Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Everything.
Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do.
We have the very latest everything we know about that crazy situation in Russia that we covered with breaking news over the weekends. We'll break that down for you. We also have the White House getting pressed on new revelations about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden potentially involved in business deals that as something that he swore had never happened, So we'll tell you all about that. We've got some new polling, both in the Republican primary and also for
the general election, both of which are very interesting. As Trump and Christie a bunch of others went to this Faith and Freedom conference that was here in DC. So we've got some highlights from that, a horrific training realment. It looks like what happened in Yellowstone is that a bridge actually collapsed, spilling a bunch of toxic chemicals into a river there. So we'll break down for you everything
we know there. And this one we had to give you the final update on this, the submersible that apparently imploded, killing everyone on board. Well turns out that the Navy knew that it had imploded from the beginning, didn't bother to share with anyone, didn't tell the family either.
So we have those details for you.
Also excited to get a report from the ground in Moscow about exactly what it was like to live through this. You aborted coup over the weekend where there were the Wagner group was marching towards Moscow, got with it in two hundred kilometers. So we're going to have our friend Yegor Kotkin on to talk about all of that.
But before we get.
To any of that, Sager, Yes, we have a situation unfolding here for breaking points, which is that Sager is leaving after tomorrow's show for India for the first of two wedding ceremonies with your grandparents and relatives there first one and we are tantalizingly close to a million subs. Do you have the official count this morning?
Go ahead and pull out.
The official count as of right now is nine hundred and ninety seven, seven hundred and twenty eight at the exact moment of this reading.
So now, my friend, it is my understanding that you have made an ill advised deal.
I've decided.
I decided if we get to a million subs before you leave for the first.
Of several wedding initial impassioned wedding gift. You know, the good natured plea did not work. So here's what I've decided to do. If if we hit one million by tomorrow Tuesday, at the end of the day, I'll cut it off. I'll even be generous and say I cut it off at the end of Tuesday it's only two thousand some subs. I will do the show in full Indian dress garb, which I will purchase specially in India while I am over there, the full regalia, and I
will wear sneakers. So that's the deal that I'm willing to do.
I sort of feel like it should be by tomorrow end.
Of show maybe, because what do you.
Think, because you're going to be like on a plane.
That's true over the Atlantic, it's a night flight.
All that time.
Okay, so you're not leaving till the evening.
I think it's like a ten o'clock no, maybe a nine o'clock flight something like that.
So I'll know by the time I take off whether we hit it.
All right, I think we should make the deadline before your nine o'clock flights, while you're still in country.
We have to hit a million.
Sucks there you go, all right? I feel like touching Americans.
I feel like Emily would kind of low key enjoy being in your spot, and you're like still in valor moment.
You know, we're in a beneficial position.
I mean, I'll save some of the sappiness, but you know, we are in a very unique and amazing position, Crystal of We already built one channel to a million, and this is the second one, which is not something a lot of people can say that they've done, and not something that people a lot of people will get the satisfaction of hitting twice. So the fact that we are even getting close to hitting it twice is something that I'm very proud of the two of us are our entire team for you and.
Pulling that off, well, I have to say, yeah, we'll save the roses until we won't count our chickens here until they're hatch because you never know, its could still go sideways. But it'll mean a lot more this plaque than the last one because you know that was with the help of a whole corporate entity and being on like the corporate algorithm and all that stuff.
This one to build from.
Scratch, from literally subscriber zero on our own'll that'll be really special.
So absolutely excited. Help us get their guys.
Hit the subscribe button and you know, send Sager off, hit subscribe away.
Some people are getting their family members to do it.
I'm not encouraging that.
I'm just saying I'm encouraging it.
Some people are also creating fake Gmail accounts.
It is what it is.
I'm not going to sit here and violate terms of service. I'm just saying that's what I have heard of others are doing. Anyway, we love you premium subs in particular. I know a lot of you aren't even sub because we send you the show.
So just hit the subscribe button for us.
That's a good point.
Okay, all right, let's go ahead and get to the actual news, of which you know, we both didn't sleep very much over the weekend, captivated by this ongoing short aborted coup in Russia.
Let's gohea and put this up there on the screen.
We want to give everybody the final details, or at least the interim details of what we know so far as why you have Getty progoes in the head of the Wagner group decided to abort his crew after coming so close to Moscow and seemingly facing very little resistance. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov says, quote, there have been charges now dropped against Pregosen.
He will now leave Russia for Belarus.
Wagner fighters who did not take part in the uprising will have to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense and transfer their authority over to the Russian military. Wagner fighters who did take part will not be charged criminally. There is not currently any word on potential mood leadership changes.
What he means by that, Crystal is that the initial claim of if getting Progosen was that they have to have changes at the top of the Defense ministry and that Sergei Shogu, who is the Defense Minister himself, needed to resign and be kicked out. Well, there has already been now a show of strength from Shogu and from Moscow since the beginning and the end of this aborded coup. Shogu made his very first public appearance actually last night inside of occupied Ukraine. So that was a message is
not getting fired yet. He is living, to tell you know, lives another day for now. Asked for Progozen, well, we don't really know where the hell he is. We had some video. This is the last public sighting. Guys, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is actually Pregosian leaving to cheers and an adulating crowd giving high fives and more of the city of rostov on Don. Rostov on Don is the city of one million, the logistical hub for the Russian military and
his very close to the Ukrainian border. One of the most strategic and important towns, which Progosian was able to take with no resistance, barely any shots fired. The total death toll, look, you know, nobody knows the exact count, but The official count, at least for now, is only
fifteen people. That's actually less than the twenty sixteen coup against Erdowan in Turkey, and makes this, you know, I mean, for a coup that captivated the world, had nuclear weapons and all that at stake, fifteen people dying is extraordinarily low. I mean, you know, it's less than us probably a single hour or whatever on the front line inside of Ukraine. And so we were left in this very bizarre situation. What was ye of getting Progosian doing? Were his complaints
against the Russian Ministry of Defense even legitimate? It doesn't appear that some of them were. It appears that some of them were, some of them were lies, some of them were.
Why did he call.
It off so close in twenty four hours? It seems, you know, in the update that you gave that the belo Russian president Lukashenko appears to be the guy who was able to brok her this deal. What does this mean for Putin and his strength? So we're left with just tons of questions. Yeah, we're an extremely bizarre event.
We are starting to get more of a picture too of what precipitated this, you know, stunning turn of events. Part of what happened just before this is the Ministry of Defense was already putting pressure on the Wagner Group to try to rein them in forcing new recruits to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense directly, so that was going to deny the Wagner Group new recruits. You know, to read the tea leaves a little bit, and so much of this is conjecture, and you know, none of it is it's.
Very there's very little you can actually really rely on.
But the expectation is that's part of what precipitated this and sort of pushed Pregosin to the edge because he was having his base of power undercut.
So it was like kind of an hour and never moment.
Also very hard to say what led to him then coming so close to Moscow and then backing down. There are some rumors that his family was being threatened and that was part of what pressure was being put to bear on him to come to some sort of a deal.
And then the other.
Piece of this is yeah, Shoygu you know, still in place as of today. It would have been just far too humiliating, I think for Putin to just bend to the whims and desires of this rogue head of a mercenary army. The big question everyone has is, if you're Progsion, how can you trust the assurances that your life is going to be fine, that family's life is going to be fine, that you're not going to be arrested, that you're going to be able to live out the rest
of your days, all of that. You know, I'm sure he probably has a lot of question marks in his mind about that.
Jogu.
You should start planting a garden, and you should start an only eating out of that, and you should avoid windows. You should only stay in first story buildings. And if I were you, I would get my ass on a plane and go to Switzerland, so literally anywhere else on Earth outside of the Russian orbit, on top of everybody who you have ever known and worked for, including like your dog walker or whatever, because they will kill them as evidence.
Now.
The issue I think that they have right now is that in terms of putin, there is just no getting around how humiliating with this is. Let's put this up there on the screen. These are images which you know you just simply can't get away from inside of Russia. On the right, you know, for those who are watching, we have literally like aircraft that were set on fire, and you know, the chairman of the Committee of the Russian Defense says, oh, well, they didn't offend anyone, and
they didn't break anything. Is complete lies, and everyone inside of Russia knows it's a lie, because at this point, even inside Russia, the social media is circulating in.
Terms of the roads that were dug up.
Crystal. When you have to dig up your own road to protect the capital, you have to bomb your own infrastructure, you are not strong. That is the ultimate sign of weakness, and it also highlights Putin's greatest fear. Let's put this up there. This has long been reported around Vladimir Putin. He literally has sat by himself now for years apparently, and just watches on repeat the images of Moamar Gaddafi being sodomized and killed in public in Bengazi after the
Libyan Civil War. He says, quote, Putin is in fear of being killed like Kadafi in a new Russian revolution, as protests raised. Literally, the man's greatest fear is domestic instability and his personal losing power. This gets to some of the comments that he's made in the past Crystal, where he has said things like the growing of the greatest tragedies in the history of Russia was the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
It was very sad.
