Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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What do we have, Crystal?
Indeed, we do many interesting things happening this morning. So there were a couple of big rallies yesterday for Harris Walls, one in particular in Detroit, huge crowd, and a big new poll that is going to breize a whole lot of eyebrows.
We'll get into all of that.
We also have more behind the scenes reporting of how she chose Tim Walls over Josh Shapiro, so we'll break.
All of that down for you.
Republicans have dropped a new line of attack alleging stolen valor against him Wall, so I show you all of those details and talk about whether or not we think that one will land. There is a horrific new video that we have of that rape of Palestinian prisoner by IDF soldiers. Remember, this is the situation that led to a riot in defense of these soldiers and their right to rape Palestinians. There's also a debate apparently unfolding on Israeli TV where you have commentators who are upset that
this rape is not systematized. Of course it may actually be, so we'll get into all of that our own. Ryan Grimm also asking any state department some important questions there. I'm taking a look in a monologue today about why I think Tim Walls could be such a consequential pick. And Jeff Stein of the Washington Post has done an extraordinary job reporting out the failure over years of our sanctions regime. So we're going to talk to him about that. Really a fantastic piece of reporting.
There, incredible peace.
Took him months and months to do, so really excited to dive into with a lot of him and what else. Let's see, we've got eighty nine days. We're just looking at the countdown clock this morning till election day. Pretty stunning, the vast majority election up until the last month or so.
It was actually quite boring.
You know, we're a bit stunned, and then all of a sudden and it becomes perhaps not only one of the closest, but most exciting presidential races in quite some times.
Yeah, that real interesting, real fast.
I certainly did. I'm so excited for all of us to be at the DNC. Thank you to all of our premium subscribers for enabling that breakingpoints dot com where you get all the benefits of our premiumubscriber and you get to support our work here, So continue to do that.
Other than that, let's start with what Crystal said.
I mean, we've got these incredible rallies, and really what it is is an injection of massive enthusiasm into the Kamalist Harris campaign. Let's go ahead and play some of this. This was at the arrival of one of her two rallies yesterday, and what's stunning is that this was the second one in Detroit. Obviously Michigan a critical battleground state. But look at the zoom out that we have in this airplane hangar. I mean, these crowd sizes are reminiscent
really of the Obama campaign and the Trump campaign. From twenty sixteen where the crowd size. Look, it's not everything. You know, losing candidates very frequently can draw large crowds. But this is not something that we had previously seen from the Kamala Harris or even the Joe Biden campaign. I remember these pathetic scenes Crystal of Joe Biden speaking in a high school gymnasium.
This is not high school gymnasium.
And no matter what any honest analysts can tell you, both from the data that we have and from the visuals of multi hours in some cases, the line I believe to get into her first rally in it was Eau Claire in Wisconsin was some one point five miles long, some three hours just to get into the space.
Yeah it was.
I mean, look like it is undeniable. Something is happening, you know, on the ground here.
Yeah.
No, the level of exciting, I mean, compared this to Joe Biden, it's just stunning. It's crazy total turnaround. And it's not just the crowd size. As you point out, you see it in the polling data, where previously Republicans had a massive advantage in terms of enthusiasm. Now Democrats at the very least have pulled even with Republicans in
terms of enthusiasm. Now, listen, were most of these people going to vote the Democratic to it anyway, whether it was Biden or Kamala, et cetera, of course, But these are the people who are kicking in their ten dollars, their twenty dollars. These are the people who are phone banking. These are the people who are posting about you know, Kamala's bratt and whatever online and generally creating a vibe of excitement and momentum. So in that respect, it really
doesn't matter. It really is like astonishing to see the way this thing turned on a dime. We were talking before we started the segment today. It was like, you know, we kept saying, for like a year now, we've been saying, it just feels like something is going to happen.
And sure, right, sure, surely it did.
Didn't take a genius or you know, be particular depression.
It was more of a gamble that in general, politics always can eventually end up interesting.
Sometimes at some point in this case.
It certainly did.
There was one moment though, that we're all taking a look at, where some highlights from the Kamala Harris campaign we put together here some of the snippets that prosecuting the case quote unquote against Trump and how she is conducting herself also a clash with some protesters.
Let's take a listen.
We fight for our future where every senior can retire with dignity, a future where we build a broad based economy, and one where every American has the opportunity to own a home, to start a business, to build wealth and understand in this fight, as Tim Walls likes to point out, we are joyful warriors. Joyful warriors because we know that while fighting for a brighter future may be hard work, hard work is good work. Hard work is good work focused on the future. The other focused on the past.
And with Wisconsin, we here we fight for the future. We fight for a future where every worker has the freedom to join a union.
I've been dealing with people like in my whole career, for.
Example, as Attorney General of California. We'll hold on the you know what, the courts are going to handle that part of it.
What we're gonna do is beat him.
In November, he intends to surrender our fight against the climate crisis, and he intends to end the affordable care act. You know what, if you want Donald Trump to win, then say that otherwise.
I'm speaking so Crystal.
I think that is the duality of Kamala Harris, that very generic democratic language against Donald Trump.
I mean, who am I here to sit here and judge.
She's got a massive craft size, got a major enthusiasm. But you also that took place that second part in Detroit, Michigan, Michigan, the site of course of a lot of the un committed voters. Allegedly there was some meeting between her and some uncommitted donors or sorry, uncommitted voters prior to the rally, but then obviously the disruption and the protest, she very forcefully kind of shut them down and said, you know, by interrupting me, you're helping Donald Trump.
So I think that was a good duality to show.
Every that's one hundred for that.
I mean it is very Hillary Clinton as absolutely, and I think I'm a Bigglin's that online like using your like girl boss energy to shut down people who are worried about a genocide. I mean, we're going to cover some of the horrific things that are coming out of Israel with regards to their conduct in this war right now, So obviously, in my opinion, not a good look. I'm sure there are those who will appreciate that or whatver.
But you know, she has really risen in part on the strength of how much better she's doing with young people then Joe Biden, and you don't want to risk that. And she's you know, earned a lot of goodwill also with the pick of Tim Walls, who was very respectful of the uncommitted voter group. In the state of Minnesota,
there was also a significant uncommitted movement there. He said, basically, you know, they're talking, they're saying something important, their voice needs to be heard, so very respectful, very different tone coming here. However, you do point out and I want to, you know, make it clear and be fully transparent. She did meet with the co founders of the Uncommitted National Movement.
This is part of the New York Times, and they argued to her in favor of an arms embargo to immediately stop the carnage in Gaza, and she said she was open.
To that, and she gave them.
They introduced them to two leaders and they also asked for a direct another direct meeting with her, So you know, I do think that is different from what Biden. We know Biden was not meeting with them, he was not giving them the time of day. He was certainly not expressing any sort of openness to an arms embargo. So that's a good indication. The response in the rally is a bad indication. That's basically where we are.
Yeah, I think that's a very good summary, and that's where I think the duality and kind of where playing this out will continue. Don't forget, you know, we all continue overnight to always be on guard as well as Israel. They're like, hey, what is going to happen here? You know, we've seen some indications about potentially a broader war. There are discussions right now by the Israelis where they believe Hezbola is literally going to target Masad headquarters in the middle.
Of Tel Aviv.
So it's like, well, now what madam you know, Madam Vice President, So where are we standing on this? You know, are we going to go fully go to war for Israel under your administration? Are you going to support that?
I mean, those are big, big question marks and this could be a signal in either direction, you know, continuing now, let's say that doesn't happen, which is also you know, I would say relatively likely, or it escalation goes down, and then it's going to stay to the domestic front where it is right now, and that is where she has probably seen the most enthusiasm, especially coming on the heels of picking Governor Tim Walls of Minnesota. He hit
the campaign trail yesterday at two of these rallies. He was very joyfully received. That's his new line. Let's take a listen.
