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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If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the showing. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have Crystal.
Indeed, we do lots to get to this morning.
I am remote this morning, dealing with a few family things, but lots of news to get into anyway. So we have the big whistleblower testimony yesterday.
We'll break all of that down for you.
Have some key video to show you key soundbites from that. We also have some big updates in terms of the Ukraine War, a Russian attack on Ukrainian grain. What does that mean for world grain prices? Quite significant there. We also have some political news Trump doing a town hall with Sean Hannity, and the actually getting a little bit crosswise in terms of mail in balloting, so we'll break that down for You've got a new poll out of
New Hampshire. There's also very interesting Doug Bergham doing way better I ever would have imagined, coming in at six percent. I didn't even expect him to really be on the map there. So we'll get to all of that. We also have a couple of studies that are really fascinating.
One about the fact that.
The group of workers that is most committed to work from home is actually.
The boss class.
So the higher you are on the income scale and the higher you are up in management, the more likely you are to be committed to work from home.
So we'll talk to you about that.
And we also have some news about apparently the nation is becoming a nation of early risers.
This seems like some pandemic changes to all of our lifestyles and habits.
You know, Soger and I are both here, so it seems like our team is winning soccer.
Well, one can only hope Bristol.
I'll save my well and barbarous thoughts for the late crowd for that discussion. All right, let's go ahead, and we're going to start with this IRS testimony. There was absolutely stunning allegations made yesterday before the GOP Oversight Committee. One was an IRS whistleblower and another one was one
we had not previously yet heard from. And this testimony is about an IRS actually investigator who was on the case of Hunter Biden for nearly five years and said that political interference kept him from bringing charges against Hunter Biden, from executing search warrants and included multiple levels of political.
Interference in this investigation. Here's what he had to say today.
I sit here before you not as a hero or a victim, but as a whistleblower compelled to disclose the truth that's said and coming forward. I believe I'm risking my career, my reputation, and my casework outside of the investigation we are here to discuss. I ultimately made the decision to come forward after what I believe for multiple attempts at blowing the whistle in the Internal Revenue Service.
At the Internal Revenue Service, no one should be above the law, regardless of your political affiliation.
So Christal that was iras Special Agent Joseph Ziegler is the first time that we've actually heard from him in the public sphere. He has come forward with multiple allegations to the committee, and no word, I mean, at least according to him, we don't know yet. He says he's actually a Democrat. He actually didn't vote in the twenty twenty election. He said that he didn't think that he wanted to show even a some semblance of bias because
he was so deeply involved in the case. But personally, and I know we're about to get a little bit more into it, I did find him highly credible, even more so actually perhaps than the previous IRS whistleblowers, because he was the actual special agent involved in the genuine audit and kept from performing routine decisions.
Yeah, I mean, he's a career guy. He certainly doesn't come off as like a crank or a weirdo or a conspiracy theorist or whatever. He at least at face value, reads as credible as someone who was trying to do his job and was stymied. And listen, I mean, sometimes you have people who are attention seeking, who just you know, want to me in the spotlight, and or they have an ideological agenda, et cetera. And it's always possible that
this guy falls into this bucket. But he emphasized and I think that this is relevant that you know, this is not an easy thing to do. This is really jeopardizing, sort of like turning his life upside down. This is definitely jeopardizing his career. There's just no doubt about that.
He's become this sort of you know, central figure in a partisan war, and so there's a lot of downside to coming forward as a whistleblower and you know, making some claims about the family of the President of the United States that are going to be very very inconvenient
for them. We'll get into it a little bit more, but you know, I mean, one of the things that I was also sort of dis made to see is because we care a lot about corruption, whether it's with Democrats Republicans are body in between, and the media, even with someone who comes across as so credible, there was still continues to be very little coverage, you know, very little in depth analysis. They still sort of just dismissed this as a partisan game, which you know, the Republicans
are partisan. They are just looking for political points, there's no doubt about it. But that doesn't mean that there's no there there.
Yeah, exactly, and that's why.
And let's go ahead and play this next part because the specific allegations about the amount of money coming in from authoritarian regimes directly to the Biden family and then possibly being funneled to Joe Biden with no ability to really investigate that, that was really the biggest part of the revelation.
Here's what Ziegler continued to have to say.
Between twenty fourteen and twenty nineteen. This brings the total amount of foreign income streams received to approximately seventeen million dollars.
Correct, it's correct.
What was the purpose of analyzing money from foreign churces? And do you have documents to support your findings?
So for the purpose of documenting the foreign sources is we as a part of a normal international tax investigation, we have to figure out where the money's coming from. You have to follow the money trail.
So if for those who are you know, didn't pick up the exact details, that's from twenty fourteen to twenty nineteen, in five years, the Biden family received approximately seventeen million
dollars from Romania, China, and multiple other foreign countries. The reason why I find this significant crystal is that it is a confirmation actually of a twenty twenty Senate Intelligence Committee report that actually came out before the first presidential debate, and in that debate actually Biden was asked whether any of the allegations in that report were true, and he
denied it. So this actually shows explicitly that there was proof inside of the IRS that many of these transactions which were detailed that at the time were both public knowledge in twenty twenty, but really we're private knowledge also in terms of twenty fourteen, in twenty nineteen when this
audit began. And then finally, the biggest allegation that was made by Ziegler was about the US Attorney of Delaware who apparently was stymized by political interference and continued to make sure that the investigation wasn't allowed to proceed.
Here was his allegation.
There.
It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the US Attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung, limited and marginalized by DOJ officials as well as other US attorneys. I still think that a special council is necessary for this investigation.
So that remains the core allegation I think within this is not only what the IRS was saying. These whistleblowers about how they uncovered malfeasans and weren't allowed to do their jobs, but Crystal specifically that the US Attorney for Delaware politically interfered in the process to stop search warrs. One of the most noteworthy ones to me was the note that they actually wanted to execute a pert worn on the personal residence of the bidence, but they were
told that it would be too politically incendiary. And I mean, throughout all of this, just the reek of special treatment is what comes through entirely when with any normal citizen.
It is so obvious that if they were ever to have this rise to the level of an IR special agent, they would not only have gone through a full audit in a timely manner, there would have been none of these you know, special treatments that happened, and that this IRS whistleblower, Joseph Zeler, wouldn't even know his name because he would be just continuing to do his job, and
whoever did this would very likely be criminally charged. And instead Hunter's gotten not only special treatment but protection and also has been allowed to you know, even pay quote two million dollars or so in back taxes by taking a personal loan from a family donor. So it's just corrupt basically all the way up and down throughout the process.
Yeah, the combination of wealth and political power leading to a result that you know, it is not remotely what your ordinary person would end up with. And you know, part of what he testified to here, which again you know it's under oath. Obviously he could be lying, but there's reason to take what he's saying seriously at the very least and be curious about some additional investigation.
You know, he claims there was a memo.
That he was involved in preparing that recommended much higher charges, much more significant charges for Hunter Biden that didn't you know, was ultimately not pursued. And so there's a few things here that we're really getting at. You know, he was obviously directly involved in this Hunter Biden tax investigation. So first of all, was he charged in the way that a normal person would have been charged?
That's question number one? Number two?
If he wasn't, is it because there was direct intervention and pressure put from the Biden Justice Department. Now it is worth saying that some of this investigation occurred under the Trump presidency, so it doesn't all fall under Biden's jurisdiction. But that's the other big, big question is you know, was the President at all directly involved in some sort of suppression, some sort of you know, meddling in this investigation.
