details of every single one of them. The indictment and the charging document already been released. We've had the initial photos.
The government itself says they're going to push for a seventy day resolution in terms of starting the trial, but as we keep saying, that does not account for defense motions and for others that must be resolved through the court process. So everyone just buckle up and realize that this is very, very different than what happened in Manhattan.
We have the documents.
In many ways, the symbolic appearance of him treking down to the federal courthouse before the judge. Even though we won't get a photo or any of that is the most important thing that's happening.
And then, of course Crystal.
Later today eight fifteen pm, the president will be having a or former president We'll be having a rally of press conference at Bedminster.
Not sure if he's going to take any questions.
He can be flying back to the state of New Jersey after his court appearance, and we will have some analysis later on tonight for everybody around that. So everyone just keep that in mind as we go into today.
Yeah, so before we move on to the next piece about Trump's plans for today's et cetera, there's a lot of reporting out this morning. We knew already that some high profile members of his legal team, just before the indictment dropped, bailed on the team, and we're starting to get some details over.
Why that is.
I mean, none of this is going to surprise you, right, There's tons of infighting. Apparently there's a lot of upset over Boris Epstein, who is like, you know, they some of the lawyers him cm as wildly unqualified to be leading this team and have been very critical of some of the filings that he has put and sent into judges, including like a court filing that talked about how Trump dominated in the Republican primaries, which is totally irrelevant to a legal case.
There were disagreements about like the.
Media strategy, but what appears to be based on the reporting is there's a big divide in the potential legal strategy. One side wants to take the very Trumpian approach of being extremely blicos and making more of a political argument and coming out guns blazing, even at risk of you know, pissing off the judge and flaming the jury whatever. So that's one side wants to take, like the very Trumpian approach.
And then the other side says, hey, listen, all you need is one juror in South Florida to take your side. So we think that you could actually win this case legally, you know, through the legal process, versus the political process by you know, playing it safe and mounting a traditional defense and doing the things that lawyers and clients normally do.
So apparently that's the divide, and there's a lot of reporting this morning about how really having a hell of a time getting lawyers to replace the dudes who just left.
I mean, would you want to work with this guy? I mean, he doesn't pay his bills on time.
He like will randomly be caught on tape bragging about
committing crimes. He lies to his own lawyers. So even though obviously it would come with a ton of prestige to represent the former president in the most you know, what's going to be the most closely watched case perhaps in the history of the country, even though that comes with all of this prestige, basically every in Flora is like, Eh, we're good here, And it does matter because you know, these judges, they're human beings, whether it ends up being
Judge Cannon or anyone else. Having someone who's local who understands this particular judge, their particular temperament, maybe as someone of.
A relationship with it.
Like it's gross that those things matter, but having local counsel with that kind of local knowledge actually really does matter in terms of outcoming.
Now, you're right, I mean, one thing I learned covering Trump during Russiagate, he went through like multiple different lawyers. During the Mueller investigation, there was always a lot of drama.
Even the impeachment.
If you'll remember, there were like all these different arguments about who was going to speak on his behalf for impeachment one and for impeachment too. I just think in the end of the day, he'll figure it out. You know, there's always somebody in the Republican Party that wants to make a.
Big name for themself.
Now, will he get the most will he get the most competent defense. I'm just going to go out on a limb and say probably not of just giving the caliber. But as always, he will find something. And look, as you know, if the stakes become genuinely existential, it's not like the Republican establishment or at least some of the lawyers aren't going to at least have some people come and back.
Him like people. That's what happened during the last impeachment.
You know, every time there was a lot of consternation, but at the end of the day, like people went to bat for Trump. And especially if he continues to lead in the polls, consider it you really going to abandon your nominee at the court. No, they're gonna you know, there's too much on the line, there's too much money at stake.
Yeah, well, let's say that's a good way to shift to sort of the politics of this. So Trump has called on supporters to show up in protest. Today, Lit's put this up on the screen. He was on radio program talking about you know how he wants with this was with Roger Stone, a longtime friend and ally who he also pardoned for his alleged crimes. So he says, our country has to protest. We've lost everything. They have to go out, and they have to protest peacefully. He says,
they have to go out. He also called Justice Department Special counsel Jack Smith, who was of course hading the investigation.
He called him deranged.
Now, I have no idea how many people are going to show up, what you know, whether the protests are more likely to be peaceful or not. But if history is any guide, when it was the New York indictment, and he also encouraged people to show up in protest, there wasn't a huge turnout. I did see some chatter online, some reporting online that like Proud Boys and others feel like, oh, this could be a setup or worried about after January, like worried about the FEDS and all that sort of stuff,
as they probably should be. And so my guess will be that the protests will not be a whole whole lot to talk about.
But you know, you never know.
Trump has a very adamant base. He's directly asked them to show up and support him. In South Florida outside the Miami Courthouse, I know the city is definitely preparing for a large and potentially contentious gathering there.
So that's what we know on that front.
Yeah, I'm put this up on the screen because I actually think this is the most important part. Is he guess what, He's going to host his first major fundraiser the day of his earth That is really what it all comes down to for me, Crystal, is whether people show up to him or not.
As we learned in Manhattan, well not that many.
People, although of course in Florida there's quite a few more Trump supporters. But regardless, when Trump is under attack, that's when he raises the most money. That's why he's doing his press conference and big appearance or rally whatever
you want to call it, at Bedminster. And that's also why he had that same gathering on the night of his Manhattan indictment, why he flew back to Florida and had that big mar A Lago event, Because he has always raised the most whenever he's under attach Impeachment one was a bonanza for him, Impeachment two even more of a bonanza. It's like we never seem to learn that lesson at the very least in terms of the political benefit. And you know, just yesterday, what did we bring everybody
the news? Sixty one percent support in the Republican primary. Ron des Hantis not only didn't get a polling bump whenever he announced, he got a polling drop. Every single of every contender going after Trump on these documents and all this other, all these other issues. People like Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christy, they had the highest level of I will not support that person, the highest level.
It shows you that, you know, any.
Republican who wants to play with this in the primary, it's not going to work.
Now.
Of course, that does not dispel the fact that independent voters is a problem, and it just generally feeds into the drama narrative. So I'm not saying it makes him more powerful powerful for the general election, but in terms of the Republican primary, there is no question this is nothing but a benefit to him, and he will raise a probably historic amount of money as a result of these charges.
The other thing that's interesting is partly because he has so burned his own fundraising list, his grassroots fundraising has actually fallen off quite significantly.
It's not anything like what it used to be, that's true.
But the thing that does juice it is, you know, the raid on mar A Lago indictment in Manhattan, indictment now in South Florida, that juices his numbers. But even the fact that he is focused on because this isn't a grassroots fundraiser, This is for the big high dollar donors, this event that he's doing in Bedminster, and they say that, in contrast to his previous campaigns, he actually this time has to work the phones. He's got to do call time, he's got to woo bundlers, he's got to woo other
major contributors. They're expecting more than three hundred bundlers to be on board the campaign by the end of June. But you know, previously he didn't have to do that same like wooing the big guy grind the big guys grind that other candidates always have to do that like Ron De Santis has to do for example, and Joe Biden has to do because they don't have that same level of grossroots support.
So there's there's two pieces here.
On the one hand, yes, this will certainly juice his grossroots fundraising dollars, no doubt about it. But it does show you that, you know, even the base, like they've been so tapped in terms of their fundering and the number of emails that Trump has sent sup Borders is insane and it's really burned every Republican candidate because people are just so exhausted by the constant please existential, please
for cash. But so this would be this will be one event that will certainly help him in that regard. You know, there's also you sent this this morning saga. There's rumblings that donors are still like, oh, you know, if Trump looks like he's going down, maybe we need to get Brian Kemp into the race. Maybe we need to get maybe we need to get Glenn Youngkin into the race. And it's just incredible because you already have
all of these contenders. What do you think is going to be different about a Glenn Youngkin jumping in that's gonna supplant Trump? Like I'm sorry, but I just it feels to me, like, this primary is all but over before it's even begun.