He froze in the face of COVID and it cost people's lives. He drove the economy into the ground. And make no mistake about it, violent crime was up when Donald Trump was president. Those of you who are a little older know this. Older Republicans used to talk about freedom. These guys today, it turns out that freedom to them means government should be free to invade your exam room with your doctor. Now, look, we're pretty neighborly with Wisconsin.
We get our friendly battles. But in Minnesota, just like in Wisconsin, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make, even if we wouldn't make the same choices for ourselves. Because we know there's a golden rule. Mind your own damn business. Mind your own damn business.
I don't need you telling me about our healthcare.
I don't need you telling us who we love, and I sure the hell don't need you telling us what books we're gonna read.
All right, So there's the line happy warrior, almost a libertarian framing there. I would just say, maybe you should expect to extend that to some other issues, but we can talk about that and debate it later. I will just look at the rhetoric itself in the way that it is being received. I think the joyful line and that energy he's bringing to the ticket is smart. And the reason why is it gives them the change campaign
that they didn't previously have. It gives them a veneer and an aesthetic previously, which obviously Democrats really were yearning for. And I think it combines again to bring it to the duality here kind of in the way that Kamala Harris is being received is for the vast majority of Democrats, especially boomers, they just hate Trump. They hate him, and they always just wanted somebody who, in their eyes, could beat him.
Part of the reason enthusiasm was so low is they didn't like Joe Biden.
They thought he was too old and they wouldn't be able to prosecute the case against Trump. Yeah, Kamala really fulfills that. Then you got younger voters and a lot of others who are desperate to change the conditions of the Biden presidency. Kamala's real benefit here is that she's basically been memory hold for the last three years, shoved into a closet and not pat of any real public profile.
Then she comes here soon to fight for the ticket, doesn't do an interview we'll get to that, doesn't do any debates, nothing anointed, and then picks the number two. This number two is trying to inject like happiness, almost a Reaganesque happy warrior style language.
And that is exactly the reason why I think it's smart.
Is if we look at the nineteen to eighty campaign, the happy Warrior campaign for Ronald Reagan, so much of it was let's just get the hell away from all this madness of the nineteen seventies, and so there is a similar feeling right now, similar conditions, and it's the exact type of rhetoric that I would embrace if I were them.
Yeah, no, it's it gives the sense of like we're turning the page, you know, her thing, her mantra of we're not going back, which she sort of stumbled upon, I think fits with that whole vibe as well. And you know, the way he frames the position there on cultural issues of like listen, mind your business, I think whichever party feels like the one that's, you know, monitoring what you're doing in your bedroom and your.
Life, et cetera.
I think there is a sort of American just natural revulsion to that, which Democrats have at times definitely come across as being the party of that. And I think right now Republicans have gotten lost in that trap of feeling like they're the ones, you know, as he puts it, telling you what books your kids can read, you know, what you can do in terms of healthcare, and generally much more interested in the private decisions in your.
Lives than well, okay, since he brought it up, it's like, okay, we're going to say it's like a fine.
It's like, oh, we shouldn't be policing books.
It's like, so are we defending like pornographic material in like children's libraries.
I think that's sick and grotesque.
But again, like I also know and a friend of mine, I don't actually know his real name. He's an anonymous Twitter account, highly recommended. His name is Ruben Rodriguez, and he highlights the very trap that I'm kind of falling into right now. If you start bringing up porn in kids libraries, you sound to borrow the governor's term weird. Although I think it's real and I think it's gross. Now, how you message and talk about that is very difficult. Obviously,
JD's had some struggles. I think Trump is probably the best at it. He's like, it's gross, we're gonna get rid of it, but we're all going to move on. He just doesn't really talk about it, but he doesn't acknowledges it a little bit.
I mean, yeah, but yeah, I mean the.
Trump has better instincts than like, you know, this is the vague Ron de Santis. JD definitely seem obsessed with these culture war issues, and so previously when it was Democrats who you know, I think in twenty sixteen there were all these debates about you know, trans bathroom bills at SATURD, I really felt like Democrats, you know, on that were more obsessed with what happened in the bathroom. Democrats were the ones out policing language. You can say this,
you can't say that, et cetera, et cetera. You know, now you've got Trump running a campaign that's like obsessed with Kamala's race and gender. You've got a lot of tampon tam attacks, et cetera. And so I do think that it very much comes across that they're obsessed with these niche cultural issues and missing the broader point. And so whether you agree with that assessment or not, I think the language lands, and I think it's a very good.
Political I would not. Yeah, look, I agree like the tampon thing. Yeah, it's weird. Why are we putting tampon's in boys bathrooms? It's fucking weird, all right, But guess what. I also, I'm not stupid. I know that that's going to sound weird to the vast majority of people, and for most of them, they're like, hey, you know, I'm sure whatever, Let's talk about something bigger.
So that would be my advice.
Let's not stick to this main thing I see all over my freaking timeline. I'm like, guys, like, this is not hitting obviously, because people think that a it's niche. Now, even if you agree or disagree or whatever on the substance, like, you got to think about smart politically. So even though I think he's totally wrong, I do think that it is smart framing. In general, whichever party is generally more libertarian on the issues, at least presenting wise, usually has a better shot.
Part of the reason why pro choice is so.
Much more popular than pro life you have people who are even personally pro life or like, yeah, you know, I know, somebody whatever, I.
Want to be in this decision. I don't generally like telling people yeah, to do well.
I'll leave it there, And that's a good place to end, because I think we both agree that yeah, I mean, the most salient and powerful cultural issue right now is abortion.
Yes, And that's the problem is that if you have trans like, look, I agree, I think trans is very upsetting.
I think it's a very important fight.
But I'm not dumb and don't know that abortion is affecting way more people, and people are way more enthused about it because it is so much more urgent in a sense where you have the Republican position so far out of step, not only from the media and voter, but especially the median voter in the battleground state, and then the people who are affected by it are so much more enthusied.
I mean, it's just empirically true.
Republican voters do not show up to vote based on transgender or CRT or any of this other stuff. We played the play we had the playbook in twenty twenty two. It just straight up didn't work. Democrats care a lot more about enthusiasm, and they'll crawl over broken glass to get them and you know, five of their cousins to come out and vote for it, so that you know, as a sheer political strategy, it is a smart play for them to embrace for Right.
Now, yes, I think we have Trump out there posting about Brian Kemp to show those sort of things that he's focused on. Right now, I can put this up on the screen. We discussed this a little bit, just to show you that he's.
Apparently not moving on.
He's the Attorney General of Georgia, must get moving on this, so must Governor Kemp and the Secretary of State Fulton.
County blah blah blah blah blah.
Anyway, so apparently he's still obsessing with Brian Kemp, who is, of course the extremely popular Republican governor of the important swing state of Georgia. So this is what he's spending his time. I mean, it really does feel like he in a certain sense. I understand they thought they had Joe Biden. They were looking at a massive electoral landslide. They were like, we're putting New Jersey into play, right in.
New Jersey is a new swing state, and now and we can actually go ahead and put the next poles up on the screen. Now, it's obviously a very different story. At best, it's a true, true toss up. This is a new Wisconsin poll from Marquette. It has Kamala Harris up by one in the state of Wisconsin. So you know, this is what most of the battlegrounds look like. It is as tight as it could possibly be. Very different picture from when it was Joe Biden at the top
of the ticket. The next one it's an outlier. Let's put it up there, guys.
This is a.
Marquette national poll.
And when you put in when you have the three way race here with RFK in the mix, you've got Kamala Harris at fifty percent and Trump at forty two percent, an eight percentage point lead that is among likely voters. Among registered voters, Harris is up forty seven forty one.
