6/5/23: Trump Mocks Overuse Of 'Woke', DeSantis And Trump Avoid Debates, Big Donors Back DeSantis, Jack Endorses RFK Jr, SCOTUS Crushes Workers, YouTube Changes Election Disinfo Policy, Twitter Notes, Jamie Dimon 2024, Ukraine War Profiteers

election misinformation. We also have a big decision from the Supreme Court that could hurt workers and their right to strike. So we'll break down all of those details for you. In addition, I know this is going to be huge news for our viewing audience. Chuck Todd out at Meet the Press. Kristen Welker is going to be the host of that long running Sunday show, So we'll tell you

about that and what the plans are there. I'll so excited about a guest on just how much military industrial complex money is going to all of the analysts that you're hearing on the Ukraine War. You perhaps it won't be surprised, but still important to dig into all of those details. But before we get to that saga, why are we not in our normal studio?

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Let's take a listen to what Dessanta said.

they might be feeling. DeSantis has already proven that he has much stronger support among the college educated portion of

the Republican base, So I don't know. My instinct is that Trump kind of has his finger on the pulse of the way people are starting to feel about this word which is so wildly overused, which you know, originally, I think there was a usefulness to talking about a pushback to the you know, political correctness and the cancel culture and the authoritarian tendencies of liberals and left liberals.

But now when you're talking about like the problem with the military is that it's woke, the problem with bank bail ounce, or that they're woke, the thing just loses all meaning and collapses into you know, nothingness, and I think a lot of people in the country are probably it's done to that, including a lot of people in the Republican base who are like, this doesn't really connect to me in my life and the things that I'm actually concerned about in terms of putting food on the table.

one of his geniuses. What you're identifying is you're right, which is that the most activist part of the Republican base whenever it comes to wokeness, you know, corporations and all of that, it really is more of a highly educated, more of a conservative you know, who went to college, which again, you know, it's not actually very typical for not only the median voter in the United States, but even for the person who is in the GOP primary, so they might identify and see it as something else.

And I think it gets to what Trump's attack on Desanta's is, where he's always trying to go after him for saying that he's empty, that he's a lightweight, and that is where it is connecting. I genuinely don't know how it will land because at the same time, like we said, it is a word almost drummed into the political consciousness at this point of every American class, status

or not. And I do think it is also interesting from a different angle, which is whenever you think about Trump and his political genius, what he's able to connect to. He does not necessarily go after wokeness. He always goes after discrete issues. And actually that's kind of what we always try to do here. We very rarely use the term woke. I may use it, you know, every once in a while, but more than often or not. Like

affirmative action, we're not describing that as woke. We're just like, affirmative action is bad, and then like we'll go through the exact discrete nature. If you want to talk about the military, I mean, whenever people say the military is woke, it's like, well, what are you objecting to you're objecting to General Millie, you know, citing critical race theory before

Congress and then diversity equity an inclusion initiative. So once again attack things that are discrete and trying to think of some all encompassing term that becomes meaningless because then you end up just in the situation that you describe Chrystal, where bailing out SVB is woke. It could just be bad, you know, like we could just say things are bad and you could talk about things from that nature.

Not because we need a general pushback against corporate power, not because in general I think workers should have a union so that they have some power within their workplace, but because of the discrete, woke HR policies that happen to exist at Amazon. So it's a way to be very selective about your critique of corporate power without actually

really challenging corporate power the structures that enables it. So it's been very convenient, but it also speaks to you know, DeSantis in his launch, even putting the tech glitches aside and all of that stuff, the language that he has adopted and that he uses is in his media appearances, that he even uses in a stump speech, is so online and so inaccessible. It's the polar opposite of the

way that Trump speaks. I remember when he first ran in twenty sixteen, they were all these analyzes that were supposed to be damning to Trump about how he speaks at like a third grade or a fourth grade level or whatever. But actually he's an effective communicator, maybe an unconventional communicator, but a very effective communicator because he boils things down, he makes them simple, and he uses language that is very accessible to absolutely everyone. DeSantis is on

the polar end of that spectrum. So you know, it's not like Trump and DeSantis are really different from a policy level on the basket of issues you may consider woke. In fact, I think state that very same day Trump was also talking about the woke military or whatever. But their communication styles are obviously wildly different. The issues set that they choose to spend the most of their time on, where that are sort of very clear passion projects, are

also very different. We noted Sager that in Trump's announcement speech, if he mentioned transgender issues at all, it was you know, it was very scarce. Abortion wasn't there at all. So the set of issues that Trump leans into and clearly has an actual like interest in and passion for, very different from the set of issues that Ron DeSantis has used to become a national figure within the Conservative Party.

strategy was his fault or Fauci's fault. And this has actually become a major core contention between DeSantis and between Trump is specifically their records on COVID. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, because this kind of gets to it and why I think it

is going to be difficult for him overall. Ay, there was no bump currently for DeSantis from the twenty twenty four launch as Trump continues to climb even though DeSantis, as I have noted here, has continued his attacks on Trump,

specifically on the vaccine. He has and I've given him credit here for it, has you know, very taken up an aggressive posture where he's calling out Trump by name, responding to the attacks, trying to make himself become the formidable and only challenger to Trump, willing to actually rhetorically spar with him. But on the vaccine itself, this shows you a little bit about why it's going to be so difficult for him. You know, let's go ahead and

put this up on the screen, guys from CNN. This is from Andrew Kosinski where he shows you know, Ron DeSantis actually praised Anthony Faunci for COVID response in spring of twenty twenty for quote really doing a good job. Now, I'm not saying this is a hit piece on DeSantis.

There's no question that he obviously departed from that. What I am saying and trying to show people here is that trying to re litigate a moment in time three years ago is going to be very difficult and dicey, especially because all Trump has to say, Crystal is he praised my response at the time. He departed from it a little bit later on. But also he you know, was kissing my ass and these endorsement videos, uh defending

me on television. There really was no split between the two until basically after Trump had gone ahead and left the White House. And so that is why I've always believed that DeSantis best line is the one he actually used recently. He said, you know, they were asking about how do you pronounce my name? Is it DeSantis or DeSantis? He said, the way that you just say it is winner. I'm the winner. I'm the one who has actually won

recently in this race. It's a forward looking and it's more a positive one that not only primary voters could connect to you, but people across the country could connect to But then he run into the Gordian knot of Trump, who Republicans don't believe actually lost at all. They do think he is a winner. Maybe Desanti is just a bigger winner. So yeah, look, it's funny. It's a hard situation.

