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.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent coverage.
That is possible.
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 show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Christal Steed?
We do lots of interesting news breaking this morning. First of all, we've got some new news about Americans and the amount of credit card debt that they hold. The numbers are pretty stunning, so break all of that down for you. We also have additional information about Center and Diane and Feinstein apparently suffering a fall. We'll break that down for you what it means for a very important powerful person here in Washington.
There was an FBI raid yesterday.
We know very little about it, but a man who had been apparently making threats against Joe Biden was killed in that raid, So we'll break that down for you. We also have some new news with regard to Trump. Apparently his Twitter account was peanut by Jack Smith. And also he is making some comments about whether or not he will participate in the debate that is coming up and just exactly what that decision will look like. Also excited about a guest we're going to have in studio.
This is going to be a big one.
Ken Clippenstein has published a report on UFO whistleblower Dave Grush that is getting a lot of pushback and backlash. So we thought the best thing to do would be to have Ken in the studio and ask him the.
Questions we have ourselves.
But before we get to any of that, thank you all so much to those of you who have been signing up to become premium subscribers. And for those of you who are premium subscribers and you are looking to get the show full video without ads, the best place to do that at this point is on Spotify.
Yes, that's right.
We sent out of email to everybody yesterday about connecting your video feed to Spotify. Just to make it all crystal clear. See what I did there. Make sure you guys continue to sign up because I know a lot of you have been enjoying it. It's always awesome, of course, in order to get the feedback and just you guys are helping us build this place. It really is just
so incredible. We've got really really fun guests. I think next week we're going to be able to debut Crystal, which are certainly a testament to what you guys have helped us build here, and you should continue to pay attention. I think you are definitely going on to hear these as a reminder. All of our big interviews that we get candidates and big personalities, etc. They drop first for our premium subs. There are always the people that we think about first. Of course, you know we don't neglect
our YouTube audies as well. They just get it a little bit later whenever we get to it. Because the people who help pa us pay our bills, help us build everything, those are the people we're always thinking about here. So we just want to thank you again.
All right, guys, So we have been really trying to dig into the state of the economy, which is a little bit complicated. The way the Biden administration portrays it certainly not the way that Americans are experiencing it. And we have a new milestone, and not a good milestone that we have just reached. Let's put this up on the screen. So American credit card debt has officially hit one trillion dollars for the first time ever. Percy NBC. This is a huge test for cardholders which is coming.
You can see credit card balances here, you know, going up up until twenty twenty, and then because of some of the pandemic relief error programs, some of that debt getting paid down. Well, now it has come back with a vengeance topping that one trillion dollar number.
They said.
Total credit card debt rose nearly five percent, or about forty five billion dollars in the second quarter to a new high. That is according to a new report on household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Delinquency rates still continue to be relatively low by historical standards. However, there are concerns that those rising balances may present challenges. And reminder to everyone that student loan payments are starting
this fall. And now the Biden administration has announced a few plans, an income driven repayment plan, Biden's still trying to cancel student debt, some other relief measures for borrowers, including a twelve month on ramp to repayment to try to soften that blow. But nevertheless, the fact that you have these historic rates of credit card debt and you have student loan payments coming back into effect this fall could be a very dangerous state of affairs for a
lot of Americans. Let's go and put the numbers up on the screen from the New York Fed. They put up this helpful jiff on Twitter or x or whatever the hell it is now showing the levels of debt. I mean, you can see that red that red swat there that is student loan done one point five to
seven drill. I mean, that is truly astonishing. You can see the credit card debt there, that's the orange rising to a trillion dollars, auto loan debt one point five to eight trillion, and other at point five to three trillion. So Americans really increasingly loaded up with debt, needing their credit cards just to be able to make ends meet.
It's a huge problem. One of the things that they point to in the New York Federal Reserve report, they say, quote, compared to other debt categories this quarter, credit card balances saw the most pronounced worsening in performance, following a period of extraordinary low delinquency rates during the pandemic. Now the other problem, though, is that while credit card debt is the most pronounced, they still say auto loans rose by
twenty billion in upward trajectory. The volume of newly originated auto loans and leases was one hundred and seventy nine billion, reflecting the high dollar value of originated loans aka, cars cost way too much money right now and people have to take out huge loans if they want to be
able to even get a car. Mortgage balances actually are unchanged from the previous quarter, but not because of not for a good reason like people are paying it down, but because people are just taking out way fewer mortgages and because they're slowing home process. So basically, debt on
almost every measure right now is disaster. I mean, the credit card debt increase combined also with you know, we are going to have student loan repayments come any what is it any month now that they start to kick in. That's a couple hundred dollars a month. Even more so that people are somewhat twenty something million Americans, maybe even more are going to have to start having to pay
down once again, reducing their overalled household expenses. Then they've they've got what's going on in terms of inflation, wages not keeping up with that or very slightly keeping up with it. As of like I think this quarter and so what do you do? You go with the credit card? And you know, the sad part is not just the balances.
People are opening a ton of new credit cards. I mean they say here that the number of accounts has expanded by just six by six million, just in the last quarter, crystal six million new credit cards taken out to a current number of five hundred and seventy eight point three to five million credit cards. The aggregate limits on these cards have actually increased by nine billion and
now stand at four point six trillions. So people increasing their credit limits, taking out new cards basically to try and load up, you know, if they're not able to get what they can off of a single one. And you know, I don't think it takes this a genius financial advisor to figure out. It's like it takes most people whenever they do go into credit card debt. It's
not you know, one or two months. We're talking about years of their life before any of this stuff even begins to get paid down, if it does at all.
And we have some statistics about exactly that. Let's put this up on the screen. This is from Yahoo News. They compiled some of the statistics about what they described as a state of debt in America. Let's put this
next piece up on the screen. So you've got thirty percent of Americans who have between one thousand and five thousand dollars in credit card debt, fifteen percent have five thousand or more in credit card debt, and about six percent have more than ten thousand dollars in credit card debt. Let's put this next piece up on the screen. That breaks those numbers down further. They say, all those six
percent could seem like a small amount. That means that, based on these survey results, fourteen million Americans have over ten thousand dollars of credit card debt. They go on to find that thirty three percent of Americans, so a third of Americans, think it will take more than two years to pay off their credit card debt. A majority of people, fifty five percent, carry a credit card.
Balance from month to month.
Fifteen percent have had credit card debts, stretching back decades to before two thousand and six. And to me, the most disturbing indicator here they say forty nine percent of Americans, so very close to a majority of Americans actually depend on credit cards now to cover essential living expenses. Those numbers are even higher for young people Gen Z. Sixty one percent of Zoomers rely on credit cards just to be able to pay their normal living expenses. Fifty three
percent of millennials. On the other hand, Boomers in a very different category, only twenty percent twenty six percent of boomers rely on credit cards to cover essential expenses. So I mean, Sager, this fits with a lot of what we've been reporting at this point for years about the financial pressure that is on younger generations, how they struggle so much just to be able to make the milestones that their parents were able to meet so much earlier
in life. And you can see here in an attempt just to obtain the living standard that perhaps their parents had, they're having to take on significant loads of debt. What does that mean that debtload can truly be crushing? I mean, you talk about you think about freedom and ability to pursue happiness and make your own choices in the world.
If you are saddled with a huge student loan debt burden, if you're saddled with a huge credit card debt burden, that really constrains your choices of what you're able to do in the world. That's why your rates of entrepreneurship are down among young Americans. I've seen reports that directly tie that in to the debtloads, specifically the student loan
debtload that young Americans are carrying at this point. It is just a totally different landscape from when their parents graduated college and were able to, you know, work a job and pay as they went in terms of their college education because it was so much more affordable.
Of course, this is downstream of everything, and this is the housing commerce, this is the debt conversations, is the entrepreneurship conversation.
You know.
This is why a lot of my friends who go to you know, they go to the so called good colleges, what do they do. They don't want to start a business. They want to go work in the fortune five hundred. They want to go make two hundred grand a year, which is great money because they've got two hundred grand in debt, got no choice, They've got nothing else to do. And you know, I'll talk these people. I love them,
but they're so miserable they cannot do anything else. They feel chained basically to the desk and have to work seventy hours a week. And they're like, yeah, but you know, seven years from now will be debt free and then maybe I can start to look at a house. And then what's the other problem. You know, you start to get depressed. A lot of them have, you know, selbstance abuse, frankly, and I think the problem is because you know, you have to drink away your feelings, you know, in terms
of not being feeling trapped. And it's not just them, because you know, we shouldn't just weep for law students. We're out there. A lot of people were working class, you know, are in the same boat. If you've got ten grand in credit card debt at a thirty percent interest, I mean the interest payment alone is making up so much of where you're paying you feel like it's insurmountable.
