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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.
We got lots of data about who actually, quote unquote won the debate and what impact, if any, it's going to have on the polls. We'll break all of that down for you as best we can. We've also got the big Trump mugshot, much awaited, I feel like on both sides, kind of a national war test, so we'll talk to you about that and what it means. We've also got some pulling about how the American people are feeling about all of his various criminal charges, which is
pretty interesting actually, so we'll get into that. Also, some updates in terms of the assassination of progosion. The former head of the Wagner Mercenary Group Putin is weighing in now, so we'll play for you those comments. And we also have a new dispute breaking out into the open over tactics on the Ukrainian side between Ukraine and the US, so we will give you the updates on that as well. Massive development for union's new ruling for the National Labor
Relations Board. Will break it down for you what it means. And this comes as workers affiliated with the United Auto Workers have just authorized what could be a huge transformational strike. So we'll get into all of that. And Oliver Anthony speaks out in the wake of his song being used at the Republican debate. Apparently he found it sort of amusing and wanted to make it clear that he does not affiliate with either party. He's weighing it. That's a fun one. We'll get into that as well.
Yeah, that's right, And before we start, I just want to say thank you again to everybody took advantage of the debate special discount that we had going on during the debate for our annual membership. We really appreciate everybody who has been doing it and we are excited to say, you know, we are working actively to commission both our
own polling but more importantly focused groups professional firms. It does cost a lot of money, though, so if you can help us out breakingpoints dot Com to become a premium member, we're building to get you the best possible coverage as we lead into the major election season.
So with that, what do the other people's focus groups say?
Okay, so I think the biggest question, you know, since Trump is in such a dominant position coming into the Republican nominating contest, is did he lose any altitude whatsoever from skipping this debate? The signals are mixed at best. Let's put this up on the screen. So this was I thought, in some ways the most interesting metric. They asked Republican voters who watched the debate, who are you even considering voting for? Like, who's even a possibility on
your radar? And they showed the shift for each candidate, and interestingly enough, every single candidate who participated in the debate, even candidates like Doug Bergham and Asa Hutchinson, they all saw an improvement in terms of the number of voters who were even considering voting for them. The one person who saw a decline was Donald Trump, who of course did not participate in that debate. So prior to the debate he sat at sixty six percent of Republican primary
voters said they are considering voting for him. He declined about five percentage points down to sixty one percent. He is now actually second in that metric to Ron DeSantis, who saw a bump up from sixty three percent to sixty seven point five percent. In terms of this particular metric, the person who saw the largest jump was actually a former UN ambassador in South Carolina, Governor Nikki Hayley, who
many thought had a strong performance. I have a whole thing about the substance of her performance that I'll get into later, but you know of media coverage that was very fawning of her, and she had a I think better than many people expected performance up there on the debate stage. So she jumped up from thirty percent to forty six point seven percent. This again in terms of people not who are supporting her, but who would even
consider voting for her. So Sager, on this one metric, you do see that there was a little bit of damage to Trump, not enough to like really eat into his lead. But you can see there is somewhat of a risk in his strategy of not participating in these debates.
The benefit that he has is that of those sixty one percent who are considering voting for him, most of them are not voting for her. They're going to vote for him. So that seems pretty important. It's like, well, I'm considering a lot of things, but where you ultimately end up is what actually matters in terms of also the overall debate. From the Washington Post, we have this,
we can put it up there on the screen. One of the immediate post debate polls that dropped twenty nine percent actually thought that DeSantis won the a twenty six percent for Vivike Ramaswami in fifteen percent for Nicki Haley.
I'm kind of.
Most surprised by the DeSantis figure, but I mean it did kind of settle a guess of debate after the debate of whether he lost or whether he won. I kind of put it as neutral because I was like, well, he got his greatest hits lines, he seemed to do fine. He didn't take any incoming fire, he didn't have any bad moments with Chris Christy or anybody like that. He was I think the fourth person who spoke most in the debate, so not too much, not too bad, and everyone.
You know what, he has a high affection amongst a lot of GOP voters and they liked him.
And then it's also not a surprise that the.
Other two people with bigger breakout moments, Vivike Ramaswami and Nikki Haley, seeing their overall favorability consideration and polling bump rise.
So we haven't yet.
Seen the massive bump for Vivike Ramaswami. We don't even know yet if that's going to materialize. Sometimes these things do take time. Don't forget. Also, there's going to be another debate just next month, So if you got compounding earned media, don't forget. You know, with Trump, he didn't really have some of his best moments until two or even three debates into the cycle, where he had a total domination of the field.
So we don't yet know.
But the major bump for Ramaswami has not yet has not yet been seen both in partisan polls that are out there in terms of like super packs and others, but also in terms of major live collar polls have happened afterwards as well.
Yeah, they also tested all of the candidates favorability that Washington Post poll did both before and after the debate, and those ones where you can see the shift are kind of the most interesting to me. And so you had Nikki Haley again was the person who saw the largest shift in terms of her favorability. She jumped up by fourteen points. They said that put her in clear positive territory. Now sixty five percent hold a favorable opinion
of her. The VIC his shift is interesting because on the one hand, he jumped up ten percent in terms of the share GOP debate watchers who have a favorable opinion of him, but he saw even low larger increase in the share that say they have an unfavorable opinion of him. So because he was so aggressive and you know, so sort of like, you know, getting in there and mixing it up, and his stances were very clear, but
some of them also quite divisive. He saw some people who really love that and some people who apparently did not like that as much, which I think could be part of why you haven't seen in the polls any bump for him, even though you had a large percentage of people. I mean, many of the post debate polls did say that he either won or came second in
the debate. The other thing that I think you could be seeing here in terms of a lack of a polling bump for Viveke is actually something that Kyle was arguing in our post debate panel, which is, Yeah, people who are Trump supporters liked Viveke in the debate, but guess what, they're not voting for him. They're voting for Trump. Now, the good news for a Viveke is that he's sort of betting on something happening with Trump that takes him
out of the race. And so I think in terms of that, if he's positioning himself as the primary Trump alternative, then he probably did himself some favors he or even is it's not really showing up that much in the polls yet. And actually, we can put this next pole up on the screen that shows you the shift post debate. This is an insider advantage pole, and so we have the numbers here, but it also shows you how much they have moved since the last time this particular polling
company ran a pole in the field. Trump did lose a little bit of altitude. He's at forty five percent. That is a six point decline, but is obviously not enough to knock him off of his perch ron DeSantis saw a significant shift plus eight. He's now up at eighteen percent. Nikki Haley also with a pretty sizable notable shift there up at eleven percent, and Vivek Ramaswami more or less treading water at seven percent. That is an increase of plus one. Everybody else more or less staying
the same. Christy forre Scott three pence two, Larry Elder wasn't in the debate at one, Hutchinson one, Burghum one heard one. So the most notable shifts coming Trump bumping down a little bit, Desanti is bumping up significantly, and
Haley bumping up significantly. And with regard to Ronda Santa Sager, you know, I think people actually a good number of people liked the fact that he was kind of out of the fray and they and I do think that, you know, my pre debate prediction was better than my post debate analysis in that I thought, since he had been caricatured as this like incredibly awkward, inept person, that when people actually saw him on stage, and he very
you know, clearly and forcefully delivered his message and didn't get mixed up and some of the back and forth of the other candidates. People both felt like he was forceful in his delivery, but also like he was a little bit above the fray and a little bit of the like adult in the room.
Some of that is being rewarded for this, some of that is really coming through.
We have this next one we can put up there on the screen and it shows the same thing.
This is from a Patriot poll and Company.
Keep in mind this is seven hundred and fifty registered voters, not necessarily likely voters, but registered voters skews more Democrat and or people who are not MAGA. However, it does show bumped there for Nikki Haley twenty three two percent, Ron DeSantis at twenty two point four. This is on the question of who won the debate, Mike Pence at twelve point two, Christy nine point six, and Vivic Ramaswami
eight point eight. It's a little bit of an outlier, but it does show with the consistent kind of performance of DeSantis, both in some of the more partisan polls and also in the independent ones. People didn't seem to mind that he didn't, you know, engage in some of the imbroglios or fights or any of that. It did work out, you know, in terms of Vivike Ramaswami, I think with name id, and we saw the Google search
trend results that happened afterwards. But so much of this as we're about to talk about the actual contender in this race, the man with fifty sixty some percent support of the Republican voters who have him. And in that sense, though maybe if avake strategy is the probably the best one, I'm running effectively as a number to dark horse number two. If something happens to Trump, then I'll try and scoop
up all his voters. I got all that nice favorability going for him, so that's I think his best possible chance.
Yeah, and I are right.
I have in my monolog today a poll they tested the race without Trump, and it's DeSantis and Ramaswami who are basically tied. So if something happened to Trump, I mean, I can't see him dropping out, but whatever, if something happened and he was no longer in the race, which is basically what all these candidates are banking on at this point that's like their best hope. His voters would probably split largely between DeSantis and Ramaswami as of today.
One thing I am curious about is, even though I don't think Trump lost a lot by not going to the debate, you know, you do see his favorability EB a little bait. You see do you see the percentage of voters that are considering him EB a little bit? The debate was watched. I know what the Twitter numbers say, but the Twitter numbers are not reality. The debate was watched by way more people than his Tucker interview was.