And you know, it was a year ago, a major energizing issue for the Republican base, and I think he's having trouble letting that go even though people have moved on, Like it's just not the energizing issue for anyone that it was at one time. So yeah, they can go back and forth this war of words. Honestly, it's kind of I think it's kind of like wasted time for both of them at this point. I think the other thing is, you know, Trump just gets away with stuff

that other politicians can't get away with. So if another politician had kept Anthony Fauci on that might be devastating for them. Somehow Trump just gets away with these things. So personally, I don't think that this is going to be you know, the winning issue that Ron DeSantis wants it to be. Also, because Trump is able as he this is what he's so good at. He muddies the waters. You know, he'll be He'll be using the video of DeSantis praising him over and over again and kissing his butt.

That's one way to muddy the waters. Another way is to point out these areas where you know, DeSantis agreed with like the COVID conventional wisdom of the time. So I think ultimately this Wassue issue was probably a wash for both of them, and you know, uh not the ground that the GOP primary is going to be fought on.

popular position to be in for a general election. As you're pointing out, overwhelming majority of Americans got a vaccine, and overwhelming majority of them were happy with that decision and feel like the vaccines did something. You know, it wasn't everything that was promised, but helped reduce the risk that they would be severely ill or hospitalized or dead

from COVID. So this is another issue where I feel like, you know, Trump can get away with the more moderate position in the primary, and it actually gives him a stronger case that he's the more electable candidate in the fall and a stronger reality that he may be a more electable candidate in the fall.

and especially whenever it comes to switching candidates. They always want to see a contrast about the future. It's yes, of course, the future is determined by what people have done in the past. But that's why I continue to think that DeSantis's best option is leaning into being a winner. The economic boom of Florida, the net in migration, turning America into all of that now, whether it's cringey on

the winner line or not. I mean, I think what I'm baking in is I just don't think he's all that politically talented as a speaker, and Trump is Trump is compelling, and you know, and this is one of those factor things of which we can go back and forth all the time, and the country, you know, goes back and forth between whether they want somebody like Obama, the ultimate eloquent speaker, and then somebody like George W. Bush,

you could barely string a sentence together. So it's one of those I just never know what mood the overall electorate is in. Do they want somebody's kind of whiny, not all that politically talented, but you know, can speak cogently in a sentence, or do they want to see the show whenever it comes to Trump.

at that point. I mean he has a little bit of that as well, where people felt like, ah, this is somebody that I sort of relate to, and you know, he was always good at sharing empathy with people when they were going through very difficult times. I think the part of the problem for him is he's lost a little bit of that. Now people are seeing less of that in him. That's kind of the core of his appeal.

So yeah, I don't know that DeSantis has either the like, you know, the eloquence of Obama or Bill Clinton either or the really compelling speaking style of like a Trump or a George W. Bush who was also to sort of boil things down and make them relatable. I also just to go back for a minute to the piece we put up about how he didn't get a poll

bump from his launch. It's kind of devastating. I mean he really needed that, you know, like it's a big problem, and whether that's because of the tech glitches or the content of the launch or the way the media cover whatever, it's a huge missed opportunity for him. Even Niki Hiley got a bump from her launch, and you know, did

a very conventional rollout. Sometimes there's no reason to reinvent the wheel, and you know, maybe it doesn't matter because a lot of times those those initial launch bumps fade anyway. But that was really the moment when he needed to prove like, Okay, now that I'm in the race, things are going to be different, and he wasn't able to

pull that off. And I think it shows some weaknesses in terms of the type of judgment that he makes and the type the part of the GOP base that he's super responsive to that's not necessarily reflective of the larger GOP base. So there are some, to me, some real warning signs in the fact that that launch went so poorly that he didn't get any kind of benefit from the polls and from having all of the media.

You know, there's not going to be that many times for Rondasantis when all of the media is focused on him, just given the show that Trump creates and the looming indictments and all of that stuff. So when you have those moments, you really can't afford to squander him and them, and he definitely did.

hundred dollars plus, which is colossal, as he says. For comparison, Bernie Sanders had a twenty six dollars average per donation whenever it comes to day one. That figure, just for people who understand again, two hundred dollars is much much more than the typical grassroots support. This is actually something that we used to see a lot in our early analysis of the Democratic primary whenever it came to candidates like Corey Booker or Elizabeth Warren, people who had connections

or better ones to big donors. And what it matters and why is that, you know? Whenever it comes to Trump, Trump has always been a absolute fundraising juggernaut and he actually would often match Bernie Sanders whenever it comes to his math In twenty twenty for the ability to drive small dollar grassroots fundraising from a massive email list of people who just love him and are always willing to that, you know, button and look for DeSantis. I guess, you know,

to defend him just a little bit. It's not like they tried to hide it. You know. They literally had a big donor conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami after they launched. That was the very first thing that they did. They were clearly lining this up for months before. Part of the pitch on why he's maybe the only one to do it is he's got all these billionaires that were backing him, Ken Griffin, many others, the more college educated base of the Republican Party, the

people who like DeSantis. Why not lean on that, you know, take the money if it's going to be there. These people are much disportunately high income. But the reason why that you should be at the very least a little bit concerned about this if you are part of the DeSantis team is getting people jazzed with their dollars is the ultimate sign that they will come out, they will vote for you, they will do everything possible for you.