I mean, you have effectively got to cut your lifestyle to the bone if you actually want to make big fat, hairy interest payments, sorry, principal payments, and that's just not feasible for a lot of people who are out there, and especially if you have kids. The biggest problem I worry about for people who are in this type of debt is what do you do when you're in an emergency? And I think about that all the time with a lot of my friends, who are you know, two fifty
three hundred thousand dollars something like that in debt. They're like, it's fine, I'm just gonna keep working. I'm like, yeah, but you know what happens you get hit by a bus? Now what it's like? What if you can't go to the office. What if your wife, you know, decide gets sick? Like now what it's like? They're in a position where they have almost no leeway. And that's actually when you truly discover So yeah, this I really despair when I look at some of this stuff and we've even got
the car. Let's go this map, Let's put this up there on the screen. This is really troubling. This shows you that more than one in five shoppers in Texas and Wyoming I have a monthly payment over one thousand dollars a month just in the second quarter, largely driven by the purchases of large trucks. But if you take a look at that, you can actually see the percentage of state residents paying one k per month. I mean, we're talking about nearly an average of what fifteen sixteen percent,
almost twenty percent in some of these states. That is not an insignificant sum. Of course, we're talking about twelve grand a year post tax, just spending on your damn car. And you know, it's like when used cars, what is the average price of a used car is up over thirty percent? I know, only thirty percent or so of car use cars are even below twenty thousand dollars, which sounds insane to say, you know, not even ten years
ago new car price is some like fifty five thousand dollars. Well, it starts to make sense really when you take a look at the numbers. But then we know what people are making and we know what they're taken out, and it's very clear that the delta there is just getting bigger every single year, and that's what causes people to break. It can break you emotionally, can break you mentally, and it leads to some very troubling societal things.
Yeah, it just.
Leads to you feeling like you have no choice in your life. I mean, and that's sort of like best case scenario. Worst case scenario is it truly is crushing and you lose everything because you can't keep up with the payments. And when you're talking about people who are accumulating more and more debt just to be able to meet their living expenses, I mean, what are we doing to our young generations here in terms of what their
life is going to look like. So stufftails very closely with the Biden administration and their campaign pitch for twenty twenty four. They're really trying to sell Bidenomics as a thing and really convince Americans that their actual personal financial situation is a lot better than Americans are telling posters that they feel that it is. Interestingly enough, it's a
little bit surprising. Korean John Pierre was on CNN and she was actually pressed on the choice of language using Bidenomics and how they're leaning into this pitch even though Americans really aren't feeling it.
Let's take a listen to that.
It's approval rating for his handling of the economy, is it thirty seven percent? Thirty percent on inflation. Specifically from the White House perspective, why is their disparity between the good story, the narrative you think you have to tell, and how it's received by the American people.
So a couple of things, Victor. Look, as we know, poles don't show everything. They don't tell the full story, as you just stated. And we have to remember if you look at where we were back in the fall of twenty twenty two during the midterm elections, when the President delivered a historic midterms for Democrats. When we think about how as a Democratic president he delivered a victory that we hadn't seen in decades, right, and he led
that messaging throughout those months going into November. And we are in a stronger position now than we were back back then in the fall, And so that is important to note. Look, there's a lot going on in this country, and we understand that. You know, Americans are coming out of a pandemic. We are dealing We're dealing with a lot when you think about the economy. But here's the thing. This is a president who was spent the last two years turning the economy around. You hear us talk about
bid noomics. You just mentioned how we're doing this west this kind of this West Coast Swain talking directly to the American people about how wages are actually going up, about how inflation is going down over a long extended period of time, more than more than the twelve months. That is important.
Let me ask you about something here that the branding you just used, the word, we have it on screen, Bidenomics. We know the polls show that people are pretty sour, or at least half American people are sour.
On the economy.
Isn't that just dangerous getting closer to the election if things take a downturn, If as the CBO predicts, unemployment will get closer to four point seven percent by election day. That you've got a narrative now of Bidenomics and things going in a certain way, But that can quickly turn in the opposite direction. Why literally fuse the president's name with the economics that Americans aren't very happy with.
Well, here's the thing. Bidenomics is indeed working. When we say that, you look at the data, right, cost is going down, right, you think about inflation, when you think about wages going up, that is bynomics. Look, the President has always believed, not just as president, but as a vice president as as senator, that we need to build an economy that is building from the bottom up middle.
Now, that's actually a good question. Why literally fuse his name with economics? People are like, I feel like the.
Economy economy, So I'm just going to go ahead and tie myself directly to said economy. I don't know, man, I really don't understand this one, Crystal. I mean, this is one where it's an active choice to try and to spin it. My only analysis can be that they seem to believe a lot of the stuff that is out there, and I mean I just think they're fundamentally misreading the electorate. Actually, if you go and you look at a lot of the midterm data, people did say
that inflation was one of their top choices. It's just that they were willing to forgive it because they were so upset at the GOP about abortion and they were set up about stop the steal. It's not that they're like, Yay, you're doing a great job. I mean, really, what you should do I don't even know what you should call yourself? Like, you should just be like I'm going to do row and that's it. Likes, that's all I'm running on. If I were Biden, That's what I would do. The economy
is terrible. I don't have a particularly good form policy record to run on. You know, my approval rating is second lowest except for Jimmy Carter at this point.
So go again.
I have got one popular thing and a supermajority on my side for the ballot. It's Row versus Way and abortion as evidenced by what has happened in Ohio.
That's it.
That's my whole election. Campaig. Yeah, this is a choice. This is like a choice to shoot yourself in the foot. It's just nuts.
I mean, and listen, the voters are saying thus far that maybe you don't need an affirmative economic vision. The theory of the case from the Biden people is like the other side is so bad that they're just going to vote for us anyway. And you know, we've had a bunch of these special elections. They all have basically
gone in the democrats favor. They've outperformed by ten percentage points on average parts and leaning each district that basically held in Ohio as well in this abortion related referendum. But to get back to the economic piece here for people to understand how the top line numbers can look one way and the reality for people can look very, very different. So the White House does have numbers that they can point you on. Unemployment is really low. They
have been a lot of jobs created. I mean, of course that came out of the COVID recession, so the expectation was that hopefully there would be a lot of new jobs created. Inflation has cooled over the past several months, and actually we're set to get some new numbers on inflation today as well, so we'll get to see how things are looking there. But if you look at the story of what has happened over the course of the Biden term, you initially had a lot of action on the economy.
And that's why when we showed you.
That chart of people's steatload, it actually went down quite significantly during the early years of the Biden presidency because there was a lot of action that helped ordinary people. The story of his presidency has been the gradual rolling back of all those protections and supports. Student loan debt coming due again this fall is exactly a case in
point of exactly that. So the experience that people have had over these past few years is of their financial situation increasingly becoming more and more precarious, and of.
Course inflation plays into that as well.
So that's why you can have some of these top line numbers that are like, oh yeah, Kraine, John Pierre can talk about these top line numbers and it sounds really good, but what people are actually living and experiencing is a totally different scenario where every month things are getting a little bit tougher. And Biden has chosen to try to sell what he's already done versus try to lay out an affirmative vision of what he will do. Now again, I'm not saying that this is going to
mean he's going to lose reelection. I think he'd be a lot better position if he did lay on that affirmative economic vision and there was actually some credibility behind getting it done.
But you know, their theory of.
The case thus far that all they have to say is Trump is bad, and you know, Row versus Wade and Dobbs, et cetera. So far that has actually worked out pretty well for them, So it's possib it continues to work out well for them. But that doesn't mean much to Americans who are continuing to struggle. Clearly, the Biden team put this next piece up on the screen, this reporting about how they're thinking about the campaign and what they're going to do to quote juice the economic polling.
They clearly feel like there is a messaging problem versus.
A reality problem.
What we're trying to lay out for you here is that there's very clearly a reality problem in terms of Americans and their personal financial situation.
Their theory of the.
Case is that no, no, no, people are actually doing better than they think. They're just not getting the message down about all the great things that we've done for them.
And so the model that they're going back to, intentionally or not, based on this reporting from the Washitting Examiner, is they want to go back to the rollout of the vaccines, the push that they made to try to get people vaccinated, and they're going to use some of the relational organizing and leaning into trusted messengers quote unquote within communities or social media influencers to try to persuade the public that actually Bidenomics is good, Actually you're doing great,
Actually the economy is really wonderful, and you just don't understand. That's their theory of how they're going to pull this off, and color me skeptical.
Soccer, Yeah, that's gonna work.
You should be skeptical.