We can't say the obituary just yet. But I was just thinking that Ron DeSantis's people are very upset with Chris Christy and with everybody else. They're like, they're pulling away from all of our potential support. And I'm like, yeah, that is kind of true, you know what.
That's fine.
But here's the thing, even if none of them were in the race, the argument from Trump's opponents and the donors who were allied with his opponents was like, oh, he's got his base thirty five to forty percent support, but that's it.
Well, the latest pulls them sixty something percent.
It's not just that one either, it's even significant numbers that haven't over fifty exactly.
So even if everyone but Rond de Santis drops out, Trump is still winning.
So that's their case. Their theory of the case has kind of.
Already collapsed, which is they had to think somewhere in their heart of hearts that these indictments, the legal trouble whatever, that even though Republicans still liked him, they'd be like, yeah, it's too messy, I'm ready to move on. That is not the case they had to think that, all right, he's got his hardcore base, but there's a majority of Republicans who want to move on. Clearly not the case they thought. And remember we covered these articles on Ronda
Santis before he jumped in the race. They're like, yeah, his poles have been flagging lately, but he's not even in the race yet, Like, wait till he gets in the race and you're going to see how he picks up ground.
Well, he's only gone in the other direction.
So all of the claims that were made to bolster the case of Ronda Santis in particular, but all of his adversaries in the Republican primary, they've already kind of fallen apart.
I think that their case is falling.
I will just say, what, votes haven't been cast yet, so let's not entirely count him out.
Although you know, I'm.
Pretty excited to see how the votes cast out. We couldn't see a historic polling miss, right, Like maybe there is some secret action of Republicans that really are the silent not even silent anti Trump voter in the Republican primary, to be clear, not in the general election, because I actually do think that person does kind of exist at the least in the general election, but for a primary, we're not seeing a lot of that evidence so far.
We're just seeing Trump absolutely dominate every single contest, media cycle, and everything that he touches, which pretty much fits with everything that I always thought was going to happen from the very beginning. Let's go ahead and talk about Ukraine. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in Ukraine that we wanted to hold to make sure. We dedicated a signific amount of time to in today's show. The long awaited counter offensive is officially on. It has launched.
Now how is it going now? Initially, much of the conversation was happening around the dam that the dam that was blown up in eastern Ukraine.
That damn.
There was a lot of discussion did the Russians blow it up? Did the Ukrainians be really both sides kind of benefited from it. President Zelensky actually went and visited the region. There are reasons to think that both sides could have done the sabotage, and you know, ultimately it is still a human catastrophe. But now what we know is about a week into the overall offensive, we're getting some indications about Russian strategy and about Ukraine the gains it may or may not hope to make in this
overall campaign. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. The initial takeaway that appears to be forming amongst Western analysts is that the Russian improved weaponry and tactics is posing challenges to the Ukrainian counter offensive, even with all of the weapons that have been provided to
Ukraine so far. As I said previously, the initial kind of analysis was focusing on what was going on with the drone, but overall, sorry with the dam but overall what we are watching is much slower progress than that was initially made in the original Ukrainian counter offensive. And this is also being verified by many Western analysts and others who have watched as the Russians have really taken over a year to bolster their six hundred mile front line.
They say that they've honed in on electronic weapons, reducing Ukrainians edge and combat drones. They've turned heavy bombs from its massive Cold War arsenal into precision guided munitions capable of striking targets without putting its warplanes at risk. And the tactics are switching much more towards the defensive position that we saw, especially after what happened in Bakhmud. So the initial news too that I found are really interesting.
Let's go and put this up there. There's a lot of maps that we wanted to show everyone from the Wall Street Journal. The counter offensive that we can see here is the initial one is the view from the front line where you can actually see Ukraine that has taken back a few villages in the Dinetzk region. I'm not going to go ahead and pronounce these for those
who are watching. You can see there pretty clearly where the front line is, and then some of the villages that the Ukrainians have been stepping up artillery attacks and then taking back villages. Go to the next one, please, so that people can see a little bit more. This gives some more insight into the dam near the city of Kurson which exploded some of the flow areas that had been flooding. And then also it shows you where more dangers were in the cities that are around the
flattest land in southern Ukraine. The next map please also does some indication about the dam and where the actual demolition site had occurred.
So Crystal the.
Main takeaway within all of this, and please can me flow over the third element please on the screen, is that the defensive capabilities of the Russians, or at the very least, have been bolstered such that the Ukrainians are having a harder time. That doesn't mean that it may not necessarily succeed, but that the initial push is not
working as well as the last one. They say that the Ukrainian Army has already lost half of its unique leopard breaching vehicles which have been provided to them by the West, and they've already come to the Germans and said that they need even more of them. So overall, and you know, if anybody's interested, you can go see. There's a lot of videos out there floating around about some of the battles going on. It's absolutely brutal and
devastating stuff. But you know, I mean, this just fits with some of the analysis that we've seen up there, the warnings from the Defense Chief General Mark Millie that we're basically seeing, you know, classic World War One type trench scenario, and that fits with the you know, whichever army is attacking is generally going to be the one really on the losing side in terms of casualties. Maybe they can turn it around, they can show us something
that they haven't seen before. But it's pretty clear here that you know, things are are really grinding.
Yeah, together, I mean to boil this down based on this analysis to the most simplistic terms, The Ukrainians have learned a lot over the fifteen months of the war, but so of the Russians. You know, the Ukrainians have been bolstered, certainly by more and more advanced weaponry that we've been willing to ship them. We've been training them aggressively in modern military techniques. But the Russians have also learned a lot from their loss, and they have an
advantage because they're in the defensive position. And that's just the nature of war if you get into a grinding war of attrition, which is what this increasingly looks like.
We have always said, and this is not based.
On our own analysis, is based on what a lot of experts here are saying that really advantages the Russians. And you can see it in the way that Zolensky and American and European officials are carefully talking about what quote unquote success might look like.
And this is something we've pointed to before.
Zelensky has really worked hard to play down expectations of what this counter offensive might look like, and seem to also sort of delay the start of it for quite a while. You know, we are now getting into summer for the spring offensive. But put this up on the screen, they say. Publicly, American and European officials are leaving any
definition of success to Zolensky of Ukraine for now. Zelensky has not laid out any public goals beyond his off stated demand that Russian troops must leave the whole of Ukraine. He's known as a master communicator. Any perception he's backing off that broad ind abition would risk undermining his support At a critical moment. Privately, US and European officials concede pushing all of Russia's forces out of occupied Ukrainian land is highly unlikely. Still, two themes emerge as clear ideas
of quote unquote success. That the Ukrainian army retake and hold on to keith swass of territory previously occupied by the Russians, and that Kiev deal the Russian military a debilitating blow that forces the Kremlin to question the future of its military options in Ukraine. So it's early days, so we have to see what develops. Thus far, they've been able to take a few low, tiny villages, you know, not make major progress. They're obviously losing a lot in
doing that. You point to the leopard breaching tanks, losing half of those in the early phases here. So as of yet, they're nowhere close to even the more limited definition of success. And part of what they would be aiming for here is to gain some strategic leverage if they are going to go to the negotiating table to be able to strike a better deal. If they're unable to do that, then you know, I think the pathward is really really unclear.