And as we've seen the Scott Walker campaign, the Jeb Bush campaign, and so many of these other campaigns having a lot of money, it only works to a very very small degree.

more likely to show up and vote. So there's a strength that comes from that. It indicates the level of you know rondo stance has very high favorability in the Republican Party. I'm not saying people don't like him. I think people do like him. But there's a difference between yeah, I like this guy and like I will walk across broken glass for this man. And Donald Trump has that from his hardcore supporters, like they will be there to show up and vote, they will click the you know

box to send another ten dollars his way. The other issue for everybody in the Republican Party is the fact that Trump has used and abused his fundraising list, the amount of you know, like asks that they make of that list, just constant email bombardment of send me more, send me more, send me more, has created a real donor fatigue for the entire Republican Party that everybody sort of suffers from, and behind the scenes a lot of

Republicans apparently complain about. So that's another piece. And then the last part reason why this is significant is because if you are dependent for financial support on a millionaire or billionaire class, then you have to be sensitive to their concerns and you have to, you know, moderate what you're saying on Ukraine as one example, if that's an

issue where they're uncomfortable. And there are quite a number of issues where the sort of elite donor class of the Republican Party may be at odds with the broader GOP base, and so it makes it a little bit politically trickier for you to navigate if you've got to keep those people happy who don't reflect the wants and desires of the working class part of the Republican base that desantisis so far really struggle to win over.

with an average donation of forty nine bucks. This is a fundraising juggernaut of which people are deep always have underestimated, and it is a good proxy for voting. I mean, you know, once again, literally from January to March, he received half a million donations. I mean, that is again

very on par with Obama and with Sanders. These are very rare, very very rare political phenomena for people to be able to do that, which is why the vast majority of them pursue the DeSantis model and they go to or the Biden model really and go to big donors. As you just said, though, it's not like it can't work. It can work, so we shouldn't say that you know that it can't, but it is a strength, it is a major strength.

is just it's just totally different. And so you know, their support, where their money came from, and their ability to succeed ultimately in the process also ends up being totally different. And so yeah, I'm not saying it's exactly the same, but I do see a lot of similarities there in the way that this is unfolding. I think the best analysis is the difference between them is the like wind track beer track distinction, and that certainly is reflected in these fundraising numbers.

just absolutely correct. Then you've got CNN and NBC who are salivating to host the GOTV debate, but the deadlock is making uncertainty over whether any of it will literally happen at all now. As Alex Thompson here notes, Trump's campaign believes his opponents actually need the primary debates more than he does, obviously because he's behind them in the polls.

If Trump doesn't show up, what does DeSantis do? Neither have committed currently to the first debate in August, and if they don't show up, what do the others do?

This is a very important thing, and I will just say once again I do while I want Trump to show up further debates because I believe that people should debate, and I believe also, you know, it'd be fun to cover here on breaking points saif yes, just purely selfishly, if I were him, There's no way in hell I would show up to these debates, No way, because it is makes them all just seem like squabbling children who

are going after his scraps. When you're the king, why put yourself in a position where somebody can come after you. It denigrates them to a lower status by just saying you're not even worth my time. I don't have to do this now. For DeSantis, this is very, very tricky. Do you show up to the debate where you become the center or attacks? Chris Christie needs to take out de Santis. He wants to become number two. But vig Ramaswami's got to take out De Santis. Nikki Haley has

got to take out De Santis. That's why they're mostly all concentrating their fire on one another. What does DeSantis do? I think if Trump doesn't show up to the debate, DeSantis shouldn't either, because it's again a sign of strength of Nope, I'm the number two. You idiots can all squabble on stage if you want. For example, Nikki Haley hell a CNN TI Hall, nobody cares. Nobody cares because she's a low rated candidate. It's not a media event.

He would basically turn Remember the when was it in twenty sixteen the Republican primary debates where they had two debates the lower polls and then the diople. Yeah, their body of yindle and all them. Nobody cared. Nobody watched it at all. It was irrelevant. From a perspective, he needs to turn if Trump does not show up. That's what DeSantis should do. He should turn the GOP primary debates into a spectacle. Now, I once again want to say,

I do think everybody should debate. I think it's important for a democracy, but unfortunately there is no requirement to do so.

him to debate, because I think you need that. I think you need to be on stage with him to have a shot. Okay, so if Trump is like I would rather it's NBC. You may not like NBC or CNN or MSMBS or whatever. But if that's where he feels more comfortable, he's got the upper hand, he's got all the leverage, So I would bend to his wishes, even knowing that it is still unlikely that he is probably going to show up in debate. So that's number one. Number two, Desantus has got to take a lot of

risks here, you know. So is it risky for him to step on that debate stage with everybody else probably like guns blazing directly for him since he's the one that happens to be there, and they're all trying to position themselves to be the Trump alternative, and they're all basically too afraid to go directly after Donald Trump. Yeah, that's that's a huge risk, especially for a guy who you know, frankly doesn't do all that well in unscripted situations. So yes, it's a risk. Do I think it's a

risk he needs to take. I do, And it's at least a chance for him to again grab the media attention that he so desperately needs when Trump is typically sucking up all of the oxygen in the room. So

I see it a little bit differently. I don't think DeSantis can afford to sit out those sorts of opportunities to get in front of cameras and try to persuade people that he is up to the task and that they should supplant the guy that they already really like, Donald Trump, who was already president of the United States once with a newcomer that they like but aren't as sure or as passionate about.

CNN as well. Inside of their pitch they say that CNN can reach more conservatives than Box as well as independent voters, which is a joke.

the next one that we can show people. To qualify for the current debates, according to the RNC, candidates must poll at least one percent in three national polls or one percent in two national polls, one percent in one early state polls from two separate carve out states aka like Iowa, New Hampshire, and then a minimum of forty thousand unique donors with at least two hundred unique donors in twenty plus states, and pledge to not participate in

non RNC debates and support the eventual nominee. So interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, the polling at one percent and all of that, that's not difficult. There's a lot of candidates, But the forty thousand unique donors in twenty and then including two hundred donors across twenty different states, that's actually harder to do. Especially the forty thousand uniques. It means you cannot brute force your way or kind of rich guy your way into this.