Many of us gave our lives for this. You know, this was a humiliation event for Russia. That was fully then on display in the initial speech that everyone should recall the speech that justified the historical speech in justifying the invasion of Ukraine, saying Ukraine is a fake nation, all the Baltics are a fake nation. This was the Bolshevik you know, stab in the back from the Treaty of brets Latovsk and all of this him putting himself
in the context of history. His greatest fear is being Zar Nicholas the second, And you know, for a variety of reasons, he seems to have recreated the exact same conditions. Zar Nicholas famously initially almost lost grip on power during the Russo Japanese War, and then it ultimately was taken out in the Revolution of nineteen seventeen. So he, by trying to avoid the fate of some of his predecessors, apparently recreated very very similar conditions. And of course, you know,
a zar Nicholas didn't have nukes. Putin does and so that's what makes the situation even more insane and complex.
And this is I don't think.
This is the end of instability in Russia now, very much like this Ray much could be the beginning.
Unlikely that it's the end of instability. I mean, strong men depend on an aura of invincibility for their power. And even though this pus has been put down before they even got to got to Moscow, and even as we have to say, we don't really have any idea how the Russian public feels about any of this overall, Like if you were to do an accurate poll, do they view Progrosion as a trader? How do they feel about him? How do they feel about all of this?
But there's no doubt that the cloak of invincibility has been pierced, and you can see that there was at least some sentiment in favor of this attempted coup. Put this next piece up on the screen. This is the telegram reactions from the first message on top. You can
see that's the Wagner leader Progosion announcing his mutiny. Got thirty two thousand heart emojis almost fourteen thousand thumbs up, thirteen thousand with the little like smiley face with the hearts around it, nine thousand of the applauding forty three hundred of the fire emoji. You know, you have to get down to twenty four hundred only gave the clown emoji, eight hundred and forty four gave the cursing angry emoji.
The second piece is when he announced like all right, just kidding, going back to the bases, withdrawing from the outskirts of Moscow.
That's on the bottom, and the.
Overwhelming reaction three hundred forty one thousand clown emojis, one hundred two thousand thumbs down. So you know, again it's telegram. Is this reflective of overall public sentiment? Should we read too much into this? Absolutely not, But it's clear there was much more positive sentiment on telegram in favor of
the attempted coup than there was for the withdrawal. We did see some videos, one of which we showed you a little bit a little bit earlier, of him receiving sort of like adoring support from some amount of locals, and to me, Sagar, the very fact that he was able to say the unspeakable thing, which is that the war is built on lies, that Ukraine was not an imminent threat to us whatsoever, That these generals are out, you know, they're lying, and they're out for their own glory, They're not.
Here for the good of the Russian people.
That he was able to say that and survive and sort of get away with it, I mean that is you know, you can't that's a bridge, you can't, or that you can't put that toothpaste back of the two. That's what I'm trying to say. Now, I want to be clear. Does this mean like Putin's regime is going to crumble and it's going to fall, He's going to withdraw from Ukraine.
No, we're not saying any of that.
But this is the dawn of a new era, and where we go from here impossible to say exactly.
I mean, we can look at a lot of parallels in Russian history. There's been a lot of failed coups in the history of Russia. In terms of the one I was talking about in nineteen seventeen, there was the Russo Japanese revolt after the Russians lost the Russian Japanese War. There was a huge amount of instability inside of Russia
against the regime, and democratic reforms were attempted. Unfortunately, Zar Nicholas decided to reneg on all of those and then launch the country into another disastrous war, which became more of a dictator and it launched against him. So this is where though the actual conditions of Putin and his regime and what's actually going to happen, we really have no idea. But he very likely is going to take
the same course. This is not a man who is going to buckle under pressure and say, you know what, it's obvious the invasion of Ukraine is the original sin here. There would be no problem if there was no Ukraine. So if he were smart, he'd be like, all right, let's call it, let's call it peace conference, let's try let's do something. Let's get our asses out of here, and let me focus on actually notsolidating. Yeah, which you
know any reasonable person looking at this would do. But he's got too much in the game now because that would be humiliating for him, and now he's a pariah. So what's he going to do. He could double down, and in fact, you know, if we look back through Russian history.
Some of the.
Most autocratic periods in all of Russian history came after immediate coup attempts or after assassination campaigns on the Czar or the leaders of those of the regime. And the problem is that, of course, you know, it may fall in the long run, but in the short term, that's still a lot of suffering, and that still actually means that Putin could technically, in the short term become stronger inside of Russia and stronger in terms of his battlefield control.
Do you think they will ever allow a pregotion to rise again in the military or some sort of Wagner group element, never, you know at this point. So if anything, his his like operatricks in the military and all of that will become even more emboldened. And for anybody who thinks that a aperatic filled political, Soviet or Russian military
can't stand, well, they beat the army of Hitler. So it's not like it's not like without manpower and a lot of the inherent strengths to Russia, their ability frankly to just like throw as many people away as possible, they still can militarily prevail, you know.
In a conflict.
Yeah, And I do think it's worth reiterating something we talked about over the weekend, which is that the whole build up to this attempted coup, insurrection, rebell, whatever you want to call it, is the fact that the Russian military was itself weak and so they sort of had to rely on Wagner or Wagner became one of their most effective fighting forces, and that's what allowed Progosion to
rise in power. And even long before you know, this all unfolded, he was incredibly routinely critical ta of the Ministry of Defense and Joigu and other top leaders and was allowed to say it because they needed him. And so, as I said before, this action came at the same time that they were actually trying to reign in his power because they had recognized that this had sort of gotten out of control. But it all starts with the you know, strong man leader, any really world leader, giving
up the monopoly on violence. That creates a very dangerous and chaotic situation. And because they needed him so much, because they had this weakness to begin with, that's how he's able to rise to this position where he was, you know, marching basically unimpeded towards Moscow before getting cold feet and taking this deal that was crafted by Belarus and Lucashank.
Yeah, well said, let's go to the next part here about our own interest. I guess in what was going on. Let's put this up there on the screen. Turns out the US actually quote suspected Pregosian was preparing to take military action against Russia. The intelligence community leaked this to their favorite publication, The New York Times. They say the information was considered both solid and alarming because of the possibility a major nuclear armed rival of the US could descend into chaos.
Yeah you think so.
American intelligence officials briefed senior military officials on Wednesday that they believed he was preparing to take military action against Senior Russian defense officials. US by agencies had indication days earlier Progosian was planning something and worked to refine that material into a finished ressessment. Unlike with the initial invasion, US officials declassify the intelligence and then released it. To try to deter mister Putin from invading. Intel officials kept
silent about mister Progosian's plans. Officials felt if they said anything, Putin could accuse them of orchestrating a coup, and they clearly had little interest in helping Putin avoid a major embarrassing fracture in his support. Let's put the next one up there, please on the screen. Also, INTEL people leaking their favorite thing over to CNN.
We've got that paragraph there.
INTEL officials actually had briefed congressional leaders known as the Gang of Eight earlier this week concerning Wagner movements and equipment build ups near Russia. Crystal, I'm curious what you think about this. I actually believe it was very irresponsible for them not to do the exact same thing that they did during the Russian invasion. I'll tell everyone why this will sound bad, but Pregosian versus Putin, so we kind of have to pick and guess.
What we have to prefer Putin.
Pregosion is a bloodthirsty, war criminal, insane person, egomaniac. All of that applies to Putin too, but a little bit less. And whenever we look, I mean, look, you've said that before. You know, whenever you and I say we oppose the invasion of Iraq, let's be real, what are we saying? We believe a genocidal dictator, a brutal man should have remained in power.
I'm like, yeah, I think so.
I think that honestly would have been better off than the horrific chaos that ensued. You know, this is not a rosy and a nice choice that we have to make. And actually some friends and I were talking in the middle of the coup and we were thinking about prospective action. Realistically, what would have happened if Wagner got close enough to Moscow to gain control of the nuclear arsenal. Almost certainly
crystal we would have had to do. If anybody doesn't know about the brox Or rebellion inside of China, the Western Powers actually interfered and invaded or inserted themselves in this situation in that Boxer rebellion, specifically to prop up the regime that was more friendly to its trading relationship.
My point being that there almost certainly would have been some international action should Pregosian have actually gotten close enough to gain control of the Russian nuclear arsenal, in my opinion, probably would have been Beijing. Beijing probably would have come in and just been like, we're taken over, We're in control now. In terms of putin, they would have propped them up like some Mussolini type figure.
But it could have been the West.
You know, almost certainly these are disaster scenarios that we should have looked at. So look, I mean, instability in Russia is good to a point, but when we get to the point where somebody is two hundred kilometers away, yeah, from taking over, I thought nuclear arsenal. Then I think it was very irresponsible for them to let this happen if they knew that it was going to For the very reason that you know this what's going on in Ukraine is a side show in terms of our interests.
Russian nukes in the hands of a genuine madman, yes, that is a whole other level.
Yes, yeah, I agree. Even the Podsave bros Were like, you can't cheer for this brutal war criminal, mercenary psychopath to take control. The first in the last thought has to be what about the nukes? I mean, that's it. Like I wish that we could take into account a variety of other factors related to human life and what the Russian people deserve and what Ukrainian people deserve, et cetera.
But when you're talking about a nuclear arm superpower, the first and last consideration has to be what about the nukes?
And we know with.
Putin for all his many flaws, and not to say that this is any guarantee of what's going to happen in the future.
We have not had a nuclear war, hasn't used him yet, which you know, pregosion better.