Previously in this same poll.
The last time they did it, when it was Joe Biden in the race, Trump led forty four forty one. So again it's an outlier. We should, you know, treat it as such, and you know, especially when you pair it with this very same polster getting a one point lead for Kamala in Wisconsin, which is probably more reflective
of where the race actually is. But this is the first time we've seen this kind of lead for her, and we should also be clear Soccer, these are the types of polls that Joe Biden was getting regularly in twenty twenty last time around. So you know, are the polls understating Trump support as they did last time, are they overstating Republican support as they did in twenty twenty two.
We genuinely don't know.
But it's important to keep in mind that when Biden Biden did win, of course in twenty twenty, but it was so much closer than polls indicated, and he was seeing a lot of national polls and battleground ste polls that had massive leads.
Like, yeah, that's a very important point.
But another important point that we're learning is that if it is fifty to what was it forty nine in Wisconsin, that doesn't include RFK Junior on the ballot.
That's just the head to head.
If RFK Junior is on the ballot, it's very clear in that national poll by Marquette that RFK is significantly bringing down a lot of Trump's support. And so in this particular scenario, we have to factor in that RFK is going to be on the ballot definitely in the state of Michigan and multiple other of the battleground states. Hasn't had any indication that he's going to drop out. He doesn't want to. He wants to run against Donald Trump.
And it is extremely like you right now that if Donald Trump does lose, it will be largely because of RFK Junior on top of Democratic consolidation and enthusiasm in the Democratic ticket. So I really don't want to look
past that. And you put it all together, I think I'm truly back to like a fifty to fifty if try not to overcorrect or anything, but I'm like, yeah, I think we're at a full on toss up, and that's where Cook Political Report I think he's sent us this morning has moved Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia all back into the toss up category. And in a toss up, you know the problem is is that we only have eighty nine days until the election. You need to try and get some momentum. Donald Trump will be doing a
press conference sometime later today. I think at the very least he should be doing something. But he has been absent from the campaign drail from not four or five days.
It's not shocking. What are you doing?
He's a conservative activist. Put he's like JD. Vans is doing three campaign events today.
Where are you?
Why are you at mar A Lagos just sitting and steing. In a sense, I think we can, I guess empathize to a certain extent where you're like, wow, yeah, you thought you were in the bag, you thought this was a done deal. Now you were in a full on toss up. I'm not sure he mentally was prepared for that. I mean, if you think psychologically, eighteen straight months of running against Joe Biden and then in the very last stretch this candidate gets switched out all this massive amount
of money enthusiasm. So many of your polls are noisy right now because in a certain you know, think about it, when you inject a new person, especially like Tim Walls, people don't even know if Tim Walls is. People are walking around, They're like who. And so when you have to make up your mind and put in new people, and then that really can scramble the way that people who have previously been very hardened in the way that they vote, which is very common you know in a
incumbent versus semi incumbent. In this race, it was well of the quote unquote the race that everybody was dreading and significantly has changed all of that up. So I don't even know if I'm taking the polls all that seriously except as a signal of democratic consolidation.
Yea real head to heads. Maybe, you know, a couple of weeks.
Out, I'll be like, Okay, I think we've had enough time now people can make up there.
I mean, one thing you can say for sure about this Marquette poll, because it's the very same polster. I mean, the movement towards the Democrats has been massive in the switch out, there's no doubt about that. And the other thing that's been really interesting is Biden's approval rating has jumped up too.
Yeah, because he doesn't exist an me well.
Because I mean, like people are the happiest they've been with anything he's done as an administration is being like, I promise I won't be president again.
You're like, yay.
It's like a wax statue.
In Kamala's approval rating has skyrocketed, you know, in many polls at this point, she's above water in terms of approval rating, and that should be you know, a low.
Bar, but in modern politics it's not. So.
The way that she has her polling has moved has been I'm sure astonishing to it's astonishing men. I'm sure it's astonishing to the Trump people as well. But the Biden thing is interesting in particular because one of the questions about his low approval rating, low poll numbers, et cetera, is how much of it is just about him being too frickin' old, and how much of it is about everything else that you may be upset with with regard to the Biden administration.
And it looks like the old thing was a really big deal.
Just given the fact that now that he said guys, okay, fine, I'm out, I'm leaving. Don't worry about it, his approval rating has also skyrocketing.
I've always believed that.
I've always believed that his age has dragged down everything. I remember several months ago, looking at Wall Street Journal, they did polls state by state, so they would ask people in Georgia, how do you feel about your economy your state economy, oh, plus sixty five percent? How do you feel about the national economy? Minus twenty five? And a lot of Liberals who are very much like unskew the economic sentiment, were like, what's.
Going on here?
I don't understand people who are lying.
I'm like, no, man, you don't understand how I feel about the national economy is a proxy for I hate Joe Biden, and so now, like I said, that scrambles everything keeping Biden out of the race. I'm not saying the economy is good or anything, but minus twenty five. Let's say it goes to minus two. Well, that's actually a massive advantage for Kamala Harris. I think it's been baked a bone marrow at the very center of the entire campaign, just seeing this like aging, dementia ridden figure
at the top of the country is extremely demoralizing. Yeah, for everyone on the top of Democrats. It feeds into the way that you think about the optimism of a literal, like functioning human being who can do a couple of campaign stops and that's enough, you know, to shift things around. So that's really the state of the race could not have been more changed than the last couple of weeks. I think it is genuinely a true toss up right now,
and she has quite a bit of momentum. She's got the to remember this too, I was thinking about it. The Republicans picked their guy at the RNC or coordinated the guy at the RNC right before the Biden decision, so they're not going to get the RNC media bump, which you usually get.
Now, usually those.
Things don't matter because you've been running for eighteen months. Who is this lady? Who is Tim Walltz. We're gonna have four straight days of dedicated coverage the entire national media. So the DNC media advantage here is immense because it's literally a brand new race and a brand new candidate. So there's so many inherent strengths she's gotten what is it eighteen days now, has done an interview. We're about to get to that. Maybe I'll go thirty days, you know,
if I'm hurt, maybe I'll go two months. I'm not going to do an interview up until the very last time. So I think that's a very the structural advantage here on the media side, on the Democratic side, on the money side too. I mean what they raised what ten million dollars in an hour after Tim Walls was selected. So there's a lot that is happening and the Trump people should be afraid. Let's get to the next part.
This is clearly I think the Trump campaign on the back foot, and they're trying to force a conversation here about Hey, why has Kamala Harris not done any interviews? Jad Vance yesterday his plane was on the same tarmac as Air Force two and decided to walk over to the press corps of the Kamala Harris campaign and ask them why they haven't been pressing Kamala to do more questions.
Let's take a listen.
I figured i'd come by and Warren is taking a good blue on the.
Plane because hopefully it's going to be my plane in a few months.
But I also thought you guys might get only because the vice president doesn't answer questions from reporters and hasn't their seventeen days. I think give you guys an explanation for why she won't take questions to reporters.
I know.
Nobody, Okay, great.
Well, I hope that you changed your mind, because.
It'd be good for the American people, and I think it'd be good for you all.
She actually ran a real campaign instead of one from a basement with the tellapropter. So have goodle guys to see, um, what would you like to hear from her answer that questions. I'd love her to just answer what she wants to do and also explain why every single position she has has changed.
So he's trying to get the conversation going. Actually, some in the national media have picked it up. Let's put this up there on the screen from Dave Weigel. He says, yeah, it makes sense that Harris wasn't doing media during the veep selection, when a bunch of questions would have been irrelevant. But now there's a ticket, there's a press corps. Why don't you just shoot them some news of the day questions on the plane. You know, JD actually has I
think he did. I think he's done like sixteen interviews just in the last couple of days. Now, look, that's not an excuse. You know, it should be Trump who's doing a lot of these interviews. Yeah, why he's Look, I think the Aiden Ross streaming thing, it's fine, okay, Like it's fun. I'm sure it's probably very enjoyable to do an extremely friendly interview in a.