Yeah, there was also some indication of what they're really going after, which is, they say American and European officials, it is key for Ukraine to cut off, or at least squeeze the so called land bridge, the large swath of territory that Russia sees between its border and the Peninsula of Crimea, which has become the main supply right for the military stronghold. It's that and then the Zapprovia
nuclear power plant. I apologize if I did not say that correctly, which of course has been inside of Russian control since very early days of the war. It has been a great matter of consternation as to how it's being run. It looks like those are the two massive
targets for the Ukrainian military. Another scenario, they say right now, is that the Russians could make an error by potentially putting their troops in the wrong place or defending a trench line too lightly, which could potentially allow Ukraine to punch through their lines and execute a devastating blow to Russian troops. So there's still a lot different scenarios right now which are on the table, But from the best we can tell, things are kind of grinding right now
in the initial phase of the campaign. No great success by the Russians, no great success yet by the Ukrainians, and lots of attrition that looks very very World War.
One style as of now.
And already, you know, the Cope article is about what success looks like and all of that are being released by the West. But hey, everybody could be wrong, you know. Again, really nobody knows how this thing is going to go until they officially kind of call it off.
The military analysts have been very wrong at different times in this conflict. So we got to keep that in mind.
The last thing that I think it's always important to bear in mind with regard to, you know, our proxy war against a nuclear armed superpower is they say, while US officials have set the risk of mister Putin's using a nuclear weapon have receded, American intelligence agencies say total defeat in Ukraine or a loss of Crimea are two scenarios under which mister Putin could potentially order the use of a nuclear weapon. This, again is consistent with what
we've been saying from the beginning. If his back is really against the wall and it really looks existential, that's why you end up in extremely dangerous train. And it's important ever to take our eye off of that.
Yep, very very important reminder as always.
All right, let's get to some new disturbing economic indicators here. We've followed as closely as you can the housing market on this show because it's so important to the economy, it's so important to all of you and your lives, and let's go and put this up on the screen. We now have a home foreclosures rising nationwide Florida, California and Texas.
Are apparently in the lead.
You know, you've got May foreclosure related filings that includes default notices, scheduled actions, bank repossessions all up seven percent from April, fourteen percent from a year ago. Nationwide, you're talking about over thirty five thousand properties. You also have actual foreclosures up four percent month over month and five percent from a year ago.
As I mentioned.
Before, leading the way, you have Florida, California, and Texas. Now they do sound a note here to keep in mind the context, which is that in spite of the increase, these overall foreclosure rates actually remain about level with where we were pre pandemic. So part of what happened is you had a lot of forbearance programs during the pandemic. Well those have now lapsed and now they've gone so in some ways you're back to business as usual. However,
there's still a lot of reasons to be concerned. Workers' incomes remain below their pre pandemic highs. Of course, the cost of consumer goods and services remains elevated. That puts workers at a greater risk of falling behind on payments. We've talked here about how credit card debt and other types of debt have surged to all time highs, and of course inflation continues to bite into incomes and makes it very difficult to keep up on your house payment.
So some warning signs here that you are a little bit troubling about the direction of the economy.
Yeah, it's always important too.
And now, so you know, we'll recall this is Florida, California and Texas. Florida two of the most booming states in the entire Union, so you know, their economies are very important to overall GDP. Also, they have the biggest housing growth market, so if you do see foreclosures that are happening there, we should recall during the two thousand and eight crisis, the foreclosures in California were like forty
percent or whatever of the total. So the housing markets in those two states are very important for the overall national trends. Another thing I think it's very important Crystal to understand here is the role of the Federal Reserve. And we have this piece that we can go and put up on the screen from Bloomberg, which is that they are not currently have any real plans to do anything about this. It said the Fed is going to keep rates high thanks to inflation fueled by corporate greed.
Which here's another one which is very interesting, showing pretty definitively that a key piece of inflation, not all of inflation. Does show you that there's a lot of profiteering that is going on right now according to the majority of investors themselves. Yes, not according to people, according to the actual people in the market right now.
Yes, yes.
And you know, greedflation was considered like this fringe crank, silly theory that was to be dismissed by all the serious people here in DC. Now they are having to reckon with the fact that this was a real phenomenon and it made up a significant chunk of inflation. In this survey that they put out to investors, ninety percent of investors said companies on both sides of the Atlantic have been raising prices in excess of their own costs
since the pandemic began. So using the excuse of inflation to price gouch is part of what's going on, and that's why inflation has come down somewhat. But that's why it's been so sticky and hasn't responded as much to the Federal Reserve hiking rates as they thought that it would, and because it's not a particularly effective tool for dealing with the problem of corporations using their monopoly power in many instances to price gouge consumers and raise prices way
beyond the inflation that they were actually experiencing. They asked this group of respondents also, hey, what should we do about this? And a good chunk of them said, hey, tighter monetary policy is the way to go, which you know, to me, doesn't make a whole lot of sense given we've had. Tighter monetary policy doesn't really seemed to be solving the problem. It doesn't directly get at that issue of corporate greed. But the ones who said, you know what,
it's not tighter monetary policy. We need to do something else. The things they suggested were better enforcement of anti trust laws around mergers. It makes a lot of sense, along with efforts to stimulate more competition. Support for higher corporate taxes, potentially including windfall charges in areas where price gouging is identified, something I definitely support. One blunt recommendation was to quote tax them to oblivion now to show you just what
we're talking about here with regard to greed inflation. I actually thought this chart was really told the tale quite effectively.
Put this up on.
The screen so you can see profit margins of US non financial corporate businesses leading up to twenty twenty, and then during the pandemic, when you start having the you know, ability of companies to claim inflation and jack up prices, those profit margins just absolutely skyrocket and they haven't come anywhere close to back to what the levels were previously. So it shows you it really is an anomalous period that this really is a significant part of the story.
And you know, Jerne pal again, they're considering what they're going to do in terms of interest rates.
They're meeting this week.
There is starting to be some dissent on the direction that they should go in soccer, because you're now at a point where the economy is really on a precipice. We've already seen, of course, a number of banks fail. Many would argue, okay, that was anomalists. Other banks are fine, it's stable. It's not a problem that is not really clear. And then you also have things like the foreclosure rate
ticking up. You have signs that there's increasing softness in the labor You have indications that the economy really might be starting to crack and on a bit of.
You know, at a bit of a breaking point. No fun intended.
And so if you continue hiking rates, or even leave rates as high as they are, you risk sending us into a deep recession with catastrophic counscert.
Yeah, we actually got some breaking news literally just right now about consumer inflation.
So I'm going to go ahead and read this off.
The consumer price inflation report from the Fed just came or from the government just came out. Inflation continues to cool, offering relief to customers. Consumer prices rose four percent in the year through May, eleventh consecutive month of declines in the pace of inflation.
That's eleven months so far.
That may support plans by the Federal Reserve to pause interest rate increases just because we have a cooler.
Quote unquote inflation report.
That doesn't mean though, that things are rosy, because it's still four percent of year over year, only slightly less than economists had inspected, cooled down from four point nine percent last month. So basically they have been saying is that this could give Jerome power and the Federal Reserve a pretext to not to at least pause interest rate increases, but does not necessarily mean that it is a guarantee, and it's not like they're going to bring them down.
They would just simply pause.
So high mortgage rates, high borrowing costs, all of that here to stay and continue to put down red pressure on the economy at least for right now.
Yeah, and so one window into some of the impact that the fed's actions are causing. And this is not just about the FED. This is also about the broader economy. This is also about commercial real estate. This is also about issues regarding crime and homelessness. San Francisco is really in a bad way. I mean, I just think there's no denying it at this point. Put this up on the screen. They're losing some of their hotel owners of
some of the most prominent properties in the city. I mean, these are places that if you've been to San Francisco, you've very likely seen in key shopping districts. They say that this is according to the Wall Street Journal, they're once thriving hotel market suffering its worst stretch in at least fifteen years, pummeled by the same forces that have emptied out the city's office towers closed, many retail stores.