Forty thousand is just a lot of people, and it will definitely require some actual like support for your candidacy across the country. The other thing is, and I don't think a lot of people notice this, having to pledge to support the eventual nominee is a huge inclusion into the new debate rules because Trump famously, at the very first debate of the RNC, when they asked him, will you support the eventual nominee, did not raise his hand because he said, well, maybe maybe not. He still has

never answered that question. There's no way, also in my mind, that he would even agree to that. So the RNC might have shot itself in the foot by making sure Crystal that Trump does not show up at all.

the debate stage. So I do think that that is the bigger issue. But yeah, I mean Trump likes to keep his leverage. He's he is very unlikely to submit himself to that pledge. And you know, it's not a crazy universe to imagine that if DeSantis did by some you know, stroke of luck or fate or whatever when the Republican nomination, Trump would love to hang over their heads like, Okay, I'll run third party event and we'll

see how that goes. So, you know, which is a real problem for DeSantis's core alone ability pitch as well, because you're gonna be a whole lot lesstable if Trump is out there intentionally playing the role of the spoiler. So I do think that might be a bridge that he's not willing to cross.

of the difficulty. DeSantis and Trump obviously are going to have no problem hitting the forty thousand unique donors, and also people across with smaller candidates who even have pulled at one or two percent, people like Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Vivid Ramaswami, Asa Hutchinson and all of them, they may have a real donor issue. And actually you're very likely to see them probably step up their online campaign efforts as these rules have now been announced. So let's all

watch August. It's really not that far away before we get to the very first debate. I'm excited.

beat Trump. Somebody replied, are you endorsing or are you just predicting? And he said both, okay, so whatever that means. So I guess that means he is certainly endorsing him, since he did technically say that he would. He also tweeted out this video against Joe Biden shows you that this the moment that Biden fell, and he just said, open the democratic crimes and debates. This isn't fair to anyone.

So clearly I did a video. I mean, obviously, you know, there's literally no question why the why there should be no democratic debate? RFK Junior and Mary and Williamson, anybody else really who can qualify absolutely has the right and really the responsibility, I think to challenge him and to ask him, like, why are you fit to remain in office? We're going to talk probably tomorrow, Crystal about this new effort by Biden insiders to prove that he actually, yeah,

he's old, but he's not that old. He's he's a spry old chicken. We we promise, you know, he gets up at nine and works till six. And I'm like, uh, you mean like everybody else in the country. Okay, not all that inspiring. This also comes on the heels crystle of Elon announcing that Twitter will be hosting a space is actually later today with RFK Junior, moderated by Elon Musk. Let's put this up there. Twitter spaces says, heads up, we're doing maintenance on our infrastructure to help us handle

bigger spaces. There may be some minor turbulence in the next day for hanging with us, and Elon confirmed that the system is being upgraded and stress tested in advance of the RFK Junior interview on Monday, So big get for RFK Junior. He will be there at I believe it's Monday at two pm Eastern time, so a little bit after this show will air for most of the general public, and we'll have a big analysis for everybody tomorrow on what happens.

you know, invitation extends to everyone. But I think the more that RFK Junior or Mariann are able to get high profile endorsements, high profile interviews where they're in the public consciousness, I mean, this is the whole plan from the DNA is basically like, We're just gonna pretend you don't exist. We're going to pretend you're not quote unquote serious or not quote unquote qualified. We're gonna pretend like

Biden has no real competition. And so, yes, you may be nervous about the fact that he you know, can't walk across the stage, and that he's in clear mental decline and that he only works from like twelve to four Monday through Thursday. You may be worried about him serving as president at eighty six years old, but sorry, you just don't have another choice. And so the more that you have this kind of visibility for his challengers, the more difficult it becomes for them to sustain that narrative.

And we saw this playbook a number of times in the Democratic primary last time around, where the very first phases we're just gonna pretend you don't exist. Even with Bernie, who had been you know, so like so prominent and has came so close in twenty sixteen if they hadn't rigged the primary, even with him, they tried to just pretend you didn't exist at the beginning of the twenty

twenty primary. And then you get to a certain critical mass which like, okay, well we can't ignore you completely anymore, so now we're going to smear you. Now we're going to attack you, like that's the next phase. And I think we're rapidly approaching that phase because it just becomes more and more difficult to deny that there are other alternatives that people don't have to stick with Joe Biden,

that there should be a competitive primary process. And so I actually love to see Jack, you know, coming out in talking about the Democratic primary, calling for debates. And we need a lot more people like him who have prominent positions to point out the fundamental hypocrisy of a party that is run around with their clothes on fire talking about the sanctity of democracy and then are doing everything they can to short circuit the public having an

actual democratic choice within their own primary process. So, you know, I just saw an article this morning from I think it was ABC that was, like, you know, so far the Democratic primary has been successful at shutting down left

wing critics who say there should be a debate. But the longer this goes on and the more the polls build for or RFK Junior in particular and Marion as well, the more that that builds, the more difficult it's going to become for them to hold this position that they have right now.

Junior we'll bring it up there as well. And yeah, look, I actually as bad as the DeSantis one went, I genuinely hope this one goes well because I think people like this deserve a forum and a chance, and I want to see more of them, and you know, if they can, maybe they should even publish it as a podcast.

I actually hope that there are no technical glitches, so then we can just clip out things that he says and we can talk about the editorial rather and so can other media outlets rather than you know, focusing on all that. So right, anyway, we'll see, be right.

high profile and get asked some tough questions. And yeah, absolutely, like I would recommend this to anyone, especially candidates who are being shut out completely of the mainstream press and who are they're trying to just completely invisibilize. If you've gott an opportunity to grab some attention, you do it, even if there are risks inherent in that. But yeah, don't don't launch on Twitter spaces would probably be the advice here.

reverses misinformation policy to allow US election denialism. In reversal of its election integrity policy, YouTube will leave up content that says fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the twenty twenty presidential election and other US elections. The company confirmed why it matters. YouTube established the policy in December twenty twenty, after enough states had certified the twenty twenty election results.

In part of their comments here from YouTube, they said, two years, tens of thousands of video removals, and one election cycle later, we recognized it was time to reevaluate

the effects of this policy in today's change landscape. Now, the way Axios presents this saga is very like, you know, they make it sound bad that the decision was changed but people have to understand the reality of how this was enforced because even you know, our old outlet, The Hill, they played some Trump clip where he's talking about a bunch of nonsense. They're not endorsing it, They're just trying to cover one of the most prominent people in political life,

and their content is getting taken down and banned. And it's not just them, I mean this happened. This also happened to Kyle where he was trying to do a segment debunking some of these claims and it gets hit and taken down. So the way that this policy was applied was horrendous and counterproductive. And also, you know, we

have a commitment here to free speech and anti censorship. Anyway, the way to go about these things is to debunk, to debate, to you know, meet these like spurious claims with facts and truth, which is what we tried to do. We went through painstakingly all of the lawsuits that were filed and tried to explain to people, here is why there's no there there. That's the approach to this, not

just blanket takedown. So you know, selfishly, I'm very glad, I'm very happy about it because we always had to be very nervous anytime, Like for example, when we took Trump's launch speech for his campaign, we were very concerned about whatever he says they could hit us with, even though it's not like we're endorsing these claims. But if you don't come out and say, let me debunk claim by claim by claim, and even if you do that, they may still take it down.