Stream Alex or something like that game.
Which people are wondering if that's an FEC violation. That's all this interesting one. I've never seen somebody get to interviewee something. It's usually the interviewers. We're trying to curry favor, you know, with the inter with the person who's interviewing them. So anyway, so my thing with Trump is he's doing this Aiden Ross thing. Yeah, he's got an interview with Elon on Monday, which you can ask Ron DeSantis about that.
And by the way, this is all fine if you're just you know, want to gin up enthusiasm amongst people who alread agree with you. Yeah, bro, we you're in the fight of your life right now. Like he's doing a press conference today. I think that's great. I think Kamala should do one too, and hopefully they're going to try and change the conversation around that. But what do you think christ like in terms of the strategy, because I mean, Waltce hasn't done an interview yet, hopefully he does some.
I'd actually like to see that.
Yeah, but Kamala, I mean, seventeen days now, no major sit down. Joe Biden has done a CBS News sit down. So the freaking dead vice president is doing more.
Interviews than you.
I think he's done two interviews since he dropped out of the race. Yeah, what's happening here?
Yeah?
No, I mean, listen, from a democracy, it's terrible. It's terrible. Like you got put in this position. There was no open process. You know, they canceled the primary, so that wasn't really then.
They just picked you and you you know here we are okay.
But and then you shouldn't even answer any questions. You a brass conference whatever. This is a little lot of census the modern media landscape, and so do I think she's going to.
Pay a price for it?
Like I wish that you I wish you know, Trump would pay a price for Also mostly overwhelmingly sitting with friendly people like Fox News or Aiden Ross. He's got that twelve to fifteen year old boy demo locked up there. But I don't think that they do pay a price for it. I just I just think that's like people have gotten used to this media landscape where all they do is friendly interviews, softball questions, go out and give
a teleprompter speech, et cetera. And so you know, we've actually got this this the Shark Tank guy what's his name, Kevin, Kevin O'Leary saying basically like, yeah, no, they're they're in U fourg moo. No, they're not going to answer any questions. And he's like, that's probably smart strategy. And I can't really disagree because in terms of strategy, because we know Kama her weakness is when she is caught off guard.
That's when she has had her worst moments, lest her whole interview in the debates, when she would be caught off guard, when Tulsi Gabbard was challenging her, etc.
That's when she's most vulnerable.
She's always been a very cautious politician in terms of who she would allow access to her, So it doesn't surprise me that they're pursuing this strategy, and unfortunately, I think it's probably the right one.
Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
It's intentional.
She has no intention of putting any policy out there until this convention's over. I'm very fortunate guy, because I'm an investor and for decades I've been syndicating debt, primarily for real estate. Some of her closest advisor are people I work with in finance and we're friends. So I call them up to say, hey, listen, do you want to talk about policy here? And they said, listen, everything's working right now. We're going to strong arm the press on policy.
We don't need to do anything.
What's everything's working.
The momentum's crazy. The press she's getting right now. She's sucking her campaign.
The campaign.
The campaign is working, and there's no reason to sit down with any journalist and talk policy right now because we're in the euphoric stage. They think they can raise up to three hundred million dollars before this campaign, before this whole thing's going to happen over.
The weekend is over.
So that's extraordinary amount of money. Then it's time to talk policy. Then it's time to go to the center. Then it's time to talk about border.
All right, So are they telling you where she stands.
No, they're just saying, listen, we don't worry about this right now.
We don't have a problem.
No problem here, Houston. We're just Raisin dough and you got to head it to her. They're now talking within that campaign about a path to winning that they didn't even see eight days ago.
And here's the other thing too, Sagar is like Kamala has already signaled that she's running away from every progressive position she took in twenty twenty, and so of course any reporter worth her salt is going to ask her about those things.
And I think she very much prefers to live.
In this ambiguous state of like widow Relana, what she stands for, what you want, and allowing people to project, as they did onto Obama, whatever they want to see in her. And I think they're going to keep that going as long as they can. That's not an endorsement of the strategy. I think she should be taking questions. I think it's really important to know what the agenda would be, what the priorities would be, etc.
I think she should be challenged on those things.
But I don't doubt that that's the way that they're thinking about.
I mean to borrow.
Everybody has basically said this, it's a ViBe's election, and vibes are good whenever you don't have to take any positions. With Trump, one of the things that's thinking him with gen Pop is that he's got January sixth, stop the steal, which is, look, you can you hate it and all that. It's not only a bad vibe, but on a policy level, it's explicitly like I did not agree with the votes last time around in twenty twenty.
Now, same with abortion, where it's a concrete thing.
You appointed the justices and they overturned Row versus weight with Kamala, What are you going to do at all?
Are you?
What are you going to do with Israel? What do you think about NATO and Ukraine? What are you going to do with the Tax cuts and Jobs Act? You know, this is literally the most urgent and pressing economic matter in decades in Washington. The extension fight probably what since the Bush tax cuts in two thousand.
I forget the last time that they were extended.
My Democrats caved on.
The Democrats caved on right, So are you going to do that again? You said previously I would repeal TCJA on day one. Now that's not gonna happen because it's an Act of Congress. Do you agree with that?
Like?
Which parts of it would you extend? Would you strike? What would your strategy be? Remember, Joe Biden got so many questions on the campaign trail last time around about how he was going to work with Mitch McConnell. I know his answers were mostly stupid, but he got a lot of questions about that. That's a great thing for Kamala Harris. You literally served in the Senate. What do you believe? What would you sign? Would you see cetc? To what extent?
How high? What is your tax policy? Are you borrowing from Joe Biden?
You've disavowed every previous position you've ever had on the border, on everything. But because the enthusiasm is still so high, Ryan said this, and I really think it's so true. She wants to get as close to that number on the ticket that previously used to pull a generic Democrat.
That's all you want.
You don't want to take positions, don't want to piss the people off. And I agree though it's very unfortunate because many people are frankly totally fine with this, both in terms of partisan media.
I mean, I see it all the time with Trump.
They're like, oh, it was such.
A genius move. I'm like, yeah, it was it a genius move. It's like Trump.
I actually think Trump functions at his best and is able to capture the most media in hostile environments. I mean, look, you can hate that black journalist veentor whatever if you want. It took over the world for a brief moment the CNN town hall that he did.
Same thing. I mean, everybody covered it.
I think he actually functions both at a media capture level and probably at a better level in terms of showing his contrast or whatever in those Now does he also hang himself?
Certainly, that's Donald Trump.
But with Kamala and with her previous wish washing, as you're saying, even a lesser hole even, I frankly think even the most friendly interviewer of Rachel Mattow or somebody, you gotta ask something, because then you just completely sacrifice your sacrifice, any of your integrity, whatever scrap is left, and when you combine those two. They're still giving her a pass though, you know, you only have a few. Like Dave Wigel, I saw Maggie Haveman as well retweet that.
But yeah, you know, if the national reporters start to press her, it's possible she could cave, but it might be too late. I mean, they might wait a whole month. I think that's you can't wait a month. I think that's out rageous.
Yeah.
I mean the other thing in terms of the Trump side prosecuting this case, we keep using that, but anyway, trying to make this case against Kamala Harris. The other weakness they have is like Trump has kind of gotten squishy about whether he's going to agree to a debate, So you don't exactly look like you're out front and wanting to demonstrate to the American people and get into a back and.
Forth with her either.