That basically kind of what my friend Christian Daytok lays out there in the report is that they recognize the Bidenomics framing is not exactly a landing, but they are not one hundred percent sure what else to do. Like you said, they think it's a messaging issue, but messaging
is not the problem. Reality is the problem. And you know, until they really get that through their heads, they're just going to be in the precarious situation that they don't have to be in where Trump very easily could win again. I think he stands as good a shot as any ro Honestly, I would put it in fifty to fifty today. And yet it didn't have to be that way. It's
entirely a choice of his own making. And you know, now it's an affirmative choice to go which said Bidenomics, like I was saying, And if he doesn't digit and it doesn't look like it, I think because Crystal, he genuinely believes in his heart that it's some sort of messaging issue and or that people just don't understand how good they have it. I really think that's what it is.
I think his advisors are telling him, look at these fake numbers about where everything is better, and he's like, Yeah, I'm just going to beat these big this into the head of people. And that's just not how politics works. He's got to meet people where they are.
It's that and it's a lack of desire to have to actually promise anything. Sure, and since he's you know, unwilling to debate his primary competitors, that means there's not any pressure on him to promise anything in terms of actual, like material benefits to the American people. So some of the things that you know they've supported in the past, like the child tax credit that was very successful, none of these have been made as anything approaching a concrete
pitch for the next term. So, you know, their theory continues to be if we can just unite the anti Trump coalition and keep it all focused around Donald Trump and the fact that you know it's going to be a series of trial dates and new indictments and discovery and all of these things that are happening during the campaign season. It's very possible that that theory works out for them.
I'm not saying. I'm not saying that it's.
Like doomed to fail, but that's cold comfort to people who really could use some help from the federal government. Help that you know, they were starting to get at the beginning of this administration, and they've seen pulled out piece by piece over the course of the past several years.
A lot of this actually relates to our next story. Let's go ahead, put this up there on the screen, which you know, it's difficult to talk about this. We have to try and keep empathy and also try to think about this in a public realm. Senator Dianne Feinstein, yesterday, ninety years old, fell at home and had to go to the hospital. Her office claims, quote that the scans are clear. She has quote briefly went to the hospital
yesterday afternoon. Is a precaution after a minor fall in her home, Like I said, her office says that she was clear. Senator Schumer said in a statement that he spoke with her on Wednesday morning. She says that she suffered no injuries and briefly went to their quote. I am glad she's back at home now and she is doing well. But this comes crystal after she missed work for literally months on end. She was absent when she did return. Let's be honest. I mean, you can see
that photo. That's probably a good one compared to what it looks like she's wheeled around the Capitol. She clearly is suffering several episodes where she forgets where she is. I did the infamous clip that we showed everyone here where they just said just vote I as she kind of has like a rambling episode. The thing is is that whenever it comes to her health and to Senator McConnell,
how do we know we're being told the truth? I mean, don't forget we were hidden from the fact her office hit that she had actually suffered an episode on top of what had happened while she was at home during those three months, not just from recuperating, but actually suffering like a pretty serious health event that we didn't learn until reporters had to kind of dig around the people around her. We also have a secondary indication of, frankly, just how out of it Dianne Feinstein is. Let's go
and put this up there on the screen, guys. She has currently seeded the power of attorney to her daughter. Okay, she has seated power of attorney to her daughter in what effectively amounts to like a what is it like an inheritance dispute after her very rich husband passed away. Basically, the power of attorney is to her sixty six year old daughter, Catherine Katherine Feinstein, to help handle the legal
battles over her late husband, Richard Bloom's estate. Basically, Katherine Feinstein, the only child, is at odds with the other three daughters of a previous marriage over the ownership of luxury beach house owned by Feinstein. If only we were all so lucky, honestly to be able to feud with our
step paciblis or something like this. The point, though, is that she does not have the mental capacity, it seems, to deal or to represent her own financial interest in this case, is willing to turn it over, and yet wants to represent some forty million people the state of California in the United States Senate, Can we think of two twin news items which should, at the very least in the eyes of what one hundred percent of the
American public just be like you got to go. I'm sorry you know you can't be here anymore.
I mean, I honestly think you did the best commentary that I've seen on this whole situation, which is it.
It really is a failure.
Of democracy that we have Diane Feinstein propped up, didn't have to debate, so people didn't really feel, you know, they weren't able to evaluate their choices whatsoever. She's still being propped up by Nancy Pelosi. I mean, I think
this is utterly disgraceful. Like Pelosi knows exactly what's going on with Finstein, and I'm sure has known for quite some time exactly what's going on with Einstein, but she's using her as a pawn in order to try to get her chosen successor, Adam Schiff, who's like one of the worst Democrats in Congress, into her Senate seat. And the backstory here for those who haven't followed this is Gavin Newsom has said if Diane Feinstein wor to retire and there was a Senate opening, he would appoint a
black woman into that seat. That black woman very likely to be Barbara Lee, who is running in the Senate primary against Adam Schiff and against by the way, Katie Porter so in order to forestall that from happening, Pelosi has tried to prop up Feinstein and keep her in place in spite of the fact that, I mean, this
is an insane situation. She can't trust herself, she can't be trusted to handle her personal financial affairs, but she can cast votes on massive like multi trillion dollar Pentagon budgets and the like.
This is pure insanity.
And it's not an accident that the fact that we have this incredibly aged Senate, like historically historically old by our country's standards, comes at a time when you have a total democratic breakdown in terms of people of being able to evaluate their choices, in terms of the influence of big money in politics, in terms of this isn't relevant to the Senate, but relevant to the House, in terms of jerry mandering and all of these other pieces that have conspired to keep power out of the hands
of the people. That's how you end up with someone like this in such a position of incredible power, when you know, if you pull Californians, if you poll certainly pull the nation, this is not what they want to see in terms of their representation.
It's not right. It's just not right in any sense of the word. You got somebody here who is clearly you know, and this is we've also talked about this. At this point, she is probably so far gone that it's not really on her as much as it once was, although I do still think she has a titanic ego
for hanging on at least getting to this point. It is now an indictment of all the people around her, her sixty six year old daughter, of her you know staff, who is around here, miss just vote I of all the senators who are covering this up on our behalf of Governor Newsom, and of all these people, I mean Rocanna, to his credit, is basically the only guy and elected
member of the Democratic Party. Was like, I'm sorry, you got to go all right like this, We thank you for your service, but like you got to walk here. It's not fair to your constituents. And I've laid it out here before, you know, because senior senators like this are immensely powerful people. If they want to be, you can work on behalf of your constituents. There are forty million people who effectively have no real advocate, and everyone's like, oh,
but her office can handle it. Sorry, I know how it works. Senators are on the phone all the time. California based company gets he needs a trade exemption or something like that. They employed let's say, one hundred thousand people or whatever in the state. They've basically got to go to Padilla, who is He's a junior guy. He has no senator, he's no seniority. They don't have the
adequate representation that they deserve. In my opinion, an every American citizen deserves that to have somebody fighting on their behalf as an elected representative. So I think that that, to me is what really bothers me. And like you said, this is all around so that you don't want want what is it You don't want a progressive to be in the setate? Yes, Like, let's be honest.
Here, Tody who is like also a stooge of the deep state and was like the worst Russian russiagator in this whole town, has to be him, Can be Barbaraly? Canpy Katie Porter? Has to be him? It is crazy, It is absolutely crazy. And you know, the American people, the voters in California, they didn't vote for Pelosi's staffers to represent them. I mean, sorry, not Pelosi Feinstein's covers
to represent them. They voted because they thought they know I was basically hidden from them the reality of the situation. And now they're having very much buyer's reporse, but don't have an opportunity to do anything different. Sure, can the office run on autopilot? Absolutely? Is this anything approaching representative democracy?
Absolutely not. And when you pair it with, you know, the troubles of Mitch McConnell is having and the overall age of the Senate, it is a really sad state of affairs and a sign of a decaying empire that we live in here.
Absolutely, absolutely right. Okay, let's go to the next part here. Really crazy story that happened unfolded all throughout yesterday. The FBI shot and killed a man in a raid in connection with threats against President Biden while President Biden is in the West and traveling. This incident occurred in Provo, Utah. Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Craig Robertson was shot and killed during this FBI raid that happened on early Wednesday morning as part of investigating threats against President Biden that were made on social media. This was made done by the FBI in Salt Lake City and the office that they have based out of there. They said, quote in accordance with FBI policy. The shooting incident is now under review. As it's an ongoing matter.