Just to give you a sense of the carnage here, you've got the owner of the city's Huntington Hotel.
They sold their property after foreclosure.
The Hotel San Francisco sold in foreclosure. Club Quarter San Francisco has been in default on its loan since twenty twenty, may also be headed to foreclosure. Other lodging properties in the city also vulnerable. More than twenty additional twenty San Francisco hotels facing loans due in the next two years, and their biggest potential hotel default yet, Park Hotels and Resorts last week said it is stop making loan payments on debts secured by the Hilton San Francisco, Union Square
and Park fifty five San Francisco. Those two hotels alone have three thousand rooms between them. They are right in the heart, you know, Union Square, I mean, this is the heart of San Francisco. These are iconic properties. And part of what happened here is a broader story about commercial real estate in general, which is so much of this debt is coming due, and San Francisco is really particularly hard hit for a number of reasons.
The tech session being among them.
You know, issues concerning quality of life, homelessness, crime as I mentioned before, have really hit them hard as well. And you've had so few tech workers going back into offices that these offices are completely vacant in many instances. So as hotels are coming up on they need to refinance these loans. The fact that interest rates have been increased so much by the FED makes it wildly unaffordable
to start with. Lenders are looking at the state of affairs and saying, like foot traffic and travel to San Francisco is way down, so we don't think that this is a particularly good bet. So it looks increasingly like San Francisco is in that so called doom loop that so many cities are terrified of entering.
It makes sense to San Francisco and La are probably going to be the first heads on the chopping block because you reference, they've got the quality of life issues, they've got crime, and they've got the debt problem, and they've got reducing population, so that it just shows you that they were already of course, like in the middle of all this downward pressure, the ones that are most out there in terms of the risk are the ones going to be first to fall. One of the indications.
Let's put this up there on the screen. You found this this morning, Crystal, the Westfield Mall is actually giving up its namesake after the Nordstrom closure and given plunging sales and foot traffic. For those who have not been, I mean, this is a pretty famous shopping center. It's
the biggest one in all of San Francisco. Is downtown was known not even a decade ago as kind of a thriving real retail location, and they say for twenty years Westfield proudly and successfully operated San Francisco Center, investing
over that time and the vitality of the property. But given the challenging operating conditions in downtown San Francisco, which have led to declines in sales, occupancy, and foot traffic, we have made the difficult decision to begin the process to transfer management to our lender to allow them to
appoint a receiver to operate the property going forward. I mean, this is three hundred this is a thousands of square feet of office space, of retail space and more, which was a huge get for them, Crystal, and they're basically giving it to the bank and being like, this is your problem now, we're not even going to try and
make our debt servicing. So look, I mean, we've got the current problem that they are citing as unsafe conditions, lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity, and then you combine that with the overall property debt crisis that is hitting them.
This is gonna happen again soon.
San Francisco is just I mean, like, you know, it's so far out there, but you know, as the crisis loops in LA will be next. We already did that entire piece about LA commercial real estate selling at one hundred and fifty five dollars a square foot debt finance to two hundred something. It's you know, at a certain point, reality is going to smack these people in the face. Huge swats of cities La, San Francisco, Chicago, DC.
Here right here in Washington, d C. New York City. They've got an.
Occupancy rate in New York City of some forty percent or something. Yeah that whenever it comes to a full like actually back in the office. So work from home is great for workers, but it is nuking commercial real estate. I don't personally have you know, a lot of sympathy for some of these people. But also whenever you hear people like Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochel, they're like, we need to kind of people back at the office.
They don't care about like your quality of life or whatever.
They care about.
The commercial developers who are lying in their pockets full of campaign contribution.
Yeah, and you are pretty worried about what's going to happen here. I mean, San Francisco is an outlier. I do want to be clear about that. So with regards to Westfield Mall, San Francisco foot traffic was down forty two percent between.
Twenty nineteen and twenty twenty two.
So in just a few years time, San Francisco foot traffic has drop by almost half. If you look at all of the other Westfield owned US malls, foot traffic was only down two percent. So it is a dramatic outlier because it is the beating heart of Silicon Valley and the tech world, and those are the companies that, first of all, they've had, you know, massive layoffs there.
While there's a tight labor market and a lot of industries in the tech industry, they've seen huge layoffs and they were also at the bleeding edge of you know, work from home and hybrid work. So the office space there is just wiped down, they say. The Chronicle Office building, which is a block from that mall, has a sixty percent VY can see rate as tenants Yahoo and Autodesks,
Lisa's Expire. The neighboring office tower four fifteen Natoma, also owned by Brickfield, is ready for this ninety seven percent vacant. Oh my gosh, ninety seven percent.
Yeah.
So San Francisco in particular, but every city is going to be groppling with some level of these post pandemic changes.
They got to come up with the plan fast.
And you know, you think about San francist like, the cost of housing is so wildly unaffordable. They have to deal with their affordable housing crisis in order to try to bring people back into these cities before. You really can't escape this loop. And it is sad because I mean, it's an iconic city. It's a beautiful city, the setting, it's historic. You know, I have always like, I think San Francisco is a really cool place. I always enjoyed
visiting it. It's very unique. So to see it in this kind of trouble is it's it is very sad, and I hope they can figure it out.
Yeah, for those who who watched the show a lot, you know the purple tie, I have actually bought that at that.
North Stroom in San Francisco.
I was attending a weight, I was attending a wedding and I literally forgot to bring a tie. And I was like, and where do I First of all, people in San Francisco, you guys all need to wear ties.
They abandoned the tie a long time ago.
So I was like, where do I even get a tie in this like worst dress city in the entire country.
And someone's like, oh, you should go to Northtrum. I was like, oh, that's a good idea.
And I went to the North Trum in this mall, this exact one that had closed in Westfield.
I remember very vividly.
I've been in this mall too.
I mean it's really central if you're in downtown San Francis.
Like, it's really central. It's really visible.
So when you lose, now, I do you want to be clear, Like it's not at all clear that it's going to like close all together. It can stay open during the bankruptcy process, but you know, we'll see we'll see.
What happens things.
Things ain't great, going great for them. Yeah, indeed, let's go to the next one here. This is an important story, one that we promised to stay on. We said we wanted to bring more details if they arose about the
Biden bribery charges. So yesterday, Senator Chuck Grassley, who has been kind of at the forefront of this along with the House Republicans investigating the FBI and the claim that there is a form which exists inside of the FBI or inside of the FBI which details distinct corruption allegations and specific bribery charges against President Biden from when he
was the Vice president of the United States. Chuck Grassley, who apparently has seen some of these documents, were given an indication of the document around this form, around this allegation, gave more details yesterday on the floor of the United States Senate. Here's what he had to say.
At the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversation with them, seventeen such recordings. According to the ten twenty three, the foreign national possesses fifteen audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden. According to the ten twenty three, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls
between him and then Vice President Joe Biden. These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case that he got into a tight spot. The ten twenty three also indicates that then Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in BUGEMA employing Hunter Biden. Based on the facts known to the Congress and the public, it's clear that the Justice Department the FBI haven't nearly had the same laser focus on the Biden family.
So that's the important detail.
Basically, what he's given us there Crystal is allegations around and at least specificity around quote unquote seventeen recorded calls between the BERESMA executive and then Joe and then Hunter Biden, specifically the two of them talking.
Now, in terms.
Of the believability of this, yeah, I mean we should always remember this is coming from an FBI document which they fill out.
It's not necessarily verified. It's just an allegation.
As in, I could go to the FBI and be like, I have information about Crystal Ball.
And they would twenty five recording exactly, and.
They would whip out the same form that he's alleging exists here, which is unverified information from a confidential source.
Now that being said, it doesn't mean.
