Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
What do we have, Crystal?
Indeed we do, and that was fun. On the road, I was saying, it feels nice.
It's been two weeks because of illness.
Yeah, you were travel we're on the road.
Nice to be back to just row in the studio schedule. All right, So lot's to get to you this morning. It does look like Kamala is getting a bit of a post DNC bump. We will show you the polls as we have them in the indications there. We also had to share with you this quite amusing John Stewart take on the DNC.
So we'll play that and react. Yeah, it was a good one.
Also, this is big news RK Junior is four or less out of the presidential race and is backing for former President Trump. So we'll show you that and show you the transition that RFK Junior has gone through in terms of his attitude towards former President Trump. We're also taking a look at what is happening in the Middle East.
Huge escalation between Israel and HESBLA. It does look like both sides are trying to back down, but obviously this continues to be an extremely volatile situation, and those ceasefire talks are allegedly supposedly ongoing, so we'll tell you what we can about the progress or lack thereof. There also huge additional overseas news the founder of Telegram arrested in France.
Crazy story, still getting details on what exactly he was arrested for, why he was even in France, because he seemed to know that he could be in trouble if he landed there, yet he did land there, So we'll break all of that down for you. And also yet another just stunning embarrassing terror failure for Boeing. Their starliner has been deemed officially unsafe by NASA, be returning to Earth uncrewed leaving two American astronauts stranded at the International
Space Station. They were originally supposed to be up for what eight days, Yes, and now they're going to be there for like nine months.
Two thirds of a year.
So it's a crazy situation and just yet another example of utter and complete Boeing company failure.
Yeah, it's a Boeing story, it's a US government story. And the billions of dollars we found this company, the amount that we're propping it up, the failure after failure after failure, and it just should show all of us this is just a tip of the Iceberg.
Space is where you know, even a minute, a tiny little.
Mistake, because everybody learned in a poll of thirteen can lead to life threatening circumstances. And now just imagine how many of these problems are in the passenger jets that we all have to fly, in the military equipment that our service members rely on. So there's a lot to be said about this with this company and it's ties to the US government and inefficiencies.
And more so, I'm excited to talk about that. Indeed, thank you to everybody who subscribed.
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But other than that, let's get to the DNH.
Yeah, we got a lot coming up.
Debates, Oh my god, you know, off to the races. We're Labor Day next week. So it's really getting down to the home stretch with this election condensed election season, which has been absolutely wild. All right, let's get to the news with regard to Kamala's potential post DNC bounce. So perhaps the most telling indicator is that Trump's poster is saying, Yeah, she's going to get a bounce, just hang in there. At first they were warning of she's
going to get a honeymoon period. They were right about that, She's going to get a bounce. They were you know, it looks like they're going to be right about that too. Let's put this up on the screen. This is from media. It originally reported I think by the Washington Post. In any case, Trump's posters predicted she would see a temporary bounce in public pulling after she accepted her party's nomination. Quote post DNC, we will likely see another small, albeit
temporary bounce for Harris and the public polls. Post convention bounces are a phenomenon that happens after most party conventions, although notably not after Yes their party convention because was like exactly erased by the fact that Biden dropped down. So don't be surprised to see Harris get a temporary
two to three point bump, is what they're predicting. The other thing to keep in mind is that while the media is going to focus on the national polls, we need to keep our eye on the ball, that is, the polling in.
Our target states.
Our goal is to get to two seventy and winning these states is how we do it. We also had a new analysis from Nate Silver, also factoring what appears to be a Kamala Harris post DNC bump. We haven't gotten a lot of polling at all after that was taken, you know, during or after the convention, so we're still sort of reading the tea leaves here. But here's what Nate Silver has in his model. You can see they're at the.
Tail end the.
Percent for Kamala Harris ticking up just a bit. Donald Trump's percentage ticking down just a bit. He says, we are already seeing a convention for Harris, and this is from data before her speech last night. Let's put the little bit of polling that we do have up on the screen. This is a hill Rite up of a Farley Dickinson University poll.
No idea. How good of a polster this is.
I'm not really that familiar with them, but in any case, in this poll, she holds a seven point edge nationally over former President Trump, making the largest gain for the Democratic presidential candidate as the general election approaches. This was released on Friday, and it found her leading fifty to forty three percent. Saga. I looked into this poll because they had this comment. They had some comments about like Harris's lead grows when people are asked to think about
race or gender. They also made these this comment later in this article about like people who identify themselves with traditionally masculine characteristics Trump.
So I looked in. I don't I don't know if.
You looked at this, but this was just there was a weird question that they asked that I just wanted to take note of. They asked the men in the survey whether they would describe themselves as completely masculine, mostly masculine, slightly masculine, or in a number of feminine categories and anyway, the ones who put themselves in the completely masculine category
favored Trump sixty four to thirty. All the other men so the mostly masculine, slightly masculine, et cetera, et cetera, favorite hairs by twenty point marchin fifty five to thirty five.
Among the women, they asked.
The similar like you know, completely feminine, mostly femine, et cetera. There wasn't much of a breakdown there, But anyway.
It's a weird question. I don't know how whatever. It's a strange ware is.
But a lot going on as right, Yeah, there is a lot we Maybe we'll talk about it tomorrow because there's whole daya bash clip about this about masculinity.
Right, Well, I do you think.
One of the key like the twenty sixteen election, coming off of Obama and as Democrats were moving into this very like you know, woke language phase, there was more of a sort of racial focus. Even the Kamala Harris
obvious she's a black woman, she's also a woman. There feels to be more of like a battle of the sexes gender divide thing coming about here, which you know with Tim Walls and his version of masculinity versus Jade Vance and his like, and this sort of campy masculinity that Trump leaned into in his convention.
So anyway, we'll put a pin in that. We can discuss that more later.
But I just thought it was oh absolutely, I actually I would not put JD or Trump Trump maybe a little bit into that category. I think RFK is like the you know, like the emblem of what this like new online masculinity would kind of coalesce around. The reason why the traditional masculine question and all that stuff matters is I've talked about this for a long time. Gender is now one of the major divides up there with the education divide.
And actually, if you look at all.
Of the games that GOP has made over the last eight years, it's all in minority groups. It's all men, it's all it's like Hispanic men. Trump is winning fifty to fifty black men. Trump is winning not fifty, maybe
twenty thirty percent at best white men. Actually, well it depends, so white men with a college degree are actually becoming a lot more democratic and have become almost majority democratic over the Trump years, the Trump era, Whereas if you look at white college educated men and then you would think about the cultural differences, the type of media those two groups are going to consume is vastly different. So yeah, okay, you've truly scratched something for me in this right now.
I interest That's why I wanted to bring it out.
In terms of the general election, Trump and Harris just interesting and looking at the RCP polling average, and I really like they have this day in history comparison. So this day in history August twenty six, twenty twenty, Biden seven point one percent lead, Clinton six percent lead. Right now, Harris one point five. Now, I mean, are the polls
better today? Are they worse off today? Because if there are anything as bad as they were in twenty twenty or in twenty sixteen, then Trump is going to win by the four points. But yeah, if they're not, if there's been a little bit of a correction, if twenty twenty two, you know, if abortion is a little bit more of a factor in this election, then maybe this is under waiting the comm law sample. So we always want to give people a sense of tremendous ambiguity when thinking about this.
On that I saw this interesting.
I'm not sure where this came from, but I saw people quoting it on all over the place on Twitter. Apparently the New York Times Siena poll, which is considered one of the best, but which was off quite you know, off by four sizeably in twenty twenty, which is you know, a decent miss. Being off by four points, and you know, obviously here would be would change this race dramatically in
either direction. So at the time in twenty twenty, they would call people and they would get a number of respondents who were Trump supporters who would just say something like fu, I'm voting for Trump and hang up the phone. Yea. And they wouldn't count those because they were incomplete, they were partial responses. So they decided like, well, those people are obviously voting for Trump, so we should mark them down. So this time they are including those types of responses.
And apparently if they had just added in those responses, that would have accounted for half of the miss of the poll last time. So I did think that was interesting in terms of It's also funny to me that no one mentioned that last time, because remember there was a whole conversation about like why were the polls off, and there were all these different theories floated.
How come no one brought this up at the time. But anyway, these lyrics.
Of course true geniuses, and that's why they charged fifty thousand dollars a poll. But and then this is part of the problem, is that what we all have to look to sampling has been off since the beginning, if you look at the very first polls, allthough we go back to the nineteen thirties, in terms of the overall snaphot that they give.
I really have been enjoying reading.
Nate Silver's analysis for how he like very prudently explains his models and how different weights and historical stuff that he goes into. And I just think it is a very very inexact science. Nobody should take this as a snapshot of exactly what is happening. It's about direction, and then we also have to consider fundamentals, recency biased, and I would just say, in general, you know, things are things are obviously better for the Democrats than they were
whenever Biden was in the race. We could say that, yeah, with absolutely I think Trump also has a very fighting chance, yeah, probably better than he ever has had, you know, coming in to this election. So I would take those two things, and I would really consider that when we look at the polls, when we look also at the choices that these different campaigns are making and the analysis that there is internally. We know that so much of Hillary's hubris
for why she lost was based on false polling. We know that a lot of Biden's inactivity back in twenty twenty was both born out of necessity because of their Biden Basement strategy, but also again out of an inflated false sense of hubris. Whereas this time around, the Republicans are really scrambling because I think they understand that they went from almost a seventy eighty ninety percent chance to pining an election right back down to fifty and now they have to throw everything at the wall.