We have no further details to provide. He was facing actually three counts, according to the complaint, interstate threats, threats against the President of the United States, and influencing, impeding, and retaliating against federal law enforcements by threat. Some of the social media posts here by mister Robertson are particularly troubling. Let's go and put the next one up here on
the screen. You can actually just see some evidence. I mean, look, it's not illegal to have guns, but he was posting them in a manner. He says, quote when this government crumbles under its own evil and corruption, food, water, and arms and ammunition will be necessary to survive. Nine words you don't want to hear from government, and we are
here to help. Photos of himself in full body armor the actual thing though, and we're not really we don't think we're able to show these to you, but they are the actual threats Crystal that he made on Facebook. The threats themselves were pretty troubling because they included really not only threats against President Biden, but also like, hey, FBI, are you listening. If you are, let me know so I can have a gun or weapons like ready to meet you. But you know, we do still have a
lot of questions around this incident. It's like this is an early morning raid. It's kind of an older and I mean, was he expecting said, you know, raid? Like what are the details here as to why like this ended up resulting in a death? And of course this also happened while the president is traveling abroad, Like what exactly was going on here? So yeah, I mean it's
a sad situation right now. He's an elderly gentleman. I mean, you know, I'm not defending the guy like he's posting openly on Facebook being like I want to kill the president and then posting, uh, you know, things with like his guns and body armor and all that. But we still have to do sub scrutiny here on the official side of the story, like how did this all go down? Was this even necessary? You know, what exactly was the search?
Weren't like being was he being arrested? Like what are the what's the circumstances here of this what's going on here?
Yeah?
And did he I mean, was holding shoot you right exactly? Was it justified that? I mean, yeah, don't make threats against the president. The threats that were made were very specific. He said, Biden is coming to Utah, which is where this man lived in Provo, Utah, digging out my old gilly student, cleaning the dust off the M twenty four st niper arrival. And there were other threats that were
very similar. And I think the reason that they ended up trying to brand him in this raid was because usually for a threat to be credible, there has to be some specificity to it. So the fact that Biden was coming to Utah and he's talking specifically about, you know, threatening him in the state of Utah is probably what led them to take this action. But yeah, an FBI
raid for threats is one thing. But there's no indication thus far, they haven't indicated that anyone who was involved in the raid was injured.
He had posted.
Some threats the effect of like, oh, if the FBI shows up on my gunsloaded, is that what happened? There are just still a lot of questions about how this all went down and the circumstances that led to this man who should not have been making threats against the president, but this man ending up dead.
Yeah, that's the odd thing about it is, I mean, and again, I want to be clear here. He was posting some pretty crazy stuff like here, let me read you one, Alvin Bragg. I'm headed to New York to fulfill my dream of eradicating another George Soros two bit political hacks spelled wrong, das I be waiting in the courthouse parking garage with my suppressed Smith and Weston MP nine millimeter to smoke a radical, fool prosecutor that should
never have been elected. I want to stand over Bragg and put a hole in his forehead with my nine millimeter and watch him twitch as a drop of blood oozes from the hole as his life ebbs away to hell. Bye bye to another corrupt I don't even know what the word is, Robertson wrote in one social media POSTE all right, so like, let's be real about who we're
talking about. But you know, he's an American citizen. Now, you're not allowed to issue threats against the president, or at the very least like you will come under investigation for that. I do think that's I think that's within the bounds of the First Amendment and also within the bounds of protecting public officials. I mean, look, I don't know if you saw this. There was a president Canadate just yesterday assassinating in cold blood in Ecuador. Horrible video.
So it's like, you know, these are very real incidents that we should always be reminded. It can't happen. It does come back to though. It's like, Okay, I mean, do do you break the law? I mean, lawful firearm owner to Utah posting stuff is not necessarily illegal. It's like, so did you come in like we're weapons drawn? Do you have body camera footage? You know, these are all
important things. I think that they're going to have to come forward on and honestly, the mean he's gonna to demand this, We're gonna.
Have to start.
We had issues employer requests, like we've got to make sure, yeah, you actually get to the bottom. Liss like, is this all you know by the book et cetera. As despicable as some of these statements are.
Yeah, I mean it appears to me that he probably broke the law. Did he deserve to die for his threats against the president. You know, again, there are a lot of questions that we had. It could be that, you know, these agents felt truly acted in self defense, that he did come, as he indicated in some of
his posts, with his weapons blazing. But you know, the fact that there's been a real silence on the side of the government here, you know, only further heightens the questions that we have about this incident and exactly how it all went down. So, yeah, it's one to you know, keep our eye on and see if we get any further information about exactly the circumstances here of how this all unfolded.
Yes, that's exactly right.
Okay, So we've got a little bit of Trump legal news here for you. Apparently Jacksmith's team obtained a search warrant to search his Twitter account. Let's put this up on the screen. This is pretty wild development headline here from the AP Special Council got a search warrant for
Twitter to turn over info on Trump's account. According to documents, there was also a fine that was Levey put this next piece up on the screen through in her fifty thousand dollars fine that was levied against now X. I really am sort of like resistant to using that company name because it's irritating to me. But anyway, they're in fifty thousand dollars fine against Twitter for missing the deadline
to comply with this search warrant. Details were included in ruling from the Federal Appeals Court in Washington over a legal battle surrounding the warrant that is played down under seal and behind closed doors for months. The appeals court rejected Twitter's claim that it should not have been held in contempt or sanctioned. So looks like, in the same way that you know they get search warrants to look in someone's house or whatever, they attained a search warrant
to have access to Trump's Twitter account. I presume that means DMS and all the rest to try to find out anything that was relevant with regard to his actions with regards to January sixth, and anything else that they're investigating.
Because that's the other thing, Sager, is we have word now that the grand jury that has been meeting in DC that handed down these latest indictments of Trump over January sixth, they're still meeting, and the investigation and there still continues, So it's possible there are additional indictments, certainly
of his co conspirators. It's also possible there are in additional indictments with regards to Trump, and specifically, some of the reporting indicates they're still looking into some of his fundraising practices.
And we've of course covered here the way.
That they, you know, at best, really misled people about what their money was going to with regard to the stop the steal efforts, et cetera.
So you know, this is very much an ongoing investigation.
Let me tell you something. Of all of the investigations, that's the one I would actually like to see because.
The fundraising one sane. Yeah.
I mean, you know, look, I understand First Amendment law fundraising and all that, but watching old people who really believe this stuff get milked out of their hard earned social Security and savings money, you know, to go quote unquote fight on behalf of the president who then spends it on a bunch of legal bills not related to that, that really pisses me off. You know, I don't care what look, it's their money. They can do what they want.
But you know, it doesn't sit right with me, especially knowing how so many of these people not only trust him, but trust so many of the media apparatus.
He kind of.
Amplifies this stuff, But I am curious. I did not fully understand why the Twitter account needed to have a search one. That was the only thing I keep coming back to, because I'm like, it's all public record. Are you looking for like behind the scenes, like law, like as int like who posted the tweets? Are we looking at his.
Direct mess I just assumed it's.
The DMS, So I was wondering that. But you know, from my limited interaction and knowledge of how the presidential Twitter account he did not really used to reply to dms, I'm not even sure he fully even knew how to do it. I also, I mean, I can tell you I can't go into all the details, but I have actually watched some of these presidential tweets get drafted while I was interviewing Trump only enough, and he doesn't post them.
Let me just put it that way. Some of it even includes paper in terms of editing things before they are then sent out. So I just didn't understand, like, what are we trying to glean here from? Said the time stamps are public? You know, it's like, what are we looking for?
Yeah, well, and we don't have any public indication that he did go back and forth with people. I mean, that doesn't mean that it's impossible that there's nothing there, but I'm not.
Sure what they were looking for here either.
And then there's also a question about, you know, is it appropriate for the government to be issuing search warrants and you know, being able to look at people's social media accounts. I mean, I would say in the same way that you can get a search warrant to search someone's house or their documents or whatever. Like, there are
situations where I do think it is appropriate. The problem comes when these search warrants become just like rubber stamps for whatever the government wants for whatever reason, without a lot of scrutiny as to whether or not this is actually required. Does this meet the standard? It's hard for me to say.
At this point, I have no idea, you know. I mean, in terms of that, I do think there should be a special consideration here. We aren't talking about the president of the United States. We are are a foreign president of the United States, and who actively only used his treat you know, this is an important consideration. He only used his Twitter account while he was actually president of the United States, hasn't used it really since then and since been on truth Social What exactly you know we're
prosecutors looking for here. There's also the interesting angle here about the find that Twitter was forced to pay, which you know, let's go and put this up there please on the screen, which says that the judge levied a three hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine on the company for a delay actually in complying, so you know, not clear yet exactly like why the fine was levied, what
exactly the delay was. It also kind of comes back to a recent promise by Elon Musk that they're going to cover the legal expenses of anyone who incurred a firing or problem from you know, their Twitter account, Like I'm assuming he means like normal people who were canceled because of tweets. But immediately Donald Trump Junior was like, hey, I've got a pretty big case for you, you know, if you want to go ahead and cover those legal bills. So it h is an interesting like legal fight and
or machination. I mean, the biggest headline from it really is just that it happened at all. Not even like we don't know what they're looking for, we don't know why and all that. Just the fact that had happened itself is you know, really enough in order I think to talk about and speculates why.
Trump has responded.