want to, whether this is wrong or not. But also I even object to the idea that we are supposed to be compelled to fact check what we it is not we are allowed to program our show in any way that we want. And also, yeah, look you can hate it. You can hate it if there are right wing YouTubers out there who are doing videos about how

the twin election was stolen. But if you set a policy about trying to ban that type of stuff, there will come a time where soon, maybe in the future, you have questions about election mishaps or something going on in this country and you try to do a video on it, and it is going to get taken down, or they can set a policy in which they adjudicate what is correct and what is not. At the end of the day, it is up to the legal system

and it is up to our actual viewers. I'm doing a whole monologue today, by the way, about this about fact checking, community notes and Twitter, and it's so important for people to understand platforms have no business adjudicating truth, especially whenever it comes to small c civics issues like democracy, like voting, like elections. These are belong to the public. They belong to all of us. They are our elections.

Our public officials set the rules and the things and the debates around them, and if people lie about them, well a that's on them. And why I hate this as well is what was the reason that all these Republicans lost in twenty twenty Crystal or twenty twenty two, Crystal. Stop the steal. People aren't stupid. A lot of people hate it. They hate it so much drives them completely insane.

That was a literal democratic check on something that people did not like, and obviously Republicans did not make enough of a case that it was true enough and in fact made it such enough of a case simply vote against them that many of them lost across this country.

It is so important for people to understand that democracy itself is the single best check against lies, against disinformation, and the idea that you need some overall thing to come on top and to tell you what's true and what's not for people like us, or how to run our business, for people like us, how to run our content. I would never presume to do that to anybody. So anyway, I'm very glad to see this policy. Person. My advice to YouTube. My advice to YouTube is stay out of

this game, stay out fact check label. You know, even today, every once in a while, now I said it, this video will have some stupid COVID warning for what linked to Wikipedia. You know, it's like, it's like, how is that useful to anybody who is watching this? You know, it's one of those where the the entire It's a narcissism of these platforms to think that some stupid Wikipedia type label is going to in any way influence.

I do have a theory about why they changed the policy now, which is Trump just did his big CNN town hall where he spotted a bunch of you know, election nonsense, and it just becomes really clear, like, okay, so are you going to hit CNN because they didn't robut every single claim in real time or whatever? Are you going to take their videos down? It just becomes really clear. Number one, they always have had a different policy about what corporate media can get a with and

when an independent media can get away with. And number two, I mean, the presidential cycle is underway. Are we not supposed to play Trump's speeches or take his comments live for fear that he may say something that is ludicrous and incorrect. That's just a preposterous standard that makes no sense ever, but especially makes no sense when you're in

the middle of a presidential election season. So I sort of think that the CNN town hall may have been the breaking point where they realize, like, all right, this policy doesn't really make sense. It's not really sustainable. Our hypocrisy and our like double standards here are being too blatantly exposed. So we gotta change course. We got to make a different decision.

because a strike cost them money. The eight to one decision means the company, Glacier Northwest Incorporated, can sue the union over a strike where truck drivers left wet concrete in their trucks. So we covered the story previously, but just to remind everybody the backstory here. What happened is you had workers represented by a Teamsters local who were in the middle of negotiations with this company, Glacier Northwest,

and those negotiations were not bearing fruit. The union was dissatisfied, the workers were dissatisfied, and so they decide to go on strike. This one does. This is the way that if you're in a union, that you leverage the power that you have as a worker in the fact that the company needs your labor in order to succeed. That's the way you leverage your power. So they walk off the job at a time that was after the I think warning truck drivers had already gone and they had

wet cement in their trucks. Now they actually tried to mitigate some of the economic harm to the company, which I would argue they're not necessarily required to do. But they sought to mitigate some of the economic harm by keeping the drums in the truck running so that that wet concrete wouldn't just instant what concrete wouldn't just instantly

harden and damage the trucks. Yet, because they were on strike, there's still was some economic harm to the company because they were unable to deliver that that material, and so they lost money on the fact they were unable to deliver that material, and I think they just had to dispose of it ultimately. And they also argue that there was some risk there could have been damage to the trucks if it had been allowed to harden in the barrels.

So Glacier said, all right, we're going to sue you the union because the workers went on strike and caused us economic harm. Well, a state court said, no, you can't do this, because number one, this isn't really even our jurisdiction. This is we're talking about federal laws here that you know are in play. The National Labor Relations Board, they're the ones that should investigate and should decide whether this was like egregious behavior on behalf of the union

or not. This went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and that's how you end up with this eight to one decision that now sends it back down and says, yes, you can actually sue this union over the damages from this strike. Now, let me say a couple of things. First of all, law clearly recognizes that if you are a worker engaged in a strike, you can't engage in violence, you can't engage in direct vandalism, and those sorts of things are out of bounds. And

you know there can be suits in state courts. That's like very clear cut. But why this is so troubling and so damaging is now you're sending a message to all companies and all corporations that if you're economically harmed at all by a strike, you may have an ability to sue the workers and sue the union. You can imagine what kind of a chilling effect that we'll have

too on workers who are considering striking. Well, the whole point of a strike is to use your labor, I mean, to cause some economic harm that puts pressure on the employer to come to the negotiating table and bargain so that's why this is such a potentially damaging decision. The

one dissenting justice here was Katanji Brown Jackson. She argued, the majority is inserting itself into an assessment of labor disputes that is lawfully the purview of the National Labor Relations Board, and that the court is overstepping their jurisdiction. That's basically what the State court had argued as well.