And then there's of course the bleedover into Joe Biden himself, and you know how he may have been implicated in these business deals or what lies he may have told to the American public in order to you know, clear his name, clear his son's name, and muddle this whole situation. So again, even though you know, you've got to keep in mind this is in a lot of ways.
Of partisan affair.
There's no doubt Republicans want to damage the president. They want to ding him up in terms of his reelection bid. That is all part and parcel of what's going on here.
But you know, there are some.
Real, genuine, serious questions that I think are only further furthered and deepened by the credibility of this witness in particular.
Yeah, and you know, the previous iris we've been known to Shapley, he actually, in my opinion, bolstered his credibility because one of the efforts by the House GOP has been to try and indict Merrik Garland. He actually said, quote, let me be clear, although these facts contradict the Attorney General's testimony and raise serious questions for you to investigate, I have never claimed evidence that Attorney General Garland knowingly lied to Congress. So he actually tried to undercut current
impeachment efforts against Merrick Garland. Which again, whenever you see something like that, he's directly trying to stop some of the more capital p political efforts of the current investigation. He's trying to keep it directly focused on political interference
in terms of prosecution. That was actually stymiying and stopping the execution of search warrants, and then also political interference in terms of the actual IRS effort to see where did this money come from, where tax is not paid, and then eventually that came to a sweetheart settlement the hunter ended up in with the government. There was, of course, one moment that overshadowed I think many others, Marjorie Taylor Green doing the most Marjorie Tailer Green thing possible at this hearing.
Let's take a listen.
For those who are watching, I recommend that you pay attention right now.
This is evidence.
Of Hunter Biden making excuse me, this is my time making pornography. Should we be displaying.
This, mister?
So that was blurred out there by the cave channels because it literally showed Hunter Biden I guess it some blurring on her part engaging in a sex act. The reason why it was allegedly pertinent crystal to the proceedings was that they were actually paid apparently these prostitutes via the law firm and business expenses that Hunter was engaging in.
So that is actually remains one of the core allegations through the I R S is that many of these degenerate activities were actually funded directly by these businesses and then the gall might you know the true goal here was not only the funding of it, but then using in some cases writing these off as entertainment expenses. But it does underscore your point that it clearly you know, there's a big political element to all of us as well, that we can't just decide.
I don't think they do themselves any favors.
I agree with you act going in.
This direction because listen, yes, is you know the tax treatment of these activities relevant to the discussion. Okay, but do we really need the visual aid here, and there's no.
Doubt about it.
They try to use you know, hunter's addiction, hunter's addiction to a variety of substances and sexual activities, apparently as a political cudgel. And you know, he is not the president of the United States. He's not on trial for whatever he does in his private life and whatever struggles
with the addiction he has had. So I think they would be better served in terms of if they want the media to treat this seriously, which the media should regardless of their you know, props and whatever service relationious details they want to focus on, But if they want to make a better, more serious case for themselves, I think they would leave some of the more tawdry details, images, videos, et cetera to the side, which are not really at the core of the issues that we're talking about here
as it relates to the president of.
The United States.
Yeah, so that's the big takeaway.
I think from all of this, you're not going And I also look, there's obviously a media angle to all of this. None of it was actually carried by CNN or MSNBC. In terms of my general perusal, there was only a write up in terms of the mainstream media from CNN and from the New York Times, both were
buried very low on their websites. CBS News the only reason that they had fullsome coverage of it is because former Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge, who was a real star during Russiagate in terms of exposing a lot of the narratives that were out there, currently works over at CBS. So you know, like you said, the kid Glove's treatment from the media here is pretty stark, and in terms of how they're looking at it when undeniably, I mean,
this is a massive allegation. It bears genuine investigation. So we'll continue to keep everybody updated as it happens.
Let's go to the next part.
This is actually a very important story also for the Globe and for world food prices. The collapse that we had mentioned previously of the grain deal in the Black Sea between Russia and Ukraine, allowing Ukraine to actually export grain has come to an end, largely I think as a result of both bitterness in the conflicts, but now really an ongoing Russian effort to try and crush the
Ukrainian economy as much as it possibly can. Let's go and put this up there on the screen, because things have escalated actually a little bit since the collapse of that.
They have now said and struck.
Areas where Ukraine was previously exporting grain. As you can actually see in the image in front of you, a quote considerable amount of current export infrastructure is now out of operation. Some sixty thousand tons of grain and damaged storage infrastructure were attacked by Russian missiles. But the most significant actually thing to me, Crystal, let's put the next one up here on the screen. This is almost like
World War One level efforts by the Germans. They are now saying that russ ships that are bound for Ukraine to export grain quote will be considered hostile. So what they're saying is that they've withdrawn from the drill A deal. They are now striking infrastructure in terms of Ukraine being
allowed to export this grain. And then they are now saying that any ships that are being bound for the Black Sea will be considered hostile by the Russian military, effectively saying we're gonna sink you, you know, if you come in here. And just that announcement in particular has
sent wheat prices across the globe skyrocketing. Quote, Chicago wheat futures rose by as much as nine percent after the Russian statement, their biggest upward percentage moved since the war broke out in February of last year, and prices are remaining eight percent higher on the day heading into afternoon trading.
And now, the reason why that is so significant is that Ukrainian grain does not affect really the United States or really even Europe, but a lot of it is the developing world to which relies upon a large portion of this grain. It was known often as the bread basket of the Soviet Union whenever it was part of the Soviet Union. So this is a catastrophe for a number of reasons. Number one, crystal is that this obviously is terrible for the developing world that does buy a
decent amount of Ukrainian grain. But second, I mean, if the Russians do follow through with this, what do you think brought you know, the United States into World War One? It's the sinking of the Lusitania. I mean, when you start declaring you know, merchant and merchant and civilian ships hostile and then you actually follow through on that, things usually start to spiral real quick in terms of other
powers getting involved in this war. So the Russians are absolutely playing with fire, and it is you know, a bit of a desperate amble also from them, because now they're they're moving even more to the total war strategy of we have to crush the enemy's last remaining revenue lines that don't rely entirely upon the charity of the Western governments.
Yeah, and I was talking to the Aegor this morning.
There are some domestic signs in Russia they may be preparing for their second, second draft, second mobilization, So we'll keep an eye on that and see if that comes to fruition. But you know, calling is a catastrophe, I think that's the right word to put to it. It's certainly a disaster for Ukraine, for the Ukrainian economy. You know, this is all out economic war being waged on them, which.
Is going to be devastating.
Further devastating to them, it's incredibly devastating to the developing world, where obviously wheak prices have already been escalated because of post pandemic inflation that has been exacerbated in a lot of ways by the climate crisis and drought, which has also impacted crops and driven up prices. So you know, these are places that are already struggling with with hunger and with mass famine. This is going to be an incredibly devastating blow to a lot millions of people around
the world. And then the other piece of this that I also think is really important to note is this was one of the only really successful pieces of diplomacy that has been achieved in the context of this war,
and it was really important. I mean, this deal was struck early on, it has been honored more or less consistently the entire time, and so it exposes the lie that it doesn't matter what the US does, it doesn't matter what the Ukrainians do, that Russia isn't going to escalate, and because this creates a much more dangerous set of circumstances and a much more dangerous situation for additional escalation, as you've been pointing out, Sager.
So I think this is really a big deal.
It's hard to understate the ramifications and the sort of ripple follow out effects that could amount from just this particular collapse of this deal.