Off wild card. Yeah, we don't know, right, we have no idea. So I one hundred percent agree with you. And the thing is, it's not like they would have had to So you referenced they should have done what they did before the Ukraine War invasion, where they announced publicly, here's our intelligence, and here's our understanding of what's going to happen, trying to forestall these events or at least trying to prepare everyone to muster some sort of defense for Ukraine.
You wouldn't have had to do that.
I mean, they could have bat channeled to the Russians, right, the intelligence that we had. Now, it's possible that Putin actually knew what was in the works, you know, it is possible that he'd be.
An idiot to know. Right, We've been looking at this guy for months, right, well.
And you know in those leaked documents, the discord leaks. They showed the US had intercepted communications between senior Russian military leaders debating how to handle progotions constant demands for more ammunition. They knew they were pushing him to the edge by basically putting Wagner under shoygu which one analyst described as an absolute no go for pregosion. So it's not like they were blind to the tensions here. It's
not like they were blind to the risks here. So it is actually possible that they knew something like this was in the works, they just were unable to figure out how to mobilize against it. But yes, the fact that the US decided to take this incredible gamble and cross their fingers and hope that you don't end up with this absolute madman and total chaos and Russia devolving into complete civil war, that they decided to just let this all unfold and let the chips fall.
Where they may.
I think it's wildly, wildly irresponsible. And look, the gamble worked out for him, right, Your hand is stronger, Ukrainian hand is strong.
They're no doubt about it.
Right.
Ultimately, the way that this went down with Putin being humiliated and weakened but still in power. Is exactly the best case scenario for the you know, the Western Alliance and Ukraine, who now faces a weakened opponent with some of their most hardened battle adversaries basically taken out of play. But there was no guarantee that this was going to be how this all shook out.
Absolutely, I think you're right, and you know, look, I get it. It's actually a very tough situation if you're in that because you know they're not wrong, which is that the Putin would have said, oh, like this is being orchestrated or whatever by the West. They're saying that anyway, Yeah, but exactly guess what immediately when it launched, they were like, this is the puppet of the West and all that.
It Also, you know, it does raise kind of an interesting question is like, well, has the US intelligence community ever had any communications with Pregosian. I mean, you know, I'm not going to rule it out or put it outside the realm of possibility. And that's another very interesting one as to like what's going on here kind of reminds me the assassination plot around President DM and South Vietnam.
But the point is is that the results could have been horrific and disastrous, and it was, even though it was a tough situation, and it is genuinely a tough call. If they knew about it and just did nothing, that was a choice by the US administration. We shouldn't forget that.
Yeah.
The last thing I do want to say on that point, because I think this is important, is do I put it out of the realm of possibility that the US had some hand behind the scenes. Of course not, of course I don't put that on the realm of possibility. But I see people very confidently asserting that that's what happened here. And you can't just like you can't just look at who benefits and say, oh, there must have
been a role. There must not everything is about us, right, Russia is perfectly capable of having their own internal strife and conflict that is separate and apart from whatever our wishes and desires are. So again, I would just wait and see if there is any evidence of such plots that emerge before you just sort of, you know, fly off down a rabbit hole and accept this as fact when there's nothing that indicates it thus far.
Yeah, are you suggesting that we should be responsible and wait for facts.
I mean, I thought we were in the takes business.
Crazy idea, Yeah, just put that matter wild.
Anyway, let's go to the next one here. This was a huge story actually broke open on Thursday. We were going to do a breaking segment on it, and that coup happened. It's on our Russia, what do you know? And so we're getting the details fully and took the time to actually read through all the documents here with respect to the allegations of an IRS whistleblower and Hunter Biden whether he should have been criminally charged in that case after he was offered a plea by US prosecutors.
Now, the White.
House was actually asked repeatedly about this on Friday by multiple mainstream reporters who appear to have broken there. Even they had to admit that this looked bad and had to press the White House on it. And the White House response is stunning in their silence and really in their obfuscation. Here's what happened.
The President invited his son Hunter to the state dinner last night.
I'm wondering if you could take us into the thinking and decision making of why.
The I'm just not going to get into family discussion, personal family discussion, as you know, Hunter's son. I'm just not going to get.
Into it this.
If Hunter Biden wasn't the president's son, would he have invited someone who had just reached the plea agreement with federal prosecutors?
Well, a couple of things.
Again, that's his son, He's a family member. It is not uncommon for family members to attend events at the White House.
Curlywood answered James's question, though, are you going to answer the question of incun not a reasonable question to ask for.
The as the United States?
Who was involved, as this message seems to suggest in some sort of coercive.
Conversation for business dealings by a son, is that something?
If he wasn't, then maybe you should tell us so he can.
Just remind us what your colleague said from the White House Council, so we have it. Would I would refer you to them and they will share their statement with you all lot.
Yeah, you've stated that the President stands by his comment from the twenty twenty campaign that he never once discussed his son's overseas business dealings with his son, And you stood at that podium and you reaffirmed.
That is there anything that you can say with regard to.
This text message and what the president's son was alleging.
Was the President there or not?
Have you spoken to the president about this? Have you asked him whether he was there with his son on July thirty? And there was a recording earlier in the week that after the plea agreement was reached by Hunter Biden that the President felt relieved that that part of it was behind him.
Is that true.
I can't speak to that.
I cannot speak to the presents mindset.
Can't speak to it. Never asked him about it? Oh why wouldn't you ask him about it? And for those who need a refresher, this text message is insane. Put this up there on the screen. This is a direct text from Hunter Biden. So not mean disputed quote. I am sitting here with my father. We would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight.
Zee.
If I get a call or a text from anyone involved in this other than you, Xang or the chairman, I will make certain between the man sitting next to me and every person. He knows my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will not regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.
I love the way at the end, he just like strips any plausible to liability.
I am sitting here.
Just to be clear, it's my father I'm referring to.
This is Megan McCain level my father in terms of joke. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. My friends over the Freebeacon personal friends of mine, Chuck Ross, Joseph Simonson, and Andrew Kerr put together a fantastic piece here called the sixteen Bombshells on the Hunter Biden from the IRS laptop. First and foremost was linking his father to this Chinese deal. People aren't actually as familiar with the CEFC China Energy deal that Hunter was trying to finance,
but that's actually what all of this entails. The CEFC China Energy deal into a multi billion dollar investment. And told Rosewood Seneca Partners, of which Hunter was part of also with John Carrey step Son, everybody's get involved. The next thing that they pointed to is that Biden tended other business meetings allegedly with Hunter and with his Chinese business partners. What he said repeatedly is that they were at the Four Seasons hotel. People had were having lunch
and stopped in. Hunter said, quote, I may be trying to start a company or try to do something with these guys, and could you And he says if I'm around, and he'd show up, referencing directly his father. Furthermore, the FBI had authenticated Hunter Biden's laptop a year before you and I even knew it existed, after it had been turned into the computer repells.
Yeah, not only did it have the hallmarks.
Of Russian disinformation, they knew it was true before even the press knew about it, and still did not ever offer any proof or any of that my other personal favorites and some of the tawdry details. Hunter actually deducted hooker and sex club payments from his taxes. Classy thing to do. Obviously, the FBI division that investigated foreign spies directly was involved in the Biden probe. The investigation into Biden actually had some porn related origins because of some
of the content that was on his laptop. Prosecutors wanted to charge Hunter with felonies, but he ended up with misdemeanors, so they specifically noted that per the level of tax evation that he conducted his business dealings, the text messages and more, it was very clear that he had willfully went out of his way not to pay his taxes,
as evidence by the prostitution ride offs. The Biden Department of Justice specifically actually blocked that investigation at multiple turns according to the irs whistleblower, and that the whistleblower's boss actually corroborated all multiple other claims that were made. Hunter also currently does not have to, under the terms of his deal, pay taxes on four hundred thousand dollars of
income that he received from Bearisma Holdings. Who out there in this world doesn't have to pay tax on four hundred grand?
Can you imagine that? Imagine being in such a sweet deal.
You could trade off of your dad's name, get four hundred grand, get a sweetheart deal, and then still not have to pay taxes on it, and then finally crystled. My personal favorite agents wanted to search Hunter Biden's family homes, but were shot down due to the optics of the situation. According to these whistleblowers. So I mean, look at every turn, we're seeing political interference here. And Hunter, you know, look, his defense is quite literally I was a crack addict,
and that's what he say said. My father had no interest in this at the time, and I was in the midst of dealing with addiction. But Biden, at this point, he's got to prove it. There's this clear allegation here made in these texts and through authenticated whistleblowers that have come before under oath, before Congress, multiple parts of this have been have been verified. The Biden family continues to brush this aside and say that this isn't even worth
looking into. They literally invited the guy to the freaking state dinner with the Indian prime minister. The day after that, he gets a plea deal before Congress, and all of these text messages are plea deal before prosecutors, and this all comes out.
So this is you were worried about optics, you mightn't want to.
This is think that.
One some of the most disgusting federal corruption that we have seen yet, just because of how naked it is and how much he actually just got off most of the time. Just don't even investigated.
Here, they investigated and gave him a little sweetheart deal.