Trump is uncomfortable. They're making different moves.
Tomorrow, we're going to talk about abortion and about how the GOP is really changing radically, like you know, at least publicly on their messaging around it, and what that is going to try and look at in terms of what their internal polls are.
But overall everything I hear from the DNC.
Democratic insiders were telling Politico and others They're like, hey, our polls are actually tighter than the national ones.
Republicans are like, our polls are tighter than the national ones.
So in general, I look at the choices those campaigns are making, and we see a toss up in the making.
There's a Democratic polster that said, you know, they've been doing a lot of surveys over the past number of days and they're comparing it to twenty twenty and they said, according to their polls, Kamala Harris is doing one point better than Joe Biden was in their polls at this time last time around. However, again that's you know, you change a point in either direction and it totally switched. I mean, think about how close it was in Georgia, in Arizona, in Michigan, like in so many of these
key states last time. And so even if the posters are pretty close to right, if they're a point off, then you could end up with a completely different result. So you know, it's it's listen, it's closely divided country. This is as cliche as it gets at this point. It's going to be extraordinarily close, and these little movements in either direction can make or break. Let's go and
put the next one up on the screen. We do have one other poll that had some field work conducted after the DNC ended, which was on Friday.
Most of it was during.
The convention, however, So this poll Angus Reid found Harris forty seven Trump forty two, as compared to last time around it was Harris.
Forty four Trump forty two.
So Trump not really moving one way or another, but Harris picking up ground either from third parties or undecided. And you know, that's another thing that we've talked to some about here, is it does seem like it's hard for Trump to get higher than like forty three percent, you know, like he's kind of it depends, he's kind of stuck as a pretty hard ceiling. Now, does that persist?
His approval ratings are also higher than they used to be. Obviously, Kamala Harris is a really skyrocket and she's basically even, which for a modern politician is kind of extraordinary. But Trump has also come up in terms of his approval ratings, So you know, is he able to break through what has been a difficult ceiling for him. That's another big question. One thing that's very clear at this point is there continues to be huge enthusiasm from the base of the
Democratic Party for the Harris Walls ticket. The fundraising, the amount of money that they're raising is astonishing. Put this up on the screen. They celebrated that they had record fundraising. They've got huge volunteering momentum. They're going into Georgia for a bus tour. They had more than two hundred thousand new volunteer shifts since the first day of the DNC. They've raised more than five hundred and forty million dollars
in basically a month. In a month, they raised half a billion dollars.
Crazy.
Put the next one up on the screen. This also has some more details here about the fundraising. In particular, they raised eighty two million during the convention week alone. A third of those nations just from last week were first time contributors, and as I mentioned before, volunteer signing up for nearly two hundred thousand ships since Monday Monday.
A lot of these donors were not Biden donors either this cycle or last cycles, so bringing in a lot of new time new first time donors, and in terms of the profession, continues to be heavily overrepresented by teachers, which makes sense with Walls on the ticket and also this time with nurses as well. So interesting demographics in terms of who is enthused here. But this, like I said,
it's just undeniable, the pulling all backs this up. Democrats were dragging themselves to election day when it was Joe Biden. Now they're excited, like they want to get out work, they want to volunteer, they want to donate, they realize they have a chance, they want to win, et cetera, et cetera. So night and day in terms of the sentiment around the campaign.
That is why I'm trying to inject a tremendousness of ambiguity because.
But I am in general.
Something I really know is that from eight and from twenty twenty two, when the Dems are fired up, they're playing to win, and not only playing to win. They have all elite institutions on their side. They have colleges, they have media, they have everybody you know mailing. They have money. They have more money than God. You know, if you put all the Democratic billionaires together on top of you have enthusiastic, engaged upper middle class base. That's
just row your vote. I don't count these people out, man, They're very powerful. And that's something that I really have witnessed with the Kamala relaunched, the way that the favorabilities are where they are. I was watching a very funny clip of Quentin Tarantino and he's like, I don't care if she does any interviews. He's like, I'm gonna vote for anyway, so she shouldn't do any interviews. He's like
it doesn't matter. He's like, we're playing to win, and he's like, that's what Republicans are always really good at.
And I was like, wow, you know, it's a little different.
I could see why a a a partisan Democrat would think that. My only point being that engagement was saw in Georgia in those two Senate races, engagement that we saw in Georgia back in twenty twenty two, and.
The overwhelming at the overwhelming.
Activism that has gone on the issue of abortion and as well as the high salience of those issues in battleground states.
I think that spells trouble for Republicans.
And that's just something that a lot of Republicans strategists others really are struggling with right now. We'll talk about it tomorrow in terms of the split in the pro life community as well. But Republicans really, I mean, you know, if we always say it, it's like the dog that caught the car and they're like, now, what what do we do here? It's one of the most unpopular issues. You have a base pro life base. Some are threatening
to come out and not vote. I don't really believe them, but I mean, you know, if it's about margins, if it's in Georgia or any of the Arizona there's a sizable evangelical populations, Catholic populations in both of those states. Maybe they won't vote for Trump or for Vans. I don't really believe them when they say it, but.
They're going to form.
But what if they don't vote.
It, and what if they only vote a ninety percent not one hundred percent?
You know that matters, right or they don't?
You know, the really dedicated pro life activists, these are a key, yeah, base of the Republican Party. These are the people that aren't just voting Republican. They're in there doing the work right church, They're exactly. They're you know, they're talking to their neighbors. This is a whole like, you know, key sort of identity in their life, et cetera. And so if you dampen that enthusiasm, it could could make a difference on the margins when it's again going
to be a very close race. So you know, we'll see where we go from here. It's already we're already coming up on Labor Day. So as much as the Trump people want to say it's a honeymoon and then it's going to be a temporary post convention bounce, it's like, yeah, but y'all only got what ten weeks before election day roughly out. So on the one hand, especially given what we've seen and how the world has been turned upside
down politically in just a month, that's an eternity. On the other hand, it really isn't in the grandite scheme of things, a lot of time to turn around a campaign or to take the lead in a campaign that you know, right now, I do really.
Think it's fifty to fifty.
It's easy to have a sense of like, oh, Kamala is just romping because the picture so different from when Biden was in the race, but when you really look at the polls, it is as close to a toss up as it could possibly be. Maybe she has a little bit of an edge right now, but given the polling missus we've seen in the past when Trump has been on the ballot, I wouldn't count on it.
Yeah.
So previously, when RFK was still in the race, and we're going to talk about this, when he was drawing votes away from Trump is in the critical states like Michigan and elsewhere, I was at like fifty two, forty forty eight. Yeah, now like straight back with RFK gone, I think Trump is I'm not saying he's cruising, but he's got just as good as a shot right now as Kamala Harris. That's just a lesson that all of us would engage with Trump on the ballot, cannot underestimate
his strength. The only difference is at this time around, I'm also not underestimated the Democrats, given the recent showing that they made in twenty twenty two. We're previously in twenty twenty I remember we used to talk about this. I'd be like, any poll which had Trump down by six, I'd be like, you need to add five you know, I'd always give the Republicans a plus five. This time around, I'm not quite there at a couple. On the Democrats.
I'm always considering that this time around they also could be underestimated by four maybe five, just as they were underestimated in twenty twenty two. So you got to think about that. There's a high level of variance that goes going into this election.
That's exactly right.
It's no longer you can just assume that it's undercounting Republicans because we had the miss in the other direction in twenty twenty two. So it really makes it one of these like you just have to be humble about what the polls say and your expectations of what is actually going to happen. All right, let's go ahead and move on to John Stewart having some fun at the democrats expense with regard to his take on the DNC.
Let's take a lism.
They had Democratic Party icons and lifelong Republicans. They had a guy yelling screw the billionaires, followed immediately by a very happy billionaires. They had black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Gay Americans, Jewish Americans, Palestiniano well, oh, to be fair, it was only four nights, eight hours a night.
But really it's best not to think about the consequences.
Of our actions over there, especially given the theme of the week.
I can feel the excitement in this arena. It's filled with energy and with joy, the air of joy joy.
Joy.
Yeah, well done there by John Sewart, and I mean just pointing out, as he always does, in a very trenchant way, the utter distance between the joy vibe, the inclusivity. All we want, all these voices and something that you know, people were with the Uncommitted movement or just in general want to see, you know, peace and justice for Palestinians and for the onslaught and the atrocities to end.
You had time.