Of course, he says, just found out that Koka Joe Biden's DJ secretly attacked my Twitter account, making a point not to let me know about this major hit on my civil rights. My political opponent is going crazy trying to infringe on my campaign for president. So he is certainly seizing on that. And he's referring to the fact that prosecutors actually were able to receive permission from the judge not to tell Trump for months that his account had been taken over basically and was being searched by
the government. So they kept a secret from him. They argued that it would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation by giving him an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, or notify confederates. That was the justification for keeping this action secret from Trump. So that is about everything we know about.
That one, all right. So that's what we got.
At the same time, we have some news this morning about the rapidly approaching first Republican primary debate. It has appeared thus far like Trump is probably not going to participate in that debate. This is very you know, I mean, listen. I think it would be good for him to participate. I think it's in the interest of democracy for all of these candidates to have to participate in debates.
That includes Donald Trump, that Joe Biden.
But he and his advisors sort of feel like, oh, he's way ahead. Why take the risk, Why dignify these other opponents by stepping on the stage. The folks at Fox and Friends were on their airwaves trying to implore Trump to reconsider what appears to be his movement in the direction of skipping the debate. Let's take a listen to what they had to say.
The crowd was mixed on whether he should get debate or not. People want to see Trump debate.
Number one, it's extremely entertaining and it's good. And what I did recently is watch back the debate with Joe Biden.
Where I thought he didn't do well.
The more I realized he actually did well, much better than you would think.
But the moderator kept interrupting.
Number one and number two is Joe Biden just kept lying.
Well, I think if Donald Trump is pulling the audience saying, hey, do you think I should do that debate? Because he was very clear, he was emphatic, Nope, I'm not going to do it because I'm way ahead, and we have heard him say that. You know, my advisors are telling me I shouldn't do it. Obviously he's having sex doubts about the advice he's getting from his advisors because if he's pulling the audience, and I just don't see okay,
the debates in two weeks here on Fox. I just don't see Donald Trump sitting at home watching along with forty or fifty million other Americans when he sees Ron DeSantis in that Center Square, that would absolutely drive him crazy.
Well, and don't you want him to do it? Because I really was angry at everything that he feels that this administration of the Democrats the dj have put him through. But don't take it out on the Republicans, because Republicans want to see him up on stage, and don't take the voters for granted. Yes, he is ahead by a lot, but to see him up there on the stage would just be wonderful. Because we want to see how they interact, we want to hear their policies.
That's how he became done.
The first time, he made it entertable, blew everybody away.
News is hosting the debate so obviously.
Interesting.
I mean, they're right about not taking the voters for granted, that's all fair.
The part that I actually thought.
Was the funniest was when kill Mead started doing revisionous history on his first debate performance against Joe Biden, which everyone basically paedo. He was so obnoxious. I think that's the one too where it came out after the fact. He like had COVID at the time, so I'm wondering if they had him hopped up on some kind of something to overcome the you know, his mood because of COVID. Anyway, he was so obnoxious. He didn't let Joe Biden get
a word. He made Joe Biden so sympathetic when all you had to do was sort of like stand back and let Joe Biden hang himself. But he really came off very great, So I found it amusing that kill me It was.
Like, actually I watched it.
You did great, sir. I'm sure you do great. Again, public wants to hear from you, et.
Cetera, et cetera.
Yeah, that's one of the biggest kiss ass things. That was amazing, just shocking. Yeah, and look, let's be real, as you said, this is purely self interested. Don't forget the day that Trump was indicted. Actually that night he had dinner with Fox News executives who were at hitmar A Lago to basically beg him to show up to the debate. We do, however, have some news that just broke last night. He Trump gave an interview to news Max's Eric Bowling where he said two things. He will
let us know next week about the debate. Okay, but two I will not Two I will not sign the RNC debate Pledge. Well, the RNC pledge, which says that you will support the eventual nominee, is a precursor to participating in the debate. So I think we have a little bit of a taste. He also recently has been going after Chris Christy, calling him a fat pig or no, he was told not to call him a fat pig,
and he recounted that story classic trumpion. Christy posted the video and just said come say it to my face. I'll see you at the debate. Yeah, you know, trying to challenge him.
I don't think Trump's going to show up.
I just think at this point, specifically because of Christie, Trump has it has had that Christy ended Marco Rubio's campaign. Trump also doesn't want to basically validate all the other candidates by letting him take a shot. He's leading so far ahead and fundraising and the polls, and I actually that one of the funniest tweets truths I guess that he put out is I'll let them debate and see who I should take his vice president. You're just kind
of putting himself above it. But of course, on a small d democratic.
Level, it's awful you have to debate.
Yeah, I mean you really do have to. It's a terrible norm to set. It's one that we shouldn't normalize Biden and or Trump. If you want, if you earn it, you know, if you want it, then you got to earn it. I really believe in that, But you know, people are letting to take it a pass. So I don't know the minority.
It's empathetic.
That very likely that the two major part in nomenies neither one of them is going to have to face a single like debate question during the primary. They're going to be able awful to win without having being subjected to even like the baseline of democratic scrutiny. And it is you know, we talk a lot about norms. That is a new norm that will be sad in the future. Every frontrunner is going to be like, ah, they didn't so I'm not going to do it either, And that
is that is incredibly disappointing. It's an incredible degradation of democracy. And you know, it's not a surprise that these two men would be so craven, but nevertheless, it's doesn't make the blow land any softer.
So listen, I will say, I could see.
Him coming out next week and being like, yeah, I'll debate, but I'm not signing the pledge and then basically kicking into the R and C and making them make the tough decision.
So that way he has.
An excuse of it's not like, oh I wanted to debate, they just wouldn't let me, you know, they wouldn't let me on the stage. And so he sort of, you know, creates the own conditions where they have to block him or call his bluff or whatever. I don't know, I could see that also playing out.
The potentially LOK I actually think you're one hundred percent of righty. I'm happy to do it, but I won't do that pledge. That's that's a very smart thing, you know. It is weird though, that they I don't know if it's always been a part of it, because I mean, one of the most important moments of the first debate twenty fifteen is when they were like, well, everybody here, what do you say, is like, raise your hand if
you commit to backing the eventual Republican nominee. And he didn't raise his hand, and he's like, no, you know, I'm not going to do it. So this is clear something that's kind of been baked in for a long time.
I do think it's definitely odd that he decided that they decided to add that in there at the same time, I mean, it's not I don't know, do you think it's a smart move on behalf of the R and C, because I mean, even if he doesn't commit, that's a fun it's fine enough, like let him debate anyways, you know, let's just get the guy on the stage already.
Blew up the stupid loyally pledge because back in twenty six No, I don't think that there should be a loyalty pet pledge. I think people should be able to run and if they decide they don't like the nominee, they should be you know, free individuals to make their own choices about it. Like handcuffing everybody ahead of time, I think is ridiculous. I think it is also anti democratic.
And Trump blew this up last time around because what happened, Sager, is they had this loyalty pledge because there was all this question, oh, what will Trump do if he loses, like is he going to run through party?
What is he going to do?
And he signed the pledge and then immediately was like, nah, I'm not really going to follow this thing. So what's the point, which is so that's what Chris Chris Christy has been saying, because Christy has no intention of backing if Trump ends up being the nominee. So what he's been saying when he's asked about the loyalty pledge is I will take the loyalty pledge exactly as seriously.
As Donald Trump did last time around.
So he's technically signing it, but basically throwing out there like, yeah, I think this is garbage and I'm not really going to abide by it in the same way that Trump got away with not abiding by it last time.
So yeah, I think the loyalty pledges bs.
All right, Well, I'll see what happens. Yeah, I certainly will. As Trump used to say, we'll see what happens, Crystal, what are you taking to look at?
Well?
When you think of Los Angeles, many things may come to mind, sunshine, movie stars, Hollywood, or on the more negative side, visible homelessness, street crime. But this year LA has been ground zero for something quite surprising, a working class revolt. In Lates example, eleven thousand city workers actually went on strike on Tuesday of this week, bringing some
city services to a complete halt, slowing others. Talking about lifeguards, sanitation workers, custodians, mechanics, groundskeepers more all walk down, over low waight and understaffing. As one airport custodian told the LA Times in rather succinct fashion, it's more work for less money.
But these LA.
Workers are far from alone. They are brothers and sisters across the city and across industries have been revolting in an extraordinary year that has seen more nationwide strike activity than almost any other year this century. Nurses, dock workers, hotel workers, they have all stage strikes or work stoppages.