Yeah, I mean, listen, to be clear, this is coming from Republicans who had nothing to say when it was Jared Kushner. So hypocrisy, etcetera, etcetera, no doubt about it. But you know, sometimes political attacks are also real, and clearly the press feels like they have been humiliated. They were willing to cover for him to a point, and now when you have these kind of details they have
to ask him about. That's why in that clip we played, I mean, we were going through the list of It was CNN, it was New York Times, it was NBC, it was CBS, it was every mainstream outlet that felt like for their own sake of credibility they had to ask something on this. Now, listen, what do we know with regard to the text message. We know that Hunter was blatantly brazenly using his name and his proximity to power that would be his dad to try to score
lucrative business deals. Now, the claim in the text is that Joe Biden was sitting right there. Biden has maintained he never even had a conversation with Hunter about any of his business deals. Now that claim, his spokespeople have been remarkably unwilling to reiterate.
At this point.
They now will say like he wasn't involved, but they haven't gone so far to say once again that he didn't even speak to Hunter about those business deals.
So the President has a lot of questions to answer. You know, is that still true?
Do you still maintain you had no conversations with him about it? Where were you on that day? Is it true that you were sitting next to him? Now listen, it's also true possible he was sitting there. I had no idea, you know what his son, in the throes
of addiction, was texting to this Chinese businessman. But this is way past the point that you can just brush it off, because even if you accept the best case scenario that Joe Biden had nothing to do with this, this level of discusting, trading on your father's name to secure, you know, deals for yourself is grotesque, even if it's not unfortunately, even if it's not illegal.
Of course, yeah, Look to be clear, I mean, unfortunately, it's not illegal to say my father, my father, my father, and then shake down a foreign guy for millions of dollars guess what is illegal? Not paying your taxes. He didn't even pay his taxes. I didn't even mention this that I have in previous segments. Remember this, Crystal. He owed two point two million dollars in taxes, in back taxes that he was not able to pay and did
not have financially. He had to go to a Democratic mega don or Hollywood lawyer to pay his taxes for him, and the guy gave it to him as a loan or whatever to avoid the federal gift tax. I mean, who amongst us has forgotten to pay our taxes, not had the money about it, then gone to a rich friend of our dads to bail our asses out. And that's, by the way, one of the ways that he's able to circumvent and go towards the misdemeanor charge is it's not like it's unpaid. It got paid. Yeah, Now, I
paid you guys what you needed. That was part of the cover up. Well, the fact that he had access to that money in the first place is it self evidence of political corruption. So you know, I'm hopped up about this one just because it's so brazen, the level of shakedown that's happening here. I mean, look at that text message. He reads like a thug.
You know.
He's like, my dad is gonna come and screen on. My dad's gonna come and beat up with your dad if you don't pay me millions of dollars. And that's the craziest thing is all of this worked. He actually did get paid one hundred thousand dollars from Barisma. He actually did raise tons of money through Roseman Seneca Partners, then his BHG Holdings Group inside of inside of China.
He remember this, He says that he's no longer on the board of the holdings group inside of China, he still has a vested financial interest to this day millions of dollars inside of China. The GOP report that came out in twenty twenty detailed multiple wire transfers up to the tunes of hundred thousands of dollars, of which Biden, Hunter Biden and James Biden, Biden's brother. We're literally using one hundred grand as a slush fund to buy MacBook
pros for themselves and their relatives. I mean it is as and then the audacity to then write off some of your ilicit you know, like sex capades, effectively on your taxes.
On top of all of that.
So you can blame addiction and all of that all you want, but here's the truth. And you've always made this point. Most addicts they get caught, you know, whenever they boost like a radio out of a car, and they get their ass thrown in jail, and they don't get second, third, fifteenth chances. They don't get the daddy bailing them out of prison.
Well, there's the proximity to power, peace and knowing the right people, and there's the you know, two tier system of justice that oftentimes lets the wealthy off the hook. I mean, how many tax dodgers, how many wealthy tax dodgers never get any sort of enforcement action, And it is wrong. I am much more in favor of a law and order, white collar, tough on crime approach because overwhelmingly who the IRS goes after is the poor and
the working poor and the working class. So unfortunately, the way that Hunter got away with this, like you said, like mischaracterizing these loans, these payments as loans, all of this sort of shenanigans. Unfortunately, it is quite common and people do routinely get away with it, even when their daddy isn't the Vice president. But you know, in those instances, it's an attack on the integrity of our sort of
like system of fairness and justice. In this instance, it's also an attack on just the integrity of the office of the President of the United States and raises a lot of questions about you know, potential malign influences and how this would impact his governments, which is incredibly serious.
Yeah, I think that's Look, that's all we can say about it in terms of the further investigation. The GOP is going to be holding hearings. Let's put this up there on the screen. As I said, you know, Hunter appeared at the state dinner and his father maintains the only reaction he has to the whole thing is quote that he loves his son. And then you would know, Crystal, as we will recall from the debate stage in twenty twenty, he said he did nothing wrong and I love my son.
Now it's just I love my son after he's.
Gotten it, and drop that first part real quick.
That part really bothers me too. It's basically emotional blackmail. Nobody doubts a parent doesn't love their child. Actually, the problem is you loved him so much you let him
get away with all this stuff under your norse. Oh maybe you helped him out about it with a little bit of the ten percent for the big guy, and in fact, if you were able to prove that you had nothing to do with it, and that at the end of the day, this was basically parental malfeasance, where you're like, I loved him too much to say anything.
I think a lot of people could empathize with that.
Yeah, but he refuses to tell us the truth about the very basics of the situation.
Well, and I think this has gotten past the point now where he can just dodge questions on it forever. You know, if he ever does another mainstream interview again, if he ever subjects himself to any sort of a debate situation, whether it's in the Democratic primary or in the general election, he's going to have to answer difficult questions about this. I think it's gone past the point of him just being able to ignore it and get away with an answer like I love my son.
Yep.
Absolutely right.
All right, guys, we have some new polling that we can share with you this morning about where the Republican primary race stands, and also where the general election potential general election matchup. Stan put this first piece up on the screen. This is a new NBC News poll that shows Donald Trump gaining pretty significantly from their last poll, which was done in April, So this was pre the last poll was done pre indictment, documents indictment. This one
has done post documents indictment. It shows Trump surging six points to take fifty one percent, so a bear outright majority there, and perhaps even more difficult for Ron DeSantis. He actually dropped in the polls more than Trump rose. So you've got Trump at fifty one, you now have DeSantis at twenty two percent. That is a nine point drop from April. And it really demonstrates Sager something that we have been theorizing, which is it's the more candidates that get.
In this race, the more difficult it is for DeSantis.
You had Mike Pence go up a point, You have Chris Christy actually grabbing five percent of a vote at this point, out polling, at least in this particular poll, individuals like Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, but every one of those little low A point up for Vivekaramaswamio, a point up for Nicki halee O five points for Chris Christy. That's not coming out of Trump, that's coming directly out of Ron DeSantis, which is why he has fallen off nine points and is now sitting at twenty two percent
in this NBC News pole. Now, all caveats you know included here important to remember. I would take all of this polling with a grain of salt. But I always think the direction of the polls is actually more instructive
than the absolute numbers. And so the fact that this poll confirms what most but not all, other polls have shown that Trump within the Republican primary has you know, at least maintained and probably expanded his lead, is you know, another sort of dire warning for DeSantis and the other hopefuls.
Oh, you're absolutely right. I mean, I think the issue mainly is that people try to focus on one poll, but then they don't go into the direction.
The direction is a disaster.
And the thing is is that if it's one, okay, but every single one that we have gotten post indictment shows a bump for Trump. Every single one that we have shown Dysantis announcement shows either a slight increase or an overall drop as he continues to campaign, and in fact, this was part of the issue with his overall launch. What you and I were saying, it's very rare that you're the center of the attention. You better make sure that it goes super well and that you dominate the airwaves.
And the problem for DeSantis is he's not the former president, he's not the one getting indicted, and he's got nothing to do with what's going on in Russia. So he's basically a side show as all other other campaigners are. Now though we should note, let's put this up there please on the screen the general election matchup, that in this it's not like things are going all that way well for Trump. It still shows Joe Biden at forty
nine percent and Trump at forty five. But if you apply previous polling misses for Trump, that would basically have him virtually tied. The original Crystal and sager Ul was add four or four to five for any poll that involved the name Donald Trump, specifically in a general election, and if you do, they basically would show the two of them in a virtual tie, especially whenever you consider
the razor thin margins in the electoral college. So by many accounts like Trump, he may be weaker, you know, maybe although we haven't seen all of the evidence just yet that at least enough for me to convince that he's done. I don't think you can ever really get
to that point. And then for DeSantis, I mean, the poll after poll after poll after pole that we have with likely GOP primary voters doesn't seem to be good for him overall since this his campaign started, and indictment for Trump has just been the greatest political boon he could ever ask for.
Yeah, And just to give people a sense of how much things have shifted away from DeSantis back in January was actually January February was kind of the peak of his polling before he even got in the race. His average, I'm looking at real clear politics, DeSantis's average was about thirty percent, and Trump was down under fifty percent. And when you're keeping Trump under fifty percent, you got a
case you can make there. You know, if I consolidate all of you know, all these other people fall by the wayside, and I consolidate all of their six and seven point percentages that they're garnering here, then I can overtake him. The problem is now DeSantis's average sits at about twenty one percent, So that's a nine point drop from where he was before he even got in the race. And you know, since he got in, he's been more
or less flat. He's a little bit down from where he was when he first jumped in the race, but not much.