Yeah, I mean, you know, once again, World War One has really been kind of my guiding you know, loads star I guess if you will.
In terms of analyzing this conflict, I.
Think has basically been vindicated considering the War of attrition that we've gone into the fact that combined our tactics haven't been really successful because neither side really has air superiority. And this also is basically exactly what happened in that war when the Germans found themselves in a situation where they were like, well, we can't win this thing directly on the battlefield through some sort of decisive movement. They are blockading us kind of like we are in terms
of our sanctions against Russia. So we have no choice but to try and cut the commercial supply lines to the Allied powers and to have indiscriminate U boat bombings. Now it didn't end up working out because it brought the United States then into the war. But when these types of desperate things began to happen, it is not something that spells usually the conflict coming to an end, but actually an overall expansion.
I also do.
Want to take a second here to call out, you know, some of the so called NATO allies that we have the great powers that have been begging the United States to get more involved in this conflict. It turns out when their own interests are on the line, they're going to choose themselves. Poland and Slovakia, along with five other Eastern EU nations, are actually crystal banning Ukrainian grain exports because they are worried that it will crush their domestic farmers.
Poland in particular, which has been begging and trying to draw the US more into this conflict more than anyone, whenever it comes to their own economy, is like, well, hold on a second, we can't be allowing this cheap
Ukrainian grain to come in and crush our farmers. And actually they are now petitioning the EU to ban Ukrainian grain exports all across the eastern EU border precisely because they claim it will crush their domestic industry, it will hurt their farmers, And really what they're worried about is
that we'll quote send far right parties to power. So their hypocrisy here is unbelievable, Like they want us to pay all of Ukraine's bills, but then when it comes to their own economic costs that they may suffer from buying Allied grain they've decided that it would hurt their domestic political situation.
So I just couldn't. I couldn't let this story continue without noting that.
It actually genuinely surprises me in the instance of Poland in particular, because I mean, they have genuinely borne the brunt of a lot of financial costs and hardships of you know, being a neighbor to this conflict, in the number of refugees that they've taken in from Ukraine, and you know, so they have definitely done quite a bit. They've also been very hawkish though with regard and very belligerent with regard to this conflict.
Anyway, I am a little bit surprised by that, but you know.
People are looking out for their own interest except for our country aperiently.
I just think I don't want.
To sound like a broken record here, but the risk of a broader conflagration has just escalated. The catastrophic fallout in terms of global hunger has just escalated. The catastrophic consequences for the Ukrainian people has just escalated. When are we going to think that it's a good time to
try to get the parties to the table. When is it going to be the moment where US politicians, Joe Biden in particular, decide like, Okay, this is enough, Let's see what we can do to try to end this conflict, because look, I get it that there's a lot of injustice that whatever negotiated settlement could come out of this is going to be a bitter pill for everyone to
be able to swallow. But the catastrophic costs of war and the risks of continuing to push forward just continued to mount day after day after day, and this is just the latest example of that.
I agree.
The biggest catastrophe that we could see is expansion of this war into commercial shipping. That would just push things tole on the level of which we really really do not want to get there.
Anyway. Let's go through the politics section, all.
Right, Yeah, so former President Trump sat down with his buddy Sean Hannity for a town hall and you know, Lesley's off balls as you would expect, but they did have a bit of its heads exchange around mail in voting, mail in ballots, sigle, isn't a little bit of that.
Will you encourage your voters based on the system we have to go along with the system of early voting and voting by mail, because I will think if you don't, you meant a big mistake.
Oh no, no, I will, But those ballots get lost allso Sean, you know, they send them in and all of a sudden they're goun Those ballots get lost. Also the answers, I will because you would like it, But you know what, can.
I be honest with me?
Okay, but a lot I got to take a break, but Johan.
A lot of bad things happened to those ballots. Also, they sent in early and all of a sudden, where are they?
That was the fourth time that they sparred on that crystal. He's not going to let it go.
He is.
So Donald Trump is the most stubborn man on the this earth.
I love always like, yeah, yeah, I'll do it, but no, really.
I won't do it because those ballots get stolen. And I guess you would like a Sean, So maybe I'll do it. But now those ballots are really bad.
I mean.
The reason I say he's so stubborned is the data is pretty clear. If he had just pushed for mail and balloting during the pandemic and like encourage his supporters that that was like the patriotic way to vote. He probably would be president of the United States. So personally, I'm glad that he is a fool and continues down this pathway and that there's this huge partisan divide that has opened up in terms of how people cast their ballots, which it actually used to be the exact opposite.
It used to be Republicans who were more likely to.
Vote early vote you know, by mail, because they're tended to be older, and that's was you know, more common way for older people to vote.
Now it's completely flipped.
There's this huge partisan divide, and they're just shooting themselves in the foot by not pursuing this.
Yeah, this is certainly something.
And also you have seen other Republicans, even many who are skeptical of I've even seen my biggest interest is like former Stop the Steelers who are now getting involved in this because their narrative is and I mean it's wrong, but this is the this is their idea is we've lost because the Left is so good at ballot harvesting. This is like almost like a Dinesh Desuza type analysis
of the election. They're like, because we're so bad at ballot harvesting, ballot harvesting then though is not going to is not illegal. We can't outlaw there's nothing or it is illegal. But you know, in terms of what they say the real ballot harvesting initiatives, you can't actually go against it. So we have to build the most robust ballot harvesting operation and actually win the election. A guy like Scott Pressfield comes to mind. I've seen him talk
about this. He's a quote the persistence on Twitter. If you're not familiar who I'm talking about, I've seen a number of Maga stop the steel figures actually use this line of argumentation. But there's only one who the boomers actually listened to. His name is Trump. And a lot of these people they all came to the polls to vote in person on election day, specifically because they were told by Trump that they shouldn't vote by mail.
And then vote by mail is bad.
And as we have you know, showed the data ad nauseum here, you know, Trump and Georgia in particular, If just the number of people who vote in the Republican primary of twenty twenty by mail did so in the election, he wins the election. There's no question. Arizona as well, I fully believe he would have won the state of Arizona free and clear if he just embraced mail in voting because of so many of the older voters and
then the other ones. I mean, it's one of those where the election was close enough of who the hell knows what actually would have happened. So he's doing nobody but himself, you know, like he's hurting nobody but himself.
But he doesn't care. That's what he believes.
And for those who think they can nudge Trump in that direction, as Hannity his you know most kiss ass ally thinks he can, he's not gonna listen.
Yeah, and just so people understand little bit of why this matters. You know, why it's such an advantage to really be pushing your supporters to vote early. It's because, listen, a lot of things can happen on election day.
You know, your life can go.
Sideways at any moment. The kids need this, the you know, dog gets sick. Like anything can happen on a single individual day, and so you want to if your political campaign bank as many votes as you can, as early as you can.
So you've got them checked off, you don't have to worry about them.
You don't have to continue sending them mailers, you don't have to continue calling them, you don't have to continue showing up their door. They're done, and then you can move on to this other universe of voters of like people who need more encouragement, who you know, help them
make their voting plan, et cetera, et cetera. And so it's a tremendous advantage if you have a large percentage of your base showing up early and so, you know, and I do think even if Trump now enthusiastically embraced mail in voting, I do think they did so much damage to the idea and the credibility of doing that during the pandemic and during the twenty twenty campaign that I still think there would be a bit of a hangover effect of people who just have it in their minds now like this is not.
A way to vote.