That it doesn't need to bear scrutiny and we don't need to know about this. Who is this foreign individual? Is there recording around this? And it's always been central to the really the entire case around Hunter Biden, which is look for people who don't know, why does Beisma matter. It's not just about one hundred and what fifty thousand
dollars a month that Hunter was receiving. It's that Ukraine entered Ukrainian Energy Company hired Hunter Biden specifically at the time that his father, Joe Biden, was the head of Ukraine policy for the Obama administration. It was an explicit attempt to try and buy political influence because Biden was the decision maker on all things Ukraine policy while he
was the Vice President of the United States. And then, of course, given what was going on right now with the Ukraine War, how can you not say that that didn't have at least some impact. You know, when the history books are written, it's going to be one of the most obvious connections of all time, at least in terms of somebody who literally had portfolio of Ukraine and then literally has a war breakout there whenever that person
becomes president. Kind of crazy. Now, was there any influence by the Ukrainian regime buy you know, these bribery charges and did any of that money make its way in any form in any benefit to the current president of the United States? I mean it bears scrutiny, yeah, and it bears possibility.
How can you more it is? How can you possibly rule that out? I don't think you can.
No, you can, absolutely, you definitely can't.
I mean, we already have the type of disgusting and disgraceful but probably legal corruption and shadiness in this case. Ye, Like, that's already there, you know, having Hunter Biden come on like that. It's very clear that peace. The question that these allegations from Grossly and Jamie Comer and others get to is whether you have actually out and out, like direct illegal bribery, which is a very high bar now
according to the Supreme Court. Now, I've been trying to follow this thread, and there are a couple of pieces of it that I'm struggling, so I'm going to try to lay this out and sorry, you tell me if I have this right. So my understanding is Grassly the reason he's speaking out is because he actually saw this full document unredacted.
Okay. A while back then, there was a.
Push from the House Subcommittee on Weaponization of Government to get access to this document. They were threatening to hold Christopher Ray, who's the head of the FBI, in contempt over not providing this document. So he partially relents and gives them access to the documents. However, pieces of it are redacted, and what Grassly is asserting is part of what was redacted were the you know, the allegations that this foreign national had these audio recordings of both Hunter
and of President Joe Biden. And so what Grassley is doing here is saying, hey, FBI, okay, sure you showed us a part, and you showed the House a part of this. I saw the whole part, the whole thing, and here's the piece that you're leaving out. So you need to explain why you're leaving that out, and you need to come clean about everything that is contained in this document, both of this committee and to the American people.
That's an excellent summary. That's effectively what's going on.
Now. We have a contempt vote that could be coming up in Congress where they'll be voting whether to hold the FBI director directly in the contempt. That's to try and force their hand to give them the full, unredacted document. We should also remind people of what you brought up though yesterday, Crystal, which is even whenever Comer was asked about this. Yeah, the committee they said, do you have evidence he committed crimes? You said, well, they should have
been crimes. So they're not yet definitively declaring that an official crime has been has happened here. Now, look, I don't even care whether it's technically a crime or not. I just want to know, did the guide take money from the Ukrainian or energy company or not? Very simple? We know Hunter, Did we know that Hunter floated Biden's
brother James many times. They have all kinds of crazy and insane schemes together where they profited a hell of a lot from the Chinese regime, from a lot of other different around the world, Romania, all these other you know, one of the richest men and women in Moscow wiring Hunter, all this money, these all apparently just get swept under the rug. I mean, just as bad as Jared kushner Saudi grift is, which I guess is probably more monumental in terms of an overall dollar scale.
It's not two billion dollars. It's still just as bad as what's going on with Hunter.
And it's actually a perfect view to why all this should be straight up illegal. But you know, I'm not going to hold my breath on any of that. That's basically what we know so far in terms of the details. Chuck Grassley says he saw the document. One of the reasons why they didn't even get the document earlier is because they didn't have subpoena power. The Democrats had controlled the Senate, the Republicans had didn't have control of the House.
So now that they do, this is something that they've been wanting to zero in on for quite some time. Jim Jordan Comer many of these others trying to get to the bottom of it. Whether any of it will actually come out, I remain skeptical, just because even if it does, Crystal the line is going to be, Yeah, but where are the actual recordings? I mean, do they even exist, and all of this is quote unquote unverified. I mean also it could give us insight if they
had this information and they ruled it out. Well, on what basis did you rule this out? And what investigation? Did you even launch? An investigation that would be a scandal in and of itself. How did the FBI handle this whenever they learned about it?
One hundred percent, and we deserve answers on all of that. I don't think there's any doubt about it.
And there's, like I said, there's already enough shadiness and probably legal unfortunately corruption that is in the public record for us all to you doubt the veracity of the Biden version of this story.
But it's also important to keep in.
Mind, I mean, Comer is effectively out and out admitted that the purpose of this committee is to dig Joe Biden so that Republicans can be in the back in the White House. So it's not like these people don't have a partisan motive as well. So just remember we're dealing with dishonest actors all the way around.
That's what makes covering this always difficult, yes, you know, and you know we always try and preface that too with FBI. We're like, look, we're not saying we're trust the FBI here. I don't trust in many of the actors that's going on.
I want cold hard facts.
See if they if they're saying there's a recording of Joe and Hunter talking business, I need to hear that phone call.
I need to hear it yesterday.
So, by the way, if you're out there, let us know. I'd be happy to take a listen to it. Whoever you are foreign national, we will protect you and we will play it here on the show. I don't care what the political consequences of that one are. Okay, let's go ahead and talk about Tucker Carlson and this new development in the war between him and Fox News. Let's
put this up here on the screen, guys. Fox News escalating its actions against Tucker, saying they have sent a cease and desist letter to Tucker as he ramps up the competing series on Twitter that has drew a combined quote one hundred and sixty nine million views for its first two episodes. Now, it's important to note here Fox did not actually release the seasoned decist letter. It's very likely Tucker's legal team because in bold at the very
top of the letter is quote not for publication. Tucker and his legal team have really hitten back at Fox News, maintaining that it is his First Amendment right to be able to continue posting on Twitter, and he says that Fox has already committed material breaches of his own contract, which frees him up to do this. Fox, though, is continuing to pay Tucker Carlson. They say that the contract keeps his content all content exclusive to Fox all the
way through December thirty one of twenty twenty four. So currently right now, the Tucker Carlson on Twitter show Crystal is scheduled to return actually today on Tuesday. Tucker said that Tucker's executive producer, Justin Wells, his former producer on his original show Tucker Carlson, tonight was said that they would be returning on Tuesday, so that Tucker gave his thoughts on the Trump indictment. Now, why I think this is a important is no signs of stopping the original
Tucker Carlson on Twitter show was released. Fox News came to them and said, hey, you need to stop doing that, or we're going to say that you're in a breech of contract. He released a second show. Then they've officially said this now cease and desist letter. Well, the legal team also is saying that this is not going to stop. Let's put this next one up on the screen. Harmey Dylan a well known Republican lawyer. She is also representing
Tucker Carlson as well. She tweeted this out yesterday, my friend and client Tucker will not be silenced by the far left or by Fox News. And Harmeat actually was a very frequent guest on the Fox News program. She said she will no longer being appear on the network at all as this war continues, and really it reveals, you know, kind of the war that's going on behind the scenes. And also in terms of this whole non compete. I mean, and you and I tak Tucker out of it.
You and I have also been at the center of this nonsense before. These things should be straight up be lease, there's no reason people should be bound by this, whether they can fake pay you not to work. I mean, yeah, it sounds like a decent deal, but to me, it is a violation of First Amendment, right. It's like what a company owns, not only your image, your likeness, but your ability to say anything about what you think whatsoever. He's not even making any money off it's not like
you charge anything. It's not like Elon is paying him. It's straight up his ability to put thoughts out online.