For every front bencher, backbencher, every like Republican, you know, prole, all these people you had time for. And trust me, as John Suropp points out, you probably only watched in primetime. Those speeches were going for a let you had, you know, some random friend Kamala Harris's from fourth grade or whatever. You had for all of these people, but you could not make room for a vetted, very safe, very frankly laudatory speech endorsing Kamala Harris and criticizing Donald Trump from
a Palestinian American. So I mean, it's a glaring his hypocrisy. And you know, I do think that this is a risk for them because when you are running this all the joy and the inclusivity, and when you're running on vibes and when you're a lot of the gains that Kamala Harris has made hasn't been It hasn't been at all from Republicans. It has been somewhat from independance, but it's actually been a lot of getting the Democratic base to come back home. You do risk under mining the
overwhelming enthusiasm excitement that you have from this campaign. And it also just onjust a purely like you know, how are you running your operation thing? The whole thing was handled so incompetently. It was such a mess. They try to lie to reporters and be like, well, actually we said yes, but they said no, bullshit, like you're just making stuff up. So it was haphazard. It was a foolish decision. It created a drama and a spectacle. It undermined all of their messaging, and you know, is it
going to be the make or break? I don't know, but we do have a lot of polling to suggest that she would benefit. Number one, the more she can separate herself from Joe Biden, the more she benefits politically. And number two, there's a lot of polling at this point that voters are more likely to reward a candidate who was in favor of stopping the weaponship and stop shipping the bombs and really going hard for a ceasefire. So in any case, well, greatly think great commentary from John Stewart.
You think half a billion dollars just raises itself. I mean, that's really where it comes down to. Look, we got to be honest about where the money is and also where what we saw when we were at the Democratic National Convention. I spoke with Michael Tracy, he attended the Jewish Democrats meeting with Doug Imhoffe speaking about the commitment
to Israel. There was one of those little side panels which were on the outer rings where Philip Gordon, the Vice President's National security advisors, as we will never consider arms embargo. You have very strong language which is in there, and it makes people who are hawkish, like Democratic centrists, more Hillary Clinton type donors who were very very comfortable, you know, with this, and this is exactly what they want.
So I think this was not a voter play. It was purely about consolidating a lot of the rich donors. I mean, think about all of those people who were donating to Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, all those other people were freaking out about activism.
Everybody thinks it's Republicans.
No, it was definitely fueled by Republican or right leaning outlets like the Free Beacon. But the people who are themselves are the If you're donating a billion dollars to you Pen, you're not a Republican, Okay, you're a Democrat. You're just one of those like old school Hillary people. Those are the people with the money, the powerbrokers, and I think Kamala is very comfortable in those spaces. That's something that we talked with David Sarota about the Silicon Valley.
She shouted out the founders. I mean, this lady's from California. She knows where the bread is buttered, if anything. You know, being a machine politician, you know that more than anybody. So for her, I don't I think she can benefit enough from the vibe from the media and all of that keep the donors happy, and she can go in and you know, if she has to inherit a problem, well, that's a whole other story.
And that's why a.
Few people I've been speaking to smart even who are on the left, kind of privately, they're like, oh, she'll never survive, you know, like she's going to be one of those people who she may be able to get herself elected, but when she actually has to deal with the problems. You can only run from the media and from governance for so long. One day, if you become president, just imagine, you know, you actually have to make a call here, put out a statement, are we going to do it or not?
Are we going to Israel or not?
You can't just boat size out of your mouth for four years straight. And so I think that eventually will catch up with her, as it does all people who are are ambiguous as candidates. But for right now, I just looked it up. She's got seventy one days. There weren't a lot of protesters that showed up to the DNC. The uncommitted people mostly rolled, you know, they're mostly you're like, yeah, we're your support Kamala and all that, and so they
think they can win, and I think they're right. I honestly, do you look at Gretchen Whitmer. She didn't even say anything right, and she's she's represented from Michigan. I just checked the timeline of a few Michigan people, elected officials and others who we've spoken to in the past. I don't see anything criticizing Kamala. They're stuck in a hard place too, they don't really know what to do.
There's also a risk for her.
I mean, colleges are about to be back and you know it should be yeah, I mean, depending on the school, they're going to be back in session very soon. So you could see reigniting of that college protest wave, which was really you know, the beating heart of a lot of this energy. And I think you're right about you know, how she's weighing things. And obviously, like the elite of the Democratic Party has long just been you know, completely
committed to Israel. Obama came the closest in recent times to bucking them at all with regard to the Iranian nuclear deal. But even there was you know, it's very tepid, it's very moderate in terms of descent. But I think the model is a little out dated because if you think about the bulk of the donations that are coming in from her, it's not from the billionaire donor class, it's from you know, ranking it like teachers, it's from nurses,
it's these grassroots, first time donors. And so she's gonna have plenty of money. Right whether she does exactly what you know, Maria Maddelson or whoever, Bill Ackman, who were both Republicans giving to that side of the equation, whether she does exactly what they want her to do on this issue or not, I think politically she has an opportunity to benefit from showing distance from Biden, something she's
unafraid to do on literally every other issue. On every other issue, she's trying to at least rhetorically distance herself from this president. But for some reason, when it comes to Israel, she's, you know, she wants to maintain exactly his posture.
I also saw Sagara.
I'm sure you saw this after we did our reaction to her DNC speech. She got all this praise online for what she said about Israel.
Daz oh gosh, and I was like.
This is literally just exactly what Joe Biden has been saying, and even she called for you know, like a justin lasting piece or something like that in a Twesday solution, and.
She was loud and like brave for that. This has been the position of every president in modern.
History, in the position of every United States president going back I think almost yeah, six or seven presidents.
I was like, I just like, did we listen to the same speech. It was so confusing to be the desperate attempt to make this some sort of a like good moment. If you're someone who wants this horror to end, and you know, in all of the potential escalation and danger, we're going to talk about this later, that comes along with it, even if you do not care at all about Palestinian line.
So in any case, I.
Thought the whole approach was very disappointing, and not just on Palestine. I also think in terms of the way she oriented her speech, not leaning into more of the populace Deacon. She talks some about it, but it was a very light touch. I mean, I also think, again just putting my own politics aside.
Electorally, there were some polls that just came out.
It's like seventy percent of people support actual price controls, so she shouldn't be afraid of price gouging laws, which are on the books already in a majority of states. She should not be afraid of leaning into those pieces. And yet I feel the consultant class like taking hold. I see them getting a grip of the messaging. I see her reverting a lot back to the sort of you know, Clintonite instincts, both in terms of Hillary and
Bill and the Obama type like triangulating instincts. And I think it's very much to her detriment, and I do think it's risk Well, come November.
If she loses, we'll have a lot to talk about. Oh yeah, yeah she does.
We'll have lots to talk about.
Win me a lots to talk about. Either way, Let's go do a RFK. We got to talk about the big endorsement. RFK teased this, but it was basically confirmed by the time we brought everybody the news on our shows on Thursdays and Friday, where we talked about how he had filed paperwork across multiple states withdrawing himself from the ballot, indicating that he was going to endorse Donald Trump.
I watched his entire.
Speech, and it was interesting because it's a little confused in terms of our dude, are you in the race or not? The TLDR is that he has suspended his campaign in all of the states where it is not competitive. He is explicitly withdrawing his ballot from all of the states where it is competitive and is urging people in those battleground states to vote for Donald Trump. After that speech, he joined Trump on the stage at a campaign event in Arizona.
Here's what they all had to say.
He is a brilliant I still think of him as young.
He's not that young.
I always call him young, but he's not that young.
But he is a phenomenal person, a phenomenal man who loves the people of this country as much as anybody can love the people of this country.
So Bobby, please say a few words, aculary.
Or two hundred trillion or two hundred billion dollar wars in Ukraine, that we could use that money back here in the United States. The best way to build a safe America is to rebuild our industrial base and rebuild the middle class in this country. And don't you want a president who's going to get us out of the wars, and who's going to rebuild the middle class in this country? Oh, you want to know that the food that you're feeding them is not filled with chemicals that are going to
give them cancer and chronic disease. And don't you want a president that's gonna make America healthy again?
All right?
So that was the crux of the speech. He followed up with it in a tweet. Let's put this up there on the screen. What maga really means? The phrase is troubled liberals who think it's a call for return to America before civil rights, gay rights, and women's rights. But I have a more generous interpretation, one that is truer to my experience of Donald Trump as he is today. Make America Great Again recalls a nation brimming with vitality, with a can do spirit, with a hope and a
belief in itself. It was an America that was beginning to confront its darker shadows, could acknowledge the injustice in his past and present a nation of broad prosperity, the world's most vibrant middle class, and idealistic belief. It was a nation that led an innovation, productivity of technology, and it was the healthiest country in the world. I have talked to many Trump supporters, I have talked with this
inner circle. I have talked to the man himself. This is what this is the America they want to restore. So obviously it's quite a bit of a turn from how RFK previously used to talk about Donald Trump, previously, how he used to talk about endorsing Donald Trump here on this show by joining him on a ticket. And I'll just say, you know, the about face is certainly a little bit something to behold.
Now.
The justification that I have seen from RFK and from Nicole Shanahan is they're like, well, the Democrats, you know, sued to get us off the ballot.
And I actually think we should point.