Your posts are not gonna be counted if you vote this way. But it would help a lot if the big guy was on board with the change of programs. So I definitely think he is massively shooting himself in the foot here by, you know, being continuing to be clearly ambivalent.
About going in this direction.
At the same time, I know kind of an interesting poll coming out of New Handra. Let's put this up on the screen and I want to hear what you make of this saga.
So we've got Trump at the top.
Trump is down though five points in this poll from April.
He's at thirty seven percent.
Ron Destant is basically hanging steady at twenty three percent.
Then you have everybody else coming up a bit.
You got Tim Scott jumping up six points. He's at eight percentage points. The media is very invested in like a Tim Scott bump narrative right at the moment. Yet Chris Christi coming in six percent. He's up five points from the last poll. This one, I don't even I have no analysis of this. I have no idea where this came from. Doug Burgham notching six percent North Dakota governor that literally no one ever heard of and probably still hasn't heard of. I guess people just like the
name six percent. Another one that we should talk more about, either today or another time. But the ve k Ramaswami I'm seeing consistently coming up in every poll. I just saw a national poll that had him coming up quite significantly as well. But he's at five percent. Year Niky Haley five percent. Mike Pence the other big loser in this poll, sinking all the way down to one percent, and maybe start with that's our I mean, this is
the former vice president of the United States. This is a man who has been a huge figure in conservative politics for quite a long time, has really worked hard to galvanize that evangelical base. You're at one percent, Chris Christie's, Doug Bergham and the zk Ramaswami are beating you.
I mean, how does that happen?
It's humiliating, especially the Pence fall from grace here and the kind of catchup to reality has been, you know, one of the more satisfying elements of the campaign I think so far.
Doug Bergham.
I mean, he's spending a hell of a lot of money right now, you know, in terms of ads, so I actually think that probably can account for it. Remember Tom Steyer at several points was pulling between five and like six percent simply because he was spending like one hundred million dollars or so on advertising. So if you spend your way, you can usually get up to a
decent amount. Now, I do think that the most noteworthy thing was the drop in that poll by five points of Donald Trump, but at the same time he said thirty seven percent, he's maintaining such a significant lead for DeSantis. He did pick up some, but he's not picking up all. And it does show also that all of these other candidates whose name are not DeSantis are directly a problem for him. They are drawing away from the anti Trump support.
He usually is going to be their number two chol And so it does show that DeSantis really has a problem in terms of trying to get to even sort of a plurality because Trump does have so much support throughout the GOP base and especially in New Hampshire.
I mean New Hampshire.
All we should never forget is the state that gave him his very first, you know, primary victory of twenty twenty and it was a blowout actually at the time. That really is what put him on the map and on the road to true victory whenever it came to the twenty sixteen primary. So I do think that New
Hampshire will be the big bellweather in the state. It's also why I think that guys like Burghum Chris Christy and others who don't have the same evangelical support base of Iowa are going to go all in on that state as well.
Well.
New Hampshire is interesting and is always kind of a wild card because Independence can vote in the Republican primaries.
You can pick which primary you want to vote in, and so it's not as much of just.
A hardcore, dedicated Republican base, whereas iOS the polar opposite. When you're talking about a caucus state, these are going to be your most diehard supporters because you don't just show up and cast the ballot or send in your ballot, but you got to be there. You got to do a whole thing, like it's a whole process, right, So you've got to be committed to it if you're going to go and cast your ballot in Iowa. So New Hampshire gives more of an opening for I think a
wider variety of Canadas. That's why this is the state. Certainly Chris Christy feels he's going to do the best in because you have not just the hardcore Republican base, but you have Independence who may be more inclined to hear his message. His very aggressively anti Trump message and
take that seriously. Listen, if I was any of the candidates not named Donald Trump, I would like this poll because this is what they were hoping for that Trump would be, you know, in the thirties, thirty seven percent.
And then you can imagine a.
Scenario where it's like, all right, if I end up as the primary Trump alternative and everyone sort of coalesces around me, then I got a shot at this thing a lot of the other holes we've been seeing. Trump is over fifty percent, and then it's yeah, it's really hard to see the pathway. So the problem for Ronda Santis obviously is that he's also flatten this pole that all these other contenders.
Are taking peace down of his pie, not just down to Donald Trump's pie.
But you know, again, I think that this is one of the more hopeful polls that the Trump alternatives have probably seen because it kind of is twenty sixteen throwback. They could tell themselves like, oh, maybe this is kind of his ceiling here, and if we can just coalesce behind one alternative.
We'll be able to get the I've done.
So, Yeah, that's that's what it looks like in New Hampshire a little more interesting than some of the other state poles or national polls that we've been seeing. And the most shocking to me is the Doug Bergham at six percent.
Did not see that one coming.
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
And by the way, I really want to interview him, So we put it as in.
Please come on the show, we will be we will be fair.
You know, we ask policy questions. Is that one will tell you, but we will be fair. We want to hear your plans of the nation. We want to hear what people in New Hampshire are seeing in you. So please please come on the show so we can give.
You so we can talk to you.
Yeah, I agree.
So we mentioned Chris Christy there.
He's making a big play in New Hampshire as former New Jersey governory and he's kind of geographically close. And then also because of the presence and importance of independence in that primary, I think he's hopeful that his just really directly unvarnished anti Trump takes will play well. And his political persona has always been that of like the fighter who's not afraid to get in there and mix it up, and you know, have the debate the have
the aggressive discussion, the contentious discussion, et cetera. So in that vein, he went on with Eric Bowling over at Newsmax and they had that contentious discussion. Let's start with listening to a little bit of what he had to say about Donald Trump and January sixth.
Take listen, Chris Christy, do you think Donald Trump had an interest in inciting the overthrow of the American government that day?
Well? Quite, frankly, I don't think he cared one way or the other.
Eric.
I think what he wanted was to stay in office, and I don't think he cared one way or the other what was going to happen. In fact, if he really did care, he would have done what he said he was going to do. When he stood on the ellipse, he said, let's march up to the Capitol together, and I'm going to go with you, and he went nowhere near it. Eric. He didn't care what was going to happen up there. He sent people up there to put pressure, I believe, on Mike Penson, on members of Congress to
stall the peaceful transition of power. And he said as much later on when he said that it's okay to suspend the Constitution. You can't take an oath eric to say you're going to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and then say it's okay to suspend it.
So I obviously I respect Chris Christine for saying what he actually thinks on this. I think it's a lot less embarrassing than the way that every other Republican contender tries to like, you know, like tiptoe around it and comes up with their talking points. I think there's a real audience for what Chris Christy is saying here. I just don't think that that audience exists in very large quantities within the Republican dase. I think actually in that
way reminds me a little bit of RFK Junior. Is there an audience for what he's saying is ues he's leaning into. Yes?
Is it a Democratic primary audience? Probably not.
That's always a problem you know, for especially anybody who's trying to hit more like centrist or heterodox or like untapped audiences, is that the most tapped people on Earth are the primary base. And it's because they're the ones who mostly have the power whenever it comes to voting, and they select the nominees that we eventually get to choose from. It's part of the reason why the vast majority of people do feel disconnected from the political process.
But it's a backwards loop because then the people who are actually invested in the political process are the people who don't want to hear reality really on left or on right. So that's I think the big spiral for Chris Christy, especially whenever it comes to the specific anti
Trump message. We should always remember that for a lot of Republicans, they don't like what happened on January sixth, but they don't think it was the end of the world, and they don't particularly care all that much at this point, and they especially see it as mostly a dem plot to try and hang Trump. Then, also, on top of that the personal affection that most of these people have for Trump. He is the most popular Republican since Ronald Reagan.