It's more or less even.
But the case that the Dysantis people were making, you guys might recall, is before he got in the race, they were like, well, sure, he's only at thirty percent now. But once we get in and we start making the case, we haven't even tried to start campaigning yet, so that obviously hasn't come to fruition, at least not yet.
And in fact, the more people.
Jump in the race, and we had a few more entrants last week, I think we had a Will Hurd, former congressman, jump into the race as well.
Is he going to garner a lot of percentage points?
No, But every one of these people, if they're even taking a single point, that's coming out of DeSantis's hide, not out of Trump. And so actually the longer this goes on, the more the field fills out, the more people consolidate around Trump, the more these indictments, sort of hard Republican GOP base support around him, and the more and more difficult this becomes, you know, on the general election piece. One of DeSantis's arguments is that he's more electable,
and right now the polls bear that out. I mean, I don't know if that holds. There's no guarantees, etc. But he has a case he can make here. But it's not clear that the Republican base a really cares about that. It's not clear that they really believe it, because they've seen the way that poles have been wildly off before. Trump was at this this confab of religious conservatives that was here in DC. He gave a speech
to what everyone is describing as basically like a rapturous crowd. Now, remember this is these are this is the religious right. This is the group that supposedly he should be having some issues with because he's moderated a bit on abortion vis a vi Ron DeSantis, Let's take a listen to how he handled that, uh, that issue in particular at this conference.
As you're president, I will continue to stand proudly for pro life policies, just as I did for four strong years. That's why when I'm reelected, I will continue to fight against the demented late term abortionists and the Democratic Party who believe in unlimited abortion on demand and even executing babies after birth.
So sounds to me like he's given the crowd there is again a religious right crowd. Sounds to me like he's given them everything that they want and they are complete letely on board.
So a lot of the critique of his abortion.
Position is unwillingness to backs, for example, a national ban, something that Mike Pence has got on board with, or even calling what was the word he used Ronda Santis' six week band. I think he said it was brutal, something like that. They don't seem to harsh, that's it. They don't seem too concerned about that. He seems to have found a way to message, at least to the grassroots, maybe not the grass tops that they are responding to.
Yeah, let's put this one up on the screen too, just to evidence even more of what you're talking about, Cristel, which is that the faith in Trump dominated the religious conservative gathering, and specifically it was Chris Christie who said he was trying to run for president and Trump's political career who was booed. Actually on the stage, Christy said, quote, you can boo all you want, but that just shows you, ultimately that the case of Pence, of DeSantis, well a
Pence in particular. Yeah, I'm the real religious conservative. Guess what, dude, they like.
Trump more than they like you.
And this is something where religious conservatives, I think right can say, at the end of the day, he is the one who got Row versus Way done, and yeah, Pence, you're the one who wants to go further all of that, but you don't have the same proven track record. So you know that case that a lot of these people were making against him, I just don't see it right now.
Yeah, I mean Christy is at least in this poll, is actually nipping at Pence's heels, which is interesting. I mean, listen, I think it speaks to the fact that is Christy going to get much higher than like the five percent he's at right now?
Maybe don't.
I think he's probably got a max of like ten percent. But it does show you that there is something to just being totally unabashed. I mean, Christy has been I've always thought just on sheer political talent. I think Chris Christy is a very talented political actor and always has been.
And so the fact that he's.
Willing to go in front of what is clearly a hostile crowd and just say what he thinks and put it out there like that, there is some small percentage of the GOP base that is responding to that show of strength right now, and maybe ultimately it's an enough to weaken Trump, but I you know, it's hard for me to see that given where things stand today.
But again, whether it's Chris Christie, whether.
It's Mike Pence, whether it's veck Ramswami, whether it's Nicki Haley, Tim Scott, Willhard, Basa Hutchinson, what's the good North Dakota Governor Bergham Birgham, Yes, any of these people they're getting any of the vote.
It's a problem for Ronda Santas.
And by the way, I just saw a piece this morning Saga about how you know his early state strategy, which depends on Iowa New Hampshire still looking okay in Iowa New Hampshire's kind of falling apart, and they his super PAC isn't even running ads there. Apparently he hasn't gotten traction on the ground and struggling really to pick up speed in the Granite States.
Yeah, because New Hampshire's Trump country. I mean, it's his white, working class state. It's the one that he very first won in twenty sixteen. Far less religious than Iowa Catholics and Evangelicals who vote in that primary. And yeah, look, you know what doesn't take a genius to look at the overall demographic, stand up the base that votes in there, and say that the DeSantis case in New Hampshire actually relied a hell of a lot more on Iowa than
it does rely on anything else. He needs to win Iowa. If he doesn't, I think he's done.
Yeah, absolutely, I kind of think he's done. All right, Right, Yeah, you never know what's going to happen.
Let's get to a story that is, you know, really kind of shocking and very disturbing coming out of Montana.
Put this up on the screen.
So there was a freight train that was carrying hot asphalt and molten sulfur that derailed into a river, into Yellowstone River there in that state. Now, what it looks like happened and NTSB is still investigating, is that actually the bridge itself collapsed and that's what's caused this train derailment spilling these toxic substances into the river there. This is a river that is, you know, really relied upon, both in terms of drinking water also in terms of
agriculture and irrigation. So this is very troubling. The government does not have a great track record, and we'll get into that.
In a minute.
Of being honest about the risk to citizens of these type of toxic waste spills, let me read you a little bit of this. They say the train cars were carrying hot asphalt and molten sulfur. Official shutdown drinking water intakes downstream while they evaluated the danger after the six a m accident. By the way, this happened on Saturday, and AP reporter witnessed a yellow substance coming out of some of the tank cars.
They also have some conjecture.
Here, and I think this was from some of the local reporting about what caused this bridge to collapse, because I mean, that's an incredibly stunning and disturbing turn of events that this part of our critical part of our infrastructure could just completely crumble and collapse like this. Apparently, Yellowstone River saw record flooding in twenty twenty two that caused extensive damage to Yellowstone National Park and adjacent towns.
Apparently there have been repeated years of heavy river flows. The high water flow translates to high forces acting directly on the pier and importantly on the river bottom. This expert said, you can have erosion or scour that removes support from the foundation. High forces translate to a high likelihood of a structural or foundation failure that could act as a trigger to initiate the accident.
We also know that there had been an old.
Highway bridge that cars used to traverse that paralleled that railroad bridge, and they had actually taken that highway old highway bridge down because it was determined to be in imminent danger of failing. So it's right alongside this railroad bridge. They had taken that one down, and now you have the railroad bridge completely collapsing. According to their reporting, not immediately clear when that bridge that collapse was constructed or when it was last inspected. Let's go ahead, guys and
put these images up on the screen. We've got a little bit a video of someone who appears to be have been driving by the accident, and then we've got some overhead drone footage. You can see a number of these freight cars collapsed.
Into the river.
You can see there that yellow substance that reporters were saying they saw spilling out into this river. Now, some of the experts have said that the type of material that spilled here shouldn't cause a problem because while it's kept in a sort of molten state within these tanker cars, once it hits the cold water that it solidifies, So hopefully there shouldn't be much problem downstream.
We will see if that is the case.
Let's put these next images up on the screen so people can just get a sense of the catastrophe here. I mean, you can see just twisted metal and these freight cars collapsed into this beautiful scenic river there in Yellowstone. You can see the way that the bridge just completely collapsed and crumbled here. Thank God that no one was injured. And I was thinking about the know that the engineers who were on board this train and how terrifying and
shocking this must have been for them. Thank God that no one was injured or lost their life, But still a deeply troubling situation with a lot of questions.
Still sober, Yeah, absolutely, I mean the issue. First of all, this is a disaster. This is one of my favorite places in the world. Love Yellstone is one of the
most If anybody gets the opportunity, please do it. Also, I read a very troubling stat that the vast majority of people who visit Yellstone don't even get out of their cars or just go to the visitor go for get out of the car and walk, you know, into non designated just like little wooden areas with a sign actually go and explored a little.
But you know what, it's one of the best places if.
You're physically ready for that, because I've also heard horror stories of people who learn are not fit yeah, and don't even bring water and are wearing like they're you know, sandals, their crocs, act whatever, and they're like.
I got to go for a hike. I got to park service. These people are they know exactly what they're doing. It's funny like when you hike the Grand Canyon, like three miles in, there's a.
Lady who's like, hey, you got enough water, You're good.
They're like, where are you going? You're going to that far? And then if you if you are going for it, they'll be like, you don't have an.
Water to do that.
They're like, you should turn around.
I actually literally watch that happen. So shout out to the NPS. Yeah, for sure, I.
Have a tragic I won't even share. But it's important to be careful yecally when he is involved.
Correct, always be careful with The point though, is that this one of the most treasured national monuments are national parts. Is an area that millions of Americans visit every year. Actually more people are visiting it more than ever. And the problem that we have here is that the overall accountability into the railroads and to the current Rail Safety Act and the way that that is still being held up in Congress right now, mostly by conservative Republicans like
Ted Cruz. As I understand, it is the main opposition to this entire thing, and it's a huge issue because the initial East Palestine derailment obviously got a lot of attention I think it should have. But the problem is is that some of it is diminishing now over time, and the energy around getting the actual rail industry regulated whenever they receive billions and billions and billions of dollars in subsidies from the federal govern and then still basically
are allowed to operate with impunity. That's the overall problem that we still are not taking our eye or we taken our eye off unfortunately as a country.