To the words of like Jill Stein, where Jill Stein was like, yeah, he's right, the Democrats have been suing to get us off the ballot. She's like, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to turn around and endorse Trump. She's like, that was the whole point of a third party campaign was to point out the rigged system. And it's not like RFK didn't face Republican pressure in Texas and elsewhere on the ballot as well. You know, it's one of those where clearly both sides were trying to
keep him out. If anything, you watched how the in the midst of his independent run, how a lot of MAGA influencers who have been propping up RFK Junior whenever he was a Democrat running in the race against Biden, immediately turned on him whenever they thought that he was going to draw votes away from Trump, and I think empirically he was. And actually we see the acknowledgement from Nicole Shanahan. She's like, well, we don't want to help Kamala and Tim Walls, and in a lesser of two
evils way, I think that's fine. I think the problem I have with it is there are a lot of people out there.
I've met them.
Probably no news show has really engaged at a professional level with rf CASE supporters more than we have, and they did not like Donald Trump. They don't want to vote for Donald Trump. I have had, you know, these boomers outside the Farmers Market where I live for almost eight weeks handing out Kennedy literature. I talked to them and they're like, yeah, we hate we're Democrats. We don't like Trump, but we also don't support Joe Biden or Kamala Harris for a variety of reasons. And so there's
a lot of people out there. They knocked on doors, got ballots, raised money, you know, because they believed in an independent, you know, a third party run. And I actually think, you know, in terms of you know, everyone talks about leverage, I'm like, well, what did you realistically get because he's talking about this make America healthy again? Well he wanted to listen, Bro, you're never getting nominated in the United States Senate.
Ever, Now could you get a ZAR position? Maybe?
I don't know if that's been promised, you know, they haven't talked about it or any of that. But realistically, on the core issues, you know, you are endorsing Donald Trump.
He's a guy who did Operation Warp Speed.
I mean that was literally his number one critique originally on abortion. I mean, you and I remember here on this show how vociferously he talked about Donald Trump and Roe versus Weight on environmental issues. I mean, by the way, you know, I'm pro nuclear. RFK is very anti nuclear, so Trump is pro nuclear. So it's like there are a lot of issues ostensibly which he pretended to or at least said that he cared a lot about total non negotiables, and then he decided to turn around and
endorse Trump. And it's like, dude, is this just about personal spite? Because if it is, I don't think that's a good look.
For the third party movement.
And I think there are a lot of voters out there who are quite disappointed. You know, a lot of the ones I see who were cheering him, I think they're just Republicans anyways, and they were directionally aligned with him. But the real RFK people who we have met, we've talked to, done focus groups, etc.
I don't know if they're going to be so happy about this. I think a lot of them just won't vote.
There was a reason they weren't supporting Donald Try yeh, that's right. He was there the whole time.
They could be supporting him the entire time, and they did it right, and they were backing Rkay. I mean, it really gives a lot of gradence to just like the most cynical Resistance Lib interpretation of his run the entire time, which is he was a Democratic primary when he thought that would help hurt the Democrats. Then when he realized he could hurt Joe Biden by running third party.
Then he does that.
Then when Joe Biden drops out and all of those like disaffected Democratic voters come home, and now he's very clearly causing a problem for former President Trump. Then he drops out because he thinks that's the best way to help the Republicans.
And Nicole Shanahan, I mean all but came out and said, I mean they said, she said that we like, we don't.
Want to hurt Trump. We do not want a Harris Walls campaign. And so at the end of the day, your core goal was to hurt one side and help the other. It's very hard to come away with any other conclusion at this point. That and the fact that he wants to remain relevant. He's as all these people are an extreme narcissist, as is Kamla Ayers, as is Joe.
Biden, as Alald Trump.
All of them are right, and this is his only path to remain relevant. And if you think this is some principled stand consider that he also went to the Kamala Harris team and apparently begged them for some sort of a gig and took whatever the best offer was. So if you think this is about some kind of a principle. I mean, it's sort of preposterous. He decided he wasn't going to win. He wanted to maintain his relevance. This is where he could get you the best deal
that was on the table. And so that's what he did. And just to your point, so we could put the next piece up on the screen about the way he was talking about Donald Trump, just to call any speculation. Under no circumstances will I join Donald Trump on an electoral ticket. Our positions on certain fundamental issues, our approaches to governance, and our philosophies of leadership could not be further apart.
Now, the coope I saw and this one was, well, he's not technically on the electoral ticket. Okay, all right.
Well continue though you can toak go to the next one.
This is maybe lays it out in even greater detail. I will read all of this, but it is a long screed about how terrible President Trump was. President Trump scammed American workers. President Trump let the Bush wing of the GOP run all his agencies. President Trump's opposed support for farmers all went to big agg conglomerates. We had the worst rioting eluding this country had seen since the sixties. Under President Trump, he bragged about arming Ukraine war than Obama.
He appointed the worst neocons the highest positions of power. Keep in mind from that speech that we showed you now he was like, oh he's anti war.
Okay, well, which is it?
He goes on, he bombed Syria, Trump killed Marani in general, failed to fulfill his promise of ending the war in Afghanistan. President Trump invented lockdowns. President Trump did nothing to solve the opioid crisis. And then he concludes, if you think a second Trump term would be any different, you are
engaging in wishful thinking. All right, So listen, people can change their mind, but we're talking about in a very short time period and a complete evolution that just so happens to serve your own personal interests of like remaining relevant into the next administration.
So there you go.
Yeah.
I mean, look, I think it's sad because he had chance. I believe in actually shocking the system, you know, and really changing things up.
And I think that RFK had a chance.
He really had the name, had the money, the id, the ability. I think he still could have everyone, you know, our Nicole Shanan's like will then could have won five percent.
I don't think so.
I think he could have won more if he actually fought and wanted. I think he could have won maybe eight. I mean, that's a lot, especially if you run it up in states like California and elsewhere, as she accurately points out about public funding, about the ability to build on top of something. If you really believe in these issues, you could force ballot referendums. You could chose a lot of different things, you know, from vaccines to whatever, to
your food, et cetera. Like that's what you actually could try and do. I mean, I don't see any evidence currently you know, that he really extracted anything of true value. Maybe maybe it did. I don't actually know. There hasn't been any confirmation. We'll find out if Trump wins. But you know, given this isn't some Jdvan said something in twenty fifteen about Trump like this is that was from May. That was right, Let's go all right, So it's like, well, well, what are we talking about here?
You know, about this whole vitality and all of that.
I'm like, I don't even disagree with you, But what I really more point to is on those issues all of which you laid out. I would say, for RFK, what's his number one issue? Probably free speech censorship. That's like in terms of what he's always said, Yeah, it's like, okay, well you know, sure, you know, there's definitely some Republicans
that I've talked about that. But as he accurately had pointed out previously in many of his uh in many of his tweets and attacks on Trump, he's like, well, Trump wasn't perfect on that issue.
Whenever he would ask him about Ukraine.
The criminalized flag burning right now.
And so yeah, or you look at what was it the second one Ukraine, he was like, well, Trump, you know, sent a lot of weapons. Tory you critsu Look, I don't support army Ukraine. I have no qualms that Trump will be perfect on the issue. The best you can hope for is like, yeah, maybe JD's voice will win out there. But anybody who is at any experience with Trump one point zero, the guy who told us wasn't get out of Afghanistan and then twenty seventeen cents more troops to Afghanistan, I got.
Some news for you in terms of the man who keeps his work.
Yeah, and what he said about if you think a second Trump term is going to be different, You're like, this is just delusional.
Well that's right about that, yeahbe Look I don't I don't know. It's a false positive. I don't know if he's right or not. It could go different. The Trump people always tell me it's different. They told me it was different in the first time round two, So why should I believe you? For me, it's all about the proof, like actually of what you do, and we'll find out, you know, whether that's true or not. But you know, forgive me, because I'm just as cynical as you are.
I don't want one hundred percent believe you. And that was really what Bobby was running on. So anyways, I mean, he did do the third party movement in general. He has done a tremendous blow here because yes, Rospuro actually stayed on the ballot, came won a huge out, and people respected him for all time. People thought about how are we going to win those voters to our side?
And now that you basically are using it as a bargaining chip, now you're more like an intra party figure, much more so than you actually are a real third party candidate. And in that vein, let's continue with rfk's running mate, Nicole Shanahan. She says, I'm not a Kamala Democrat, I'm not a Trump Republican. I'm an independent American who is endorsing ideas, not a person or a party. I will continue working to give a voice to the voiceless
and bring power back to the people. And she also though, you know, at the beginning, she made a big deal out of being pro choice, about being a reformed Democrat. That's why she was sticking with RFK, believing above the big part two party systems. I'm just saying, you know, once again, you know, a lot of that is different. You can believe the whole like the Democrats had it out from them from the beginning. I don't even think
any of that is untrue. But if it's just about punitive, like well they were mean to me and these people were kind of nice to me, well that doesn't just that just doesn't track with a movement which allegedly was supposed to be bigger than those ideals. It's fine if you want to follow RFK to Trump, no offense. You were probably going to vote for Trump anyway. I believe that I really do. I'm like, if you if that's really all it took, you were probably at the end of the day when it came down to it.
Now, in terms of his do you want him to say anything before I move on to the y else.
To talk just for a minute more about the third party thing and that the damage this truly does if you care about third party movements and independent candidate movements. A number of the states that RFK was able to get on the ballot line with, he took the ballot line of other smaller third entities and now those parties.
Are like, really kind of screwed.