I mean, there really isn't a Republican figure like him that is alive today, and that's why I think it's so difficult for people to wrap their heads around it. Mitt Romney was the nominee, but people never really liked him the way that they liked Trump. John McCain was the nominee, but as evidence by people turning on him, they never really liked him the same way. George W. Bush is like a whole other league of his own.
It's been decades, really since we've had a leader like Trump who remains so tremendously popular at a pop culture level, almost with the conservative base, that turning against him on an actual personal level is just a terrible political tactic.
And I think it's telling that the guy who possively defends him the Vecoramaswaman most unapologetically defends him over all of his actions is also the one that's like catching the most steam in the polls right now. Like that's an accident that kind of tells you who's still top dog within the Republican Party. But I will say, you know, I was watching Ron Desanta said something like mildly critical of Donald Trump, like he should have done a little bit more, a little bit more quickly.
On that day. I really like the.
Most tepid criticism possible, And there was some online backlash from Trump people, and his campaign is immediately walking.
Oh, they didn't give the full context.
And of course, you know, of course we feel like President Trump is great and wonderful, et cetera. It's just embarrassing that the tap dance and some of these people feel that they have to do.
We wanted to show you a little bit more from.
That exchange with Chris Christy and Eric Bowling, because I do think Chris Christy has already qualified for the debate stage. You know, he's met the pulling requirements, and he's met the donor requirements him, Tim Scott, Trump sand and one other one not sure who it was, but anyway, they've all met the polling requirements.
So he will be on a debate stage.
And I do think that the fact that Chris Christi will be up there is a big part of the reason why Donald Trump will decide, you know that he doesn't want to be there because Chris Christy is skilled in this kind of give and take, he can potentially let in a blow.
It does create some level of risk for Donald Trump.
So anyway, let's take a listen to a little bit of the combat between him and Eric Boling.
What motivates Chris Christy to run for president? Is it to take out Donald Trump? Or Chris Christy is sort of fulfilling some sort of emotional void they're looking for why are you running?
All right? Well, Eric, are you a psychiatrist today? You know, if you're a psychiatrist, spend more time on the former president than you will on me. If he gets on the stage, he's about to be uncrowned as the best debater in politics. And by the way, if he is, Eric, that he should get on that stage.
Would you be as vice president if he asked you?
No.
I spoke to Mike Pence the job I spoke to Mike Pence the jobs of the sale like it was too great.
It's really sad to me that, Yeah, I know, it's funny.
It's really sad to me.
That neither of the top two candidates feels like they have to be held accountable by the American people, that they don't have to debate, that they see it as their political interest not to take any sort of risk and not put themselves out there.
And it really is pathetic on both sides.
Oh, I mean, in terms of the debate, I wish Trump was going to show up, not only just for comic relief factor, but he should get pressed by not only just Chris Christy, but any of them. They should actually have to draw some sort of contrast at the same time, because we don't have the ability to compel politically.
I do think he's making the right move, even DeSantis at this point, you know, I mean, it's going to be tricky up there for him because all the governors and all these people who are thinking why not me, are just going to aim all of their fire directly at him. I've also seen Vivik Ramaswami take several shots at Ron DeSantis. Nikki Haley feels very comfortable kicking sideways whenever it's Ron and not Trump. So he's definitely, I think, going to take it on the chin while he's up there.
And then you know, speaking to some sort of empty podium or speaking about somebody who's just not present doesn't have the same level of actual criticism, and it almost does make them seem beneath Trump, you know, on the Biden front.
Two, it's the same problem.
If you have effectively coronations on a primary side. It's a terrible and really just it's a system which is obviously sclerotic and is dying whenever you don't actually have real competition within it. And then you just get to the point where most most Americans fall in a trap of they really only have two choices whenever they go to the ballot box. That's just not how the system was supposed to work.
Yeah, now that's absolutely right. All right, Let's get some to some of the fun stuff here. Some interesting studies that have come out that we wanted to parse through. So the first one, let's put this up on the screen, is we've been talking about the work from home revolution, the fact that there's been this huge shift towards hybrid work.
In particular. There's a new study. This is from McKenzie, so keep that in mind.
But anyway, about who exactly prefers working from home and who actually prefers working in the office. They found that the biggest holdouts on the five day office week are the bosses. Nearly half of the most senior employees are holding fast to their work from home days. And they talk here about how some of the senior executives, you know, they really see this as like a key. They've really incorporated this into their life. They are unwilling to change
their habits. I frankly can't blame them if they've become accustomed to that, and they are even willing to give up additional pay in order to keep their work from home flexibility. Let me give you some of the specific numbers here. They did a survey of thirteen thousand office workers in six different countries, so this isn't just us specific.
They found the largest share of employees who strongly prefer to work from home, or those who earn more than one hundred and fifty k. That group said they were likely to quit their jobs if they were called back to the office every day, and they were willing to trade more than twenty percent of their compensation to work
their preferred number of days at home. And it basically was the case that you know, as you go further down the income level, and as you go down the seniority level, more junior employees were much more interested in being back in the office. And Sager, I mean, there's
a few things to say about this. The first thing that I'll say is that really is kind of logical because if you're just starting out in your career, you're a young person, you want to be able to network, you want to be able to get to know people, you want to be able to establish yourself. Maybe you just came out of college and you're used to having this whole network of friends all around you all the time.
You're more in the social.
Network building phase of your life, it does make sense that you would be more interested in being in the office where it's easier to engage in those type of activities.
Yeah, oh absolutely, I mean this confirms actually something that anecdotally have been able to pick up. I knew a lot of people who were working from home well withinto twenty twenty two.
Not by choice.
They were doing so because their bosses didn't want to go back and kept coming up with reasons like first it was omicron, then they can't forget what the next one after that one was, but they were like.
Oh, it's still not safe.
And then it eventually turned out though that they didn't care about COVID because in their private lives they were going to parties, they were traveling and all that. They were just using it as an excuse for not wanting to be compelled to get back in the car to arrange daycare, to arrange drop off. And I just want to say I totally understand and get that from their perspective, but I do think it was unfair because rather than
telling the truth about the want for flexibility. They instead imposed a work from home regime on everyone, and what ended up happening is a lot of younger employees, especially people who had started their jobs remotely, really had a desire to get to know their coworkers. And I think there's two things, which is in an entry level job, there are two things you are learning how to be in employee number one, which what humans are social creatures?
Like you are learning office politics. You are learning like is the boss prickly? Is he somebody gonna approach about this? Or is he somebody I kind of have to go through normal channels or she? You know, I'm learning like how exactly do we have problem solving? When the bosses find a problem? Who do they call in order to talk to? How do I get to know those people if I want to have some sort of advancement? And
then second is socially you know, you really are. I went through this certainly, and you're twenty two years old,
graduate from college. It feels very disruptive. You have no idea really what's happening, and you start out with a bunch of other people who are your age and sometimes a little bit older, and so you both form like a cohort of people who you're starting out with, and then you also get to know people who are a little bit older than you and they're like, yeah, that's what they say, but here's how it really works, and you're like, oh, okay, Like hey, here's how I navigated
this same situation. I can't emphasize how valuable that is to firm. Really, like the twenty two whis almost like twenty seven age. And for people I know, many who started jobs remotely, they actually ran into problems that if they were in person never would have been something they violated, like office culture. But how are they supposed to know. They never understood office culture. They just got their stupid rule book and HR. So it's one of those where
I have total sympathy. I also do want to say, for everyone who's watching this, this is not an issue for anybody who works in the blue collar office. This is purely a white collar phenomenon, which is why people spend so much time on that. So as much sympathy as I do have for these people, it is also a great problem to have because blue collar workers do not have to deal with any of what we're talking about.