So yeah, it's I mean, like you said, it's it's sad that this is the environment that we live in. It's sad that it probably you know, people don't really care that much. It feels like a kind of a process question. All of that is the case. You know, it's sad that the press doesn't press her more on these things and doesn't press Trump more on his tendency to only sit with friendly audiences.
But you're absolutely right about Trump. I don't think that with Kamala.
I think the strategy, whether I like it or not, I think it makes sense. With Trump, it doesn't make sense because he needs to reclaim this narrative.
He needs to take over the airwaves. He needs sixteen.
He his greatest gift is being able to drive the conversation and force people into the debate on his terms. Now, I personally think the way he did that at the NABJ conference was very destructive to him. I don't think it was helpful whatsoever. But it demonstrated his ability to seize the moment and force people to talk about whatever
he wants them to be talking about. He's very good at that, and so, you know, for him to avoid any sort of hostile questioning and for him to have ghettoized himself on true social where no one really gives a shit what he's saying over there either.
I think these and when.
We do pay attention, it's like, oh, you're attacking Brian Kemp. Good job, great work with that, you know. I think these are some serious errors that he is making in this campaign, and I do think that he is you know, we forget he's an older man. Also, he's not as feeble as Joe Biden was, et cetera. But older people they get they get kind of stuck in a rut. And I think he's having trouble grappling with the switch
in the top of the ticket. I think he really is struggling to adjust to that because even though maybe somewhere in his mind he thought it was a possibility, he clearly didn't really believe that that was going to happen, and clearly didn't really plan for the eventuality of that
of that happening. And so now he's out there still talking about Joe Biden, constructing in his minds, I'm elaborate conspiracy theory that maybe we're going to bring Joe Biden back onto the ticket and can't really move on and prosecute in effective case against the ticket that he actually is running up again.
We have been so gaslight by aging politicians. Is that I am so struck by just a return to normal, Like JD's got two interviews out this morning, he did four campaign events yesterday.
That's actually normal that's how it's supposed to be.
Kamala, they're supposed to care working a lot.
The only thing for you that happened with Kamala that should have happened didn't happen yesterday, is she was supposed to take questions on the plane in between stops. Okay, and we just did a whole segment about that, But she did two campaign stops. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do. Trump has been sitting in mar A Lago for five freaking days tweeting about Brian or truth started truthing about Brian Kemp.
That's not what we're supposed to do.
And that's where I'm struck, just by literally the age difference of having younger people on the ticket and how much more beneficial it is. So I've probably never been more agist whenever it comes to politics. It is right now because I'm like.
Oh, yeah, this is how it was supposed to be.
I mean, you know, old McCain worked harder than both of these guys did, Joe Biden and Trump did whenever he was on the campaign trail in two thousand and eight, and there was a whole national conversation, how old is he sixty or something sixty two about.
Whether he was too Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Anyway, So let's move on to We've got a bunch of new reporting about how the Tim Walls versus Josh Shapiro decision went down, and some of this is very interesting. So let's put CNN up on the screen here. They had one of the sort of most in depth deep dives into the interview and vetting process. Their headline is the Blue Walls How a low key Midwestern governor shot to the top to be Harris's VP pick. And a
couple things that are of note here. Number one, apparently just the vibes with Shapiro were off and the vibes with Walls were apparently very good. Walls came in, she was like, okay, well, what do you see as the role of vice president? And he was like, whatever you want it to be. And she asked him, okay, well do you want to be the last person in the room when decisions are being made?
And he's like, if you want.
Me there, So it was very you know, put me in, coach, I'm ready to go. I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll be the quote unquote happy warrior. So that was the vibe with Walls. With Shapiro, it sort of echoed the concerns that Fetterman had put out publicly that this man is very ambitious, that he may overshadow you. He had a bunch of questions for her about like, oh, well, what would my role be, and trying to carve out
specifically the parameters of what that would look like. One source familiar with the meetings said it was a striking contrast between the two individuals.
But another thing I noted in.
This piece was the quiet organized support campaign for Walls that was unfolding behind the scenes that involved apparently Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.
So here's what they say.
They don't have a lot of details, but this is the lines from us CNN. They say Walls was propelled by support from across the Democratic Party, progressive and moderate factions alike. We saw, for example, publicly Joe Manchin coming out and praising him in a sophisticated campaign guided by
some of the party's most seasoned operatives. He had former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on his side, old allies from his twelve years in Congress representing a rural Minnesota district, as well as glowing words from former President Obama, who said in a statement Tuesday of walls, he has the values and the integrity to make us proud. They go on to say Obama also served as a sounding board for Vice President Harris to talk through how she was
thinking about it. I'm sure he was just the sounding boards are just listening, not offering any sort of shaping words or guidance on that. So I found that very noere That's the only place I saw that reporting about Obama's involvement here. They did mention that, you know, Shapiro came with some drama because of the comments that he had made with regard to you know, protesters being Palaestin
and Propalstigne testers being a kin to the KKK. One of the Democrats involved said, no one wanted to rip that scab back Goban. So I think there were also concerns that because of how stridently he had come out in support of Israel's prosecution the war on Gazan against specifically against the protesters, that that was just a can of worms that they didn't really want to open. And so I thought that was all very interesting that, you know, the fit was different. The way they handled the interview
was very, very different. And we also saw some reporting saga that you know, there was this like Josh Shapiro hype video that had come out that the Philadelphia Mayer had put out. I think because he made such a sort of aggressive and the people around him made such an aggressive play, including this highly produced video, including trying to create this narrative of his inevitability. I mean, I know if it was me, I'd be like that, like you think this is a done deal, that you've just
got this in the bag. I know that I would find that to be very off putting if I was making that show well.
And I also didn't take I think there was a Jon Favreau who used to write Obama's speeches. One of the pod Save Bros. Even he was making fun of Josh Shapiro's Obama mannerisms. That has the great people like Obama.
If you're literally Obama.
Yeah, yeah, maybe Obama. What do we really know about Obama? At the end of the day, he's in it for himself. He's probably one of the great arch narcissists in American history. He's very good at getting himself elected and getting himself a lot of media and so in this case it probably pissed him off. You know that Josh Shapiro was copying him more and more that we see and learn from behind the scenes. I do think that that was probably the biggest you called it, you know, credit to you,
which is that he is just so extraordinarily ambitious. He doesn't know how to be a number two man. Tim Watts allegedly told Kamala Harris he has no desire to be president, and that's one of the reasons why he was picked as the vice president, reminiscent of that Dick Cheney pick by George W.
Bush.
W was a very insecure man, very much like Kamla, and he didn't want anybody to overshadow him. He didn't know what to do. He had been they've been burned by Dan Quayle because he was literally an idiot. Under hw He's like, so who do I pick? And they're like, oh, you should pick somebody like Cheney. Because the thing about Cheney is he always loved being the number two man, and so he as the NBA president.
It really lit him up.
This idea that you have a non ambitious person who will help you run stuff for you, and I've worked out badly for the country, but he did run stuff for w That actually was the ideal position. He didn't really work that hard.
He wasn't you know. He didn't like to think all that much.
So I think that Walls kind of pitched himself in a similar way of I'm not going to try and upstate you. I'm just your number two man. I'm here to help you to the best of my ability. I also don't think we can discount now in retrospect how much is Washington connections really worked out for him. Helped Nancy Post to become Speaker of the House, Posted going to bat for him. A lot of his house colleagues
loved him in terms of the people. I think Amy Klobahar was going to bat for him in the Senate, So, you know, having people in Washington who have a good relationship with you, especially when Josh Shapiro is way more of an unknown he's never been here in d C. I think that probably helped him, you know, much more.