These candidates are getting a lot of headlines, are getting a lot of media attention, sort of you know, stealing spotlight from him at least for a moment until his mugshot came out, which is literally one day later. I do want or if he reconsiders and attends any of the future debates, what do you think, Sarry, do you think he'll think twice about sitting out all the rest of them?
You never know.
I think if we saw bigger rises for Ramaswami, the answer would be yes. Because it has been effectively a wash in terms of the polls. Yeah, I think his strategy was ultimately correct, and as we are about to talk about, the mugshot is clearly the number one news story for most normal people. I mean, ask people who are out there who don't engage with our show or are in super users quote unquote, whenever it comes to
politics media, what do they know about. I guarantee you they've seen that mugshot on Instagram or post it on Twitter or somebody sent it to them, as opposed to a single clip from the GOP debate. And that's because I've always said this, like Trump, he's not a politician.
He's a pop culture icon.
Yeah, a phase, a fixture of American culture since he was a freaking home alone too.
It's just like you can't get away from that.
He was in rap songs, he was on The Apprentice, the highest rated network show at the time. It's just a different stratospheric level and of name id and then he was the existing president. So he gets his mug shot out there. I think we're all about to talk about that.
That's just going to.
Wash you know a lot of these things, and you know, considering his fundraising hall and all that, we're about to get into like, I think you probably made the right decision.
And to bolster or point. There was also a morning console poll post debate. You know, they do their track er, I think basically on a weekly basis. They literally showed no change in the race. No statistically, maybe one person was up a point or down a point or whatever, but it was basically exactly the same after the debate
as it was before the debate. So I don't think that so far the debates are not the game changer that some of these candidates would like them to be, even as their you know, lineup, whether they're second or third or fourth, has kind of shifted around in everyone not named Trump. We've teased enough. Let's get to the freaking mugshot gun and put it up on the screen. This is what it looks like. I mean, yeah, everybody was waiting for this. I don't care whether you were
like a resistance liberal or whatever. This was a real cultural moment here Trump getting the mugshot. Now he obviously has this was not his first indictment, as you were well aware, but this was the first one where they did make him do the mugshot. It basically the theory being listened we'd have treat everybody the same. So if you're getting arrested here, you're coming in for the mugshot.
For those of you who are just listening and not watching, I mean I've probably seen it already by now, but the sort of like very angry, defiant stare glare into the camera. He's wearing a blue suit, white shirt, red tie. He's got the sheriff's logo there up on the side. And as I said before soccer, this really turned into kind of a national RARS shock test. There's also a lot of discussion about like the height and weight that he's self reported.
This was all the conversation a.
Whole yeah, exactly, and there was a whole cultural moment of people sharing like this is what six foot three, two fifteen actually looks like. You were talking about the things that really break through for normal voters. Actually, this was what I was getting sent from people in my life who are not like big politicos. This was the conversation that they were kind of obsessed with, was looking at the mugshot and talking about Trump lying about his.
Height and weight. All my gym friends were doing the exact same thing. Chrystal.
Really, yeah, I mean, I think it does again speak to the way that it has become like a pop culture signifier. And then though it comes back to did this backfire? Like was this a mistake? You know, if we were to consider that this is obviously political. You can talk about the legal merits and all of that whatever you want. At least in the eyes of voters, it's clearly political. Even the ones who support it are like, yeah,
it's political, and I support the indictment of Donald Trump. Well, then did we help or you know, on their side, Like if you're trying to think of did they do Trump a favor? I mean we should remember, we shouldn't forget the reason why will do mugshots is so that you have an official record of what they look like.
Yeah, in case you don't have a bi.
It's from the nineteen It's like a nineteen sixties era relic, especially before the internet. Trump, I'm going to venture a guest, is probably the most photographic man ever in the history of the world.
Obama actually was before him.
It's usually the presidents, you know, especially in the modern media age, so like did we really need one? And also there is a reason why the FEDS didn't do a mug shot, and specifically in order to deny Trump the fundraising opportunity, and lo and behold, let's put this up there. He has raked in seven million dollars after the Georgia booking crystal.
They are raising some one million dollars.
Per day online, they're selling they're selling signed copies of the mugshot. They're selling T shirts of the mug shot. Now is getting distributed like alongside rappers. Apparently one of those guys. I forget, the one that Trump helps get out of little Pump. I apologize Little Pump the way I'm try supposed to say it. So he's transcended, you know, into the like the mean universe with thevy mug shot fully embracing it.
That's just already sale. But the justiciication of Trump, I listen, I actually I kind of appreciate the principle of this is the way we do things, and we are not granting you an exception, because, like you said, there's a lot of people that don't technically need a mug shot where we've got photos of them, Like there's the thousand photos of basically everybody online at this point. So I don't mind the principle of this is how we do things. You're not going to be treated in a special way.
So you know, we're going to do the mugshot, et cetera, et cetera. And yes, his supporters are going to you know, we're going to show you Jesse Waters, We're on Fox News hilarious clip of him like fawning over this thing. People who hate Trump are gonna have a totally different reaction every single one of his arrests, whether they had a mug shot or not. There was a huge fundraising bump for him in terms of the Republican primary, but I think in terms of general electorate, you know, it's
a very different picture. So for his Republican adversaries who want to be able to grab the spotlight, want to be able to have a different conversation, want to be able to move beyond Trump, I think these events are profoundly unhelpful for them because one day after the debate, Trump is once again the center of the circus and driving all of the coverage and forcing everyone to basically
come to his defense again on the Republican side. But I continue to think for the general election, I mean, you know, this is really serious like this is going to be a problem for him, and I think Joe Biden is eminently beatable. Like I saw this morning, his approval rating is like thirty one percent, But guess what Trump's approval rating is also thirty one percent, and he could be by that time potentially facing prison time. Now an outright majority of Americans believe he should suspend his
campaign right now. So it's not like for getting back to the White House, he's in a strong position, but in terms of winning the Republican nomination, every one of these things is just helpful for him.
Yeah, I think you're probably correct. I mean, listen with the general electorate, I never have any idea.
It's one of those where ahead of the twenty twenty two elections, in the polling data, nobody was like, I'm really pissed off about January sixth and about Stop the Steal. But then obviously voters when they went to the polls were very upset about it and they directly punished many of the candidates who most embraced it. At the same time, was that because of Stop the Steal? Was it because
of Trump? And then abortion is laid out on top of all of this, You know, the people who are pro life will be like, no, no, no, it was all Trump. The people who are pro choice are like, well, it was a lot abortion. I tend to find fall much
more on the side of abortion. Trump is actually the most moderate candidate in the entire GOP race on abortion, hilariously enough, And whenever you continue to think and to look at how they are going to digest these overall indictments, the polling data that we have seems to indicate it's like, yeah, a simple majority of people seem to believe that these are just But though that doesn't mean that they may not vote for Maybe they I mean some people say they won't.
Then there was the whole.
Solid silent Trump phenomenon that happened both in twenty sixteen in twenty twenty.
So I just don't know. I do agree.
I think it is in general a weakness. And for a lot of people who are listening to this, I know it can be difficult. If you listen to the show, you probably distrust institutions in the establishment. But I've said before, for a lot of normal people, it's like being arrested. They're like, oh my gosh, they must have done something wrong. Yeah, you know, it's like, yeah, when you get a lug shot, Yeah, exactly, they're like, wow, I mean to be in seven indictments
or something like this, that's just crazy. I mean, that's one of those where you know, if you still have some faith in the system and the justice system and all that, it can code very differently than people who are both his supporters and were like pretty online and aware.
Of some of the things going on in the justice system.
You think the abortion point is an interesting one to pick up on because the ad that the Biden campaign released after the debates was about abortion. It wasn't about generously, it wasn't about Trump arrass it wasn't about any of that. It was they took clips of Trump saying I'm the one who overturned Roe versus Wade, and then they cut together some of the more extreme positions that were taken from GOP candidates on the debate stage, and that's what
they released. And clearly they think that continues to be the most potent evocative issue for them. And it's an interesting one because you know, if you pull voters, that's not going to be the top issue for the largest percentage of voters. But the people who are motivated by that are really motivated by it. And we you know, at this point, we've seen it in multiple elections, certainly that Wisconsin Supreme Court election. We had one recently in
Ohio that was a big deal. We've actually got another one coming up in Pennsylvania that's going to be a big deal for another state Supreme Court seat. So they still feel like that, you know. And the thing is, it's not like the Biden Minister's human They're not even promising to do anything on the issue. They're just promising to not make things worse and arguing that, you know, the Republicans, whether it's Trump or anybody else, would make things worse. So I do think that's going to continue
you to be really central. You're referring to some of the numbers here about how Americans feel about all of these various charges. Let's put this up on the screen because this is kind of fascinating. On each of the different charges and indictments, a majority actually thinks that he is guilty. The numbers are extremely similar. No matter whether it is what I consider to be the weakest case, the false buying business records case, or the sensitive documents case.