They're much more worried with being scheduled at six am and then also being scheduled at midnight like the next day afterwards.
Yes, true. Just to give you some more of the numbers to back this up.
So, the highest income bracket that they tested was people who are earning more than a fifty K. Of them a third thirty three percent say they strongly prefer to work from home versus the office. For the lowest income bracket they tested less than fifty k, it was only nine percent.
So thirty three percent for.
The highest income said we really want to be at home, and only nine percent for the lowest income bracket said the same for by seniority level. At the senior level, forty four percent say they strongly prefer working from home. At the mid level, fifty percent say they strongly prefer working from home, the junior level.
Only six percent. So this is really a.
Big divide in terms of office culture preference. And you know, I think like most people at this point, they haven't they're not fully working from home.
It's more of a hybrid system.
They're in the office a couple of days a week, they're at home a couple of days a week, or like week one week off whatever. That's mostly what things have moved towards. That's probably for a lot of people a pretty decent balance and midpoint between the two preferences here.
But the other thing tells me, Sager, we've covered a lot of what's going on in downtown's, especially in tech heavy downtown's San Francisco, La, the way that the downtown life has been completely offended and a lot of vitality just completely stuck down by the change in work habits. The fact that it's the boss class that is most committed to this tells you this.
Is not going to change.
Yeah, gowhere, I mean.
So you know, if it was the junior workers who were like, no, I really want to be at home, then that might be more subject to change. They may be like, no, we want your butts back in seats at the office. But since it is the senior workers who are most committed to this, Downtown's really this is not changing. That's we're not going back to a pre
pandemic normal. This is the new reality of a hybrid office job worker life where you're partly at home, partly in the office, and the ramifications for this for downtown's are just indescribably.
Massive and across the whole ecosystem.
I mean it's you know, all of the businesses that spring up around office culture, life, the lunch spots and all the rest, the dry cleaners, like all the things that locate close to the office to be convenient for workers. They have already been hit really hard. It's not going to change, and cities have got to come up with another plan to you know, build out more housing, bring people, more people in for other parts of their life because the office piece it ain't coming back.
Yeah, I mean anecdotally again, Washington, d C. Had one of the biggest like a boom in terms of the downtown culture. Our businesses, lunch spots, happy hour bars, all the things that kind of pop up in a normal downtown that have nothing to do actually with office space.
Well all of those are mostly dead.
I mean only the corporate chains are the ones that really survived, like the Starbucks is and you know a few lunch spots. But many of the little owned businesses that even I used to frequent, honestly, they're gone.
And it's very sad.
Many of them were family owned businesses that had been in the family for multiple generations.
They were very proud of it.
Some of the ones by the White House had some history even attached to them, and yeah, they're effectively empty now. I was actually just down there the other day and I was walking around. It was like one o'clock, and I was like, I cannot believe that this is how empty it is. And you know, I personally have so many memories of meeting people in coffee shops or whatever. A whole portion of my entire early career in these places.
And that's why even whenever I hear about hybrid work, they're like, yeah, we come in three days a week, that's still a forty percent drop in overall foot traffic. And that's for people who are coming in. So the metro system is not working as well. You know, the downtown is not functioning as well. And a lot of that actually functioned financially on people coming in not only five days a week, but in a DC like a true workaholic culture, like being around there for the vast
majority of their day. And it's changed completely like geographic like moving patterns, traffic pattern burns, rush hour is now three o'clock. Apparently, just I want to put the memo out there Apparently that's how things work now.
So there's a lot of interesting stuff going on as a result of this.
Yeah, well that's a good transition to the next thing that we wanted to cover, which is that apparently America is becoming a nation of early birds, much like you and me and Sager put this stuff on the screen. This was really interesting. So they talked to all these restaurant owners and you know, people running Broadway shows and whatever. This is also from the Wall Street Jirl. They say America is becoming a nation of early birds. Twenty new
restaurants are closing their kitchens at eight pm. Movie theaters are swapping late night screenings for matinees. Hybrid and remote workers itching to leave the house as soon as they close their laptops are fueling the shift. Restaurants are now seating ten percent of diners between two and five pm. That's up from five percent and twenty nineteen, dinner parties starting as early as five pm on Broadway. A third of shows now running on Broadway starting seven o'clock hour
on Fridays. That was unheard of apparently a few years ago. You also have just some of the hard data Uber trips to restaurants in the four pm hour have increased nearly ten percent since twenty nineteen. Rides to restaurants after eight pm are down nine percent. They spoke with a a woman who owns a dine in cinema theater that recently ended late night screenings. She says that her theater now does seventy five percent of its business before the eight pm show, which.
Is now the latest offered. Previously it was only forty five percent.
So seventy five percent of their business now before the eight pm show. It used to be less than a majority, And she has a quote here she says, before we would definitely have a soldout eight or nine o'clock show. Now we are lucky to fill twenty seats out of
one hundred. Instead of the late night shows, they've added a three pm show, which she is shocked by how popular it is, and she suspects it's a lot of those work from home people who are like, you know, surreptitiously on their phone on their iPhone, like sending a little email while they're watching whatever the lest movie is and sort of pretending like they're still doing their work while they are out enjoying themselves, which you know, I'm
not hating on that. Why go do what you gotta do, though, is absolutely fine? But what'd you make of this saga?
This is interesting to me.
I'm loving it, and I can tell you this right now. This is my personal favorite line. In New Orleans, notorious for late nights, concert promoters used to schedule main acts to start as late.
As one am.
Now a typical event starts at six and ends at eleven. I'm like, oh, am, I the only guy who thinks the concerts start obnoxiously late. There's no reason that people need to be coming on stage at ten thirty. Okay, it's out of control, blink one eighty two. I'll do it for you, But everybody else it ain't gonna happen. And that I mean, that's actually what I tweeted out at the time. I was like, listen, if a dinner starts at seven thirty, I'm not going like, it's just
not going to happen. I've luckily, I at least reached the level of my career where I don't have to artificially stay up until like two in the morning to schmooze with people who I don't even particularly like.
In the first place.
But it seems that those people even now, even they are making sure that they are not staying out as late anymore. So I do think this is a profound impact of work from home. Also, though you know, people know, I'm like obsessed with my sleep data, and this is largely at post pandemic. There's a lot of data actually to show that people started sleeping a lot better and
actually transition in their hours during the pandemic. During lockdown in particular, people added I believe, almost thirty to forty five minutes of sleep, and most importantly, they normalized their sleep schedules. One of the most pernicious things for sleep is something called social jet lag. And the idea is, you know, people like you and I who wake up ungodly early. Whenever we were waking up, let's say every day at five am, but then on weekends you'd stay out until two or three.
In the morning, and then you wake up at eleven.
It actually has a profound effect on your circadian clock because you're effectively always in transition. So one day, you know you're on a five am schedule, then you're at eleven am, and then you're back to five ams. They're always in transitioning, you're never going to be perfectly well rested.
Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day or roughly around the same time is the best thing you can do, both going for your sleep and for your health, you know, which is profoundly set by circadian rhythms.