Yeah, and I have an East Palestine update that is pretty stunning that I want to get to in just a minute. But I want to say with this particular derailment, and NTSB is still investigating, so we don't have all of the answers here, but it appears this raises a lot of questions about our infrastructure and you know, inspections and listen, we have long known that we have a lot of crumbling infrastructure that needs to be tended to
and rebuild. And so the fact that you know, in a wealthy country such as ours, that you have bridges just collapsing from you know, normal wear and tear is it's embarrassing.
It's horrifying.
It's terrifying because you have no idea what is the next one to go. I mean, actually, there was a there's a critical bridge in Tennessee crossing the Mississippi River that had to be closed on an emergency basis because engineers saw strtual flaws that could lead to that collapsing and it totally you know, destroyed traffic and snarled traffic there for months and months.
We're just you know, we.
Have really really underinvested in our own basic infrastructure. And I think that's an important story out of this one as well. You mentioned East Palestine, Go ahead and put this up on the screen.
We just learned that, as you.
Guys recall, the thing that led to all of this toxic fallout and disaster and potentially you know, carcinogens and residents being incredibly sick and nauseous and headaches and all of the rest was they did this quote unquote controlled bird which turned the whole train into this basically like bomb fireball that the citizens of that town in Ohio and really the whole region are still reckoning with the fallout from and have never been able to get straight
answers about exactly what risks there are to their health today and into the future. Well, we're now learning it looks like they may not have had to do that controlled.
Burn at all. You had an owner.
Of five of the toxic vinyl chloride cars that Norfolk Southern detonated over East Palestine said they told Norfolk Southern three different times they saw no evidence that vinyl chloride inside the cars was quote polymerizing and at risk of
an uncontrolled explosion. Basically, the idea here is that Norfolk Southern was more interested in getting these cars off the track so that they could get back to business as usual and running their trains and turning their record breaking profits and doing their stock buybacks and screwing their workers. They wanted to get back to that as soon as possible. So even though there, according to this testimony, was not an appearance that there was an imminent risk with regard
to these cars. And in fact, the temperature and this is really critical, was going down and this is something that the NTSB confirmed, or the EPA rather confirmed, the temperature was actually going down in those cars. That indicates
they did not need to do this at all. They could have waited and it still would have been you know, required cleanup, et cetera, but it would not have been nearly the risk to the local residents that this quote unquote controlled burn which released all of this into the atmosphere and into the ground and into the water, that that ended up being.
Yeah, that control burn was what spread the contaminants really all over the place. And was also highlighted by the residents. Obviously we had like a genuine almost mushroom cloud like situation that developed over the area. It asked a lot of questions about air quality. That's what a lot of people said. It was after that control burn that they
saw their pets and others suffering. So right, That's why I just think it's very important that we never take our eye off the situation and that you know, if that's true basically what he's testified to therefore before the panel, well, I mean, then somebody needs to pay for that. Somebody needs to actually do a real analysis as pre and posted as to what the damage specifically from this incident are and then actually find this company get to the
bottom of it. As a public it was one of those that flared up almost immediately but has largely been forgotten.
Yeah, and I want to give credit to the folks a status koop because they have stayed all over it. And in fact, even before this testimony came out, they had obtained a recording of an EPA official who didn't know he was being recorded, admitting that there was no evidence to support Norfolk Southern's decision to detonate those vinyl chloride cars. Quote, they did this to get the train lines open. That's according to a hazardous waste expert who
listened to this leaked audio. But basically, this is what residents have suspected all along, that the controlled burn wasn't because it was the best way to deal with these hazardous chemicals, wasn't because they were concerned about their health and well being. It was because Norfolk Southern wanted to get back to making money as quickly as possible, and a parent currently the EPA, it seems, may have had
some knowledge of that. So it opens up a lot of questions about even more questions about exactly what was done here and the way that this town and their residents were effectively sacrificed to the whims of this company and their desire to continue earning their record profits.
Yeah.
Absolutely, and look, can't take your eye off of it, and we'll continue to be updated the status QUP guys are doing a really good job on this story.
All right, guys, we had to cover this because we talked about the friggin submersible tragic situation.
I don't want to downplay it.
All the lives on board that were loss but you know, there were a lot of warnings in advance that perhaps the whull of this submersible, the Titan, that was designed supposedly to go down and view the records of the Titan and go of the Titanic and go, you know, really far underwater, that perhaps the materials this was constructed with were not sufficient for the immense amount of water pressure that comes to bear on these craft.
So lo and behold.
It turns out that the US Navy apparently knew that the craft had spontaneously imploded and that all lives on board were lost, even as everybody here and significantly around the world were wondering about whether these individuals were still alive. The families were wondering if they were still alive. There was a countdown on when their oxygen would run out, and there was a huge mustering of resources, footed by the way by the US taxpayer to try to locate and rescue any potential survivors.
Here.
Put this up on the screen because it's really something. So this is after we had the news that okay, they found a debris field. Okay, it looks like it was an implosion. It looks like no one survived. The US Navy heard what it believed was the Titan implosion days ago. Underwater microphones designed to spot enemy submarines first.
Detected the Titan tragedy.
So this is Wall Street Journal reporting that again, we did not get act to until after they had found the debris field and said, looks like no one survived.
Let me read you a little bit of this article.
They say a top secret military acoustic detection system designed to spot enemy submarines first heard what the US Navy suspected was the Titan submersiful implosion hours after the submersible began its voyage. Officials involved in the search set the Navy began listening for the Titan almost as soon as
a sub lost communications. Shortly after the submersibles appearance on Sunday, the US system detected what it suspected was the sound of an implosion near the debris site discovered Thursday, and reported its findings to the Coastguard commander on site. US Defense officials set now here is their cope of why they didn't tell us or the families or the rescuers. I mean, they say they told the Coastguard that was commanding the rescue here, but the public certainly had no idea.
They say.
The Navy couldn't say definitively this sound came from the Titan. Discovery did play a role though, in narrowing the scope of this for the vessel before its debris was discovered on Thursday. Now to get specific, they say they shared their findings with the Coast Guard immediately, which led the search. The US held off making public what noise it had detected because it wanted to ensure search and rescue operations continued and couldn't say for sure it was an implosion.
The families were informed Thursday of the Navy's findings when the search and rescue team discovered the debris field.
According to a US defensive thing.
So why did we wait ninety six hours and string the entire US public along on top of the.
Media with family.
I feel bad for them too, and look, honestly, it kind of suspects what I thought the first time somebody asked me about it, I said, there's no way these people are alive. They're obviously dead, you know, especially whenever you look at the safety mechanism. And that's actually all the data indicates is that the contact was lost at nine thousand feet and the sound was heard at the exact moment of that by these US Navy sensors. Unfortunately,
it looks like they you know, perished immediately. I guess one thing that you can keep in mind is that it happened like literally a hypersonic speed because of how far down glove.
That's the way that they went to all the available options. That's it was instantaneous but horrifying.
But the part of the problem is that the whole public was left to you know, basically imagine a scenario where they're alive, and they're together, and they don't have a toilet or bathroom and all this when the preponderance of evidence at the time was like they're almost certainly dead. They should have informed the families privately and just said look. Also, there's a lot of questions we share this with foreign governments. I mean, how many millions of dollars were spent on
getting rescue equipment to the site. I know that there was a French piece of machinery that was on its way. Multiple other governments were involved in sort of source search and rescue. There was like an all hands on deck situation for people who were looking to try and to save this when the you know, the stark reality was is that it's almost certainly over and this is a
debris recovery situation. Debris recovery is very different in terms of the level of money that you would spend, the resources, and then the family itself, you know, giving them false hope for four days, and also you know the mom for example, of this nineteen year old, like you got to give their peace and just like giving people, giving people hope even for ninety six hours, she's not We're going to forget about that, you know, that that time where you could have just made it easier, you know,
at the time and just been like, look, it's weird, it's almost certain it'll be a miracle, of.
Which it's true.
It was truly cruel.
And you know, they went public with these alleged banging noises that they were problem that they were hearing that you know, was giving people some modicum of hope that oh maybe there that's the sound of the survivors ramming the submersible against the wreckage to try to attract attention or whatever. So it went public with that, but not the much more conclusive evidence that basically the moment that
contact was lost. There was this sound that very much appeared to be an implosion that was detected by the
US Navy. And you know, there were a lot of warning signs about the construction of this craft we played for you before the video game controller and the way this seemed to be really Jerry rincked together the totally blase attitude that the CEO of this company, who was expected to have perished aboard as well, that he took towards safety, the fact that they did not get it classed or expected to make sure that it could withstand the extreme pressure of this level of you know, deep
sea diving, That they used materials carbon fiber material that had never been tested before, that it was serious enough concerns that they had their own employee that was a whistleblower, that they had experts in the field that were routinely writing the letters expressing concerns about this. And listen, obviously, you know there's a level of risk anytime you engage in one of these types of extreme activities.
But actually the deep sea.
Diving technology has existed for quite a while. It's the industry has been very proud to be relatively accident free and completely fatality free. So you know this now is a sort of black mark on the whole industry. James Cameron, director, who had done He's a submersible expert and enthusiast. He actually designed his own craft for I don't know if you guys remember this deep sea challenge that he did where he went way deeper than actually the tanic was.