Yeah, it has major implications way beyond Tucker, because every single media contract has these non competes in them. And by the way, I mean, this is like the super high brow version of this problem of this problem where it's like you can't work, you can't go to work for any other network for some period of time, and we're going to still pay you millions to do just
like that's the high brow version of this problem. You're right, these non competes are also becoming rife, you know, throughout our society, even like sandwich shops.
Workers believe it's Jimmy Johnson.
Yeah, having a sign non competes. They can't go down the street and work for Subway or whatever. I mean, it's just completely it's gotten wildly out of hand. And so as I said before, you've got sort of like Tucker aligning with the Biden administration and the post unpredicted horseshoe of all time to do away with these non compete clauses because it is. It is really abusive, and the ones in media contracts are particularly bad because they lock.
You up for a long period of time.
And if Fox is arguing now, as they clearly are, that even like you know, being able to put on a video on Twitter, that that's banned by your non compete, it's I have no idea how.
The courts are going to view this. I'm sure it will depend a lot on what judge again and all that kind.
Of stuff, but it could have really far reaching consequences for the entire media landscape. If a judge comes in and says, no, you know, this non compete is either unconstitutional to start with, I mean, that would be an
earthquake in media and like across the entire economy. But if they even specifically say, you know, no Twitter, that it doesn't apply to Twitter, it doesn't apply to social media, doesn't apply to these other platforms, that would be huge as well, because then any creator who feels like they have that pull with an audience, they can at any point that gives them a lot more power to say screwed you to their bosses when you know they want him to wear the sweater or whatever. It is and
go and create their own product. So it could be quite significant if that is the case. Fox News clearly wants to keep him off the air through the election. I totally understand why. I mean, he was a huge ratings generator for them. They have not been able to even come close to filling his shoes in that slot just in terms of audience numbers and ratings. Now he had become somewhat of a liability for them with regard
to advertisers. So, like the business piece of it is a little bit less clear cut, but there's no doubt they want him disappeared at least through the next presidential election. And I think it's going to be quite consequential what happens here.
Yeah. Absolutely, So.
Tucker is scheduled to interview Ron DeSantis at an event in the near future, interesting Turning Point USA conference where he was already scheduled to speak. I'm told that he will still likely be appearing there. He remains on the schedule. There's another event and conference, but put on by ISI, where he's also scheduled to continue to speak. So those comments, I think we'll all be watching close because that's the first time he'll have been speaking outside of a produced environment,
especially the DeSantis one. He's going to be at a conference and be interviewing DeSantis there on the stage. I'm interested to see why DeSantis even agreed to be interviewed by Tucker because I'm hoping it gets him on Ukraine on the complete waffle that happened whenever he submitted an answer to Tucker and then changed his answer completely in an interview later on.
So what do you believe? Man?
You know, are you pro Ukraine AID or anti Ukraine AID? Like, give us a straightforward answer on what he believes on that. So overall, it's not like they are one silence him in certain terms of his show just yet, and he is still scheduled to have some sort of electoral impact, which I think is what they were scared of in the first place.
I'm a little surprised DeSantis is doing that, to be honest with you, because he's very careful about his media appearances, and you know, it's unlikely that this will be entirely comfortable and one hundred percent softball.
So that will be interesting to watch.
With regard to Tucker on Twitter, you know, it does really beg the question, like what is the limiting principle of these non competes because even him, you know, live streaming and interview with Ron de Santis is that of breach of his contract? Is Fox News consider that to be in violation of non compete? I mean, just in the modern landscape, where does it end? Can you do a podcast? Can you send a tweet? Can you do an Instagram live? Can you post YouTube video? Can you
go on Rumble? Can you go on somebody else's show on Rumble?
Like? What is? What are the constraints?
And it does give credence to his First Amendment argument that if they're saying basically no, no, all of that is off the table, then you are completely quashing someone's ability to speak. So I do think it's important. You know, I am far from a Tucker fan. I have a lot of issues with his politics and a lot of things that he says. But if you take him out of it and consider just what this means for independent media, what it means for the media landscape, it's actually a really important case.
Yeah, well, we believe in free speech no matter what.
We were personally impacted by these bs non competes and can't even imagine the level, the amount of bs that we had to go through just to be able to put this show on the air.
We're basically hell yeah, there's yeah.
You can't go into too many details, but there are a couple of guns to the old heads here of Crystal at Tager, who, by the way, were the crazy ones, because we were like, okay, we'll walk, you know, and it's like we're we we really kind of put it up to the edge and we're willing to basically be unemployed for a while, which is the only reason things worked out on our end. But you know, not a lot of people have the luxury of saying, okay, you know, we won't get paid and to take the big risk
kind of that we did here. So anyway, that's actually always a good reminder. Thank you all so much. You show success because without it, you know, we'd be starving in the Yeah, it's.
Easy to forget that was that when we're sitting here on our beautiful news right, But it took a lot to get here.
Took you guys, You guys made it happen.
Crystal, what do you take a look at.
There is a huge fight brewing as we speak that you definitely have a stake in, but probably do not even know about.
UPS.
Workers organized by the Teamsters are voting right now on a strike authorization. We're talking about nearly three hundred and fifty thousand workers casting ballots to indicate whether they are ready to walk if contract negotiations fail. By sheer numbers alone, if these workers were to actually hit the picket lines, it would be among the largest strikes in US history. And of course, these aren't just any workers. Especially post pandemic,
our nation runs on package delivery. These are the men and women who do all the labor of getting those goods to your doorsteps. And they happen to work for a company that has been posting record breaking profits. Thanks to this new reality, UPS and their Wall Street owners, Vanguard Capital in Black Rock, they have been making money by.
The billions in recent years.
They brought in a record hall of thirteen point one billion in twenty twenty one, only to make even more money in twenty twenty two. But have the workers shared
this stunning prosperity. Of course they haven't. Instead, the company has nickel and dimed them, denying them hazard pay during the pandemic, forcing them to work overtime squeezing part time workers like crazy, and to add insult to injury, the company refused to install air conditioning in their trucks, even as their workers suffered heat strokes from extreme temperatures and in some instances even died somehow however, UPS did find
the money to install driver facing surveillance cameras to track their workers every move as.
If they were criminals.
Now, the roots of UPS worker discontent actually go back for years, as they have watched their middle class profession eroded into precarity by greedy bosses and unaccountable union leadership during a neoliberal era that saw union density collapse. As UPS package car driver Sean Or and Elliot Lewis write for Labor Notes quote, UPS jobs were once considered a yardstick of secure union jobs. Now sixty percent of the workforce is part time, making around the minimum wage in
many regions. Drivers in many locations are forced to work six days a week and up to fourteen hours a day with forced overtime. Managers follow drivers in personal vehicles and relentlessly harassed workers to scare us into working faster. Many rank and file union members were outraged during the last contract negotiation when a concessionary contract that they had
actually voted down was nonetheless forced upon them. Among other issues, that contract created a two tier system, a common tactic deployed by companies and agreed to by union bosses who were too cozy with the boss class, which allows new workers to be paid less and seeks to break the union's greatest strength, that would be solidarity. Now, this time around, workers just elected a new reformist union president, Sean O'Brien, who ran explicitly on taking a tough stance with UPS
and striking if necessary. And with a tight labor market, the workers go into the negotiations with quite a bit of leverage. UPS and their Wall Street owners would be hammered by a strike, and at the moment, for many of their workers, the company actually needs them more than they need the company. The UPS teams to contract literally the largest private union contract in the entire country that
is set to expire at the end of July. A yes vote on the strike or authorization, which is expected, would make it very likely that if that period passes with no contract, UPS package delivery will grind to a halt. Now, the mainstream process is starting to cover the negotiations and their framing should serve as a reminder of what these workers are actually up against. You'll recall that during the rail worker negotiation, corporate press articles routinely took the side
of capital. The framing of nearly every article asserted that workers were risking economic calamity, rather than explaining how corporations were willing to risk a catastrophe in service of their greed and desire to prevent their workers from having basic rights like paid sick days. Here is CNN's coverage of the looming UPS strike with very similar framing. Their headline quote, a massive UPS strike could devastate the economy could be just eight weeks away. N lead with how workers have
been screwed while UPS makes money hand over fist. Actually, they don't quote a single worker in the entire piece. They start their piece by lamenting the plight of retailers. The strike, if it happens, couldn't come at a worse time, they say, for retailers stocking up for back to school shopping season and preparing for the end of year holidays.