They're not joined by the workers at the heart of this company town, the writers and actors who make our favorite shows and movies, and the ones who are just struggling to get their foot in the door of their own Hollywood dream. They are all out on strike, demanding a stake in the future of their industry. There is no city in America facing anywhere close to this level
of worker rebellion. Partly it's because LA actually has decent union density, so workers are already organized for collective action. But if you listen to what the workers are telling reporters about why they had no choice but to strike, there is a common thread running through each of these actions. Common thread is housing. The total unaffordability of housing in the LA area has made it impossible for workers to
be able to get by on their wages. It's a miserated them with multi hour commutes push them in some instances, into literal homelessness. Joe Martinez, a city worker on strike, this week, who works servicing construction equipment at lax He told the La Times that he lives ninety minutes away from his job because it is the closest place that he can possibly afford. And yet he actually considers himself lucky because a lot of his fellow workers they have
even longer commutes. This, of course, takes them away from their family, their communities, drains their wallets and their souls by the way as they sit in mind numbing traffic. According to Martinez quote, we want to get respect from the city to go back to the bargaining table. Our biggest thing is cost of living. In a report on the hotel workers' strike, alex Press documents how automated management apps are being weaponized to bring in unwitting scaps in
an attempt to break that hotel workers strike. One of those who was summoned by UP to break the strike was a man named Thomas Bradley. He immediately dropped his shift and joined the picket line the moment he realized he was being used like a pond to try to hurt other workers. Joining the striking workers was no small thing for Bradley either, who had struggled to find employment in the hospitality industry in spite of him being trained
in credential for the work. It's a complaint that shared by many black workers who are trying to get a foothold in the hotel industry. Bradley's joblessness had pushed him from precarity into actual homelessness, and when he showed up for that shift, he was living out of his car unit here. Local eleven co president Ottobersgno explained that this precarity is shared even by many of her members who do have a job. Quote, there's no thing that I'm hearing from my workers.
They are shared.
There's a new thing that I'm hearing from my workers. They are sharing by shift rooms in a house. If you work in the PM, you get to sleep there in the AM, and if you work in the AM, you get to sleep in the PM. They actually rent a room by shift. It is incredible that we are in this crisis in this country. The union has now since helped Bradley get a job as a banquet runner at the U One Hotel, which was able to come
to terms before the contract deadline. The housing crisis has also taken center stage in the Hollywood shutdown as well. An anonymous studio executive said the quiet part out loud when he told reporters that he and his fellow execs wanted to weaponize this housing affordability crisis to force writers to accept a bad deal. The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses, a studio executive told Deadline,
acknowledging the cold as ice approach. Several other sources reiterated the statement. One insider called it a cruel but necessary evil. Now LA is at or near the top of every list that I looked at of the least affordable cities in the country. This, of course, is thanks to a combination of astronomical housing prices and comparatively low wages.
When you add these.
Sprawl, traffic, congestion, and poor public transit, you can easily understand what the entire workforce is at its wits end. LA is also among the worst cities in the country for income inequality, as superstars and excis beecutives live lives of incredible luxury, and the workers who make the whole place go commute four hours just to barely scrape by. Could also guys be a canary in the coal mine. It's not like the rest of the country is doing
so great on housing prices. Nearly two thirds of major metros just saw their housing prices hit record highs. Meanwhile, mortgage rates are a near twenty three year high as the FED has pushed interest rates up at breakneck speed. These two factors, together, housing prices and mortgage rates have made housing the least affordable that it has ever been. And while the news is somewhat improved in recent months, it is not like wages have come anywhere cloaths to
keeping up with these ever escalating housing prices. In other words, don't be surprised if the la worker's revolt is coming to a city near you. And Sire's reading all these stories and I seeing what is the connective tissue here?
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot.
Com t's how what are you looking at?
Well. Two announcements on Tuesday evening absolutely rocked the sports entertainment world. One Penn Gaming is partnering up with Disney Sports juggernaut ESPN to launch an ESPN betting app, pushing the Disney property fully into the world of online gambling. But two, Penn Gaming is divesting entirely its ownership of Barstool Sports into the hands of Dave Portnoy, making him the sole owner of the company. Both announcements in their
own right are titanic. Together they tell us a lot about the state of the media business today and what the future looks like. Let's start with Barstool, a brand that I've always loved and continued to admire. Portnoit revealed some other reason for why Penn has decided to part ways with Barstool. Let's take a listen to that interview.
We did this deal about three years ago, and I think both parties are like, we're gonna take this thing to the moon, and we underestimated just how tough it is for myself and Barstool to operate in a regulated world where gambling regulators the New York Times Business Insider hit pieces fucking with the stock price. Every time we did something. It was one step forward, two steps back. We got the night licenses because of me, you name it.
So the regulated industry probably not the best place for Barstool Sports.
And the type of content we make okay.
So basically Barstool's controversy aka the reason why it is popular is the reason that Penn Gaming had to divest itself from Barstool. And to be clear, when I say divest, I really mean it not a sale. The details of the transaction released so far indicate Portnoy did not have to pay more than one dollar to get his brand back after being paid some five hundred million dollars three
years for the brand previously. In fact, the only stipulations are some non compete elements to the future of the brand, and that if he should sell it in the future, they would get some of the proceeds. He quickly put that duress, saying he would never sell it even should he die, he will just get the brand over to one of his trusted associates. There is a whole other monologue to give about what an incredible deal that is to make, but I want to focus on the action
substance of it. What we're really learning here is a profound lesson in freedom and what it takes to be a good media company. In twenty twenty three, Barstool was a liability to Pen Gaming because of the controversy it generated. Thus, the contrary was used as evidence for why gambling licenses and other regulatory hurdles for the company couldn't be cleared and was worth nearly half a billion dollar loss just
to rid themselves of the problem. And as I immediately reacted to the portannoy comments, any truly free media brand cannot be connected to a larger entity. It must have a funding model immune from attack. And while I think Barstool may miss out on some sweet gambling revenue, I believe that this move will actually make them bigger than ever before. The most valuable commodity in the public sphere in twenty twenty three is to be able to speak your mind. It's why barstools is as popular as it
is today. The more popular it gets, the more it represents millions of people, mostly men, despise political correctness, and the more of a vector of attack, then it will be for the mainstream I believe, with no connection to the outside, say for their advertising business, they will likely
be bigger than ever before. But there's actually a second part of the announcement that we haven't gotten to yet, which also relates to a monologue I've done Previously, while pen Gaming did divest itself from Barstool, they announced their new partnership with ESPN. Now, per the deal, pen Gaming is going to pay some one point five to two billion dollars to ESPN, who will then promote the new
esp betting app across all of his franchise. This is welcome news for ESPN, which once was the king of cable bundle but now is openly being floated as an area for strategic partnership of Bob Iiger as they lose the fundamental value that the brand once commanded within media. Immediately, however, I had a different view, perhaps than others, because one of another favorite broadcasters in the independent sports world, Pat McAfee,
he recently signed a deal with ESPN. As I covered at that time, mcavie's show is going to be simulcast on the ESPN channel as well as on ESPN's YouTube channel, and at the time I actually hailed it as a victory for McAfee and for YouTube to be able to get a licensing deal where content is not exclusive to the channel itself. But I of course flagged one big concerns one of the reasons that people love McAfee and
the boys is that they speak their mind now. As you saw during the Brett Farvre situation when he literally got sued for libel, he just brushed it off. McAfee promised when he announced he was going to ESPN he would continue to keep it real. And let's recall that promise, nothing would change except that they were going to say the F word least. Here's the issue. However, think about
the sequence of events that we just went through. Penn Gaming divested Barstool for being too controversial, and then signed with ESPN. McAfee's now part of the ESPN umbrella for the fear foreseeable future for a colossal sum of money. But can he really continue to keep it real? Obviously time is going to tell, but it certainly doesn't bode well for that promise, regardless of what I believe are
his very good intentions. It reveals the exact reason why this show is independent, because we had to learn the hard way corporate control. What it looks like, how enemies won't target you. They'll just go after the larger entity and they try to that employs you to try and compel your behavior. In no way am I saying he's a Cello or that he will tail his future comments only just it's a Gordian knot of problems that Barstool will specifically consumed by, and it ultimately led to it
haf to going independent. Ultimately, I believe the sequence of events truly defines with the future of all entertainment will look like. Those who are attached to larger brands and regulated industries will always have to toe at least somewhat the establishment line. They will be sanitized involuntarily, but they
get paid big bucks for sanitization. Then swashbucklers will remain on the outside, kind of scooping up millions of people who want that authenticity, and then the crossworld will always come when someone comes along and they want to co opt that audience in exchange for a lot of money. What we've learned from the Barstool deal and this eventual collapse is if you want to be truly free to speak your mind, it's probably a bad trade to take
the money in the long run. Curious what you think of all this crystal kind of wild right, So you got basically and if.
You want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue become a premium subscriber Today at breakingpoints dot.