He went to the deepest depths of the ocean in Mariana Trench, and he was sounding off about, you know how tragic and predictable ultimately this situation was as it unfolded. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say.
Well, I've been down there many times and I know the Rex site very well, as does my friend Bob Ballard. I've been made thirty three dives. I actually calculated that I've spent more time on the ship than the captain
did back in the day. Now, this is a mature art and many people in the community were very concerned about this sub and a number of you know, of the top players in the deep submergence engineering community even wrote letters to the company saying that what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers and that needed
to be certified and so on. So I'm struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet he themed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result.
So true, and I had not put that together, but.
Of course he did.
Parallels exactly.
The parallels are incredibly eerie that all of these warnings, the you know, the analogous iceberg, all of these warnings went completely unheeded and you know, ends in disaster and tragedy.
Yeah, it is sad, I mean, but I think, really I love Cameron too, the way he's like, I've spent more time on the ship than the captain did. He's like, I've you know, but at the same time, like he's obviously right, and he even said he's like, look, I understand what the guy was saying about regulation. But also, you know, we went to real engineering depths. I read even more about some of his criticisms, specifically of everything that Ocean Gate was doing, and at a very basic level,
they were signed up for disaster years ago. For example, they were using materials that are used for space travel, like carbon fiber as opposed to different ones that they would have used, because it was strong enough in space, but wasn't designed to actually withstand the amount of pressure that you will face it a deep sea. That's just such a basic engineering thing. That was a cost cutting maneuver and it's meant to be seen as high tech by the Ocean Gate CEO whenever he was building it,
and ultimately he put people's lives in danger. And multiple people who had been on the sub previously, we played that before about somebody said it was a suicide mission. Others said that you know, that they were, that they felt dangerous, and that there were some there were cracking sounds one of the times that they'd been on. Funnily enough, a mister Beast put out a text message apparently he
was invited on the Titanic submersible. I mean, you could see a world where mister Beast, as part of the one of his videos, actually went on. So a lot of people dodged a bullet, you know, by at least knowing that this was dangerous. But some people didn't do enough research or you know, they took they took the claims at face value, And it does seem that this was an open secret in the subcommunity that they were like, hey, this is a real problem. And you know, I didn't
even know this. I did not know that, like we reached the depths of the Mariana Trench. The US Navy did it, or some guys did in like nineteen fifty, so it's not like we haven't been doing this for a long time.
Yeah.
Same.
I was like, Wow, that's crazy. So apparently we've had that capability for a long time. But that just means that if it's been that old, it's how extraordinary it was to still do such a shoddy job of building this current thing and taking people.
Out of you want to hear something that's kindastic. Apparently downloads of My Heart Will Go On Oh, from the Titanic soundtrack have really skyrocketed.
It's a good song and Netflix.
Netflix is bringing back the Titanic. Oh good, lineup, good next week.
It's a great movie.
Are morbid?
All right? Yeah, people are morbid. I also saw some memes going around where it's like one hundred and fifty year timeline and it's like Titanic casualties, and it spiked in nineteen twelve and then waited until twenty twenty three and then spiked up to four again.
So look, sorry, sorry for laughing.
I had to.
It's the Internet.
People are mean, all right, Zacher.
Really looking at it, well, it's hard to tell you why I cannot stand Megan Margle so much. After all, there are a lot of know nothing, attention seeking former actresses in this world. Part of it is because I do love the UK so much and I think we effectively exported our worst cultural asset to hurt their Royal family.
And the other part of it, though, is the way that the media has always lapped up her obviously false claims and fed into her delusions of grandeur, which culminated in her and her husband, Prince Harry, officially leaving the Royal family. Their departure was sold initially as principled. Megan had allegedly been ostracized by the Royal family because of her race, according to her.
And the British press.
Was just too mean to her, but the reality of the situation after they left is actually clear. They left because she wasn't getting enough attention. The Royals had rules. You had to you could be a star, but you couldn't be bigger than the head Royal, and you couldn't take positions or star in movie. Of course, as South Park is so hilariously put it, they just wanted privacy, right, which is why they moved to California to set up
shop and a production company. And a few years now into that production company, we're getting a very good view into how big of Charlatan's both Meghan and Harry really appear to be a perfect view into big entertainment companies which are apparently dumb enough to feed these people's delusions of grandeur. First, we already brought you the news that
Spotify is ending its relationship with Harry and Meghan. Reporting indicates that they were paid some twenty million dollars for twelve episodes, and despite this astronomically high rate per episode, Megan apparently could not find the time to actually conduct interviews herself and would have someone else do it. She would then edit in her voice as if she was the one doing in the interview, one of the craziest
things I have ever heard. But there are even more details on the Spotify project which are just too good. Harry apparently reneged on many parts of his deal because he just had too hard of a time coming up with something to actually say. His ideas ranged from a podcast on veterans issues to one on misinforma to a point of view of someone new living in America. Quote. Hey at one point considered co hosting a show with
comedian Hassan Minaj. My personal favorite anecdote was one serious Harry idea where he would interview people like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Mark Zuckerberg, but effectively focus on only their childhood trauma. He also proposed interviewing Pope Francis about religion quote in a show centered around fatherhood, and then a series covering societal matters like climate change. That's not everything, though.
The couple also had.
A one hundred million dollar deal with Netflix not only to sell their own personal story, but to come up with groundbreaking new series where they would tea taken seriously. As creative types, they believed quote they were qualified to tackle the authority topic of misinformation.
Why is that?
Because apparently they know a lot about the topic after having to deal with the British press. That's why they totally were qualified to talk and produce an entire documentary about it Luckily, I guess for all of us. They were so lazy and so inept at actually getting the
project off the ground. Netflix killed the deal. They also killed a so called animated children's show that Megan Markele was involved with, and they killed quote at least two TV ideas that the couple had pitched in the last year. I swear I'm not making this up. One was a project pitched by the couple was described as quote Emily in Paris, but with a man. The other was quote a family friendly TV show about a gay character that
was effectively derivative of the show Heartstopper. My personal favorite line is this from the New Wall Street Journal expose on the couple. Quote. Archwell employees and associates say that the company often lacks direction, that its founders at times seem surprised by the work required to finish entertainment projects. Most potential initiatives follow a similar route. Big idea subpar execution makes sense, especially if you never actually had to
work hard a day in your life. But as much as I wish that this was just about awful Airy and Megan and how bad they are, it's a story of giant entertainment companies showering the undeserving talent in cash. Harry and Meghan did not get the idea to get Netflix to pay them a fat stack to come up
with these ideas. They stole it from the real duke and duchess of turning yourself into a brand, Barack and Michelle Obama, who left office and almost immediately started signing insanely lucrative deals with the exact same companies, Spotify and Netflix. Yet a similar story has already played out there. Spotify did not renew its deal with the Obamas because they rightfully thought, if you sign a deal with Obama, Obama would actually appear every once in a while on a podcast.
But they apparently don't want to do that. They want to produce content from behind the scenes that doesn't feature them as must because they're so special talent producers. A common theme is emerging here. People become famous, either through birth or public service, then they turned themselves into a brand. Obama himself ceased being an actual man a very long time ago. He is a multi million dollar deal, as
is his wife. After the book become fame, their job is to print as much cash in this lifetime as humanly possible while maintaining an iron death grip on the control of the Democratic Party. Obama himself has not been all that adept at actually producing good content. His National Park series on Netflix was a huge flop, generated almost no buzz. I personally also found it odd. Why is it an American president doing a series called National Parks
and then including parks about other countries? Whatever? I digress. The major takeaway from these two cases is how much money, leeway and cash that you can get when you are a cultural star with the right politics take people like us out of it. How insane is our current system. From comedy to politics to almost every sector of entertainment, there is an explosion of independent talent hustling, building real audiences,
connections with millions of people across the globe. Now some of them get paid, to be sure, but really only what the top point zero one percent. People like Joe Rogan, xQc. Others, they hustle their way there for years before they got paid. People like Obama, Harry and Megan, they jumped the line and they don't do any of the actual work. That drives That's what actually what drives me the craziest about this is like, you can quit.
The Royal fan and if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Chris L.
What are you taking a look at?
There is an extraordinary scandal unfolding in the lucrative world of behavioral science. One of the stars of the field, Francesca Gino, is being accused of repeated outright fraud, and in a deliciously.
Ironic twist, you really can't make this up.
She is said to have faked results in a study about honesty. An incredible story, humiliating for her employer that would be Harvard, the blue chip companies that sought out her services, the mainstream outlets that routinely quoted her, and also further calls into question some of the blockbuster behavioral science findings of the past two decades. All right, so let me give you a little bit of backstory here. Behavioral scientists typically attempt to id identify subtle prompts and
tendencies that influence how human beings act. How do you encourage more organ donation or healthier eating, or how.
Do you get consumers to buy a particular product.
It's essentially the study of shaping and manipulating human behavior without the subject really ever knowing what is happening.
Over the past few.