You can bet there will be many more articles like this, and many that are even far worse, all designed to undercut the leverage workers have in the negotiation and to marshall public opinion on the side of UPS and their Wall Street owners.
Don't forget the basic facts.
UPS has made billions off the backs of these workers. They can afford easily to treat them with humanity, and it shouldn't even take the threat of a strike to achieve this basic level of fairness.
We're going to be following this one.
Really closely because the stakes are extremely high. They're high for these workers, of course, who are trying to earn a decent living without falling out from heat stroke in
the middle of their shift. They are high for an economy which is fragile and just overcoming supply chain issues already, and the stakes are very high for all workers and the labor movement written large because the only reason these workers are in a position to push for war at all is their union, and if they succeed, it shows the power of organizing. When unions were at their height, they didn't just lift wages for their members, but for all workers, because even non union shops had to compete
with them on wages and on benefits. Right now, there's lots of jobs, which keeps the labor market tight, but far too many are low paying jobs that are not even coming close to keeping up with inflation. This fight could point the way back to a healthy middle class. And this one is hanging out.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
All Right, Sager, what are you looking at?
Well?
I've said it here many times before the most interesting part of the Epstein story had very little to do with him, or even with the paltry charges brought against his partner, Gallaine Maxwell. In many cases, it didn't even really have to do with his intimate relationships with high level billionaires like Bill Gates and Leon Black. It always had to do with two things. Who's he working for and who is he working with? The four part is
one that we still don't know. Although there are many suspicions around his connections to Israeli or US intelligence, who he was working for with question is one where there seemed at least a small chance of potentially learning the truth. The most insight came into this question, largely from court documents and financial records relating to Epstein's financial dealings with two major US banks, How did he get all this money in the first place, and then also what was
he using it for? We're getting a small glimpse into just how much was at stake with the latest news the JP Morgan has decided to pay nearly three hundred million dollars to settle Epstein accusers lawsuit against the largest bank in the US and one of the largest in the world. The details of the settlement are stunning. JP Morgan agreed to pay the historic sum for a sex assault case hours after a federal judge ruled that dozens of women abused by Epstein all had standing to join
the lawsuit against JP Morgan. That ruling could have opened up JP Morgan to even more discovery evidence that has already been released about the relationship to Epstein, and it reveals just how deeply and mesh the bank was in
his financi machinations, even after he became a convicted sex offender. Already, court documents show that JP Morgan was aware of shady stuff going on with Epstein, including compliance officers who said, quote, there's lots of smoke, lots of questions about Epstein, and another which referred to him as a quote sugar Daddy. Documents released so far also showed that the bank was fully aware of was a convicted sex offender and continued
to do business with him. One of the most damning revelations was that the current head of JP Morgan's four trillion dollar asset and wealth management business visited Epstein properties in the past and was aware of problems around him in multiple meetings. Furthermore, internal documents show that lower level employees filed multiple suspicious activity reports on Epstein.
That were ignored.
The number of employees flagging suspicious activities numbers quote nearly four dozen, showing just how pervasive knowledge within the bank was. One of the real tells within the revelations was the two senior execsctives at the bank advocating for keeping Epstein's business despite his sex offender guilty plea because Epstein was seen as a conduit to other super rich clients that he could bring in. It's also no coincidence the settlement comes just two weeks after Jamie Diamond himself sat for
seven hours of testimony over Epstein. All of this is even more twisted by the fact that JP Morgan is actually suing one of its own former employees, James Staley, who was for a time the CEO of Barclays, another massive financial institution. JP Morgan said that if the bank does have to pay, it should be Staley who pays,
even though he doesn't even work there anymore. They alleged that he concealed all of the worst Epstein behavior from the bank and the compliance office will this doesn't exactly pass scrutiny. It's likely Staley is the fall guy. He was, though, caught exchanging very gross emails objectifying young women with Epstein. The email in question showed him emailing Epstein after visiting his private island, saying quote that was fun say hi to snow White. I'll let you decide how to interpret
that one. The maddening part with this entire case, after covering it for four years, is that each one of
these stories is another piece of the puzzle. One of the first clues into how vast the conspiracy was was the early twenty twenty Deutsche Bank fine by New York state authorities that, in a recent settlement by the bank showed that the victims showed a shame culpability a bank that knew he was a convicted sex offender and knew he was tripping all sorts of crazy compliance trip wires and continued to do business.
So where do we.
Even go from here? It's a good question. Maxwell's behind bars. No client list ever really came out. We get some dribble and dribble here and then a high level meeting with people like Bill Gates or Nom Chomski, but let's be honest, it never really goes anywhere. This JP Morgan lawsuit was a real opportunity to get things out there, so that it's no surprise that they're paying more than a quarter billion to keep it quiet. The next and perhaps only hope is the ongoing lawsuit between the US
Virgin Islands and JP Morgan, which remains active. JP Morgan is fighting this case harder because it alleges that the US Virgin Islands, where many of these sex crimes took place, are actually the ones responsible because of their possible cozy
relationship with Epstein by past government officials. Virgin Islands, on the other hand, they say JP Morgan is the financial nexus of Epstein's abuse empire and was the main conduit for much of the money that changed hands, which he used to fly women around and to himself to abuse and to then be abused by others who visited him. We'll see if either of them even make it to trial. We get even more information, but sadly it does feel
like things could be winding down there too. The more that they settle, and the bigger the dollar amounts, the more of an admission, how explosive the truth is, and it shows us why we should keep pushing Somewhere on somewhere server somewhere, there is a lot of damning evidence for a lot.
Of very rich and powerful people. All of us know it's true.
We just need the confirmation and to not stop until any of it actually comes out for good.
So there you go, Crystal, and if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. Very excited to be joined by actor James Vanderbeek. He is of Dawson's Creek fame, but has done a lot besides that. So great to have you, James, Welcome to the program.
Good just you, thank you, thanks for having me.
Yeah, of course, so you came to our attention because you decided to speak out about something we've been talking about, which is the Democratic Party's refusal to host any primary debates. This in spite of the fact that you have majority of Democrats who say they would love to have those debates, who are interested in evaluating what alternatives are out there. So what made you feel compelled to speak out on this issue?
You know, I rarely speak out on anything political on my Instagram pages, mostly like thoughts on parenting and homestead adventures and this my smartest sense of humor.
But it was Memorial Day, and you know, I.
Do tend to be pretty heartfelt on my platform, and I was just trying to think of what I could say too thank the families who have made that sacrifice. And I just was so pissed off by the fact that the DNC was willfully and arrogantly ignoring the will of the people and their people, you know, the people
who voted for their guy last time. And so I just thought, man, the best thing I could do to thank the troops would be to speak out about the fact that they're deciding unilaterally to not hold a debate.
I just I just think it's ridiculous.
Yeah, you know, James, I know that we talked a little bit about it. Just put this up there on the screen. The media, you know, kind of took this and almost ran it as some sort of right wing reaction. They were like, he becomes Fox News' favorite actor. I know that that wasn't what you intended at all. Yeah, well, that's part of the reason we wanted to talk is I know that's not what you think.