Or either of the election sub version, whether it's the Georgia or the federal one. You're basically sitting at fifty percent of the country who say, yes, he did it, he is guilty, and only about twenty five percent in each of these instances who say no, he's innocent. The rest are sort of like, I don't know, and so I feel like that that twenty five percent is the real, like those are the real, like hardcore Trump could never
do anything wrong. And then you know, as we've been saying from the beginning, as much as it's important and we try our best here to dig into the merits and you know, have nuance that evaluate each claim and each indictment as they come, the reality is, for most Americans it's just a measure of how do I feel about time exactly right, as like all of our politics basically is just about how do you feel about Donald Trump.
It's important for people to take that.
So, you know, we spend a lot of time going through the various merits because we know it's going to eventually matter in a court of law. But in terms of how most people are going to digest it, yeah, I mean they don't care. They don't care about Alvin Bragg and the DA. They don't care about the technicalities of Georgia election law. They don't care about January sixth and the free speech exception and all that those are
for us. And you know, the developments of which will be very important, don't get me wrong in terms of whether he can you know, actually gets convicted, what the jury makeup is going to look like, what the judge says, the trial date, all of those are very important.
But the straight up like is he bad or is he good? Yeah?
I mean that pretty much reflected the various and the number and the lack of change in between every single one of them just shows like you've got a lot of people in this country I hate Trump and they just want to see him go away. I think they see the legal system as an avenue in order to make him go away. It's like a forcing mechanism. Well, I think they're like, yeah, I support that.
I think they also genuinely see him as a criminal.
Absolutely so.
I think there's also a little bit of like the you know, al Capone getting him on tax fraud, tax cheating. It's like whether it's for the thing that I really am mad at him, about or whether it's for a more superfluous issue, whatever it is, like, I think this guy is a criminal. I think he should face accountability. And you know, I'm not too troubled with the details. I just want to see him get his Basically.
I absolutely think you're correct.
But as you alluded to, though, it has going to stopped his supporters from issuing some of the most fawning coverage.
Of Yees around Fox News. There's basically like a little bit of a competition to be the most funning in praise of the mugshot, how handsome it was, how tough and strong he looked, et cetera. I think it's pretty fair to say Jesse Waters one that competition. Let's go ahead and listen to what he had to say about the mugshot.
And I am now going to book the Fulton County photographer for my Christmas card because Judge, and I say this with a unblemished record of heterosexuality, he looks good and he looks hard. And why would you think that you wouldn't practice the shot? Is that a surprise? Of course, you practiced the mug shot. You only don't practice if you're drunk. That's the first time Biden's told the truth. It's a handsome mug shot. My wife says, he looks fierce.
He looks hard, but he doesn't look scared does he doesn't look humiliated.
He looks exactly the opposite of how the left thought he'd look.
So the media, once they observed the impact of the image, now say it wasn't natural, it wasn't authentic, because the look was planned.
Unblemished record of heterosexuality there. His wife says, he looks fierce. Jesse says repeatedly, he looks hard. What do you think is harder?
I'm just like, how many times do we have to say it?
My man?
What are we exactly are we trying to do here?
It's just just like kind of judge for themselves.
I mean, look, in terms of the face, the funny thing is, having covered Trump for years at the White House, I knew exactly what he was doing because that's the exact same face that he gave in the president shot for his official portrait. Most presidents in their official picture always smile, I think Obama did, or they offer like
a slight smile, and Trump famously gave the frown. The reason why is he models it on the famous Churchill photo that was taken in the middle of the Battle of Britain, where Churchill is kind of scowl frowning at the camera as like the stolid like face against Nazism as Britain is beseeched, and he's obsessed with that particular photo, so he doesn't smile in most like official communicats. There's another reason he's also not smiling actually in his official
presidential portrait as well. But yeah, I mean I just think it's it's hilarious because I saw that and I was like, Oh, that's Churchill face.
I'm like the face he's obsessed with. As for whether he practiced it or not, I mean, he's.
Basically been doing it since he's been in politics, So yeah, I'm pretty sure he just reverted back to the norm.
Listen, if I was going to be in a photograph that like literally everyone in the entire planet was going to see, I would probably practice that face. So yeah, you got to play these things out, you know. I think there is like to go one level deeper analysis than Jesse waters here and his just like shameless funning
propaganda for Trump. Fox News, led by Rupert Murdock obviously wants to move on from I'm talking today in my monologue about how they're like really into Nicky Haley and all the Fox and Friends people were like talk him, how she owned vi, vag and Homer love her and she's so great and all her terrible Neocon views are so amazing and wonderful. And Wall Street Journal has now published multiple post debate editorials fawning over Nicky Haley as well.
Like Rupert Murdock previously really wanted to go all in onto Santis, there's still Ruper's body wants to get collect youngkin in the race, like he wants to move on, And there's a lot of Republican elite media figures who really want to move on. But you can see in moments like this, I mean, their audience is so enthralled with Trump. You're just never going to be able to
really turn that ship. And whatever ability Fox used to have to really guide the Republican masses towards the candidates and policies and direction that they wanted to move them in, it's just not there anymore. I Mean, you've got a much more fractured media landscape. People have a lot more choices, and Trump has a much firmer hold on the hearts of the Republican base than previous presidential candidates or other
GOP politicians ever did. So you know, they can't even like kind of get all of their hosts rowing in the same direction, let alone they're viewing audience.
No, absolutely, right, Yeah, it's just it's pretty humiliating though, just to see that. Also because don't forget, Waters took over the Tucker Carlson spot on Fox and hasn't been able yet to assemble similar numbers in terms of primetime, and it's like, well, it turns out that's the best strategy that works for Fox News Prime.
Shameless Trump fawning rights record. You couldn't pay enough.
Yeah, yeah, truly, you really could not. Okay, let's move on. We got to talk about Progosion. So I did a breaking news segment about progosion whenever the crash actually happened. There's now various explanations for what happened to Progosian's plane. I think what everyone can agree on is that he is dead. So what exactly happened, Well, you can guess. Intel sources tell us there was a blast on board the plane. Others tell us he was hit by a
Service to air missile. One thing for sure, he was definitely on board that flight with multiple other actually innocent people, including a poor flight attendant. Actually, we didn't do anything wrong and who was blown out of the sky. We have all the video of the plane coming, crashing and smoking, you know, crashing down on a routine flight from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. Putin is now offering his condolences to Progosion after his untimely death. Let's take a little bit
of a listen to that. Let's go and play this and I will speak over. He says, quote, if Wagner members were on board, as the report suggests, I would like to acknowledge that these people did make a significant contribution to our joint fight against the neo Nazi regime in Ukraine. Clearly they're sticking to the rhetoric that he's been keeping up against Progosian. They also had previously said Krystal that they'd used genetic test DNA in order to
confirm he was on board there. In terms of continuing, he says, quote, I have known Progosian for a long time. He made some serious mistakes in his life, but also achieved a lot both for himself when I asked for our joint cause like in these recent months. Recall that he was actually Putin's chef after previously serving as a prisoner and then built himself up into a military oligarch.
He says, quote he was a.
Talented man and a skilled businessman, offering him up some praise. I think we could say relatively confidently. I guess, I hope the Russians don't sue us, is that he probably had something to do.
With the death. Mister Pregosion.
You can be the guest, you can give the ultimate guests. One interesting thing, though, is about what Pregosion was actually thinking and what was in his mind.
Why did he think that he would be the exception to the rule and would live?
And you know, in some respects Crystal, some Russian traders, oligarchs and others who have betrayed Putin, it takes a while for them to die. Sometimes they'll give him a year, sometimes they'll give him two years. You know, most some cases they give him eight years. Progosion was actually killed very relatively quickly for somebody who had so betrayed Putin. I think it was because it was so public and such an international humiliation to launch the Cup against him.
But there's always been a question of why did he turn around? You know, I said during the segment, it's like, if you're going to take Vienna, then you got to take it, man. But when you turn around, like, why did you think that Putin was ever going to let you live? Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Some of it does come back to his overall leadership of the Wagner Group and some of the
people who were actually loyal to him. We have this from Wall Street Journal, the quote the last days of Wagner's progotion quote on the run, the Parati military chief crisscrossed his global business empire. Desperate to show that he was still in control, he said, quote, I need more gold. He had spent some time in Africa, the Central African Republic, for example, where one of his first clients for the Matt Wagner Group company several thousand people who were there.
He'd crisscrossed and traversed. He had told various other people that things were fine with Putin. But you know, at the same time, he also seemed to indicate he didn't know Crystal that he was in danger, and so the portrait that emerges here is he was kind of frantic trying to shore up his position. I think he saw himself as a projection of Russian power through the Wagner Group, through a lot of its military operations in Africa and in Syria, and he was trying to make.
Himself indispensable to the Putin regime.
And though he had launched a coup against them, and then ultimately and it was killed after only a matter of months after launching this coup against Putin. So the entire thing is really surreal to see Putin like fake mourn him.
I don't know.
I mean I wonder, I really wonder, because Russians aren't stupid. To ordinary Russian They're like, yeah, he was obviously killed by Putin. Why do they put up this whole song and dance.
I'm just not even sure why it's necessary.
There's a lot about this that I don't that I have trouble wrapping my head around. I mean, I don't know why he ever thought he was going to be able to be successful with the coup in the first place.