So there's there's that dynamic, and then there's just always, like the whole conversation about Jill Stein Cornell was an RFK junior. Always that comes from the media and yes, from the Democratic Party in particular, is these are just right wing plans, and you gave a lot of credence to that. Now, you gave a lot of credence to that very you know, unfair and oftentimes untrue talking point. So I think he's done incredible damage. One other thing that I just want to want to mention here in
terms of what he could have achieved. Dave Smith always talks about, you know, if he had truly been anti war, if he had truly been the guy who was against both arming Ukraine and continuing down this you know, no end insight path in Ukraine, and he had been the guy that was like, we got to get the ceasefire and we got the hell out of like what are we doing with this Israel Gaza situation. I think the ceiling on his support could have been much much higher.
I think he could have had a lot more more energy and.
Could have sustained something even after Joe Biden drops down and you have fewer double haters, so I you know, but he's either ideological or for whatever reason, he's very committed to that issue.
So that was clearly not a path he was going to travel.
But just speaking in terms of cynical political calculation, that was the lane that was and obviously he didn't take it. It's just one last thing to reflect on your comment about like this is just a value, like your bitterness towards the Democratic Party. It reminds me of when the Elizabeth Warren supporters who supposedly again are like, ah, we support Manicare for all, and we support all these progressive values when they decided many of them to back Joe Biden instead of Bernie Sanders.
Because some people associate with.
Bernie Sanders, just like Rando online supporters had been mean to them. It's like, okay, well, is your personal hurt feelings more important.
Now than getting people healthcare?
Because that seems kind of absurd and extremely petty, and the vibes here are very similar.
Yeah, I think you're right. Let's look at the polling analysis. Nate Silver really recommend reading this is pretty interesting. It says we've removed RFK from our model, but it didn't hurt Kamala so far. Harris's convention bounce has offset any
impacts so far. So if you look at the overall polling analysis, they had Harris roughly at forty eight, Trump around five, and then Kennedy, you know, now negligible if you continue to read it, though, it is kind of interesting in terms of her electoral chances where for now, at the very least like what we saw in terms of the polls that are coming out of the battleground states, RFK was just much more of a hindrance towards Donald Trump.
But there is no like one hundred percent evidence right now that this will put Trump, let's say, over the finish line. Intuitively, though, I can't help but think it does.
At the very least, it makes things easier for Trump, which in a fifty to fifty election, how can we discount that we had twelve thousand votes or whatever in Georgia, twenty thirty thousand votes in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, you know, some sixty thousand votes swing when we think about Arizona and elsewhere, you know, when you don't have to contend with RFK also on the ballot, drawing it away from you,
then I think it's you're in a better position. So really, what it does is it moves it from I was like I was saying when RFK was in the razor was like fifty two to forty eight. I'm just right back to fifty to fifty in general. Now it's just going to be about engagement, engagement, engagement, and turning out your base of voters and seeing, you know, let the independence kind of fall where they may.
I think that analysis is very logical. Yeah, And if you're just purely looking at the numbers, hard to dispute. However, I think we would be remiss if we didn't point out RFK Junior comes with a lot of freaking baggage. Like there's a reason why the Kamala Harris people wanted nothing to do with them, because they don't want to have to answer for the next Like he chainsaw it off a whale's head and put it on the mini
van and left a bar in Central Park. And oh, by the way, cheated on his wife thirty seven times and then she killed herself. Like there's a lot that comes with him, and Trump is already dealing with a fringe weirdo problem. I'm not sure that RFK Junior helps him in that regard. I mean, this is a man whose favorability is profoundly underwater. He has like people in
general do not like him. He has a you know, a committed fan base, and I'm sure his approval ratings on the right now among actual committed Trump supporters are going to skyrocket at this point, so they're gonna like him. But if you're looking at independance, he is not popular. That's why not many people were voting for him. So
he comes with a lot of downside risk. Also, So if I mean my best prediction here, if I have to make one, is it probably just doesn't really matter because the vote totals that we're talking about are so small, the effect is so ambiguous. Many of his supporters who truly were committed to him are just either not going to vote or vote for a different third party or whatever. But I think that there is some level of risk
that comes with associating yourself. He says it himself, like the number of skeletons in my closet are like, there's no way that we can feel even like the amount that we know about him is the extent of what's gonna come out about him. So to have to associate that with your campaign and now having to be, you know, dodging all these stories and dealing with this because you've so directly tied yourself to this individual, it's not without risk.
Absolutely no, very true. It could come out. I'm curious to see how that Trump people use him, whether he'll just can whether he'll just sit out, sit it out, hang out in California, or is he going to take on like a surrogate role and is he going to kind of hit the airwaves, you know, hit the rallies. Maybe he would hit the rallies in the states where he was pulling the best places like Michigan and elsewhere and just be like, hey, all you people who were here to see.
Me, like you guys should come out to vote for Trump.
That would be the smart way to use him, to put him strategically in those battleground states.
But you do risk while you're talking about just.
Do you think that they'll do because you have some like Benny Johnson, for example, who's like, this is the ticket and it's like, well, the JD vance is still a vice presidential on me. But there are some MAGA aligned figures who want him to almost assume that role of being that integral to the campaign. Do you think Trump is amenable to that direction or do you think it's more like, thank you for your.
Endorsement, I'll see you, you know, I'll see you later.
I think, look, ourk is a loose cannon. You can't control them. So I think he'll probably just continue to do what he wants to do. I think he'll probably just keep going on podcasts. I mean, he's good at it. They like him, he's a good guest, and he'll continue to talk about whatever wherever whenever somebody invites him from
the Bustin Barstool podcast, you know, Tim Dill whatever. You know, those people are not going to stop the invites if anything is a little bit more interesting now and so now he's got something to kind of hook on for him. Maybe he'll write another book. The guy craiks out books like crazy, So maybe he'll write another book about the campaign. It wouldn't surprise me. Just to back that up.
Let's put this up there on the screen about his image.
You know, right now, amongst quote high engagement voters, he's got a minus eighteen favorability rating. Amongst low and mid information voters, he's got a plus twelve.
Now that he becomes more in the spotlight.
If he does, that would be the risk of tracking you know, the people who know about the bay or the whale, all the personal stories, et cetera. That's certainly a risk. You know that he runs.
So an externally dangerous situation continues to unfold in the Middle East, Israel conducting what they described as a preemptive strike on Hesbela military acids. We can put this up on the screen on one side. You can see some of the fallout from these air strikes. You had over one hundred Israeli Air Force jets.
That were involved in this.
And on the other side you see Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, who was making an announcement here about those air force planes attacking targets across southern Lebanon. You can see the smoke rising here, et cetera. So they described this, like I said, as a preemptive strike. There is some fuzziness about what exactly happened here, how effective the Israeli strikes were. Hesbela did then announce that they conducted their own strikes
inside of Israel. They claimed that those strikes were very effective. The Israeli say, no, no, we were able to deal with it and there was very minimal damage caused.
One thing we know for sure is that this was the.
Most explosive exchange we have had between Israel and HESBLA in quite some number of months. We also know that, you know, this region continues to really be on the brink, especially you know, because of Israel's ongoing atrocities in Gaza, but also because of the recent provocations. They assassinated a you know, senior military commander in they root in Lebanon,
and of course top hamas leader in Iran. We still have not had that Iranian response, so once again underscores that as long as the conflict continues, as long as the onslaught on Gaza continues, we have this very, very dangerous situation.
The good news is soccer.
It looks like both the Israelis and Hesbula are looking to sort of back down from the latest escalation at this point. But no one should feel good about where things are right now.
No, you shouldn't feel good at all.
I mean, we had over one hundred Israeli jets who participated in this operation. This is the biggest exchange of fire between Israel and Lebanon since two thousand and six, a devastating war for Israel and one that IDF planners were desperate to avoid this time around. But they have to deal with the same problems that all of us do, which is that Natanyahu and elements of his government they want a war with Lebanon. That's the best thing that
could possibly happen for them. It's also maddening just because the people actually in Israel have much more descent around this war. They're like calling them warmongers. Like, we don't want this. Our kids died last time around. Whereas if you say any of that here, you're like, hey, you know, oh, you're a complete anti semi You know, I was just reading this morning that there are two aircraft carriers that
are now station yet here. Pentagon says in a new statement, as part of its support for Israel, the Secretary of Defense will keep two aircraft carriers in the region for an undefined period of time, the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Abraham Lincoln. Do you know how much money
costs to keep those two aircraft carriers out there? You have any idea what it means for war plans, for force, for a cost for to be to deploy all of those people in the strike groups and all those other assets just to try and prevent a war between these two. The US taxpayer has probably spent at this point hundreds of billions of dollars just on this conflict in the last.
Ten months for what like? For what like?
People really need to ask themselves that question so we can be the world's policeman when Israel gets him self in trouble? Why am I paying to shoot down missiles so that whenever they're getting into problems with Hesbla. You blew up in Iranian embassy, and I'm supposed to pay to.
For the different Why it's for what reason?
Right?
Somebody justify that to me? You're a numbrio.
We do fifty something billion dollars a year of trade with you do have four times more of Brazil. If Argentina and Brazil were going to go to war, would anybody say that that's something that we should get involved in. By the way, you'd have a better case for that when you would, right now, That's what drives me crazy.