Com accusations are flying as journalist Ken Clippenstein has published a new report for The Intercept, saying UFO whistleblower Dave Grush, who recently testified before the House Oversight Committee, was at one point referred to a mental health institution following two nine to one one calls from his wife and what
Grush says is a PTSD related alcoholic incident. Grush and his associates initially accused the intelligence community of leaking non public health records to Clippenstein, who has since revealed he in fact retained access to this information by Freedom of Information Act requests. Resulting dramas got both sides. They're accusing the other of not telling the truth to the public about the situation. So we've got Ken Clipstein himself in
the studio now join us defending his story. It's good to see you, Ken, Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for coming in, Ken, great to be back with you guys.
All right, Ken, So let's get into the nitty gritty. I guess of the story itself. Let's start broad strokes. What is the story about?
What is it?
Well, so he's kind of the star witness of the subcommittee that's looking at the UFO allegations.
Not just him, but there are two pilots as well.
And so in the reporting on it, I noticed a phrase popping up again again.
It decorated war here, decorated war here, decorated war here.
And I'm not disputing that he is, but when I hear that, it's kind of like, Okay, well, where's the where's the critique, Like where's the negative side or where's the vetting? And I didn't see any of that by any of the media. So I thought, well, I'm going to go and look and see what I can find. And so I know people both in DoD and the intelligence community, and I did a call for tips to try to broaden. Yes, the picture that really just came from a mosaic of different sources that give me ideas
of what was going on. We can talk about that more, but really my motive was just it didn't feel like anybody was vetting this guy.
So lay out though the specifics of the story and what you found through your foyer request.
So another Virginia Freedom Information Act, you can request police records.
They're called called detailed records CADS.
Obscure things that aren't kind of like the typical police report that journalists tend to ask for, and maybe that's how they didn't know it existed.
I have some practice with before I head. I've been doing this a long time.
So when I got these back, it was two different incidents reported by his wife and previous wife in which he had gone In the second case, that was in twenty eighteen, I think he had gone into a described as like an angry drunken rage where he was suicidal, asked his wife to kill him. She called police, said that the guns were locked up, and then he was placed in a mental facility after he was assessed and then released.
I think a day later.
Got it and this happened twenty fourteen, twenty eighteen.
Both.
Okay, So there's been a lot of back and forth. Gush accused you of getting these things leaked by the intelligence community. You revealed it came from the Free Innovation for Information Act. He did a Twitter space last night. You indicated you were tipped off by this. So were you tipped off by members of the intelligence community? It was both a defense department. I mean again, it's a mosaic.
You talk to as many people as you can, because you don't want to be dependent on anyone individual who might have a grudge or whatever it is.
But yes, I did talk to both God people and intelligence.
So in terms of the substance of the tip here the accusation, I mean, aren't they fundamentally correct that, like you are publishing dirt that was tipped to you by intelligence community.
Well, the thing is, when I put up my call for tips, I said, if you have anything positive or negative, sure, because at the end of the day, like I don't want to you know, he's a human being. I don't to be candid with you guys, so people can account for where I'm coming from. I don't believe in the UFO stuff. I think he's incorrect about it. However, I don't want to just punch at him. I would have included anything positive that i'd gotten. Unfortunately I didn't get anything.
Now that doesn't mean that he doesn't have, you know, redeeming qualities. Everybody does, even me so, but I just didn't happen to hear any of that, and so I had to go with what you know, I was told. And to give you guys a sense too, I can speak to the characteristics of the sources, because I understand why people are concerned about that, because most of the
porting that you read is planted. When you go to New York Times, most of those stories are planned by committee chairs, by the White House, whatever it is.
That's not how I roll. I know.
I tend to talk to mid level people, people kind of like grush GS fourteens, GS fifteen's, people who are experienced but didn't quite have the political chops generally to make it to the top.
Those are the types of people that I was talking to. Just full disclosure.
If you want to ask anything else about Jos, say I'm having shark about it.
Yeah, so, I mean, basically, you're being accused of like this is a smear job. You're trying to undermine his credibility. What did you see as the value of this information? Do you think that the fact that he has a PTSD diagnosis makes him more likely to lie, make things up and less credible in general?
No? Absolutely not PTSD.
But you know in the police reports his wife called him an alcoholic and said that this has happened repeatedly. That I think is a concern. I think that if someone's an alcoholic. Yeah, that should be factored into your assessment of what their credibility is.
Right, But if it's alcohol related to PTSD, I mean, let's be here. I mean, he sworn testimony, he admits he had problem PTSD, he says it was I mean, I'm assuming he's related to these alcoholic incidents. He got treatment, per your own reporting, and all of the incidence. He's now testified to sworn testimony as well as a whistleblowers post treatment. So I'm just trying to understand, like, what
is the value of this information being put forward? And to be clear, you didn't do anything wrong, You're doing your job. We get crazy tips from people all the time here, So I have no issue with the Freedom of Information Act, even if you did report it, even if you did get a tip from the intel community. I guess it comes down to like the framing and the substance of like, what are we supposed to do with this information? Well, I included the story an example of the dozens of White.
House staffers who had their clearance has revoked for smoking weed, including in states where it was legal, right place where it's legal, So like this is part of the clarence process. And so again this whole focus on PTSD and if it makes him not credible, that was never something I said. That was a focus that he made trying to get ahead of the story in the statement that he put out.
My interest was always the alcoholism. And I mean, I guess just to I feel as though there's some kind of grandstanding around this stuff, because the reality is, if you're going to say, get a medical procedure, go see a surgeon, you find out he's an alcoholic, that's probably a factory and you're deciding somewhat right right.
Well, I mean, is he an active alcoholic? Do you know that we know that from the report to his wife said he was okay in twenty eighteen, Yes, but we don't know anything since then.
So can you speak a little bit too, because part of the piece you talk about how you know in those instances you had White House staffers fired, that there is this, you know, very onerous procedure to get and maintain your security clearances. In this instance, you know they knew about these police interactions and what had happened with regard to his wife at the time, they knew about the allegations of alcohol abuse. All of this stuff and
yet he was able to maintain his clearances. Do you read something nefarious into that or is that an indication in his direction that listen, they knew everything, and they still thought that I was trustworthy enough to maintain these very high level secret clearances.
That's what he said, and I think there's something to that. But there's also something of a boys club. I don't mean in a gender way. I mean in like a senior level. People tend to look at for each other.
I quoted someone as saying that, and that was the general frustration of multiple people that I talked to, was feeling like, they described this guy's unreliable and they were frustrated that this stuff that they knew about was not being account for it in these discript they were seeing the descriptions I was describing before Decorated Here, Decorated Hero.
They didn't feel like that was the whole story.
I guess what I'm confused by is you're telling me this, but you don't quote any of these people in the story. Everything the only facts that you can really attest to you in the story of Foia in turn, and obviously the tip and again zero issue with that, but don't you think that's the actual relevant part. I mean, why aren't you quoting people on background and people who work for him. He said he's unreliable. You're saying it here. I think
that's fine. I mean, obviously sure it's a public forum, but the way that it's being read, and I have to be honest with you, I respect you work, but you know, the assemblage of the facts here, it does kind of read as a smear job. You're basically like, he had a PTSD. He says it's PTS interident, he had two alcoholics. You quote two people who basically say you know he's full of it. You only quote one expert who says that the UFO hearing is a travesty.
And I mean, one of the things I really don't understand is we how many conversations we had about Pentagon spinning us. But you're credulously citing the explanation, the nineteen nineties explanation on Roswell and prejudicously quoting like Susan go who depending on spokesperson who said that he's full of But I mean, why should we believe these people? Do you understand what I'm saying?
Facts?
Story I think.
That's a good instinct.
You don't want to side with the institutions, but I think you also don't want to reflexively oppose them. I'm not saying that you're yeah, I think that you know, I have that tendency too. But again, these are not monolists the d D. I'm not talking to the public affairs officer. I'm not talking to senior executives. I generally try to go out and get a sense of like the mid level, kind of like rank and file people, because I think they tend to tell a more honest story.
You talk to the politicals and it's just I agree with you.
I think you're doing the right thing, and you always and I've always, you know, I've sto know a lot of your work. But I'm like, why aren't any of these people quoted that?
Why aren't you quoting these people?
Essentially, the reason that I did the FOY was because they're kind of describing as unreliable and thinking, well, do I want to just use the sort of innuendo? Can I try to substantiate it? And if you look at the FOI requests, you can FOI my FOY or I think I posted.
It too, you did. I asked for a whole range of things.
So this idea that I was being pointed at one specific event, that's just not true.
People were describing things to me.
It sounds like there's certain themes I go in Nexus, which journalists have, and so you can find their home address home address was not furnished to me, and then you can just file a FOAY And I did it for like seven years, and so that was what came back. So there's no sort of like so I guess might
answer your question. I'm not trying to be evasive, like I did talk to intelligence and DD people, but the way in which that influences the reporting is a little bit more subtle than I think that the discourse gives credit too. It's not like they're pointing you at one specific event. They give you a sense and then you use that to go and use other methods to try to substantiate.