I do know.
On you, but once you start man, you can't stop. Like we said at the time, this man is not going to a little long life right now. I didn't think it was going to come this quickly. I thought it'd be years down the road. By the time people had sort of like forgotten this incident and moved on. You'd see a footnote in the New York Times or wherever saying that he had been assassinated, poisoned, you know, push down a window, whatever, or fell to an untimely
death out of a window. It seems to happen to a number of these Russian oligarchs. For it to be this quick and this really brazen is quite remarkable. But that makes sense to me because Putin is trying to you know, reassert dominance, reassert control, et cetera. I do not understand why Progotion thought that this deal would hold up. I do not undernderstand why he still felt at liberty to fly around and try to keep his his control over the Wagner Group, his control over these various interests,
especially you know, around Africa and the Middle East. Clearly, the Kremlin had been trying to kind of take over the business operations that Wagner had previously been leading, but
they say that Progosion refused to retire quietly. In that Wall Street Journal piece, Chris Costing the Middle East, Eastern Europe, in Africa, in a bid to keep his business links alive, posted audio messages offering mercenaries to the military regime that had recently taken power in Niger, a video of himself and Molly posing with the sniper rifle and four magazines strapped to a bullet proof vest, vowing to quote make Russia even greater in Africa even more free. So why
did he feel at liberty to do these things? I mean to just like basically have a death wish? Did he, you know, really feel like he had that level of understanding with Putin where he could really trust his word, et cetera. I don't know a lot about it is still very perplexing.
You can you know, I mean, you can just remind is it takes a certain personality to be a global mercenary head warlord, cutting people's heads off and stuff inside Ukraine. It takes a certain personality to survive in Putin's Russia, to rise from chef to oligarch, to kiss ass to megalomaniac, to warrior to coup. You know, sometimes people are actually very.
Not rational at all.
So it's true you can see here, like with him, it seemed a delusional In many cases, the delusions that can actually get you a tremendous amount of power very often will end up being your downfall.
And it seems that that very much.
Was the case overall, though, I mean, in terms of why, of what matters, it does seem there's like a temporary Wagner memorial inside of Russia.
Some people were mourning him in Moscow.
There were things coming, But overall, I mean, we haven't seen any change in the front line. Wagner has largely been you know, been amassed into the Russian armed services. You've not seen any major, you know, change in terms of battlefield like preparation or any of that.
So also so the.
Commanders on the ground who seemed somewhat sympathetic to pregosion, they've been fired and unceremoniously dismissed and putin and in many ways, I mean, seems stronger than ever. He killed his main rival out in the open. It was a blatant signal. It's like you crossed me, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna blow you out of the sky and then fake mourn your death on national television.
Yeah.
I can't think of a more bloodthirsty thing you can do. A more cold thing also that you can do in terms of a message.
Jegor's analysis of Progosion has always been that he was basically high on his own supply.
Yeah.
I think that he had delusions of grandeur, that he really bought the hype around him, which was in some ways hype that was created by the like Russian media propaganda networks. So they sort of built him up as this heroic figure and then he was very you know, omnipresident on social media or whatever, and so he really misgauged the actual level of support that he had among
the people. Again, these things are very hard to judge from Afar, you know, how he felt and how people feel about him, and how they felt, you know, felt about him, then feel about him now, et cetera. But that was his analysis, is that, you know, he had this sort of like potentkin village of social media and actual media support, and then once that media support is pulled, there's really not a lot left there in terms of
his genuine support among the populace. And so when he starts this failed you know, coup attempt, which you know he denied it was really a coup attempt, but I think we all saw that in real time. Once he starts down this path and he doesn't see the people rallying to his cause in the way that he thought kind of burst his bubble, he freaks out. He makes his deal with Putin. That's the best that I can surmise of what happened here. But wild, well, never wild series of events.
Yeah, I guess we get to live in interesting times.
Speaking of that, there's an open war breaking out actually between US military generals and Ukrainian military generals, both in the press on background and in the public, and it's all kind of fascinating and it tells us a lot about where the conflict is. Let's ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is from the New
York Times, but it was one of many. There was one from the Times, There's one from the Wall Street Journal, one from the Financial Times, and one from Foreign Policy, all basically quoting the same sources, which saying the exact same thing over and over again. US officials are saying that Ukraine's forces and its firepower are misallocated. American strategists saying Ukraine's troops are too spread out and they need to concentrate along the counterintensive main front in the south.
The main criticism comes down to this crystal. The US is telling the Ukrainians a couple of things. You're firing way too much artillery. You're basically reverting to old style Soviet tactics.
We're going to get to it in a little bit. But they fired almost.
Two million artillery shells since the conflict began. Here's the issue with that. All of it comes from US. We manufacture it, and they have not only depleted all of our stockpiles. We can produce twenty thousand per month, they use ninety thousand per month. You can go ahead and guess how much Germany and the other ridiculous country which can't even hit two percent NATO spending or defense spending inside of NATO, how much they are able to produce.
So they wiped out our overall stockpile, and they're.
Massively depleting whatever we're even able to produce in the future. Number two, they have effectively been completely unable to actually fight Combined arms tactics in the way that a modern US military would fight. They are reverting much more to World War One style conflicts, where you shell the hell out of the people in front of you, you kind of burrow them into a hole, and then you just run forward and kind of hope that it all works.
Out, take out whatever tanks you can.
Again, with US supplied weapons hasn't worked out all that well. They've taken a couple of villages they're claiming one that they've had here, but no meaning field breakthrough actually on the front line, especially relative to the tens of thousands of casualties that they have suffered and the multi billions
of dollars that wey have given them. The major concern that there is right now from the US side is that the Ukraine are not grappling with the fact that the amount of aid that they were given for this counter offensive, it's never going to happen again. I mean, even in terms of what they have asked the Biden administration for Congress, which has not yet been even considered and has faced a lot of problems inside of Congress. The extra twenty five billion, some of that is humanitarian aid.
In terms of the military aid. You can appropriate all you want, but in terms of the hard actual number of things that we have at our disposal, especially for the defense industrial base, it'll never come to this again. So if they're just going to rely on shooting as many shells as possible, it's just not going to work. There is some indication that the Ukrainians have been listening, because they have taken a couple of small villages in the last couple of days, and they're seeing a little
bit more movement. Most of that is from pressure by the West in order to concentrate the majority of their forces at single strategic points. But they also have to watch out because the Russians now are also, it seems, massing before at least some sort of counter offensive against the counter offensive. Again, it's all very reminiscent of World War One, But then in terms of the future, what
the hell is going to happen here? US strategists and all them defend The National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refuses to say it's a stalemate. He says, it's not a stalemate, but we haven't seen anything major breakthrough. They're prepping the ground for this thing going on forever. David Ignatius, who is like the deep state whisperer. Let's go ahead, put this up there on the screen. Here's what he says. How the usces Ukraine's push no stalemate but no breakthrough.
What does that mean? Someone can explain that when.
The definition of a stalemate a here are the top line things that actually come out for it for our purposes.
Number One, Kiev says that this is going to go on forever.
Number two US and Ukraine dramatically disagree in terms of strategy. Then number three, and this was actually the most important one to me quote. With Ukrainian forces steimide on the ground, US officials believe President Zelinski will take the fight increasingly to Russian territory and occupied Crimea. In other words, the more they are bogged down on the ground, they're going to try and force strikes on Russian terry or territory
and in Crimea. Again, look, they can do whatever they want, but then they should bear all the risk if they're going to provide and use our weapons to do so. That puts US in a whole other ballgame, especially if they're not using easily little drones against Moscow and the Kremlin. They're actually using US provided F sixteens, of which some of them are beginning to trade right now. There was also a very telling actually line in here crystal about at cams in terms of long range missiles that they
have long desired. Quote, the United States doesn't have enough at cams to supply Ukraine without undercutting its own readiness for any future conflict with China. And the reason why I think that line struck to me so hard is that the over and over again we are learning is that we already know that the Biden administration will.
Eventually cave and they are going to give them these weapons.
And yet they always try to deny the reality that it is dramatically reducing US defense readiness and the capabilities of the overall industrial base. At this point, you know, you should be resigned. These weapons are going to Ukraine. There's no way that. First all, we're not going to send the F sixties. Now we're sending sixties. We're never going to send the cluster munitions. Now we're basically the only reason they're having any movement on the ground is
because of the cluster munitions. Now this one, they're like long range missiles. Oh well, they could strike deep inside Russia will hear the you know hymns and haws about that for a little while. We all they're going to do it. They cave, the Ukrainians get everything that they want. And so the last thing I'll say about it is it is clear to me that the Ukrainians are fighting as if they have a bottomless supply.
They refuse to wake up to reality.
And you know, eventually, I think, you know, the bill on this is going to come doe. But the West is also deluded into thinking that its populations and its defense industrial bases will be able to provide the Ukrainians with the things that they need with the tax that they have, tactics they have decided that they are going to use, and the stalemate that they are signing themselves up for, it's not one which is strategically on their side.
Russia is a real country.