True, true, Yeah, And you're right about the internal descent in Israel's reading some of the Israeli press, the English language Israeli press, and you know, keep in mind, northern Israel, near the Lebanese border is still evacuated. These people, it's empty. These people have not been in their homes since October seventh, and so the mayors and the representatives of those towns, they were actually pissed off about this because they're the ones who have to bear the brunt of the retaliation
from Hesbola. So they say this is all about you know, you just caring about Tel Aviv. First, and foremost, you don't care about us, You don't care about actually making it secure so we can get back to our lives and to our homes here. I also did a monologue that was you know, I was surprised by how viral it went about a tremendous economic cost that Israel is varying. They had this huge intel plant that pulled out, as I mentioned just a moment ago, this huge region that's evacuated.
You still have, you know, all these reservists getting called up. That's totally undercutting their tech sector. Air travel is consistently disrupted, Tourism is completely dead. The construction industry and many others are horrifically hobbled because they really relied on like Palestinian day labors as chief labor and they're not allowed to come in and work anymore so, and they haven't been able to fill those ranks with cheap foreign war and workers.
So they're screwed and a lot of dimensions economically, and people are feeling the pain from that as well. But yeah, there's one clear solution to this, which is to for the US to force the ceasefire here. And it's not going to be from these bullshit talks that are happening right now, because clearly Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are still unwilling to use any.
Sort of actual pressure to force an end to the hostilities.
And all of the tensions with Iran, and all the atensions with HESBLA, and all the tensions with the Iraqi militias, all of this is centered on what is happening in Goaza. Let me go and put this up on the screen. The latest in terms of the ceasefire talks, most of the indications seem to be the this is really going nowhere.
I mean, these have been gone going for weeks.
The US officials are trying to paint a rosy picture about this. They're saying, oh, this is has been constructive. They were conducted in the spirit of reaching a final and implementable agreement, with all sides sharing that sentiment. However, in this Times of Israel report, they say notably, US officials appear to be the only party in the talks
who sound hopeful about their trajectory. Despite the US officials optimistic framing, the Biden administration had last week indicated it was aiming to have a deal reached by now and we've discussed this before, so just to recall the timeline of events, not now who had agreed to more or less the ceasefire deal. That Biden announced that big speech
and said, hey, is Israel's agreed to this. Now we need Hamas to come to the table and accept these terms, which you know he framed as being very generous, and Hamas kind of called their bluff. Okay, we accept, and then Bbe starts laying in his own officials. By the way, Israeli officials are the ones say.
He's adding on.
Bibe is adding on additional conditions to make it a poison pill that Hamas will never accept.
But US officials never even call that out.
They continue to insist on this framing that Hamas is the only problem here, when it's very clear and has been very clear Bib Detanya, who does not want to cease fire. He does not want an end to the deal. And one of the things that he has included as a condition that is unacceptable to Hamas here is we want to cease fire that's not actually a ceasefire where we to go back to prosecuting this war exactly in
the way that we've been prosecuting it. So you know, I have very little I have no hope at this point that these particular ceasefire talks are going to come to any greater end than the previous rounds of ceasefire talks that we have seen.
So yeah, but one of the things I do have a real worry about.
Let's put the Financial Times please please up on the screen and what they talk about here. Yes, I said, the biggest exchange of fire since two thousand and six, sharp increase in hostilities.
Nosrella is trying.
I mean, he says, if the result is satisfactory and the intended goals achieved, we will consider the response operation has ended. If the result is not enough, we will reserve the right to respond at another time. But this has just been flaring up now for weeks, and you know, can he really he also has internal constituencies and things he has to manage. He's got a hundred guys under jets which just blew the crap out of a preemptive attack, allegedly,
at least according to the IDF. And this is where stuff actually starts to get very real about the internal politics of Lebanon, about the in the use of force by US forces and remember, I mean, look, put them all out of this.
I don't particularly care that much.
What I care about is we got sit in duck troops in Iraq and Syria which are just waiting, you know, to be attacked by these same proxy groups. And then what's going to happen. And also this is where I got to bring Joe Biden in. So I just see this morning he's going to be spending the entire week in Delaware. He's coming from vacation in California. So it's like, what are you doing this nice gig?
Yeah, presidency thing?
Yeah, it sounds nice, right, that sounds like a grade?
Is the at the beach after it to go spend a week in California after DNC humiliation, and now I get to go spend a week at my beach house in Rehoboth. It's like, do you do anything, dude? Like what is happening right now? And every once in a while he'll pop up on a phone call for thirty minutes and then they leak that he's very concerned. I'm like, we have been a husk as president. The entire region is there's a power vacuum. We're obviously consumed by our
own domestic politics. I mean, what I look at is the signs, and the signs are two US aircraft carriers, multiple US assets, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State basically living abroad in the Middle East. And I'm scared. I honestly am, you know, by the behavior that we see here.
Maybe it's a temporary reprieve, but we don't know, we have no idea.
Yeah, and that's a very simple answer here. Stop shipping the bombs. Stop ship That's it, you know, I mean, that's it's a very simple answer. And sure Israel has a right to defend themselves, they do not have a right to use our weapons to do so.
And so the impotence here.
It's humiliating, it's immoral, it's disgusting. At this point, you mentioned Sager, Oh, we're still I honestly can't believe we're still getting these reports.
Oh.
Biden had another tough phone call with bib Nagna. He urged him to get on board with the ceasfire deal. It's like, who is this for at this point? Like who is buying this at this point? I genuinely don't know, Like do they still think that this is a thing that anyone cares about, that anyone gives any credence to him, you know, weekly while he's sitting on the beach or whatever.
Oh bb.
Bbe doesn't care. That's very clear. And no one should.
Be fooled by the idea that Joe Biden is taking any kind of a tough stance with bb Naannaho, because obviously his words do not matter to the extent that he's said anything tough to bb whatsoever. You have to pull the plot, you have to force the outcome. As still the American president of the world superpower.
You have that power. You're just choosing not to use it. And it is utterly pathetic.
And if you, Joe Biden, cares so much about your legacy, which I think you do, this is going to be one of the primary things people remember you for. This blood, this whore, this potential escalation, which is incredibly dangerous for American interests.
All of that is on you.
So if you actually want to be able to salvage any sort of a reputation coming out of this single term as the American president, this is what you need to do.
You need to make this end now.
Well, he's too busy on vacation. So anyway, we're in good hands. Folks, don't worry about it. Everything is cool. Let's move on to a very terrifying story and a very troubling situation. Let's put this up there on the screen. Telegram Chief Pavel Durov has been arrested in France. So Pavel Durov is fascinating figure, very elusive billionaire who had dual French Russian citizen. He had a long time tech entrepreneur, had fled Russia actually for refusing to capitulate to Russian
demands that he have censorship on their social media. He's been living in dubai now for quite some time. It's unclear exactly why he was in France, but he was there on a flight, private flight from Azerbaijan that landed in Paris, and it appears that he has been taken into custody by French authorities. Keep in mind he is
a French citizen or a dual French Russian national. Now, according to French media, he has been detained by the Office which is quote Preventing violence against Miners, who had previously issued an arrest warrant for Durov in a preliminary investigation quote into alleged offenses including fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organized crime, promotion of terrorism. He is accused of failing to take action to curb the criminal use of his platform.
The investigator said, quote enough of Telegram's impunity, adding that they were suppre he came to Paris knowing that he is a wanted man. Now this goes back to the very ethos of Telegram itself, which does not believe in censorship. Part of the reason that Durov has basically had to live in Dubai, had to flee Russia, had to basically flee the United States and any of these EU jurisdictions, is that all of these governments are begging him to
censor content that they don't like. And that's one of the things I hate the most about the discourse on Telegram. They're like, oh, it's pro Russian, Well, yeah, a lot of Russians use it. You know who else uses it? The Ukrainians. And that's why the Russians they also don't like Telegram. They want to penetrate Telegram. That's the other thing. The NSA and the US services they want to penetrate Telegram because they want to see what the Russians are
up to. Everybody has a reason for hating Telegram, and that just tells me they're doing something right. And Durov himself is genuinely committed to the principles of free speech, not bowing to censorship, and his product works as a result. He has nine hundred million users on the platforms, one
of the largest social networks in the world. You know, it may not be all that pos popular here, but for those of us who follow foreign stuff, I'm, you know, part of a couple telegram channels and others, I've never had any thought. I'm like that this at the very least is being spied on, you know, this channel and otherwise. And so when we see him blatantly get arrested, it's
a very chilling effect. Again, I don't know why he was in Paris, and there's a lot of even the investigators, Leamon said, they're like, we don't even know why he would come, right when he has an a restaurant. I don't know what the you know, I mean, he is a French citizen. At the same time, he is a right to defend himself at least, you know, allegedly, but his detention has now been extended Crystal. Originally it was like a foty eight hour detention has now been extended
to ninety six hours. We have heard nothing from him and he remains inside of French custody. Nonetheless, it's very chilling because it comes on the heels of a lot of the crackdown going on in the UK right now, where they're imprisoning a lot of people for you know, look, if you're a rioter and you're genuinely committing violence, fine, but in the UK they don't think that way. They're like, oh, if you encourage rioting boom, you might as well have participated.