She also argued that the court is putting the onus on workers and their union to avert any economic damage to Glacier the company, when it was actually on the company to take steps to negotiate in good faith with the union and try to mitigate their own losses. Put this next article from Reuter's up on the screen. This gives you a sense of some of the arguments here that were made by the justices on either side of this issue. Their headline is US Supreme Court hands defeat

to organize labor in truck or strike case. So Amy Connie Barrett is the author of the majority ruling. She said the union's actions had not only destroyed the concrete, but had also quote posed a risk of foreseeable, aggravated and imminent harm to Glacier's trucks. That harm did not come to pass, but she's saying it could have come

to pass. And she says because the union took affirmative steps to endanger Glacier's property rather than reasonable precautions to mitigate that risk, the National Labor Relations Act does not arguably protect its conduct. Again, that should be left to the Natural Labor Relations Board to adjudicate. But that's what they argued. And just to give you a little bit of a taste of the katanji on Jackson dessent, she said,

and I thought this was well put. Workers are not indentured servants bound to continue laboring until any planned work stoppage would be as painless as possible for their master. So that is the way that she was arguing. The other side of this last thing to note here, Sager, guess which side the administration took. They took the side of the company and said they should have the ability to sue. It should go back down to the stakehoord

and they should be able to adjudicate it. There So, mister most pro worker, pro union president and history, once again stabbing workers in the back.

Whenever you're talking about public officials, you would basically have a British type system or in many of the other Western countries, where they can effectively file a complaint against you for anything, and the First Amendment and the level of legal protection does not apply to the media. What ends up happening a fusion of the state and of the media. Now we already kind of live in that system, but we have at least more free speech protections for

people who want to use them should they try. The threat of legal action itself, Ask anybody who is in business, the threat itself is chilling whenever it comes to speech. The same can be said here just to standing, the ability to sue will and can guide future strike actions

which are dramatically in favor of the company. So it's very obvious here who benefits from this change in the from this change, like in the current way that we look at things and will have a bad effect, especially is kicking people when they're down, because you know, they're trying to increase the unemployment rate already and to try and limit you know, whatever power the workers had in a tight labor market. So it really is it's especially bad timing.

when it comes to bolstering capital and crushing labor. As regular viewers of the show or you know, regular people who exist in America know the law is already overwhelmingly on the side of the bosses, especially when it comes to the right to organize and now the right to strike. So these little levers of power and leverage that working

class people actually have. I don't think it's an accident that at a time when you have this gigantic gulf between huge support for labor, huge support for workers, huge support for organized labor and unions in particular, but you have such low union density. I think that a lot of companies are seeing, you know, the movement at Starbucks, the movement at Amazon, at Arii, at Chipotle, all these

places across the country, and they're very nervous. So this gives the Supreme Court a chance to sort of check workers at a time when union support is super high, but you still have very low union density. So it's an attempt to try to keep them from gaining any sort of traction within the American economy. I think it could be really devastating, because you know, every strike is going to cause some economic harm to the company, and

now they've opened the door for no matter. Let's say you're you know, more perfect Union actually did a great video on this, but that I recommend to people. So let's say you're a Starbucks worker and you go on strike, which a number of locations they have. Let's say the

milk spoils. Let's say they lose some customers. Whatever happens now, Starbucks, Howard schultzen Coke can come out and suit the workers and sue the union because they dare to voice, you know, to exercise their right to strike, to demand better conditions, fare, wages,

whatever is that they're after. So I think it could be incredibly damaging, really devastating, and you know, it's not surprising, but it's really sad to see the Biden administration and almost all of the liberal and all of the conservative justices team up to crush workers in this way.

the Gravitas in an ever changing way. It was basically two thousand and six onward, the Internet comes and absolutely explodes. You have a variety of different ways that officials can get the word out. The Sunday Show continues to diminish, and then now at this point, even putting in somebody new, it just doesn't have the same power that it once did. I mean, the idea is is that the Sunday Show

was this like prestige time slot in TV. And don't get me wrong, and it still can and does compel big interviews every once in a while, but it's usually legacy figures people like George Stephanopolos and others who will get those big scores, and it just doesn't matter in

the way that it once did. So I think also that Chuck Todd and NBC also did damage to the brand by trying to turn it into a daily show, basically relegating it, you know, once again to Cable then the cancel it to move it to TV or to move it online, which shows just how unimportant it really is. And you know it like it dies with a whim with a with a whisper, like you know, with a whimper. Really yeah, it goes out. It should have died a long time ago.

work with her at NBC. This is also not though like a blockbuster marquee choice, and it to me is in line with the philosophy of managed to cline that you have seen implemented at both at you know, MSNBC, Fox News and Cianna and basically where when they're big stars depart, it's not like they're looking to make that new big deal and bring in something that's going to be game changing, They're just kind of bringing in someone

who's safe, who can sustain. So, you know, the classic example is over at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, their star for years and years, the quarterback of that whole lineup, the only person who really was able to sort of consistently bring in a ratings charge. She significantly diminishes her role. She's only on there once a week, and they bring in Alex Wagner, who's just like, you know, she's a placeholder. She's safe, she's comfortable, she's not going to rock the boat.

She can keep, you know, whatever audience is handed to her from. I think it's Chris Hayes, who's at the eight pm hours. She can kind of hold on to that audience more or less and hand the ball off to whoever comes. They're not making, you know, they're not shooting for the moon anymore, and I think the choice of host here with Kristen Welker reflects that as well. This is not a household name, this is not huge

star power, this isn't a marquee deal. It was sort of an afterthought in terms of how this was sold and how this was even mentioned. Your point about the relevant of the Sunday Shows, I think is also really well taken, and in some ways, I mean, part of this is not Chuck Todd's fault, right, it's like structural

changes in the media media ecosystem. But then the fact that you have this just like very standard, establishment friendly, not particularly talented person who's at the helm, that doesn't help anything. One thing I will say, this is consistent with the block we just did, the conversation we just had about debates and how you actually need politicians held more to account and willing to subject themselves more to interviews.

Part of the problem too, is that they're just less likely to the big politicians are less likely to sit for these interviews, so that makes it less relevant, which is a shame and a degradation of democracy. And then the other reason they're less relevant is there's just, you know, there's not a lot of interest in helding their feet to the fire. So, in a strange sense, what the Sunday Shows were originally intended to do, I think we need more than ever in American politics, in American media.