They've got real trade, They've got a real defense industrial base. You know, the Ukrainian industrial base pumps out like fifteen drones and they think they're like, oh, well, the drone supplies off two thousand percent. I'm like, so what you know? These are the amount that get shot down in like
three days on the front line. Anyway, those are all my top line things from I read a lot about this over the yeast couple of days, and basically they're trying to prep the US population for it's going to be Afghanistan. It's just going to take years.
It's going to go for it.
It's just never going to end.
And the more that happens, the more as he even acknowledges here that they're going to pursue more aggressive strikes inside of Russian inside of occupied crime yet, which only escalates the conflict even further.
Well, because the same analysis that you know, we and many others have provided on the Russian side of the more the more difficult and the more desperate they are, the more dangerous tactics they will deploy. It's exact same on the Ukrainian side. The more desperate and the less success they have in these offensives, the more that they will be willing to drone strike within Russian territory and
take more dangerous, potentially provocative, potentially escalatory moves. So you know, the US is well aware of this, as David Ignatius, you know, one of their sort of like media allies is putting out there they're well aware of this, but they have zero interest in really doing anything but tut tutting and asking nicely for them to stop, which the
Ukrainians have zero intention of actually doing. The other thing that I was trying to figure out, Sager, is, you know, anytime you see these new media narratives coming out of the sort of like established media ally channels like the New York Times and like the Washington Post, you always have to ask yourself.
Like why because they're not listening, Why.
Why are they putting this out there now? And I do think, Look, I think it's partly reality that the Ukrainians have not pursued the strategy that US one of them to pursue. You know, reportedly in New York Times they wanted them to really concentrate their forces to try to break up this land bridge that they have between Russian Crimea, which allows the Russians to have these supply lines. That was really where they wanted to focus their troops.
The Ukrainians have spread their forces more thinly across the east and across the south. But I also think it's a little bit of like I actually think it's a lot of cover your ass of like explaining the US population, why it hasn't gone as well as it was really sold going in, and how it's not our fault at all, and you know, it's their fault. Everything's on their side.
We did everything that we possibly could, and you know, if we just and also the implication here is, oh, well, if we just get them to change some of their tactics, then things will go completely differently, which I think is also a farce and of fantasy.
I honestly, look, I say this was whatever respect I can musters the Ukrainian military. They are some of the most arrogant people I have ever read about in all of history. Because they think that they're like they're talking the US military literally pays all their bills, run all their surveillance runs, all their ISR, provides all of their weapons, and they're like, no, no, no, we know better than US
military planners. One of them, actually, the head of the Ukrainian forces, was like, this is the Battle of Kursk for people who don't know, that was like a major battle that happened in the Eastern Front in nineteen forty three, was one of the largest tank battles. I think it's maybe the largest tank battle ever in all of history. It eventually is what helped, you know, quell the Nazi invasion.
But again with great respect, like, you are not Stalin's Soviet Union, and you are not somebody with like any real industrial base or ability in order to mounter mount the actual defense that would be necessary in order to pull something like that off, as evidenced by the lack of gains that you've made.
So far in the counter offensive.
Yeah, and by you know, fairly like juvenile tactical mistakes like blowing ten billion dollars worth of artillery on a
battle for a city which you then lose. It's one of those where again and again and again they revert to what they know best, which is fine, but they are not able to keep that up up for all of the downstream supply chain and everything else, and they're not the reason why, I think, is that the only way to reach the Ukrainians is through the US media, because clearly they don't listen.
They're arrogant.
They're like, no, we know exactly what we're going to do, and the US is like, well, we pay your bills and we can actually see you know, the maps, and you're not listening to us. So they start leaking on background. What has then happened is that now the Ukrainian generals are defending themselves in public. There was some meeting that happened on the Polish border between the generals and between the Ukrainian the head of the Ukrainian Armed forces as well.
And look like we'll.
See it's possible that they will make some small gains. But at the end of the day, I urge everybody every time I see these stories that like Ukraine takes small village, go look at a map of.
The front line.
This is what like they have taken scraps hundreds of yards. Twenty percent of the country is still held by Russia. The overall grand strategic vision has changed nothing.
The only thing is a lot of people are dead, and billions and billions of dollars of munitions have been pumped into the ground, some of which are unexploded and will probably kill children like for one hundred years from now.
Yeah, and you know, nobody seems to care about that.
And in terms of prepping the US population for basically another forever war, at least in this time of forever quote unquote proxy war is I mean, I think on the sort of like liberal democratic side is basically working, Like Ukraine has really slipped from the front of people's consciousness. They've just sort of accepted this is this ongoing thing that we're going to continue, you know, pumping resources and
money and focus and attention into. And you know, it's just it is taken for granted now among much of
the population that this is just kind of the status quo. So, you know, in a lot of ways, I think those propaganda efforts have been successful, but the dangers we've been warning about, both in terms of escalation and in terms of you know, resources that are being expended here, those continue to be incredibly real and not something that anyone should push out of their mind because and also, you know,
most importantly, like this is a human catastrophe. It's horrendous the number of limbs that are lost and lives that are lost and lives that are upended. I mean, this is just an absolute human calamity, and so we shouldn't lose attention and focus on it for that reason alone.
Yep, absolutely right.
I wanted to break down for you what is actually a really massive game changing decision that was just made by the National Labor Relations Board under Joe Biden, that could actually really change the game in terms of union density in this country. Let me go and put this up on the screen and then I'll explain in detail
what all of this means. This is courtesy of more Perfect Union, they say, breaking The Nationally Relations Board has ruled that if bosses commit unfair labor practices in the run up to a union election, which happens, by the way, guys all the time, like routinely in a majority of union elections, the bosses commit unfair labor practices. If that happens, then the union election is going to be canceled and the National Airbor Relations Board will order the employer to
immediately recognize the union and bargain with the union. More Perfect Union adds, union busting just got a lot harder. They go on to say, Now every union campaign has to go to an election to get formal recognition, but bosses use that time to union bust, often illegally. Now, if a majority of workers support the union, bosses will have to stop union busting or be forced to negotiate
and recognize the union with no election at all. As the chair of the NLRB says, quote, it eliminates incentives for employers to commit unfair labor practices as a way to delay or defeat representation when a majority of workers have shown support for a union. So as it stands prior to this ruling, as you guys likely know, if workers want to organize with a union, it is a non sive uphill clion. The very first step is the union will get supporters who are interested in joining the
union to sign cards. They'd sign off basically saying yes, I'm interested in joining the union. Now, it used to be that if a majority of workers signed those cards, the assumption was, okay, then you're going to be represented by a union and the employer has to bargain with you, unless there are some more extraordinary circumstances that would indicate that actually, no, a majority of workers don't really want to join the union, and then it would go to election.
So it used to be, and this was called the Joysilk doctrine. They used to be it was the presumption that the workers, if there was a majority of card signed, would form a union. That has been completely upended over decades, and now the presumption is the total opposite. Doesn't matter how many workers signed the card, it's going to an election, and all of that time between when the cards are signed and when the election happens, employers routinely engage in illegal,
unfair labor practices and overt union busting. So this ruling is now taking a step part of the way back towards that old method where the presumption was that if majorities of workers want to join a union, then you know, they have to recognize the union. So if the employer then is caught engaging in unfair labor practices, union election is canceled and the you know, union wins and they have to bargain with them. So this is a huge deal.
The backstory here and why this ruling is coming out now is because there's a group of Cemechs Cement truck
drivers who in twenty nineteen narrowly voted against joining the Teamsters. However, during the run up to that election, Semacks the company had committed more than two dozen unfair labor practices that included threatening, surveilling, and terarogating workers, having security guards to intimidate them, et cetera, et cetera, And so because they had so wildly skewed the results of this elect the National Ay Relations Board is now saying no, that election
is now null and void, and you have to recognize this Teamsters union and you have to start bargaining with them, and that logic is now going to be applied across the board. I cannot emphasize to you enough what a huge, historic, you know, sort of game changing deal this is in terms of workers who want to organize, And of course it comes at a time of increasing labor militancy, of rising grassroots union movements, and also of near historic high
public support for unions as well. So this is really quite extraordinary.
Yeah, I was just I was trying to figure out, like why now, is it also in the context of the UAW strike, Like that's what we had been looking at, that's the one that's looming. At the same time, we've actually seen successful resolution of some of these bigger disputes like ups for example, despite posturing.
So is it on the heels of that, Like.
No, it really comes straight out of the General Counsel Jennifer Brusso, the National Labor Relations Board under Joe Biden, who I think has been extraordinary, I think is one of the best, you know things that that Joe Biden has done putting her in this position. She has said for a while that she wants to revisit the Joysilk Road doctrine, and so unions have been waiting and workers have been waiting to see how this all comes down.
And as I said, this is almost like a middle of the road path because it doesn't go all the way back to just what you know would be called card check, where if there's a majority of card sign that's it, end of story. There's a union, unless the burden is on the boss to prove that no, in reality, there aren't a majority of workers, and then you go to the election. So it doesn't go all the way back to that. It's kind of a middle of the road, but in comparison to where we are today, is a
huge deal. And so you know, this is a general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board who's been very interested in trying to rebalance the skills and make it much more fair for workers to be able to organize and be able to bargain. And this particular case that ended up before the National Labor Relations Board just gave them the sort of perfect opportunity to revise and update the you know the approach with regards to when unions are recognized and when the elections have to occur. So
I think they were. If I had to say why now, it's because this case provided them with the opportunity to issue an updated ruling and updated guidance about how this is all supposed to work.