You are going to jail for some is longer than they have so they also, by the way, one of the things against him in France is oh his telegram helped organize the.
Far right protesters in the UK.
So clearly there is a major chilling effect here and I'm very concerned about what happens with Pavel Doorov.
It's a very concerning development, There's no doubt about it. Telegram has become extremely important for you pointed out, you know, Russians like pro war military Russians organizing their the Ukrainians organizing their Some of the horrible atrocities that we've seen coming out of Gaza have come because IDF soldiers were
posting them. And actually we learned that the Israeli government was behind some of those telegram channels that were posting some of these unbelievable horse So I mean, yeah, awful that they're posting this stuff, but also important that the world was able to gain an insight into what is going on there and the way these IDF soldiers were super proud of it.
And those are just a couple of instances.
So you know, anytime a country moves to block telegram, it's a very concerning development because it has become so important for these dissident channels. He's certainly, you know, is a I think it's fair to describe him as like a radical anti censorship activist. At the same time, I do want to sound a note of caution. I want to know more about the details of what they're alleging
here and what he actually was arrested for. And I also will say, you know, I believe in the conception of free speech as embodied by you know, the American Bill of Rights, which isn't totally unfettered, for like, posting threats not acceptable, Posting kiddie porn not acceptable, Posting revenge porn, in my opinion, not acceptable, And there have been times when Telegram has failed to moderate content like that, which
I do think should be moderated. So I just want to add a little bit of nuance into the conversation of like, I don't actually support a platform where you literally can post literally anything, because again I think the child porn thing is like the most clear example, but I also would use those other ones as as instances
like credible threats you shouldn't be posting as well. But the fact that he's been you know, targeted, arrested here is something that any one of us who was concerned about free speech, concerned about censorship should certainly be paying very close attention to.
And I want to know a lot what details.
Here's my thought.
Look, if they had him on Kenny Porn, they would say it, all right, they would we would all know, all of us would know. Also, this channel has got news for us even saying those words out loud by the YouTube algorithm. So I guess everybody enjoyed this on the podcast but whatever, that's what we have to do here.
If they had the proof, they would have released that.
You know, everything that they are releasing so far is that they're taking steps to cut back disinformation, the sharing of links and bots. You know that they're looking at the exchange the office. Also, by the way, that that detained him, like I said, has nothing to do with child pornography allegedly, it has to do with you know, with tear and with criminal, criminal enterprises that are organizing there on the platform now.
And this is the other problem. This is Europe.
They don't have free speech in Europe. They literally don't Europe. They basically guilty before proven innocent. In France, they can take your citizenship away and throw your ass in jail if they want to. And they really don't have to prove anything in their judicial system, so they need to release the evidence at the very least. He has previously, it seems, traveled to Berlin, San Francisco, London, Singapore and
other cities before making Dubai the headquarters. He actually gave it interesting interview with Tucker Carlson just a few months ago where he talked about one of the reasons why he had to leave the United States. Let's take a listen.
We got too much attention from the FBI, the security agencies wherever we came to the US. So to give you an example, last time I was in the US, I brought an engineer that is working for Telegram, and there was an attempt to secretly hire my engineer behind my back by cybersecurity officers or agents where they are called.
The US government should to hire your engineer, that's my understanding. That's what he told me to write code for them or to break into Telegram.
They were curious to learn which open source libraries are integrated to the Telegram's app on the client side, and they were trying to persuade him to use certain open source tools that he would then integrate into the telegrams code that in my understanding, would serve as back.
Doors, would allow the US government to spy on people who use Telegram.
The US government to maybe any other government, because the backdoor is a backdoor regardless of who is using it. One time, I was having my breakfast at a nine am and the FBI showed up my house that I was renting, and that was quite surprising, and I thought, you know, We're getting too much attention here. It's probably not the best environment to run.
Why would they had you committed a crime.
No, they were interested to learn more about Telegram. They knew I, you know, left Russia. They knew what we're doing, but they wanted details. And my understanding is that they wanted to establish a relationship to in a way control Telegram better.
See this is why Durav is very inconvenient for them because put this up there on the screen. He left Russia because the Russians wanted to pressure him to censor the social media network that he founded in the company, which is very popular. I think it's like their Facebook. I'm not even going to try and pronounce it, but I know it exists. It starts with a V. The point, though, is that the guy has always been, you know, kind of standing up to governments trying to say no, I'm
not going to sense what you want. Everything that we have right now is an indication, Crystal, not of the stuff that you're talking about, which I don't disagree, but is about the so called like criminal organizing. So the a representative of Alexei Navolney has come out and has defended Durov being like, just because criminals use telegram does
not mean that he is liable for that. I mean, and you could obviously apply that same logic you know here in the US to WhatsApp or to any messaging service, like the whole idea of a platform and that and big. But though because France in particular, where Rumble one of the channels we post on, I think it's banned in France for this exact reason. They have a much more hardcore government censorship resime. So since he's a friend citizen,
you know, it's it's a problem. It's definitely gonna be a problem.
Yeah, absolutely, and I definitely want to know a lot more details about what it is that they allege that he did. And it does get to some of these questions about like are you a publisher orre you a platform?
Yeah?
Like if you're are you just.
Like you know, a telephone service like thisral neutral carrier or do you have some responsibility for what's posted on your platform? And if you do, how much responsibility and where are the lines about what's allowed to be posting? If there you know, if there's a failure in that is, how is that? How is that adjudicated? So it gets
to some of those questions too. But again, we know very little about this, and I do think you are absolutely correct that it should be very troubling to people because telegram has pissed off so many governments around the world, including our own Russia, Ukraine. Like you know, if you are truly sort of radical free speech activist in favor of transparency, in favor of creating these neutral platforms, that is going to put you in a very dangerous position.
And that's exactly what.
That's what happens here is unfolded, and that's why, you know, that's why he's always known this. He's very rarely does interviews, very kind of keeps up very very low profile, and I'm worried about him.
And look, it's on the French government.
They need to prove, you know, but they do what he allegedly did, because think about what the Europeans have done. You know, very recently the UK is locking up all these so called far right you know, provocateurs, even if they are it's not not a crime in this country, it is a crime in their country. You have the EU who sent that weird letter to Elon Musk telling him not to interview Donald Trump on X, which is like who fuck are you?
Like?
Sorry? You know what, what have you created lately?
And now you have the French government who's arresting this telegram CEO basically for you know, for at least at the very least.
Now they're extending his detention.
They haven't released any of the charges, and it's the burden of proof is on them because their censorious regime is proven now to anybody who looks at these issues. So I guess for anybody out there, just stay away, stay away from France. Let's go to Boeing. This is a very concerning situation. I mean, have my eye on this now. For quite some time, we've been tracking this story of these astronauts who are stuck in space because of the failure of the Boeing Starliner Space to be
able to safely return them to Earth. Well, it now turns out, according to the NASA administrator, that they are going to have to stay up there until February twenty twenty five because they do not trust that Boeing Starliner is safe enough to return them back to Earth. They're going to have to come back on a SpaceX vehicle. Let's take a listen to what the NASA administrator had to say.
NASA has decided that Butch and Sonny will return with Crew nine next February, and that Starliner will return uncrewed, and the specifics in the schedule will be discussed momentarily. Spaceflight is risky, even at its safe safest and even at its most routine, and a test flight, by nature is neither safe nor routine. And so the decision to keep Butch and Sunny aboard the International Space Station and bring the Boeing star Lineerer home uncrewed is the result
of a commitment to safety. Our core value is safety, and it is our north Star.
So just imagine you're these two astronauts. You're supposed to be up there for eight days. Now you're going to have to spend eight to nine months in space. Think about this. When they come back, the new president will be inaugurated. That's how far that they are going to be staying in space.
Their health special loss and bone density loss.
They didn't plan for it. I mean, it's kind of complicated.
They're people who have spent I think they have spent this long in space. I'd have to go look it up. I think that there's a guy who's spent a year. But yes, I mean there are like they're probably be studied by scientists. There's like osteoporosis, and there's all these exercises and all these other things that they have to do.
One of the most interesting things they did is like a twin study with Mark Kelly and his twin Scott, after one went to space, and they could literally compare them biologically and be like, oh, look, you know, is Jens changed a little bit or this change or is this level of radiation or you know, his height went down this amount of you know, I mean, look, being in space is it's not a natural environment, right, you know we're built for We're literally not built for it.
Your bodily systems and everything. Nobody really knew how that was going to be affected. At the very least you could say it will certainly have an effect, you know, of some kind. So more importantly for their very lives. This is terrifying because this was a multi billion dollar now boondoggle by Boeing.
Let's put this up there on the screen.
So it all goes back to the fact that the star Liner vehicle has been literally in development for years and that transported those astronauts to the space station on June six. Now, during the flight to the station, several thrusters quote temporarily failed and engineers identified additional leaks within
the propulsion system. Since then, NASA and Boeing have been trying to fix the problems, trying to determine if any of these threats, if the vehicle left the station carrying the astronauts, would have a safety problem for them in transport back. They've had almost three months now at this point to trying to fix this, and I think that's what's the most galling thing to me is, you know, spaceflight, American space program was like the pinnacle of American ingenuity.