Decades, behavioral science has shot to prominence because it's obviously very valuable for corporations and governments to know the little psychological tricks that can keep you buying their goods or keep employees placated and supplicant or citizens compliant. Key research in the field, though, has already been called into question over the years, due primarily to an inability to replicate
many of the most blockbuster findings. So back in twenty eighteen, laboratories sought to recreate the results of twenty one different studies in the field. They were only able to do so in thirteen instances. Now, this was no minor affair, as BuzzFeed reported at the time. Quote the eight papers that did not fully replicate seven in the journal Science, one in Nature, have been cited hundreds of times in scientific literature, and many were widely covered by the media.
But this is small potatoes compared to the new revelations. At issue is a twenty twelve paper authored by Geno and a number of other co authors which relied on the results of three different studies. Those studies purported to show that people could be compelled to behave more honestly if they were asked to sign an honesty pledge at
the top of a form instead of at the bottom. However, a group of scientists that run a blog called data Colata they were able to demonstrate that some of the data used in the study had been tampered with and that that fake data had actually driven the results of that study and led to that finding. Now, the same group of crusading researchers they had found manipulated data in one of the other studies that also drove that same
blockbuster twenty twelve paper. So, for those who are keeping track at home, two out of the three honesty studies relied on dishonest information.
But that's not all the data.
C lot of folks have since published additional blogs revealing fabricated data in two other studies in which doctor Gina was involved, and they are promising one more. This has
caused an earthquake in the field. She was both a star and she collaborated widely with other researchers, all of whom are now wondering if the results of the studies they worked on with doctor Gina were real or fake, and The New York Times quota behavioral scientist Maurice Schweitzer as saying that the allegations are having large reverberations in the academic community because doctor Gino is someone who has so many collaborators, so many articles, who is really a
leading scholar in the field. And doctor Gino herself has
been placed on leave by her employer, Harvard University. It doesn't take an economics degree to understand the motivations in this field to create fake results, As The Chronicle of Higher Education put it quote, her expertise has made her in demand as a consultant speaker to some of the world's biggest companies and institutions, but Carti, Google, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Disney, Goldman, Sex, Honeywell, Nevardes, Procter and Gamble, and the US Air Force, Army, and Navy,
and as a source to media outlets from The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal to her website.
She has co authored more than one hundred and.
Thirty five academic articles and written books, including twenty eighteen's Rebel Talent, Why It Pays to Break the rules at work and in life.
That's an interesting one, isn't it. She's also been named one.
Of the world's forty best business school professors under forty and fifty most influential management thinkers. She is the type of expert who does ted talks and is highly sought after for corporate conferences and the like. And in order to get people to continue buying your books and paying for you to speak at their conferences, you got to keep churning out attention grabbing research which is highly relevant to corporate America and look study of human beings and
our particular irrationalities. That is inherently interesting, it's also potentially gross. Where, after all, is the line between nudging or shaping behavior and manipulative syups. What type of powerful psychological manipulations, for example, are being unleashed on our nation's teenagers to keep them addicted to their social media feeds even as they are
making them increasingly miserable. This is all big big business banks and arch corporations have taken to hiring their own in house behavioral scientists to make sure they are squeezing their customers and their workers for everything that they are worth. Bottom line, I guess we shouldn't be too shocked when the top researchers in the field of manipulation are caught engaging in their own manipulations.
And this one sager is so humiliating.
I mean, and if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premum subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com.
As you know, guys, we've been doing extensive coverage of that aborted coup effort in Russian and we're very excited now to get to talk to a resident of Moscow and a great friend, Yegor Kotkin. He is a great socialist thinker and writer. You can actually check them out on substack and we'll post links for all of his writings and where you can support him via bitcoin as well. But it's great to see you, my friend.
Good to see you man, Good to see you guys.
Yeah, it's a pleasure.
So while all of this was unfolding, you were there in Moscow watching it on Telegram, Twitter and all the other means. I mean, just take us through what this was like to live for live through for you.
Literally under siege.
No actually from the standpoint of a regular cities.
And you might completely miss this.
So in the SAT day, when the most events unfolded, I just met out the regime went back, and if I was glued to telegram channels and the bitter news, I would not even notice that.
Something is happening.
My boyfriend, who travels much more than me, he noticed in some places in he enters in most school there are some unusual activity more.
But again you could easily miss it because.
Basically all events will happened and mostly online and outside of Moscow, Moscow didn't. If you do not anticipate this through the news coming to Moscow, you might completely miss it. And now people just joke and that if someone went in the mountains on the weekend and now asking what happened, you can safely say nothing happened, because it.
It went back.
From the civil standpoint, it went back and it was almost nothing.
But from the political from political.
Standpoint and the historical standpoint, I mean, the picture is completely different.
Of course.
Yeah, so let's talk about that you brought up your mom before as a good view into like how regular Russians are internalizing propaganda, So like what is the view from your mother from a from an average Russian media consumer as to what the hell happened in this coupe.
Literally the first thing I did, I called to my mother Saturday morning asked what what does she know?
She didn't know nothing because uh.
Urgently putting message to the population was unplanned. Was at nine a m in Russia, so she missed it because she watched her news Friday evening, so no news yet. Then Saturday, Monday, the moon, she doesn't know what is because she didn't watch news yet, Putting's translation went mostly unnoticed to the most people.
And then when I ask hell again on Sunday, she said that.
Official version is well, there was some kind of movement. It was not good, but they didn't help anybody, So whould let them pass m And.
So explain to us what is the you know as best as you can. How do people largely feel about Progoson himself? How did they feel before this attempted cue? How do they feel after? Did they view him as a hero? Do they view him as a trader? Is it mixed? Is it complicated? What's your sense of that?
Well, Pregossion is mostly a media creature.
He was.
Propt to buy media in the last year because well, you have to understand how Russian there is to understand pregossion phenomena is, despite his public image, is very indecisive leader and say cowardly. So he loves to all hard decisions delegate to people below him.
Or just wait it out. When history of where it happened. So when it was.
UH stalemate in the Ukrainian War about a year ago happening UH, there was a vacuum, media vacuum for some kind of leaders of this war who showed the Russia doing something, and Prigordan just took this place.
And the media were happy.
Propaganda propaganda, what happened to use it for this purpose?
So they propped him his.
As not a mercenary leader, not a businessman my film, but as a true Russian hero, patriot and basically a spear plat of Russian in Ukraine. And I think that people believed. People believed it, of course, and I think he got high on the smell of his own parts, as it says, because he started act like his public person. He's actually had any political base. I mean, yes, show like he has up to twenty percent support from Russian population. But this is what the media push can give you.
You see this in America all the time, like where was twenty percent of Wounder support in democratic primaries. Once you see him in action, it disappears. So basically you have this manufactured support for pregossion. But he believed that
he actually have a political future. He starts brawling openly with the Russian Minister of Defense, and again it was very opportun for him because people who are supporting this world or even what this all to get over, which is majorge of population, they since that there is something the Russian military, Russian military leadership.
So when Prigordon started record his.
Viral videos giving them or given exam they thought that he might be the change for the better. So again it was everything that was media done, and he was using only the lack of presence by the actual leaders of the military and putting himself to use this opportunity.
But then you start talking.
Yes, well I was gonna ask what is your assessment of what this will mean for the Putin regime going forward?
As best as anyone could say.
Well, my first I probably say think what I think happened. It was not that much of a political act, I think is.
As much as we saw how things are being done in Puttin's regime and have been done for twenty years, just in open view for the first time, not under the rug. The rug got pulled away for a second. So I'm pretty sure that Russian rehythm is the works exactly this way. There are forces of power, There are different clients who compete with.
Each other for money, for power, for uh.
Stage job and so on, and the pujet is their high arbital, and there is a lot of threads, violent threads going under the ruck. Usually right now we just sols out in the open. But my sense that it wasn't nothing more that internal struggle that come out in the public political space, and the precaution did not probably expect the backlash he will get because the people were not ready to see this internal kitchen.
Outright on the.
Public view, because it became a historic moment, it became part of recorded history.
So he checked out. But I think for Putting it will be for a time being just fine.
Because as the high arbiter of Martia plants that Oligard plans that divide Russia, he still worked out the thing, judge fine. So he managed to pull through some deal. What kind of deal? No one knows exactly, but he managed to do this, so he proved his usefulness for the people who backed back the regime once again the same way, but now in the public usually going on under the run. And I think the fact that it enters in the space of public politics, it changes a lot, but it changes.
A lot in the long run. In the short run, it put in the win.
I think that that is fascinating. Yegor, thank you so much. It's really invaluable for us to have your insights today.
We're really grateful, Thank you, Diegor.
And also taking the personal risk.
Yeah, let's be real, this.
Man is taking a risk. He's actually a hero. So you know, if you want to support him, we'll have links in the description to all of that. So thank you very much, Diegor. We appreciate your analysis.
Yeah, great to see you, my friend.
Thank you guys so much for watching the show. We appreciate it.
We've got a great interview with Mary Anne Williamson. We'll be dropping a little bit later today. We're excited for that, and thank you. Everybody's been heeding the call on our subscribers. We're doing well. It actually looks like I might have to do that show in Indian garb. Let's do the official count, the official nine to nine eight zero zero eight, So we've got a couple hundred six weeks. Yeah, zero zero, ten, eleven, twelve. This is fun.
It's good to watch the live counter.
So if you want to see me in full Indian dress garb and sneakers humiliate myself, go ahead and subscribe to the show. Well, let's get to one million. Otherwise, we'll see you all tomorrow.
Love you guys, See you tomorrow.
Crisp S.