That makes sense.
Well, then it will likely spawn some more labor actions in the future because people will feel as if they have much more of a cover, and it will also change the way the business has to interact.
We said unions, workers will have a lot less fear about like because as of now, you know, we covered the Amazon fight down in Bessemer, Alabama, right, and a lot of workers in a region where there aren't a
lot of good jobs. You know, they were fearful. Right, They're afraid, like, Okay, I've got a job that pays pretty decently, and yeah, I got all these problems with it, and I might like to be part of a union and have that kind of collective power, but I'm afraid, like they might retell against me, they might close up shop all together, they might fire me. All of those things were a real possibility, and in the past, workers that routinely. I mean bosses that utinely union routinely union bust,
like Starbucks, like Amazon, like basically all of them. They would get a slop on the wrist, you know, they have to like pay a modest fine or post the rules that and the rights that workers have in the workplace, and that would basically be it. So there was no real accountability or no real consequence to work to bosses just overwhelmingly union bust. So yeah, this completely changes the landscape.
I mean, I think it'll take some time for workers to really internalize, like, no, actually I don't have to be so fearful of those consequences. I can actually, if I want to join a union, be involved in organizing all of those things. But the way that this rebalances
the scales, the way this changes the landscape. We've had years and years and years of union density decline, and even in this past little you know, a little stretch over the past year, couple of years where you've had a lot more activity, You've had a lot more strikes, you've had a lot more union efforts, You've had the Starbucks movement, the Amazon movement, all of that stuff. You still as a percentage of the workforce have seen the percentage,
like the union density decline. This could actually be the thing that flips that on its head, that enters a new era of increasingly building worker power. And you know, to shift to the other part of this that is really big. You pointed out the Teamsters. The UPS workers organized under the Teamsters just scored some major wins in terms of their contract, got a lot of attention some of the drivers. We make it one hundred and seventy p year with benefits, with benefits those you know, but
that's that's a good, good wage. And by the way, that's not just good for UPS workers. Any driver in the package delivery industry is probably going to benefit from those because FedEx they're going to have to up their game to compete now with UPS. So you're starting to see these big national movements where workers can really tell hey, if I have a union, I might be able to get a better deal. They can see the wins in
the games that are occurring here. And we've got another really big one that is coming down the pike that we've been following closely. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. So the United Auto Workers, of course represent workers at all the Big three Automakers. They have now overwhelmingly voted to authorize strikes at GM, Ford and Stalantis. Delantis the name of the other Big three at this point. The union on Friday said an average of ninety seven
percent of combined members at the Automakers approved the action. However, final votes are still being tallied. They have a new president at the UAW, guy named Sean Fain, who ran on being more militant and more representative of the rank and file. He was quoted as saying, the Big three is our strike target. No whether or not there is a strike, it's up to Ford, GM and Stalantis because
they know what our priorities are. We have been clear, and the demands that the union is starting their negotiation with are you know, they're quite extraordinary, like they're they're audacious and I personally love to see it includes a forty six percent wage increase to match the wage increase that the CEOs of the Big Three have gotten over just the past couple of years. Restoration of traditional pensions, so not for a one K like defined benefit. This is what you get in this end of the story.
Cost of living increases, which is something that these workers gave up when they helped to bail out these automakers during the financial crash, and reducing the work week to thirty two hours from forty and increasing retiring benefits, so basically going to a four day work week, something that has been successful in other industries and studies have shown has been pretty successful overall. But that's another you know,
that's a really big deal. So the strike deadline, the deadline in terms of contract negotiations is coming here in just the next couple of weeks in mid September, and obviously if these workers go out on strike, it would be a really, really big deal, and whatever contract they are able to secure is also going to be a really big deal, not just for auto workers, but for a lot of different workers across a lot of industries.
Yeah, that's actually the most interesting one to me is both about the changes, as you said about ups and how that will change the overall package delivery mark especially continue to massively grow. But then also with UAW that sets the actual tone for as we head into even more automation electric vehicles. That's where actually some of the biggest fights with them are on you demanding that X
amount be actually made here in the US. I think that's the most important thing about helping us remain resilient as a country, to make sure that in any future problem that we actually be able to control a lot of what we actually need in order to subsist and to live here. And the union is actually a huge part of that. It's interesting because they're the ones really fighting for all. If the execs had their way, every single thing would be made in China. They don't even
want to make it in Mexico. They want to make it all halfway across the globe in order to save you a penny, in order to squeeze even more out of the stock price.
Yeah, and the UAW has been unhappy with the vitamin instration not doing enough to make sure the new ev and battery jobs are union and pay similar wages to the rest of the industry. So that's one of the big fights. But you know, not everybody is happy about workers trying to claim a little bit of power, a little bit of better wages, benefits, et cetera. Over on Bloomberg News, they were live from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's
very beautiful, lovely surrounding that they're there. Kind of freaking out about this potential strike and what is going on with the workforce listake alism.
We've had the pay rises, we've had the union action, we haven't had the strike exactly, and I don't think.
Anyone wants to see those strikes any Tom Suon I thought.
Which has transmitted into this belief that labor has the upper hand, and that if labor has the upper hand, price increases can continue, not just union jobs, but more broadly. And that is the key question here. Is that going to continue so that you see a longer and higher inflation and a stronger and better economy for even with the race that we see right now.
So it's time for.
The surveillance extrapolation. We do this every year, Jack, some whole John, I'm trying to envision you, bronze shorts working your butt off at ups pop in one seventy You all in.
That's so never gonna happen.
Why not?
Why are you talking down the potential for this to happen. If we've put.
John Agustus exactly, Yes, exactly, Lisa, if we put John at Flint, Michigan building, Buick's huh, what are you gonna pop to twenty five.
Now show you got to pay an auto.
Work more than delivering boxes. They cannot believe that these workers are actually earning decent salaries. They think only people like them deserve to earn, you know, living able to afford like a house in a middle class life, et cetera.
But you know the thing I love about those close we've played some of the ones with Cramer freaking out O're on CNBC, is just like, this has never happened in my life, where they actually feel worried that there is some countervailing force on the other side, and it is a remarkable.
Thing to behold.
I think what happened is is that we had a massive oversaturation of white collar workers. Is obviously with the student debt crisis and the entire generation of people who wake up and you're like, wait, I don't actually make all that much money, and especially whenever it keeps up with the real inflation, not just inflation costs of goods, but the necessary inflation for shelter.
And then you combine mortgage rates and then you.
Have to look at like, what are people actually paying for what's genuinely valued. At the end of the day, it's about capitalism and in our system. What we are finding is that the service sector in general, we've squeezed as not as much as we can, but a lot of what we have already to get the gains, but we've forgotten so much about all this necessary part of our economy, the blue collar workforce. And then they using their ability in order to extract concessions, are like, yeah,
we actually want to get paid. You relied on us all throughout COVID. We're not just gonna sit here and we're not going to take it anymore. It turns out AI is more of a threat for the lawyer than it is for the driver. And so in that scenario, it's like, you know, I won't say it in the in a crass ways from goodfellas like screw you pay me.
You know, it's like I've got you, and why shouldn't they?
So it does annoy me, you know, the way they're talking like, oh, pulling two twenty five an hour, there's no way all of First of all, it's not true, but second you know, it's one of those where it's like, well, okay, well what's wrong with that?
Like why is that bad? Why is it bad?
Though?
Why are you saying that the bow tide guy sitting in Jackson Hole. I really think a lot of it is class anxiety. They're just bad at the idea that these people who actually get paid even close to some of them or their kids, who are you know, majors something useless in college, and we're banking on some like you know, upper middle class ish type job which is just not paying out the same way that it used to.
Yeah, I think I think the class anxiety part of this is very real, and the class just contempt like they just don't fit. Like none of those people could do the package dealery exactly, none of them could do it. I couldn't do it. That is a freaking hard job. Those men and women are working their asses off and it is brutal, and it is heart on your heart, on your body, and they are actually providing a service
that every one of us depends on. And so to have this like sneering contempt about them earning a decent wage and being able to potentially possibly maybe sometime in their life, afford a house, and that they think that that is so undeserved. Meanwhile, you know, they don't think twice about the multimillion dollars salaries that they're raking in, like sitting in a studio or flying to Jackson Hole and opining for the world on their thoughts on you know,
the business world from on high. They don't think twice about that. But when it's people who are actually making the economy work, building cars, delivering packages, et cetera, it's nothing but sneers and nothing but contempt.
That's right, well, speaking of sneers, contempt, class anxiety.
Yeah, that's a good transition.
There's so much going on here.
Oliver Anthony of the Richmond North of Richmond Fame number one on the Billboard Top one hundred, the number one song in the United States, didn't take so kindly to seeing his song used in the GOP debate, and not just in the debate, but really being embraced explicitly as a conservative kind of anthem against the ruling establishment.
Here's what he had to say.