Yeah, I think that's right, because she knew Shapiro a little better than she knew Walls going into this process. But I don't think they were like close either. The person she was probably closest tors Roy Cooper, who had taken himself out of consideration. But this was a very condensed timeline. So if this is someone who you're going to have to potentially govern with, yeah, where can you get that comfort that this is going to be someone that you're going to be able to get along with?
And so the fact that Walls had so many people from across the entire ideological spectrum being like, yeah, it's just a great guy. And Joe Biden said something he just likes like people just like this guy. And to me, it's an incredible testament to how I guess how well he's able to pull these things off. That he said he doesn't want to be president, and it was credible enough that she believed in, you know, because.
Cause it's like, bro, come, I mean, yeah, all.
These people are ambitious. You know.
Josh Shapiro may wear it Mara heavily, but this is a governor of an important state. He's obviously excited to be in the vice presidential pick. Like, he obviously has some ambitions of his own. So the fact that he was able to pull off that line that Nana. Of course, I don't really want to be president. I think it's the testament to the political abilities that he comes off as like a genuine nice guy.
Even though he's been a professional politicians is two thousand and five for like twenty years.
He still comes off is.
That like, you know, high school teacher and the nice guy coach whatever, and so he's able to pull that off. That's one thing that has been insane to me, Sager, is the number of people online who think that Joshapiro is a better politician than Tim Walls, just like on
the you know, oratory whatever. I just it's crazy to me because when I see Josh Peau, all I can see is the cheap Obama knockoff, and so you know, Walls has he's he's got his own thing going and it feels genuine, whether you like him or not, and whether you grow with his positions or not. So just on the pure political talent, I find that assessment to be totally crazy.
I'll make the Shapiro pitch, I guess which is don't forget that or the Obama knockoff? Either one or almost won the state of Iowa for the Democratic primary in twenty twenty, which was Pete Budajet.
The Obama knockoff works quite.
The Democratic property.
I have a very lowion of Democratic boomers. No offense, but you guys love yourselves some like you know, Obama esque ty figure.
Bato Rourke is another one who people liked.
These people didn't do all that well sary, Yeah.
But the Democratic elite loved them.
So in that sense, I'm saying, like that that's who the audience and all that plays to. And when you combine that to both them, I mean, look, there's undeniable. At that Philadelphia rally, he got a massive pop.
People loved him.
Even the reporters on the ground were like the people who are here, they are obsessed with Joshapiro. A lot of that is also just general Democratic enthusiasm. He's got the high favorability in the state of Pennsylvania. Ultimately, what the Harris campaign found, and I'm really fascinated because I don't know to what extent this is true. They didn't believe that he could translate his personal popularity to the state of the ticket and ultimately help them win the
state of Pennsylvania. Yeah, I find that hard to believe. But I mean, I just don't know how the decision was made and how much data was there. I haven't even seen you since Tim Walts was picked. Yeah, kind of my theory was, and this kind of bears us out too. In the today's toss ups, I really believe that they no longer view the Midwest as the tipping point because if you look at a two seventy win map and you play with it, you can have Kamala lose the state of Pennsylvania but win Georgia as long
as she wins Nevada. That's two hundred and seventy three electoral votes. And so with the Sun Belt, with younger people, black voters who are a lot more animated, and you got Trump literally attacking Brian Camp in the state of Georgia.
I think Georgia is a lot more in play than it was previously.
Wet and if you've got a chance in Nevada and in Georgia, you don't have to win Pennsylvania as much. And Michigan and Wisconsin have always been razor thin PA. Even though it is the most likely tipping point state, you don't necessarily need it in a world where the Sun Belt is way more in play, and Tim Walls is the most beloved figure by these white suburban liberals.
They love him.
And so if you have those people who are coming out to vote in Maricopa County and in Fulton County in Atlanta, maybe you don't need to go after the Midwest as much.
I mean, let's not forget though, Tim Walls.
He when he was in the House, the district that he ran it, He's actually the only Democrat who has won that district in decades. He outperformed Hillary in twenty sixteen by some eighteen points. Trump won that district handily in twenty sixteen, and Tim Walls also won it by I think Trump won it by thirteen and Tim Walls still won it by three.
So you know, he does have.
Demonstrated ability in Midwestern sort of swingy areas. I believe his district was sort of like half suburban, half rural, and so you know, listen, yeah, our Democrat's going to win back rural America with Tim Walls. No, but all he needs to do is hold on to the percent of the like white rural vote that Joe Biden.
Did and they win.
Like that's all they have to do because all the other coalitions are kind of coming back together, So I think they feel like he is an effective messenger in terms of that, and I just feel like they there was a lot of reporting that they did do some significant poll testing, and I think if it was clear that, like, oh, if you've got jos Shapiro, Pennsylvania is in the bag, I think that would have been very difficult to resist,
very difficult. But the reporting suggests that they didn't really see that jos Shapiro helped them in Pennsylvania at all, that there wasn't a big electoral impact whether you put Tim Walls or Jos Shapiro on the ticket, and so that freed her up to go with the person that she had the more personal fit with, and also who you know, he really leaned into in the state of Minnesota, They really leaned into the post Roe v. Wade environment, So they feel like he's a very effective messenger there.
And then you got Pelosi and Obama saying, hey, this is your guy. I think that made it all a very compelling thing.
I think's totally right.
I recommend people watched the Counterpoints segment for me yesterday about the Steve Kornacki segment because the quibble I have, and I think you know, given the data it's fair, is that he wanted a very different environment when you've got as politics continues to buy for Kate on the rural and suburban divide, it's very clear like he activated more or white liberals and he didn't win back the
same people that he ran when he was Congress. Now that doesn't mean that he doesn't know how to talk to those people, yeah, but he definitely didn't win them in twenty twenty two whenever he was up on the ballot.
Now, can he help bring some of those people over? Maybe? I mean, this is kind of the this is the case.
That a lot of the the pundits were making against JD. They like, when you look at the swings that he had in some of these working class districts, he actually drove up the vote in more in some Republican areas, but he didn't win by the margin that he was supposed to win in the rural working class voters.
So I mean, he underperformed Trump in terms of performed Trump.
In white working class It's complicated.
Because Tim Ryan was on the ballot, But yeah, regardless, I would not say it was perfect showing for Dad. Let's all be honest, right, he only went by six. I think Trump won by eight with Tim Walls. What Steve Kornaki was saying is like, if you look at those rural districts that he was supposed to activate, it
just didn't materialize last time around. That doesn't mean that rhetorically he can't try and hold on like you said, But you know, any fantasy if he's gonna like he's gonna flip votes, I don't think that's gonna happen.
Yeah, So if you've got.
Like I said, he doesn't have to do better, he doesn't have to do better than the Joe Biden totals in those areas, and I think that's probably what they're aiming for. Go to be four guys, because this was interesting. There was a Maris poll that showed that Jos Shapiro had elevated negatives and was underwater in favorability with gen
Z voters in particular. So if you're looking at pulling, if you're the Kamala Harris team that says Shapiro doesn't really help you in Pennsylvania and he brings this negative to the ticket with regard to gen Z, voters, and I think this has to be largely because of how aggressively he talked about the pro Palestine protesters and his
positioning on Israel in general. Then you're saying, okay, well, why do I want to bring a negative onto the ticket when Walls has this cross ideological support across the entire democratic spectrum, from Joe Mansion to Bernie Sanders literally, And you know, I think it also is a statement on how the rejuvenated union movement through.
Their weight around in this process too.
You know, we forget to talk about them, but Sean Fan made it very clear the you know, new leader of the the UAW who has been very strong and actually was at that rally in Detroit yesterday, he said, listen, I want Andy Basheer or Tim Walls, and he said he even said, listen, I'm with them no matter what.