So that's one.
I'm getting a lot of this from Matthew Walker, by the way, if anybody's interested, he's got a great book, and also he's been on several podcasts. But also it gets to some of the workaholism culture also that pervaded and also, you know, a grindset. Now I don't think grindset is always bad, but I think it was profoundly
bad whenever it was impacting people's sleep. I could definitely say this from you know, a career perspective, a lot of people did not actually have to be at the office until seven thirty or eight o'clock.
They just did it because it was part of the culture.
And then they would go out afterwards again to just prove to everybody how tough they were. They're like, yeah, I can party till one am and then still be at the office at six am the next day. That is not sustainable for more than like a year or two, and even at that time was terrible for everyone's health. Like in terms of what they were doing, they're just young enough that they weren't paying attention or noticing any of it. So I don't even really think that people
are becoming early birds. I think this is what happens when you remove some of the stupid social expectations and you give people more flexibility for what they want to do. And you know, I can say personally, like I never wanted to eat dinner at nine or ten o'clock, Like it was just one of those where you did it because that's what everybody else is doing. I will also say that in many party destinations this does remain the same.
So when people are truly off the clock, they do seem to be eating a lot later, like places I'm thinking like Vegas, Miami, you know, dinners really don't start there untill nine nine thirty, whereas like in even New York City, which does have a notorious like late night culture,
I think some of it does remain. But yeah, I mean I think it's it's very interesting, and you know, it's obviously much more beneficial to my schedule that I'm like, you know, can we go eat at five thirty six o'clock and people don't say no anymore.
It makes me very happy that the whole world is now conforming to my own personal businesses.
So it's a real win for us.
I mean, I think I have personally always just sort of naturally inclined towards being a morning person. And then I was a swimmer, so I had to do the early morning you know, swim routine, even you know, in college and whatever.
So I think that made it even more ingrained for me.
And then you know, in our show's schedule, we certainly are up very early.
But I do feel like.
You're sort of part of this transition because you used to be more of an i ow, more like burning the candle at both ends kind of a guy, and now you've adjusted your sleep schedule. And for me, just as I get older, I'm realizing more and more how like, I cannot underestimate how important getting enough sleep is, and I certainly see it in my kids as well. If they miss an hour too, you know, can send the
whole day sideways without much problem. So it's interesting to me though, I mean, basically, with the pandemic, we sort of reset everybody's whole work life, social clocks, everything, And now we've sort of shaken the thing up and seen what habits are going to stick and what things are going to revert.
Back to the mean. And I do think this goes hand in.
Glove with the hybrid work discussion we were just having, which is, you know, if you're already at your place of work and you're starting a little bit earlier, and then you're finishing a little bit earlier, then that just moves everything up a couple hours, and that amounts to a huge, huge difference over.
Time, one hundred percent. And yeah, you're right, I mean anecdotally.
I mean, I think the reason why I used to be that way is just because this was was the DC culture. The DC culture was it was work hard, it was play hard. It was late nights and it was early mornings. And actually I never really started waking up early until I started working at the White House as a White House correspondent, and that was only because Trump would get his ass up at like four thirty
morning and start sending crazy tweets. So if you're waking up at seven, you're hours behind already the new schedule, but at the same time, the social structure did not adjust, so everyone, all of us who were covering it, just got like four hours of sleep every night, which is
terrible for you. And you begin to realize that especially, I think, really what it is is and people who have lost a lot of weight, like I have, you know from the past what you don't You don't realize it until you're out of it, as in, you get used to a very baseline level of like misery and like discontent, and you just think, like, this is reality, and then you experience anew your reality.
You're like, I can't even believe that I used to live that way.
But when you did live that way, you had no other point of reference. So point of reference, I think is very important. That's another reason why I don't think that this is going to change, which is you can't force people to go back to that type of life
whenever they have tasted something else. It really is, it's I mean, it's it's so profound, as you're saying the mental effects of getting a decent amount of sleep every night, that you really are not going to give that up and are even willing to sacrifice as many of these bosses we talked about previously. You know, twenty five thousand dollars, if you're making one hundred and fifty, you're talking about a marginal increase in your salary, but for possibly like
a massive increase in your baseline level of misery. That's not a good trade, and I think they're correct actually to turn that down.
Yeah, I agree with that.
So to tie it all together, I overall think that it is a very beneficial thing. If Americans are becoming less like putting work at the very center of their lives and everything revolving around work, and being able to make more choices and have more of a natural like rhythm to their days, I think that is potentially a very good.
Thing, hopefully. All right, Chrissel, what are you taking a look at?
A horrifying incident on an airplane at Las Vegas Airport.
Let's go and put this up on the screen.
So they were dealing with extreme heat temperatures there one hundred and eleven degrees and this plane was apparently sitting on the Taram Mac with limited or no AC and passengers started fainting, falling out, some even apparently soiling themselves at least five people wheeled off of this plane and stretchers. The pilot instructed passengers to quote, hit your call button if you're having a medical emergency. You also had flight attendants who fell ill during the four hours that this
group was held on this hot, idling plane. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what this sounded like for the passengers on the scene.
All right, everyone out speaking, We certainly knew again apologizing.
Very hot back there.
Are cooling is going.
To occur while passengers are.
On the air grin, I mean, just absolutely horrible.
There was actually a Fox News producer who was on the flight who was talking about all the babies that were screaming and just what a horrific situation it was.
Eventually they got.
Them off the plane and then they canceled the flight because they didn't have any crew that could work with because the crew themselves had fallen ill in these extreme temperatures. So no surprise that these type of extreme temperatures are horrible on your body, have huge impacts on people. And this comes, of course, as we've seen much of the country and actually much of the world suffering through extraordinarily
high temperatures things that we've never seen before. But there's new research that says it's not just our bodies that suffer with extreme temperatures. It actually really impacts our minds. Let's put this up on the screen from heat map. The headlighting here is your mind.
Might be overheating.
They cite a few different studies here about the impact on mental health from extreme temperatures. One study looked at the correlation between heat waves and deaths by suicide and found monthly suicide rates rose more than two percent due to temperatures in the hottest months.
Another study, this one.
Was published just this last year, looked at emergency room visits for mental health throughout the US during the summer months between twenty ten and twenty nineteen. They found a five to ten percent increase in visits on the hottest days. There were a whole variety of conditions that were identified as part of that surge.
They said.
The study didn't assess causes, but the authors did hypothesize one factor could be disruptions to sleep due to heat. That was something Soccer and I were actually just discussing the importance of sleep. They cite another paper which found an association between higher nighttime temperatures and self reported nights of insufficient sleep. Heat can also trigger physiological responses that exacerbate mental health conditions, like the release of stress hormones
that send your body into fight or flight mode. In addition to the studies that they cite here, there's been a long term, well known trend of violence and crime spiking when temperatures rise, regardless of whether it's in the summer months or at any other time of year. There is a correlation between increase and ten an increase in violent crimes. So clearly it gets to people. It affects them in a lot of different ways.
You know. It's interesting to me.
In that study as well, they talk to one therapist. They were asking you, does this show up and when you're talking to clients, when you're talking to patients, do they talk about the heat in terms of how it impacts them? And they said, well, the people who we mostly are able to see. You know, these are people who are well off enough to be paying for this type of therapy, so they have the luxury of having air.
Conditioning, et cetera.