It's aggravating scene people on conservative news try to identify with me like I'm one of them. It's aggravating seeing certain musicians and politicians act like we're buddies and and act like we're fighting the same struggle here, like that were trying to present.
The same message. It's fun It was funny seeing it at the presidential debate.
Because it's like, I wrote that song about those people, you know, So for them to have to sit there and listen.
To that, that cracks me up.
But it was funny kind of seeing the response to it, Like that song has nothing to do with Joe Biden. You know, it's a lot bigger than Joe Biden. That song is written about the people on that stage and a lot more too, not just them, but definitely them.
Very explicit call out of the Republican debate and also saying I wrote that song about people like them.
Let's put this up there on the screen.
He also tweeted this out quote, I don't support either politically, not the left, not the right. I'm about supporting people and restoring local communities. Now breed some fresh air and relax, please, I'm not worth obsessing over.
I promise go spend some time with your loved ones.
He also put out a Facebook paste basically saying some of this as well. I apologize for beating a dead horse. I need to address this quote in my video earlier since it's been misquoted. Corporate news is now trying to twist me into being a Biden supporter. Richmond North of Richmond is about corporate owned DC politicians on both sides. Though Biden is most certainly a problem, the lyrics aren't exclusively knocking Biden.
It is bigger and broader than that.
It is knocking the system collectively, including the corporate owned conservative politicians that were on stage that night. Good night everyone, and thanks again. So I got to give the man credit, you know, it is. Of course, it's mostly been Republicans who have, at least on a national level, been trying to embrace the song. I've seen a lot of video course, you know a lot of people everybody Ford the song resonates, and you know, God bless.
I think that's great.
And so I have to give him credit because I think the easiest thing that would have possibly be in for him is to lean into this, right sure, to go to the Rittenhouse route or any of these be like listen, you know, it's trying to make some money, go sign some he said, he's turned down like multimillion dollar record deals. It'd be easy for him to go
start playing Turning Point USA concerts. Oh yeah, and to you know, go to a Trump rally or something like that, and he's like, no, I don't want to now.
Look, it remains to be seen. We'll see what he can do.
It's not easy, though, to be thrust into overnight success and to fame like this and actually try and stand up at least for some semblance of what you believe in from a more principled level.
So I do appreciate that. I really appreciate that he was willing to call these people out.
And I actually continue I hope he continues to do so as more people try in order to weaponize this song on a political level.
Yeah, I love two minds about it because on the one hand, like, obviously I enjoy him being like, screwagbox News and you're the problem in all these like Republican tools on stage, like this song is not for you, So I of course enjoy that. On the other hand, like the song is overtly political, so it's not so. I mean, when you're talking about like Jeffrey Epstein, you're talking about politicians, you're talking about you know, people on welfare.
If you're five to three or three innerd pounds taxes not to pay for your bags of fudg rounds like, of course people are going to view that through a political lens, because it is overtly political, and the you know, the narrative, especially in that part about like you know, people who are overweight meeting fudge rounds and we're paying for them, Like that is a you know, explicitly right
wing political statement. So I mean almost like in defense of Fox News and in defense of the conservative influencers who really were key to his success with this song, Like of course anyone hearing these lyrics would interpret it.
That way, so I'll give their side of it. They actually saw some people saying that. They're like, hey, screw you man. They're like, the only reason you're famous is because of us, you know, it doesn't just be like the merits of the song. They're like, we're the ones who like posted it, memed it, and like brought it to our audience and really built you up and turned this into kind of an explicit like screw you against you know, the ruling establishment all those people. We're the
ones who got it popular. That's why you know you you know, for who are you to come out and basically denounce your overall fan base. I don't know, I'm of a couple of minds of it. I think that the more look, I agree with you in terms of the explicit annaunceis of the song is very clear like what the song is. As I've said, I basically think it's it's like a blue collar folk libertarian type song, of which is you know, very reminiscent of like Reaganesque type themes.
On the other it does seem.
In some of his commentary since that he has been trying to distance himself from the more overtly political part. So I talked to you about this before I pull this up. He's clearly he's heard some of our criticism too about some of the language around welfare.
Here's what he has to say.
Our government likes to throw out money and problems without conceptualizing real solutions to connect to individuals involved. The lyrics contrast that some left without any and others are left only with the option of living on junk food. Meanwhile, our farming industry has been corporatized and sold out. Food is entirely too expensive, especially in a nation with just abundant farmland. In politics, it's all about keeping people who
are dependent dependent. So it did seem clear to me here in this song or in this kind of clear up lyric around the fudge rounds and comments. He didn't want it, though, to be perceived in the way that it was, if that makes sense.
But I mean the line literally says the obese milk and welfare, Like, how am I supposed to take that?
I am not disagreeing with what you're saying.
I'm only saying it is clear to me that he didn't want it to become sort of anthem I think against welfare in that way. And look, he didn't I mean, he didn't know he was going to go overnight fame, you know, unless it's I.
Genuinely have no problem with the guy, Like I really have no problem with the guy. I find the like fascination with the song interesting. I find the adoption of the song you know by the Right interesting. As I said at the time, I think there's so much desire on the right to have some like culturally relevant products that anything that seems like it fits into their worldview. It's like, yes, we love It's very like they get very you know, people in that side get very excited.
And I think that's why there was such an elevation of this song but I just you know, it's it's fine for things to be political too, Like there's oftentimes this reaction of like, oh, things that are political, that's bad. I don't want to Almost everything is political. Like certainly if you're talking about Jeffrey Epstein and milk and welfare and fudgrounds and war and all like, these things are
all political. So I don't think that there should be this reaction against like interpreting it through a political lens. Because clearly a lot of the people that his art resonated with they did see it through a political lens. They interpreted it as a validation of their views. And that's fine. But I don't know that you can fully like you put your art out into the world, then people are allowed to interpret it and and you know,
find resonance with it however they want to. So that's more my right my view.
Well, his latest song, I think is actually it resonates with me a lot more talk about war r brink of the next World war talking explicitly, I mean I wouldn't say explicitly, but more so about calling out politician sending money abroad talk I think pretty clearly a swipe at Ukraine. I mean, you can call that coded left or right or whatever if you want. But if we can mean those types of lyrics into the broad populist, I'm all for it.
I am now explicitly pro and Oliver.
And if he's going to get some anti war rhetoric actually in order to be cool at least on some sort of pop culture level, to actually like break into people who may not have heard or considered those types of views before.
Yeah, I think this is much more healthy.
I do think your point of like, he could have very easily just been like, it's easy, Okay, the right loves me. Yeah, I'm going to embrace it. I'm going to like go all in on this. I mean, he could easily split up songs that are just like overtly right wing and really clear and continue to have a lot of success and make a lot of money. And so I do respect the fact that he was like, this is not this is not.
The lay our respect.
A lot of people do travel.
Down that bat.
How easy is it, you know, overnight fame like this. I bet you every Republican politician has asked for him in order to come and go on the stage. I bet you also that Fox is begging this guy, trying to like, we'll pay you whatever you want, private jet money, you know, in order to Trump and to become a contributor or whatever. I'm sure the Daily Wire and all those folks have been wanting to do something with him. I reached out to him through his one of his representatives,
and they were pretty exclusive. They were like, look, he doesn't really want to do interviews. He doesn't want to turn himself into like a political fit, to be clear, you know, I think you can see from this like we yeah, I'm not.
I would be interested in.
Talking to him from a less of a like, hey, tell me about why Joe Biden sucks for you and just be like yeah, Like let's talk about this, Like what was going through your mind when you were writing the lyrics, Like where's it coming from? Tell me about your experience Farmville, your homestead. What is an inform about you? The very big song that you released after is about the war? Clearly you're very involved in online politics, Like
why you know? Why does that resonate with you? These are all types of questions, So Oliver, if you're listening, we would love to. But I think in general it is it does take guts to actually explicitly put at arm's length the people who in many ways did make you famous and who are you know making you into a political statement and say I don't want to be associated with that from a long term play career wise, Probably the right move, you know, in terms of the probably the right way.
If you want to if you want to last decades. So no, not if you want to immediately cash who knows. It's so impossible to say. I mean, I guess the last thing I'll say is like, I actually think the fact that, you know, some of his views are kind of like contradictory and they don't totally.
I mean, this is like normally very normal, way more normal than having a sort of like consistent ideological valance that you consistently apply across issues, you know. I mean, I try to be like I have thought a lot about my where I try to be consistent. I'm sure I fall short of that as well, but it's much more are normal to have a lot of sort of like a mishmash of views that may not fall exclusively
in one camp or the other. So in that way, I think that his lyrics are very relatable, probably to a lot.
Of people, Crystal, what do you taking a look at?
Well? After last week's Republican debate, the GOP donor and media class have a new queen, former South Carolina Governor Nicki Haley. The Washington Post conservative columnist Kathleen Parker raved about Nicky's brains and experiencing declaring quote hands down, Nicki Haley won the first GOP debate. New York Times is David Brooks cut to the chase, directly appealing to Nicky's likely constituency writing donors, this is the moment to give
her a chance. Mediaum ogul Rupert Murdoch made his new favorite clear through the Wall Street Journal editorial board, which fawned over Haley's quote debate truths, and through the mouthpieces on Fox and Friends, who unanimously declared Haley the debate's clear winner, in particular because they love her neocon foreign policy. Kilmead called her right in every sense of the word.