But those are the two that we really trust. And I do think that the fact that labor unions didn't like Mark Kelly, labor unions did not like jos Shapiro because of his charter school stands as another very Obama as position.
By the way, I think that.
Also hindered them because again you're talking about Okay, a fracturing within the Democratic coalition, and you're talking about enthusiasm. You're talking about reopening wounds that you don't really want to have to reopen. And so you know, when you look at that picture and then you also think about, oh, she just liked Tim Walls better when she met with him, the choice makes a lot of sense and does not have to be about anti Semitism as being insisted by many across O.
Yeah, that's that's definitely a fun one. Although that discourse has mostly been killed at this point, so let's just put it.
Into the Yeah, that's why I only brought it up here briefly at the end, so we can all move forward.
With our thank you.
I appreciate that.
I a lways go on to the attacks.
After the selection of Tim Wallas's vice president, Republicans tried a variety I think of different attacks. The one though, that is beginning to stick, is claims of quote unquote stolen valor. So we are going to go through everything that we know today. It was kicked off by the vice presidential candidate for the Republican Senator JD.
Vance. Here's what he had to say.
What really bothers me about Tim Waltz as a Marine who served this country in uniform when the United States Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do it, and I did it honorably, and I'm very proud of that service. When Tim Waltz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did.
He dropped out of the.
Army and allowed his unit to go without him, a fact that he's been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with. I think it's shameful to prepare your unit to go to Iraq, to make a promise that you're going to follow through, and then to drop out.
Okay, so let's go all the way back in time to two thousand and five.
Crystal. You can weigh in here if he would like. So the timeline is such.
Tim Waltz is a twenty four year veteran of the Minnesota National Guard. He rises to the level of master sergeant and then is I believe I don't exactly understand how the term works, but he was then quasi promoted to command sergeant Majors, one of the highest enlisted ranks in the United States Military, in two thousand and five. That is the tail end of his career at that
exact moment. Whenever he files to run for Congress, some four months before the deployment order comes down, there is a decision that he has to make on whether he is going to go to Iraq with the Minnesota National Guard unit that he is attached to as a senior enlisted officer for the artillery unit or not. He decides not to go and to retire. Now there's questions here around the retirement date. So if we look at there's
two separate factors. The defense of Tim Walls is that Walls did not know that his unit was going to go to Iraq, so the retirement came two months.
Before the official order.
The detractors say that the senior enlisted personnel and some people served in that unit said that they knew for months before the official order came down. I spoke some people in the military. They said, yeah, it's actually quite common before an official order comes down or not. So
I would say it's somewhat believable. That is, I would say the first with these quote unquote attacks, they didn't go to Iraq whenever he helped prepare the unit for do you want to weigh in before I get to any of the others.
I mean, he so the specific details Minnesota National Guard. So the unit got the alert for mobilization in July. He had retired two months earlier in Maye and been playing a congressional run.
So there you go, right, So that's the time.
The second one cubs back to this clip where he had claimed that he had carried weapons in war while discussing gun control. So this was a quote from a video that was posted actually by the Kamala Harris campaign. This was the quote then that people are seizing on. Let's take a listen, op cool.
Cup, like many of you did five weeks ago, and dead said, Dad, you're the only person I know who's an elected office. You need to stop what's happening with this. I'll take my kick in the butt for the NRA. I spent twenty five years in the army, and I hunt and I gave the money back, and I'll tell you what I have been doing. I've been voting for
common sense legislation that protects a second amendment. But we can do background checks, we can do CDC research, we can make sure we don't have reciprocal carry amongst states, and we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons.
Were all right, So that last part is becoming what's significant here for the attack. Let's put this up there on the screen. The reason why is he claimed he quote carried weapons in war. Let's put NBC News up on the screen here. Asked about the video, a Harris campaign spokesperson did not deny Walts had embellished when he spoke of carrying weapons in war. They said, in his twenty four years of service, the governor carried, fired, and
trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times. Governor Walsh would never insult or undermine any American service to his country. In fact, he thanks Senator Advance for putting his life on the line. It's the American way. So this has now become one of the I guess the attacks here and it kind of stems not necessarily from this one quote, but whether there's been a pattern here of claiming service that was not they did not actually happen so for example, let's put this place up on
the screen. This is from a two thousand and four interview or sorry, two thousand and six interview that Wals did with Bloomberg News. So basically there is a question here of whether he claimed to Bloomberg News.
Is Joshua Green, so may know him.
He wrote a book about Joe Steve Bannon in twenty sixteen on whether he deployed to Iraq. So he wrote Joshua Green at that time a twenty four year veteran of the Army National Guard recently returned from serving in Iraq as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Now this is Jeffery Ingersoll, actually my former boss over the Daily Caller. As he points out, Operation during Freedom was actually about Afghanistan.
But the claim here as to whether he claimed he served in Iraq or not, Bloomberg actually came out and stealth edited it saying Italy. In this Joshua Green has not clarified whether he was told, whether he was told by Tim Walls that it had happened or not. If we go to the next part, this is the next part of the controversy, which is that the National Guard has had to come out and I mean they say dispute here, I would just say clarify. So Wals ran
as a retired command sergeant major. Now apparently he actually fully retired as a master sergeant because according to the National Guard, he did not officially reach the rank. This is what I was talking about previously of command sergeant major, although he did use it in campaign materials and yeah, sorry, go ahead.
He reached the rank, he didn't complete additional course work.
That's right too, so you didn't check the additional course.
I know this all sounds tedious.
I'm going through everything just so everybody has it because the amount of misinformation and not information that is out there.
I want everybody to know the truth.
Army people please fact check me if I get anything wrong. The ranks and all this are very tedious. I apologize now as I understand the retire you know, claiming thing. That's a little bit of a problem because whatever it's your d D two fourteen, whatever your paperwork that you receive upon discharge. He was discharge officially, I believe, retired as a master sergeant despite running later.
Now, why does any of this matter?
Because politically, this is probably the attack that I have seen more embraced by Republicans and operatives, and it is one very familiar to the head of the Trump campaign.
Let's put this up here on the screen.
Chris las Svida, who was actually one of the people who helped orchestrate the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign back in two thousand and four, is literally the campaign manager for Donald Trump. And so that obviously was an effort to try and to bring up questions about John Kerry's service in Vietnam from people who had served with him in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth media campaign.
That really was a big deal in two thousand and four.
And the real reason too is this is part I actually I want to talk about with you, is how effective this is going to be to say this is another swift voat.
I don't think it's true.
I do think it definitely embellished military service and the weapons of war thing is straight up bullshit. The issue I think for the Trump campaign, oh four, was the security election. That was the Iraq election. That was the military elect where we're going to surge, We're not going to surge, who's going to handle So that's why it was extremely relevant here. The issue I find only here is that I think it helps the idea for Republicans
to run phony. Phony was the term that we saw stuck incompetent in others, doesn't believe in anything in our word clouds against Kamala Harris. If they could try and attach that label for Tim Watson, for Kamala, it will be a net benefit or not. And so it's not going to be as helpful as swift Boat was, I think in two thousand and four for the George W. Bush campaign. That's kind of where I fall on it.
Although I do think, I mean, listen, should do an interview, I should tell the truth about what happened here.
I think it's a better attack than tampon Tim.
I think we're I think we're reaching closer to something that I mean, listen, I can tell you go through each of these and tell you, like, I think this is pretty flimsy. The Iraq thing doesn't really hold up in terms of the timeline, the operation and during Freedom thing.
All right, he serves in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. They have one prosper where.
He says something about that and him holding up a sign at a at an anti warproce.
We got that next, we want to put that up there. No, but Christy leg the one, Yeah.
No, it's not.
You can't clean you're a veteran if he didn't fight in the war. He literally said he was a veteran of Operation during Freedom.