It's just that these shows are not really capable of being the same function that perhaps they once did.

commanding a massive and a large presence. But today that's just not how it's gonna work, and people have options. DeSantis literally hasn't done a single corporate interview. You know, even Joe Biden actually was just reading, is the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower not to do an interview with The New York Times. But he has done with Substack. He has done one with you know, what was that guy's name, Brian something.

that's a good point. You should do it. And so like that, it goes to when politicians have options, they're going to use them. They're going to play people against each other, and they're going to get the voice out in any way that they need to and to reach the most amount of people. Some of that today does include linear TV, but a lot of it includes online. And yeah, you know, as long as that's the reality, these shows are just not going to survive. There'll be in a period of managed decline.

yourself to a tough interview. Now I'm not saying Chuck Todd was going to give you that tough interview, but you're going to find someone who's really just going to be like, tell me how amazing you are and did you accomplished so much with such terrible you know, Republicans in Congress, And if you're Rond de Santis, you're going to do the same on the other side. So it's it is that part of it. Even though the broader independent media ecosystem obviously like I celebrate. I think that's

a very positive move forward. I think watching these old dinosaurs die is all to the better. But the fact that politicians use this new ecosystem to exempt themselves from any sort of challenging public scrutiny, that's a real loss.

All of us are not that excited about that. But the reason that they're upset about it is because they don't think these two men are friendly in enough to Wall Street which is just patently insane. And buried in that article, which I barely even noticed at the time, was them floating Jamie Diamond, CEO of of course Chase Bank, the biggest bank in the country, maybe the world, certainly the country, as a potential presidential contender. Put this up

on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. So here was the quote. They say, Jamie Diamond, whose name has swirled as a potential candidate for years, recently got an earful from a fellow billionaire who wishes the JP Morgan Chase CEO would run. According to people familiar with the matter. Interesting, I should have taken more not of that when it came out, because usually these little nuggets buried in this type of report have a lot more meaning than is

initially laid out. And next thing you know, Jamie Diamond himself is on Bloomberg, which is of course the television station of the ultra wealthy, and he gets to ask specifically about whether he would consider running for president or another public office, and interestingly, he doesn't exactly rule it out.

I think people should give up the job. You've got a fabulous management team where I really enjoy working with.

it's also really lengthy. So he says in part, Jamie Diamond is one of the world's most respected business leaders. Politically, he's a centrist. He's pro business and pro free enterprise, but also supportive of well designed social programs and rational tax policies that can help the less fortunate. He's extremely smart, thoughtful, pragmatic, knows how to bring opposing parties together, etc. Et cetera, et cetera. He goes on to say that Jamie Diamond

is the leader that we need right now. We need an exemplary business, financial, and global leader to manage through what is likely to be a critically important decade for our country in determining our destiny. He goes on to say potus is ext weak and incognitive decline. I can't really argue with that. Seventy percent of Democrats don't want him to run. True, Biden's weakness sets up a large opening for a qualified outsider to run as a Democrat.

I guess he doesn't consider the already candidates in the race to be qualified. And he says Jamie can beat Biden in the primary and Donald Trump in the general, but he needs to start now and build name recognition among the broad electorate. He will easily raise billions of dollars I don't doubt that from Democrats and Republicans to fund his campaign, and he knows how to build support. I also enjoyed this part of what he had to say because it's just like kind of a mask off moment.

He says, Bill Ackman JP Morgan stock will go up even more when Jamie becomes potus, as he can do more for the bank and our economy as president than he can as chairman and CEO of JP Morgan. The Bank will be in great shape since he has built a deep succession bench that is more than ready to step up. There is only one better job for Jamie than CEO of JP Morgan Chase, and that is President

of the United States. So he just comes out and says the quiet Bart out loud that this will be great for banks, It'll be great for JP Morgan Chase, their stock will go up because Jamie would be able to do so much for them as president of the United States, as if Joe Biden and Donald Trump didn't already like give the store away to Wall Street and

Corporate America. Overall, it's actually kind of ironic because Sager and I had joke that Jamie Diamond is already sort of President of the United States, or more powerful than the president, because of the amount of power that he holds within the banking sector and how critical that's been. We saw this in particular during the Silicon Valley bailout. There was all sorts of reporting about how instrumental Jamie

Diamond was in formulating what the policy was. Apparently, originally Biden had been kind of skeptical of doing any kind of bailout, and then Jamie Diamond and other figures like him got on the phone. Of course, Jamie Diamond also then was positioned to like suck up the profitable leftovers of the various banks that were collapsing at the time, so benefited him in the end in that way as well. But I always just think it's amazing the way that

these people view the problems in America. They're not worried about like, oh, wealth inequality is too great, or they're not worried about like, oh, we need to be able to get everybody healthcare, or we need to check the military industrial complex. No, they actually think the problem is that our presidents haven't been pro Wall Street enough, haven't given enough away to the titans of Wall Street and of corporate America, which is so wildly disconnected from the

views of the American people. And they also, I think, genuinely delude themselves into believing that there's an appetite among the American people for this type of quote unquote leadership. But you know, they could ask Michael Bloomberg that was his theory of the case last time I was around as well, and you can ask Michael Bloomberg how well this worked out for him. So Sager is just astonishing to me, Like it reminded me.

on it, nor should it have. We literally had decades on forums and other places where people spoke freely. They had debates, they argued, and the stakes were never seen as existential. It was only after the twenty sixteen election of Donald Trump that a bunch of people, elites mostly got together and decided that no normal person could ever in good conscience vote for Trump. They must have been tricked into it first by the Russians. Then they blamed Facebook.

Some happily made Russian Facebook ads with a tiny budget compared to the rest of the entire campaign spending, was somehow responsible for swinging sixty five million votes. This led to the fact checking industrial complex. You had Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others partner withich so called news agencies to come together and to fact checkposts that were seen on

the platform. Once again, underlying this program was this idea, you are so dumb that you believe everything on the Internet and that you trust the Washington Post, the New York Times, PolitiFact, Snopes, any of these others to be able to arbiter the truth in a small d democracy where people make up their minds for themselves based upon the information that is presented to them. They actually undermined

that with fact checking. Fact checking itself is broken and is wrong, as we all learned in the COVID, you know, misinformation debates, as we learned in Wuhan lab, as we learned when the Hunter Biden laptop story was taken down. Their judgment cannot be trusted at a major macro level. So now bring in elon Community Notes. This has been the new program that Twitter has decided to launch where they say that they have solved fact checking with this