Give it.
Give us your reaction to that. And you know why they're casting you is right wing for wanting a debate. That's not really your intention at all.
Not at all.
And if they've gone through, you know, years of my Instagram feed, they would find a lot of things they disagree with over at Fox News.
Yeah, to become a Fox News.
Darling overnight over simply saying that we should have a debate, I mean clearly they're using it for their purposes, which is, you know, to make Biden look bad, to make the Democrats look crazy. But I mean, in fairness, the Democrats do look crazy. The DNC does look crazy right now for not for not listening, uh, you know, to to their voter base.
I just and listen.
I've just been pointed out that there's been a there's a precedent for not having a debate. Obama didn't debate. A lot of incumbents don't debate challengers. But I think that's a terrible precedent. And I really it was not in any way an anti anybody ran.
It's a pro democratic process rant. And that's what I feel like we're we're being robbed of.
I mean, you know, if some of some of the responses were really strange, there are a lot of people who are just so in fear of who the perhaps inevitable Republican nominee is going to be that there seems to be this theory that everybody should just go easy on Biden. Yeah, let him, just put him up there and just by virtu of the fact that he's not the other guy that everybody then he'll win and everything will be okay. And I just think that's a terrible strategy,
and I think the country really deserves better. And so, you know, if a debate where you stand up for your record and you hear ideas from within your own party and you talk about where we are and where you're going to take us in the future, if that's going to hurt your candidate, is that really the candidate you want to run.
Yeah, it really betrays an actual lack of faith in the American people, an actual lack of faith in democracy. And that's from a party that has spent a lot of time talking about how important the values of democracy are and how you know, democracy is on the ballot
and they're going to be the defenders of democracy. So I think it's really well said that they point all the time to, well, you know, there's this historical precedent where you know, Biden's just going to follow the historical present, and it's like, because you did something bad and anti democratic in the past, doesn't mean that we should continue
along that trajectory. On the other hand, with regard to Fox News adoption of this, they're pretty silent on the fact that Trump has also said that he's not particularly he hasn't committed himself to debates either, And so James, to your point about you know, speaking out and trying to honor the troops, it just seems like we're in this really depressing situation where you've got two guys that the overwhelming majority of the country is like, we really
don't want either one of these dudes, Like we really would like to have a whole variety of other options, and I think it shows a true decay of our democracy that there are basically that we're basically locked into this Trump versus Biden situation.
Come to the fall.
Yeah, I think Trump should debate. I think everybody should.
I think we probably pass something and guarantees us a primary debate. I agree, no matter what, because without that then people are they're also you know, designing the debate to suit themselves, and it's just ridiculous this, And it's been pointed out, yes, this is not a direct democracy, this is technically a republic. But still, I mean, the will of the people deserves to be deserves to be heard. I mean, and I am optimistic as well. I'm optimistic.
I believe in the American people, I really do. I believe in that people, and my neighbors and people I meet at the Harbor Store.
I believe in my friends.
That you know back in LA that given all the information, given true information, we will all kind of eventually make good decisions. But within that optimism, man, the older I've gotten, the more I've come to see the virtue in seeing things as they are, not as we wish them to be. Not as we just know they could be given the perfect set of circumstances, but actually seeing things as they are.
And I've yet to hear an argument that would convince me that a debate would allow us to see less of the truth that we're saying right.
Now, that's really wise. You know, James, I'm curious. You know you still work in the business. I mean, have you had any repercussions as a result of this. I mean, to me, it was very courageous for you to come out and say this, and I'm curious to your thoughts as to how to navigate that process for as you reference all your friends in LA.
Well, thank you.
People say it's courageous, it kind of terrifies me. Yeah, to me, this is a no brainer. This is just to say, hey, I could be wrong. I'm not saying to vote for my guy. I'm not saying the other guy's terrible. I'm not coming out in favor of any candidate or against any candidate. I'm just saying, let's put them on a stage, and instead of making decisions and bringing ideas to some back room somewhere, let's put it
in people's living rooms. That's really all that I'm saying, you know, I mean, right now, there's a writer strike, and I'm a writer, so I'm supporting my w.
G A, my guilt good.
So there's no work happening right now. But I have had a lot of friends on the left reach out to me privately and see, thank you, thank you for seeing what we've all been thinking.
So it's this funny dynamic where what you're saying with any normal person in the entire country is wildly uncontroversial, right, I mean among Democrats, it's like eighty percent of Democrats are like, obviously we should have a debate. It's not really a controversial position except among these like small elite media circles. But you mentioned that you felt kind of
like terrified by the reaction to it. Were you surprised that your comments went so viral, and has this encouraged or discouraged you from taking future political stances.
You know, I was just speaking from the heart. I was pissed off, and I was being honest, and I was speaking from the heart. Had I anticipated that the audio alone would be played on radio, I probably would not have done it. While pulling a weight sled backwards down my driveway, it sounds a little angry and a little more breathless than.
Have been optimal, but it added dramatic effect.
Yeah, thank you, thank you.
I'm really much more interested in in the way I mean as a creative, you know, in the ways in which we're all similar, in the triumphs and the challenges that we go through. It's then as an actress, but then as a writer. But you know, sometimes the truth is just so obvious that it needs to be said. And the reason I spoke out about this was that a lot of friends of mine didn't even know that
it was happening. You know, you guys are one of the few people that I've seen report on it, but it never comes up in my regular news feed on my phone. Right, but that there's not a debate, and I don't see any outcry. There won't be a debate, despite the desire for it.
Yeah.
Finally, James, I did want to ask you about the writer strike. You said, you know you're standing with solidarity with your brothers and sisters. What do you what do you personally see as some of the key issues that need to be resolved there.
It's a little bit of insight baseball, but they're really they're really reasonable.
I mean writers want to be able to write a multiple shows.
Used to be a writer would write on a staff for twenty four episodes in a season, so there really was no time to write for another show. Now episode the shooting eight episode season six episode seasons, so writers need to be able to write a multiple shows throughout the year as long as there's no time. Conflict. AI has also come up in a big way.
And so what do you mean by that.
Let's see, I'm not really qualified to get into all the nitty gritty, but essentially the writers guild the same to the studios.
You can't use AI to write a script and then.
Ask us to rewrite it because it rewrite costs way less than an original draft. And just that amount of taking the human out of the creative process I think is going to be devastating for the entertainment industry, devastating for writers. It's something that we really need to win if we want entertainment that reflects humanity and that can reflect the truth and the heart of what people are
actually going through. If it's to be a true expression, a human expression that you're going to see reflected on the screen, it's an issue that we really need to get right.
Yeah, I could not agree with you more.
I mean, you know, these AI models, they're not capable of generating creativity, of creating new products. They're fed all the cultural products of the past. They can recombine them and regurgitate them. But I agree with you that I think it's a real threat to creativity, not to mention, of course, the livelihoods of many people. So James, super grateful for your time. So great to chat with you today. Thank you for speaking out, and you know, thank you for answering our questions.
We stand with you, James, and we appreciate you man. Thank you.
Oh, thank you guys. Thanks for the work you're doing. I really appreciate you.
It's our pleasure. Sure, thank you.
All right, thank you guys so much for watching Day two. We're still experimenting changing the angles, all this other stuff going on.
Over here, and then I get it.
Absolutely we're going to nail it.
So just bear with us.
We're going to be experimenting over the next couple of weeks of what we feel comfortable, what we think looks the best way, you decide, giving your feedback on all that.
We love you.
We appreciate counterpoints as tomorrow, and do not forget we'll be interviewing RFK Junior later on today and we will post that interview as soon as it is available. Premium suscribers check your inboxes. Everybody else, just stay tuned on our YouTube feed or on our podcast feed, otherwise we will see you all on Thursday