Everybody looks at a poll of thirteen because the miracle of Apollo thirteen is he had all these things go wrong and they came back safely, which is incredible. I mean literally putting the whole round peg was a square peg in a round hole. That's amazing. I mean it really is amazing. Not even just watch the movie. If you go read there's a book I like call it an Andrew Chaken. I forget the title anyway, read the history of it and you are astounded that this all
happened in forty eight hour period. These people have had three months and they still can't figure out how to get these people back. And those are astronauts were going to the moon and we were able to get them back, yeah, in three days.
Well, and that's there's a really there's several.
Very important broader societal trends that are worth taking note of.
Here.
One is when you're talking about Apaola thirteen. That wasn't some outsourced company.
That was US government capability, that we had technical expertise, the best in the world. Okay, that gets stripped away over years from an ideological assault that you know occurred under both democratic and republican administrations.
Under neoliberalism.
Then you get to the point where you know, we're so inept that we're having to like bum rides with the Russians, and.
That happened for in the two thousands.
Of that happens in that early two thousands, then there's this decision basically like all right, this is too embarrassing.
We know what we'll do.
We'll we'll go with it, we'll outsource it to the private sector. And that's how you end up with, you know, this partnership with Boeing, which there's you know, other storylines here that are important too. I mean, part of why Boeing sucks is number one because they, you know, have massive market consolidation, so there aren't a lot of other alternatives.
SpaceX is supposed to save.
Their ass here in terms of getting these astronauts back home in February or whenever it is. But so you have the stripping of government capability, that's number one. You have the outsourcing to Boeing and their lack of competition in the space and the fact that they're like you know, government contractor and like literally everything, and they gouge a taxpayer. The amount of money that the American taxpayer gives this
company is just disgusting and absurd. Then you have the trends, which Matt Stoller has also tracked very closely, perhaps better than anyone, of total financialization, where rather than your profits coming from oh, I don't know, creating a good and effect and safe product, it comes from a bunch of market manipulation. So all the technical expertise is stripped from
the top of the country. You put on a bunch of like money managers at the top, and Nikki Haley sitting on the board and all of this nonsense, and you end up with a situation where the planes don't fly and their space shuttle doesn't work. And it was disgusting to me too to read about how Boeing has been arguing for weeks. I guess with NASA like, no, no, no, it's fine, coming sales, it's holly safe, it's cool, and it's like, Jesus Christ, can you imagine risking your life
on this thing? The I think the propulsion system wasn't functioning. Yeah, I'm not an expert. That seems pretty important. And when you consider the extremes that these space shuttles are subjected to, even the tiniest problem can turn into utter and complete catastrophe. So Bowling literally wanted to risk these two astronauts lives to cover their own corporate shame. That's basically what was going on here, and that is a disgusting testament to the state of corporate America.
This star Liner is a decade long boondoggle. One point four billion dollars in losses on the program.
That's not the amount that spent.
One point four billion dollars in losses on the program now so far delays in software, sticky valves, the parachute system. All the leaders at NASA have said that they have had massive debates with Boeing and engineers over the thruster problems and the helium leaks.
They didn't know if it was going to be one hundred percent fixed.
And this is after the government actually had a quasi monopoly with Boeing. If we didn't have space actually be screwed. So Ashley Vance is a great writer. He's written a lot about space and previously wrote a biography of elon which I really recommend. It was twenty seventeen, so a lot of it is pre twitter. Let's put this up
there on the screen. So he recently wrote this book on space, and he accurately has his timeline where he talks about how in twenty fourteen, NASA awarded Boeing a four point two billion dollar fixed price contract to develop Starliner, the reusable spacecraft that carry astronauts and cargo back and forth from the ISS. The contract includes once a year flights with crew of four twenty seventeen, the first crewed
test flight was originally scheduled for that year. In twenty nineteen, the first unmanned orbital flight took place on December twentieth. It is considered quote a partial failure. Boeing had to take one point six billion dollars in charges of the program after this flight, mostly due to the failure. Twenty twenty an investigation and a review takes place. Twenty twenty two, another second investigation takes place that one was successful. Astronauts
are then selected for a crude flight. Then the program is delayed indefinitely in July of twenty twenty three.
Boeing takes a two hundred.
And eighty eight million dollar loss in twenty twenty three and including two hundred and fifty seven million in the next quarter and finally twenty twenty four, the very first crewed test flight launches June five, experiences thrust or malfunction on approach to the ISS, which is that precision, you know, the ability to actually dock. NASA concludes it is too risky to return. So look at that, we're looking at almost five billion dollars loss on Boeing. Meanwhile, Crew Dragon
has not cost anywhere close to that. SAX, that's a SpaceX one. SpaceX does not cost anywhere close to that. They have had to pass all their safety inspections. But one of the things that they point out is that Boeing, because of its previous relationship with the US government sou who's you know, the government, and does everything in its power to stop them from even having alternatives to go
with SpaceX. Imagine if they had been successful, then those guys would be stranded up there, or worse, they would actually say, got to roll the dice. You know, we'll figure it out. Let's say there's a five percent chance. Well five percent chance is a lot actually when you consider somebody's life. That's the really scary and terrifying part.
So my only hope is that given all the mishaps giving you know, the door plug, all of the talk about financialization, and now this humiliating failure of a flagship American company which was supposed to be the beacon of innovation, that everyone here in Washington can wake up.
But I'm not stupid. They got plenty of money, yeah, and.
Make a lot of good weapons programs in a lot of different government states. And you know, you and I were checking their stock yesterday was actually up.
I know that was we were like, oh, is there a story here about the stock, you know, the Bowie stock crassroom and going look and it's like, nope, what was up on the day?
Actually down there today it's there, you go.
Their stock has gone through some things in general, so I'm sure it's not where it once was.
However, if you're.
An investor and you're looking like you've got nowhere else to go, they're still going to get their guard They're still going to get their weapons contracts, they're still going to be you know, selling airplanes, they're still going to be part of the space shuttle program. So it makes sense actually that and that that shows you how broken this is. This is a catastrophic, humiliating failure. In fact, we've been meaning to cover it for a while because you were paying attention.
For a while. My god, they're still straight up there's.
Something that was it just there was so much going on it kept getting pushed off, but we kept looking at I mean, what a catastrophic core failure. And if the free market works in the way that it's supposed to, you know I and Randy and theoretically work yachm, this would be then Okay, their stock crashes, their executives are punished, they figure it out, they bring in people actually know what the fuck they're doing, and they write the ship.
But guess what, that's not happening because this is a broken mark it because this is you know, a monopoly because they have so much market consolidation, because they have so much government capture. The revolving door, I'm sure between Boeing and the federal government is you know, would would turn your stomach. And so, yeah, they'll be fine. You might not be fine, right the commercial airplane form. And that's the other thing is I don't feel as confident
getting on. I hadn't flown in a while, and you guys know, I hadn't went through whatever normal air travel issues trying to get to Chicago, and one of the issues was the plane we got on. First they're like, oh, minor mechanical issue.
Immediately you're like, oh, yeah, this is going to be bad. And then it's oh, it's worse than we thought.
You guys can deplane because it's gonna be a while, and then you really know that you're screwed. But that little, you know, that concern you have in your head, it is larger for me than it once was. I used to set a foot on an airplane. I never thought
twice about whether i'd get there safely. Now it's like you got all this door plug and all these other issues that have been mounting over the past number of years, and the whistle blow testimony about how, hey, they don't really pay that so much attention to what they're doing here, they'll use non conforming parts. Safety is not the priority anymore, and that starts to seep into a lot of travelers heads and you're going to have a very ugly situation with.
Yeah, it's one of those Look, have I stopped flying? No, I fly out. In fact, I think I've got my most flights ever in a short period in the next two months. But you know, I'm going on an airbos in a couple of days. I'm happy about it.
I'm like, oh, yeah, you.
Know, and I don't want to feel that way. That's a freaking French company. They barely work thirty five hours a week. I shouldn't be thinking about that, but you know, it's an air boss.
I'm like, okay, cool.
And then every time you know, you get on, you get those little the maintenance thing. I never even thought twice, but now you know, recently you'd be an idiot, not too well, I stop flying. No, but if there's like maybe five six more incidents, maybe whenever you look, because they do tell you the aircraft, whenever you book the plane, maybe you book the Embryer plane. And that's a Brazilian company.
I'm not supposed to think about that. But that's one of those where they created this reality for us, and I think that's actually really devastating. So anyways, it's such an important story, we'll continue on it. I mean, who knows. Also with Boeing corruption what they can try and force. Maybe they'll see the government and try and force NaSTA to bring these people back. I would not put it past them for.
What Maybe they wanted these two astronauts to die on the return flight so they wouldn't be able to speak on again.
I'm just saying that's good. All right, guys. We appreciate you.
It's been a fun, fun show finally back in the studio. We appreciate all of our premium subscribers and others Breakingpoints dot com.
Otherwise, we're gonna have a great show for all of you tomorrow and we'll see you then.