program where you leave it up to the community. They say that this one is one where you can come in apply to be a Community notes fact checker. You will get voted by Twitter, vetted by them, and you will come through and algorithmically as well as with human judgment, you will decide whether posts itself need context or not, and then how you decide which context is placed there. Well, the downfalls of this are fully on display here. Let's

put this up there on the screen. When Chris Pavlovski, he's the CEO of Rumble noted quote community notes on Twitter is a really bad idea. It is a fancy word for fact checking, which will eventually be gamed, hijacked, and or cause more harm than good. I've seen this story too often and I won't let it happen on Rumble. Well, you know what's really crazy is that Chris's post here, which literally is an opinion, then had a community note actually added to it. And in it the community note

says all Twitter accounts must meet eligibility criteria. Second, for a note to be shown on a tweet, it needs to be quote found helpful by people who have tended to disagree in past ratings. And lastly, notes track metrics that alert the team of suspicious activity is detected. So in effect, what they did is they added context to Chris's opinion. This is way past even the line of fact checking, and it shows you that if you are able to and want to use the community Notes platform.

When you disagree, you can try and add something to somebody's post that they they did not want there to be in the first place. This is a total, massive overstep in this entire system. The pushback that I've heard so far is, oh, but this is up to the community and not from top down. Okay, once again, just because community fact checking maybe quote unquote better at least in principle than top down fact checking by the news organizations does not mean that these platforms should be fact

checking at all. And in fact, that was really my position, and it's something that I put out there yesterday, which is that people said, hey, this is the best solution to a very complex problem. The solution is dropping the presumption that preventing quote unquote disinformation is the responsibility of a platform at all. One person's disinformation will always be

another's truth in a democracy. And it was really on display there where Chris put out an opinion and then somehow had a ridiculous community note actually attached to it. If you want to defend the Community Notes platform or a program, that's fine, you should reply to Chris's tweet with your opinion. If others find that useful, they can like that tweet or you can quote tweet what's happening with Chris's opinion and add yours and if more people

like it, then that will be seen more. You should not be able to forcibly add context, you know, quote unquote onto anybody's posts that they never intended it to be there. It's actually a changing of the speech that they intended to put. Now imagine also this in a more human context, because we can get bogged down in debates.

Oh the algorithm, you know, some fake transparent, non transparent process in which these people are selected somehow means that we're supposed to just put all of our trust in Twitter. I've seen that, you know, fall apart so many times. But operationalize this to the real world. You're at a bar and you how many people have been in this scenario. You hear a couple of people having a discussion. What

they are saying is completely inactate, wrong and stupid. Would you really want a scenario where people are able to go in and to interject and say, actually, what you're saying needs context? Or do you think that those people should be able to say what they want? And then you know, maybe if you're friends with them. You could come in and just say, hey, I heard you guys talking about this. You know, here's what I think is important, you know, to understand, and then people can shrug and say, huh,

you know, that's kind of interesting. But the point is is that people should have discrete opportunities to speak in this environment. They should not be having things placed directly on top of theirs in a non transparent process which

is supposedly up to the community. And I actually thought Michael Tracy also made a really good point here, which is that in the current program, when communities consist of self selected users who join up because they're invested in a certain cause, like on Twitter, how many times have we said here before, Twitter is not representative of ever everybody.

It is representative of a small, certain select base. Well, then even the amount of people who are engaged in the process is by definition not representative of every constituency that might have a say about whether something needs context, needs truth, or anything added to it. So look, I'm not picking on Twitter or Elon or any of these. What I am saying is that all attempts at fact checking themselves are bad. You know, what we do here

at breaking points is. We don't lob onto somebody else's speech. We try to add context to help people think about things. And if people want to do videos about us and what we've gotten wrong, I think that's completely fine. But imagine a world where if enough people got together that they could interject something in the middle of one of our videos or on top of one of our videos, simply because they thought that we weren't adding context to something.

I object to fact checking in all forms that currently exist. I think Chris over at Rumble got it exactly right. And just because you like this one a little bit more than you like the top down one doesn't mean that all of them aren't bad in the very principle itself. So that's where I'm at, Crystal. I'm getting very annoyed. There are a lot of people who are sending me things, and.

think tanks dominate the Ukraine debate. Some important details contained therein and Ben Freeman, who is a research fellow at the Quincy Institute, joins us now to break down this report. Ben, great to have you, Good to.

contractor funded think tanks have been dominating the debate. In fact, more than eighty five percent of all think tank media mentions come from think tanks that are funded by the defense sector. So from this, what we determined was, whenever most of your listeners are hearing somebody talk about the Ukraine War, if they're front or from a think tank, chances are it's a defense contractor funded think.

Lord knows where that money is coming from. And you point out that in articles related to US military involvement in Ukraine, media outlets have cited think tanks with financial backing from the defense industry eighty five percent of the time. That seven times is often as think tanks that do not accept funding from Pentagon contractors. I personally don't have a lot of experience in the think tank world, Ben, Can you help people understand what would be the shaping

influences here? Would your average think tank analysts have an understanding of where the money is coming from? Would there be directives coming with that money? How does this all operate?

this over and over and over again. Almost ten years ago, the New York Times did a big exposition of think tank funding, and what those folks found was was exactly this pattern. If folks were saying things that were antithetical to the interests of their funders, those individuals were fired or their roles were reduced. And repeated studies ever since we've seen the same thing happen over and over and

over again. So when you work at a think tank, you know who your funders are, and in case you don't, if you write something that is threatening to them, your higher ups will let you know who those who those funders are and tell you to stop saying those things that are offensive to them.

Ukraine that are made by their funders. This is the most direct conflict of interest you can possibly get, and yet all of these outlets they're not disclosing that to their readers, and according to us. You know, I think anybody would agree that's a disservice to the reader because they're only telling part of the story by not revealing the funders.

on behind the scenes. You think these are just dispassionate experts who have nothing at stake in this fight, who are just offering their honest opinion, when in reality there's a lot more going on behind the scenes. I think, to me, that's as damaging and as damning as anything in this report.

and they're not disclosing it. So you read some of these articles, you read some of these briefs, you know, whether it's from CSIS, Atlantic Council, Center for a New American Security, all these heavily defense contractor funded think tanks, and they're producing things that look a little better than propaganda for the defense sector, and they're not telling their readers about it.