I don't want to belabor the point, but just so clear in my head of kind of the timeline you got that you were seeing the coverage of this hearing.
Yes, you took issue with the fact that you.
Know a lot he made extraordinary claims, right, and their their secondhand claims, and he hasn't produced publicly any evidence outside of his own testimony, which was being backed up by his personal reputation.
Credibly, you're frustrated by the.
Fact that there doesn't seem to be a vet on the other side, and then you reach out to your sources or do they.
Guys that help us understand.
The topicality above.
So there are people that I know in DoD and in air Force that I figure probably know this guy. So I started asking him. They're telling me he's unreliable, and I think, okay, well, how can I find more? Because people have bits and pieces, it's not really enough to run with. So then I do a call out for tips and the tweet I said, if you have positive or negative because I don't to the extent that there's always gonna be a bias towards negative. Because I
used to work at Target as a cashier. I remember the suggestion box and I thought, man, those have all got to be negative comments. There's not gonna be a single positive suggestion so that you know o YouTube section, So there's there's not gonna be you know, there's gonna be that bias.
But it's like to the extent that I can.
I'm trying to cast as wide of a net as i can to get different. So that's not just reflective of the circle that I have and the friends that I have, and the.
People that reached out.
They told me largely similar like in theme stuff that the people that I knew.
Were saying, right, And I mean, I've got the problem though, It's like you're kind of saying this selection bias here. And one of the things crushes a lad is that he was retaliated against and it's being actively retaliated against by the intel.
And there's strong evidence for that, right, Okay at his word for that. Yes, well, but how do you know that you're not.
Part of that that right that the people who are reaching out to you aren't basically like yeah, I mean, look, they're basically violating their job by talking to you in the first place and pointing to you towards the direction. Let's be honest. I mean, he's correct. And then that this is probably made known to his authorities. They probably took a look at his file and they gave you a call whenever they saw your number. Nothing wrong with that, You did nothing. They're the ones who are doing it.
But I mean, do you not feel though, is you're part of a little bit of a campaign here? That's the first question.
Creditor.
Again, that's why I try in my reporting to find them as opposed to them like coming to me independently, you know, and they're and again, these things are complicated. These are not monolists. There's the senior executive classers appointees. Those guys are the demons that you really want to watch out for. And so I mean, the people that I talked to clearly didn't like him, They didn't believe in about the UFO stuff. And so in so far as that is a motive, that's true. You know, I
want to be very frank about it. Yeah, right, But it's a little different than like a Biden administration appointee being like this is embarrassing, we have to destroy this guy. It's so the concerns are fair, but I just want to point out that it's different.
So do you think that he's lying? Do you think he was misled? Do you think that you know, there's some sort of motive for him to because you know, with whistleblowers this comes at great personal risk. I'm sure this is not a fun experience for him. I'm sure it's not fun to have these things in the press and this type of personal scrutiny and some of the worst moments of his life drive out in front of the public. So what sort of a motive would he have for not being honest interact with the public.
I mean, around these issues, it's probably just embarrassing. And I don't necessarily even fault m for not being worth forthcoming about it.
I've blamed that.
I'm talking about, why would he come forward with this, with the inaccurate claims to start with the sort of things that he testified to what would he's standing Again.
There's a range of claims he makes, and I think a lot of them are probably true. Where we depart is when he says that it's space aliens or that you've recovered. But the idea I know from my sources and I think parts of this republic there is a UAV recovery, crash recovery program. There is constantly retaliation against whistleblowers. I know that because I work with them and there's data on this.
It happens when you report something the Inspector General, there's a target on your back.
So I totally take him at his word on that.
And his lawyer was a former Inspector General of the ICEE, very respected person. I know people that know him. All I've heard is good things. So the whole retaliation thing, I assume that's true. They don't like people going to Congress and reporting things. Now, you know, again, where we depart is the specifics. I also think it's true that
there is a UAV crush covery program. I just think just because you don't know and can't recognize what the technology is, that doesn't necessarily mean it's extra treshio.
Right, But why don't you present evidence to that fact?
Then?
I mean, how do you believe it?
Like you say you don't believe him, I mean, listen, I don't know whether I believe him or not. I to me, it's just extraordinary. Whenever you're like, year before Congress you're telling this unders sworn testimony, I'm like, Okay, well I want to hear it from the other guy. Shohn Kirkpatrick says it's not true. To me, that's great. We got two people under sworn testimony. They say it's not true. Why don't you put forward a story? Then?
Being like yeah, he's wrong. You know, the people are lying or you know, I mean I used to do this for a living. You can quote these people and be like rush colleagues say he's a liar. Grush colleagues say that he's completely not true. I mean, this is this is where I just don't understand. Well, I'm in a different position because it's like, yeah, I don't want to. I mean again, I disagree with them, but it's like
I don't want to. I want to rely on stuff that is really easy to substantial for documents, and his wife too, current wife, not just ex wife. If I'm just going off of stuff that people don't like him said verbally, it feels kind of like a smear, you know, like kind of unfair, and so it's like I get where you're coming from, but it's like, put yourself in my shoes, Like how would you navigate these kind of vague descriptions?
You know?
Yeah, you know, I don't know. To be honest with you, I guess. So I'll come back to this on the alcoholism point. You keep talking about that, I mean, so is it not a mental health issue?
Then?
Like is it disqualifying in your mind? Being out I mean he first of all, we don't know if he's alcoholic. Why you know, who knows? People say he says he's recovered from PTSD. So he's recovered from PTSD. His best friend killed himself, gordonam I know for a fact to serve in Afghanistan? These are pretty dramatic events. Millions of veterans kind of stuff are the same thing. So I mean, are you saying that's disqualifying for the entire store like that?
That's what I think a lot of people are upset about. I don't think it necessarily is disqualifying. I think it might be. I mean that's kind of why I put it out. People can look at it and decide what they think. I certainly don't want to have like it's crazy to have a blanket rule anyone who has a substance abusey issue should not be that's clearly your right fault. Look, this man is asking us to believe something. He's asking
us to believe understod In testiment. Crucially, as you said, his reputation is what he said, It's a totally legit question. I'm more like, well, what are we supposed to believe here?
And what's I mean I just think it's more I mean, people want to paint not saying you're doing this with this broadbush of it's false. And there are specific components to his client. There's specific parts to his claims, and and you know, his own layer who I mentioned before, that law firm that's representing him, has said that the reporting around the contents of his disclosures has been inaccurate. And I've never seen a lawyer do that in relation to,
you know, stuff about a client. And so I think there's clearly something that's a little bit off here, and as to you know, people disagree about what those details might be, but it's a spectrum of claims that he's making.
You.
Last question for me, at least for you, ken is are you working on additional Are there additional reporting pieces you're fleshing out right now? What should we be expecting?
Yes, I'm interested in industries interesting these kind of things, because you talked about the Pentagon's interests, which those are reasonable questions to ask, like what are kenson why are they telling him these things?
But there's a whole other interest group.
Which is aerospace, which has its own set of interests in making the public think certain things about not just UFOs, but aerospace phenomena in general. And so my hope is that that can in a lot of these representatives in Congress that staff the committees get money from these aerospace firms.
So are you saying that this is like a siah by the defense contractors. I'm just trying to know why you're out. I mean, so Chris lasked me before. If I had to guess, I bet he believes it. I bet it's sincere. People tend to believe what they're saying.
They tend to.
Degrees, and you know, I mean, it's not true.
He was a decorated war hero.
That's not you know, so I assume he believes what he's saying. I'm not someone I hate this word grifterrip. People throw this word around so loosely, you know, and it's like, how do you know someone's hard?
You can't.
No, I can. So I think it's fine to present the facts like I said. I mean, I'm just reading this story and you're like, you only quote two people, Jack Murphy and then this other guy. You're citing Roswell credulously no offense. But like that's crazy. That's like citing the JFK record and saying that that's the definitive norm here. I mean, when I'm reading this, all I'm supposed to take away is like, all right, you know alcoholic, PTSD, guys got mental health too, experts. He didn't present the
other side. So do you see why people took an issue with it? I understand, yeah, to some extent.
I'm in a position where it's like, yeah, everyone is doing the decorated war hero this stuff, and it's kind of like, well, now, my job is I have to try to give people stuff they haven't gotten. Okay, do you know what I mean? Yeah, I'm just trying to be Maybe that's bad, but that's right. I'm just trying to give you inside of my thought process.
Look, that is well.
I think people can take away from this what they will, and at the very least, I think it helped me understand kind of where you're coming from. A lot of other people, like I said, have questions. People watch this show, and I appreciate you coming on. I know it's not the easiest thing to take questions like this, So thank you, we appreciate it.
My pleasure. Guys.
Thanks Ken, good to see you.
We'll see you guys later