Some of them talk about how the extreme temperatures keep them from being able to work out outside and that that's really key to their mental health. But what they pointed to is angst about climate change in impacting people and impacting their mental health. And it reminded me actually of the charts that Soccer and I took a look at that show that people who are liberal are more likely to have a lot of more negative feelings about themselves,
a lot more negative feelings about the future. Some of that could be attributed to concerns about the climate crisis, but this is increasingly becoming a really widespread concern. Understandably so given the fact that we all are basically suffering through some sort of extreme weather as we speak. Got put this up on the screen. This is the polling about how people are feeling about the climate. Majority expecting significant negative effect from climate change.
According to this new.
Quinta Kiak poll, they found fifty five percent of Americans expecting a significant negative effect, two thirds of respondent saying they are concerned about climate change, including forty two percent saying they are very unconcerned, twenty five percent saying they are somewhat concerned.
So clearly this is hanging over a lot of people.
But just to wrap things up here, I guess what I would say is it's very clear the way that these temperatures impact people directly. The people who are most impacted are homeless people, people who work outside for a living and are putting their bodies through unbelievable stress in these extreme temperatures.
But there are a lot of follow on effects.
Here that we are just beganning to wrap our heads around. So make sure you're taking your care of yourself, body, mind, take care of each other, because we all might be losing it a little bit as temperatures get more and more extreme. And sorry, I thought I was fascinating to take a look at some of the follow on effects that.
They see here.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
All right, sorry, were were looking at.
We spent a good chunk of the show on Monday breaking down the extraordinary interview the Disney CEO, Bob Iiger, granted CNBC from the lush hills of Sun.
Valley, Idaho.
The optics were terrible, the near billionaire ceo bemoaning striking actors and writers for daring to ask their likeness not be digitally replicated or at the very least paid well for it. But beneath the comments on the strike was one of the most frank and bombshell comments by the top the TV business about the actual future of that medium in many years from executives.
Take a listen, let.
Me ask you about it.
We're talking I guess ABC, the network, the stations, but then the cable networks as well. Yes, the facts that geo. Is it possible you would look to sell them?
We're going to be expensive. I think if you can you can interpret what that word means. You know, we're just getting at that work. But we have to be open minded and objective about the future of those businesses.
Yes, it's meaning.
That they're not core to Disney.
That they may not be core to Disney. Yeah, now there's clearly creativity and content that they create that it's core to Disney. But the distribution model, the business model that forms the underpinning of that business and that has delivered great profits over the years, is definitely broken and we have to and we have to call it like it is, and that's part of the transform of work we're doing well.
We've been having this conversation for a very long time. Well, I think what I'm saying is the erosion of the linear business and now it's kind of closer to obsolescence.
Well, you know, as I said, when I came back, one of the things I discovered was that the disruptive forces that have been preying on that business for a while and greater than I thought. And so you it's it's eye opening, you know, it's there's a there's a reality to it that we have to come to grips with it. And we have to come to grips with that now. By the way, another business that is really has benefited from that business models, but that we're looking at very differently.
Well, I want to get ESPN obviously, but I just to understand, so you don't know what you're going to do when it comes to these linear businesses, but would be open to ideas that would perhaps separate them or change the structure in some way as well.
Let I'll let you speculate. I'm not going to do speculating now except to say that we're very objective about their future as part of our assets.
That is very long corporate speak for saying ABC and Hulu are for sale and that linear TV itself is dead. For those who don't know, the term linear TV just means non digital available via satellite or cable TV as part of a network or the cable bundle. Think ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN.
Fox, and MSNBC.
What makes this such a bombshell comment, though, is that perhaps nobody on Earth is more responsible for making billions of dollars from linear TV than Bob Eiger. Ayer got his start at ABC before it was sold to Disney. He was number two and then number one for years at the Disney Corporation as he milked tens of billions from live sports ESPN and ABC and also entertainment hits
on ABC network like Loss. The Disney juggernaut was a juggernaut precisely because it dominated and had synergy of TV, movies, and in person entertainment from Disney World. It used ownership of all of these three to leverage massive profits, which is why what he said is such a bombshell. In the business world, as my friend Ben Thompson Overatechori explains, the mad dash to streaming though decimated value of those channels directly by extension, destroyed the value of the integration
that Disney built. The more the bundle subscribers became sports subscribers, the less Disney could leverage ESPN to drive up the value of its other channels, and the greedier sports leagues could become in extracting the full value of their rights. That is exactly correct. The people who pioneered leveraging traditional TV are now telling us, plain and simple, traditional TV
is worthless. In fact, later on in the interview, Eiger floated at private equity as a potential buyer for traditional TV. When private equity gets their grubby hands on a network like ABC, we all know what that means. They are going to milk the last dollars from old people who still watch cable news and local TV. They will cut cost to the bone, and they will roll up local papers in the hopes of squeezing the last value from them.
In fact, what Iiger is really saying is Leonard TV, what's one of the most profitable businesses in the history of the United States, is now basically like newspaper advertising after the invention of the Internet and Craigslist. As we see now today, the Washington Post still exists, so does the New York Times, but how about your local paper or even a regional one. If it does exist, it probably has a terrible paywall, and my guess it hasn't been really relevant for a decade.
That's the future, That's what it looks like for this business.
What is also interesting is what Iiger did say, ESPN was still interested in ESPN not for the high cable fees that it used to be able to demand, but because it's really the only TV left out there with the semblance of an audience that still watches live sports. In fact, is basically the only thing that still compels a big live audience in America today. In twenty twenty two, sports events accounted for all but six of the top
ten most watched telecasts of the entire year. The only telecast in the top twenty that was not sports related was Joe Biden's State.
Of the Union address.
Sports is here to stay, and unlike in the old days, they really can't blackmail people into paying for the Food Network and for CNN or Fox if you also want sports like they do in the cable bundle right now. This will have profound impacts on the future of mass entertainment in the US, especially on politics and news. As we've explained here before, CNN and Fox and MSNBC three network channels.
They don't make any of their.
Money from actual advertising. They make it really from cable subscription fees. Cable companies basically take a good portion of what you pay per month if you have the bundle, and they give it to them. Last year it accounted for billions of dollars in profit for all three networks. But without sports they're dead right now, over half of pay for TV households say live sports is the reason that they pay for it at all. That means it's really the only thing in the bundle that they wrote
rate as quote very important to pay for. Without it, like Amazon and YouTube and Apple who are now going for football rights, things are going to fade away very quickly.
How does it end?
Basically, sports will survive as part of some new entertainment bundle bundle maybe Disney Plus will combine with Hulu and Espn to command a similar price point to the current cable bundle. Netflix and Apple a few other companies will also survive. The rest will either die or they will have to get sold off to one of the three. As for news, you're basically looking at the type of future.
Not Breaking Points per se as much as I would like it to be, but the format, the business model that sustained these people for so long, the rug is getting pulled right from under them now, just as already happened to the newspaper business. The Washington Post and the New York Times has said they did survive, But think again, Buffalo, New York or San Antonio, Omaha. Traditional TV is going
to dramatically shrink in the next decade. The ocean of people who have added negative value for our politics will soon be unemployed. And I guess that they should learn a different skill. In the interim, I will let you guess what that skill should be. So I found those comments extraordinary.
Priss and if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
Okay, guys, I hope you guys enjoyed the show. It may seem like we're cutting things short, but we're really not. There's going to be some big and fun interviews that people can take a look at that'll be coming soon. Some will release later today, others will release over the weekend. Premium subscribers, keep an eye on your inbox for those interviews as they become available.
We'll see you all later
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