Doucy claimed his informal poll of fellow Fox talent and other assorted friends indicated Haley quote ran away with the show. Ainsley jumped in to take Haley's side, deeming Ramaswami's response unimpressive and unsatisfactory in that foreign policy exchange, Ainsley was also particularly dismayed at his lack of support for unconditional aid to Israel. Now it makes complete sense that Nikki Haley would receive a rapturous reception from legacy Republican elites.
Her worldview is perfectly aligned with their interests. She is all in on forever proxy war in Ukraine. She will never even think of cutting back on our massive aid to Israel, no matter what atrocities are ethno state allies inflict and Palestinians. And since she didn't have a chance to make it clear on the debate stage, she quickly took to the cable news airwaves to proudly declare she would cut Social Security by lifting the retirement age. Take a listen.
Well, you know you've got multiple candidates on that stage that said they wouldn't touch in titlements, including Trump, And any candidate that says they're not going to touch entitlements means that they're basically going to go into the go
into office, and then leave America bankrupt. Social Security is going to go bankrupt in ten years, Medicare is going to go bankrupt in eight so The way we deal with it is we don't touch anyone's retirement or anyone who's been promised in But we go to people like my kids in their twenties when they're coming into the system and we say the rules have changed. We change retirement age to reflect life expectancy instead of cost of
living increases. We do it based on inflation. We limit the benefits on the wealthy, and we expand Medicare advantage plans.
What's the right age there that investor?
Well, I think we have to do the numbers. We've got to figure out what it is. But what we do know is sixty five is way too low and we need to increase that.
We need to do it according to life expectancy. Even Nicky's Trump critique is in tune with the big financial interests that have always dominated the Republican Party. She's not worried about the corruption of Trump or the massive giveaways the wealthy, or the dangerously belligerent stands towards the ron.
At the debate, she laid into Trump on the debt and the deficit, and obviously from her comments on entitlements there and her love of the war complex, the only cut she's really interested in are those that would slash benefits for ordinary Americans, not the type that might unsettle our financial overlords. Now, let me say there's at least one thing I do like about Nikki Haley, and it's that I don't think that she would create the type of trumpy and chaos that he stoked on January sixth
with his persistent lies about election fraud. She'd probably be open to the type of like Brooks Brothers coup that George W. Bush pulled off back in two thousand, but the ragtag over keithstone Coop's insurrection would not be on the menu. And I do genuinely appreciate that. I also like that she's not a terrifying religious zealate in the way of Mike Pence, and on the optics of the debate and the type of political theater that is reward in such settings, I do think she performed well, and
voters seem to agree. Poles following the debate showed the former South Carolina governor receiving high marks. Most had her coming third to just Ramaswami and DeSantis. One even had her quote winning the debate overall, but even with Haley vastly exceeding ex dictations and performing to probably the peak of her abilities. The limits of her throwback Reagan era
politics are obvious in her continued low pulling support. In the post debate polls, the very best for Haley showed her barely jumping into double digits, barely threatening DeSantis, let alone Trump. That an elite pro Nikki consensus formed so quickly really reveals that these people still have no clue about how to actually defeat Donald Trump, no idea about how much contempt the American people have for them and
for their failed ideology. Elites have long fantasized that Trump is the whole problem in American politics, so we could just somehow get rid of him, then politics could get back to quote normal, a normal which included endless class warfare against working class people and ever skyrocketing inequality. But just take a look at this. If you remove Trump from this up primary, it's not the throwback Nikki Haley candidates who rise to the top. It's the candidates who
most closely impersonate the big guy. Ramswami leads at twenty four percent, DeSantis to satistically tied with him at twenty three percent. No one else cracks double digits. This is nothing to celebrate. By the way, guys, Vivek is a full on climate denier who, out of ambition and political experience, is eager to watch the world burning even faster. DeSantis merrily uses immigrants and trans people as human pawns for political advantage in whatever culture war happens to be hot
online that day. Both of them want a wage war on Mexico, apparently and presumably because they saw some poll that said that's what the GOP base wants. But no one should be surprised when Charlatan's rise to fill a vacuum created by decades of disastrous policies which have destroyed the middle class, commodified our entire lives, and sold off
our futures to the highest bidders. And until we address that core rod, we are going to be left with a kind of depressing politics which would force us to choose between a Haley or a DeSantis, a Trump or a Biden. In other words, Trump and is Wan, of these they are a symptom of these deeper problems. But Nikki Haley and her benefactors, they are the problem. And the answers were nowhere to be found at last week's debate, sacer what do you make of the Nikki Haley moment?
I was sort of amazed, and if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints.
Dot Com, all right, sorry, what a you're looking at?
Well, while we were transfixed by Trump's mugshot and marveling at the post GOP debate polls, some very different news was happening far across the globe that may end up being actually more important historically than anything else going on here.
The Bricks Nations, also known as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, formally adopted six new countries into their informal Economic Conference, explicitly challenging US Gemeny and gives us a better glimpse at what a multipolar future may look like. The new nations added include Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt, and Ethiopia. Important first to note that the decision to formally invite these nations into the Alliance at all is an explicit victory for China, it sparred with its other Great Power Alliance member India, over whether to expand the block at all. Clearly, India was outvoted, with South Africa sitting also on the sidelines, as China explicitly seeks to use the bricks to counterweight the Western
led g seven. Now, given China's victory in out voting India in the Alliance, it is important then to further note who and why. And it doesn't take a genius to see what's going on here. The inclusion of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, and Egypt is an explicit challenge to the Western led order in the Middle East. These countries collectively export a vast portion of the world's oil supply, and China, of course, is sucking up as much as it possibly can to fuel their industrial capacity and keep
up with the demands of the Chinese middle class. The willingness, it seems here for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Iran to even accept the Alliance invitation is an explicit rebuke of President Biden, and it shows how much we are already taking our eye off the ball where it actually matters. China has already pulled off a massive diplomatic coup. They're getting the Gulf Arabs and the Iranians to stop
hating each other and unite against the West. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt collectively have been given some untold trillions of dollars in the US economic and military aid, yet when given an invitation, they are happy to snub their nose at Ust, even while all of them save Iran, will still get some of the largest foreign aid distributions of any other nations on Earth from the United States.
What might be an even more important legacy than a slow realignment of the entire Middle.
East is also their open war on the US dollar.
President Lula of Brazil at the summit called outright for a bricks nation to consider a common currency for trade and investment between each other as a means of circumventing the petro dollar. But also for a very obvious reason, China, Russia, India, the Gulf Arab States and Iran are all pretty sick of transacting in dollar terms after the war in Ukraine that spurned Western sanctions on Russian oil, and to be clear, they very quickly found a way around it. But now
instead of doing backroom deals. They want to see price deals between themselves in their own denominated currency. This too, is not just to ease trade, but to make it effectively impossible for the long arm of Western sanctions to touch any of these nations should conflict breakout, or if the West seeks to compel any of their behavior with
sanctions in the future. In fact, something I warned about in the very early days of the Ukraine War was that we were wasting one of the most important levers that we have on the global economy on a matter
that is of no importance to us. Our dominance of the global financial system is something you should only leverage in a time of imminent peril, and considering how little that Ukraine actually matters to the US way of life, I think it is now obvious it was a huge mistake, because not only did it not work against the Russian war machine, which is doing fine, but it also showed our hand to nations like China with whom we may find ourselves in a standoff over matters that actually matter
a hell of a lot more to us. They didn't get to where they are about being stupid. They sought and they immediately began sanction proofing their entire economy and globe supply chain. Hence why it is such a diplomatic coup to get the oil producing states into the Bricks Alliance and the beginning of talks of trade between those nations without the dollar. We may not have a goddamn thing to say about any of this in the future.
Even nations not fully on board with the idea of bricks currency, like South Africa and India, are still expressing hope in moving to total denomination of trade in their currencies at the Summit. All of this accelerated realignment against the Western system is a direct consequence of our policy towards Ukraine, again, a nation which matters less to us in terms of trade, security and stability than every nation
that I just discussed here. In fact, the only reason that the summit has gained any attention whatsoever is because of Ukraine. Dozens of nations other than the ones I listed here are lusting after brick status and eager to get out from underneath the thumb of Western control. We are watching directly and in real time those who don't agree with us per pursue other suitors like China, or
simply pursue independence of our reach. People should not construe this monologue as saying the whole Western system is dead.
That is foolish, that is obviously wrong.
The only point is that the near seventy five years of the Western led international order, which of course has reaped gigantic benefits for the US economy in the US way of life, is weaker today than it has been for decades. We need to prepare vigorously for the unstable system which our foolish leaders have brought Biden the Washington establishment.
They have tied our fates completely to the sinking boat of Europe, which is mired in demographic and economic decline, while the rest of the world, who we actually depend on to fund the American way of life, goes in a completely different direction. The more that the gap in those interests accelerate, the more uncertainty is injected into the system, and the more likely that war breaks out, putting millions of people at risk. We have absolutely nobody to blame
but ourselves for this situation. So anyway, I see a lot of people being like bricks.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Cyber's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
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