When I've seen inspect one of the clips that's circulating us, like, oh, we got him.
He said Operation Enduring Freedom. He goes on to explain, I served in Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and here's what that means. So listen. But putting all of that aside, ask yourself this question.
Is anyone gonna not vote for Donald Trump because of the whole bone spurs situation?
No? Why?
Because number one, like you said, it's not a secure election. Number two, most importantly, he's just the type of politician who can get away with stuff like this. And I think Tim Walls in contrast to John Kerrey, who was a terrible politician and also who really leaned very heavily on his whole war hero thing in a way that Tim Walls, you know, he talks about his service, but
his he identifies himself more. And Kamin was calling him, you know, coach Walls, like that's the persona he's leaning more into but we also know because these attacks against him were came out during his gubernatorial campaign as well, he's the type of politician who can get through something like this because we've seen him do it in the past.
So that would be the biggest thing I would say is just like you know, some politicians, they really struggle when they're faced with any sort of attack or question about et cetera, et cetera. I don't think that this will end up landing or significantly harming the appearance of walls. I think because he does come off as just like you know, the guy that he is, I think it's
hard to put that label of phony onto him. So that would be sort of my you know, political assessment putting the merits of the claims.
Well, we'll put the last one up there. Could I actually find that the worst one? Put that up there please on the screen. Well, so we should have put the article. But basically, he held up a sign where he said he was a veteran and he ran as a veteran of operation during Freedom.
I wasn't even the military even I know it's bullshit. So that's actually what I would say.
I find the most egregious now can he apologize and can he get his way out of it?
Yeah?
I think so, And generally, I mean, this is kind of what I used say about the JD stuff as well, whenever I was worried about it. Bottom of the ticket attacks will work only to a certain extent. The top of the ticket is ultimately what matters. And yeah, Trump has himself no faith whenever he's basically got himself out of Vietnam.
Now, in terms.
Of politically, like what the overall effect of this has been, it is the only time I've seen the media begin to pick up on some of it now. Partially it's because he has the most teeth in terms of the attack. But I believe the way that the Trump campaign and others appear to be looking at it is they feel like this is a way that they could try to change the conversation, not necessarily about the Tim Walls thing in general, but to try and get the media to
quote ask questions of Waltz. But what they want is for them to ask questions to Kamala about this, And they want Kamala to have to be compelled to come out and ask questions not just about this, but to be asked questions in general.
So like, that's kind of how they are thinking about it.
We see, I mean this is chrys losavida. This is what he gets successfully with John Carries.
He turned a strength into a weakness.
Yes, and that's you know, they want to recapture that two thousand and fourths with boat Magic. And something that is a strength for Tim Walls is that he has this career You're based on service, whether serving in the military or being a high school teacher, which trust me, as a form of service. I I'm from a family of teachers, or you know, being the winning football coach. Like service, service, service, And they want to turn that
into a negative. And so that's why they're really you know, honing in on this and doing everything they can possibly.
Exactly the final part. It's so funny. This is just so classic Trump. One of the emerging attacks on Walls was handling of BLM. Well, it turns out though Tim Walls has been sitting on this audio for what four years, and leaked video or leaked audio of Trump actually praising Tim Walls for his handling of the BLM protests.
Let's take a listen.
Vern Wolves is on the phone and we spoke and I totally agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days. I asked him to do that, and the whole world was laughing. Two days three days later, I spoke to the governor the governors, I think on the quality an excellent guy, big National Guard up there and is ready to come in a fight like Hill. I tell you, the best they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They did win it and dominating and it happened immediately
and is on the phone now, Jim Walls. Again, I was very happy with the last couple of days. Tim, you called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast it was like bowlings.
And yeah, so uh, that's gonna be tough. That's gonna be tough for the Trump people. Yeah, it's funny.
I actually saw a lot of Rohn DeSantis boosters who were like, yeah, this is the issue with Trump. They're like, anytime he's on the phone with and he could be on the phone with like his arch nemesis and'd be like, you're tremendous, You're an amazing person and we love her, but and then you would continue later so yeah, that's that is as Trump as it gets can't attack him if Trump is a literal opponent said that he was doing a good job on the phone at the time.
Yeah, that makes it difficult.
I mean to be honest with you, I don't know if you agree with this or not, but I don't think that anything that happen and in the COVID era is going like whether people didn't like the decisions in COVID, didn't like you know, what happened during BLM, what.
I just think people are moving forward totally.
And this was the problem with the Desanta's campaign was that was the COVID stuff was really central to his political status within the Republican Party, and you know he wanted to lean into that and actually moved away from it pretty quickly because people just were like, all right, that's in the past. I don't really want to think
about it or talk about it anymore. So even if you didn't have Trump on the phone literally being like this, You've done an incredible job, was amazing, and you came in.
So fast and so whatever he said, even.
If you didn't have that, I don't know that that really sticks to walls. I think, listen, I think it's it will be difficult I think to.
Label Walls as.
Far left just because of his identity and the way you know, white older white dudes just code is sort of moderate in America, I think.
That'll be difficult.
I think, you know, the foot flop charge that you can definitely level at Kamala Harris, that is going to be difficult. So if I were them, I would just train their fire on Kamala Harris. I think she's more easily dinged up on your phone.
You're incompetent.
That was the big word that jumped down of our word clouds, like that's probably where the best juice is, even more so than the like far left, liberal, et cetera, et cetera.
I think the.
More accurate thing, which is usually the one that lands and has the most teeth, is you just don't know.
Yeah, you just does.
This woman doesn't know where she is.
You don't know where she is, You don't know what she's going to be one day to the next. I think that's probably the most effective political attack.
That they could go with.
I totally agree with you, and competent is the best I was going to say. This is another thing I find is anyone I find still complaining about something from twenty twenty. And I do this for a living, and I probably complain and remember much better than both, even though I'm like, ah, that just doesn't hit. And I'll tell you, I think the reason why this country has
a tremendous, you know, a tremendous capacity for amnesia. Joe Biden was our presidential candidate and is our president a month ago, one month ago, Ask anybody in your life.
I don't even think about Joe Biden now, an they don't, They don't think about him.
Donald Trump was almost MESSI he came millimeters away from getting his head split open on national television. Both he and everybody else has completely moved on from that. That was again, not even a month ago. And so so you're talking to me about four years ago. I'm like, you know, a lot of analysis has actually been done.
If you look at people's political attitudes after pandemics, just because it happened a one hundred years ago, by two years after the nineteen eighteen people are like, what, who flew? What what are you talking about? They don't even think about it, and way more people died percentage ways at that time. There's an incredible capacity for amnesia. Within humanity and especially in our modern media environment, anybody's relitigating some
from four years ago. I mean even somebody who tells me but remember when this, If they're trying to run on something Kamma said in twenty sixteen, I'm like, guys like this just so long ago. I mean, the only reason the Kama flip flop is relevant today is because she basically had no policy position and it was the default up until now, and now she's changing what she did. So I think that's relevant and that's you know, correct today. But if you're trying to say something that she said
twenty twelve or whatever, I'm like, that's rough, man. I just don't think it sticks both in the media environment today, and it doesn't hit home for what Americans want. Americans want change, they want something new, and they want to move forward, and we're doing that. That in general just captures some of the most successful campaigns that we've ever
seen Obama Change. I mean, just the word change became synonymous with this campaigns, probably the most brilliant political moves ever because it doesn't mean anything, but it also means everything.
And that's what you want.
Yeah, that's exactly and that's what the Harris people are clearly trying to seize on.
And you know the fact that she.
Looks, feel sounds different gives her a real leg up in that competition. And so, I mean you can see Republicans are struggling to figure out where they want to be, how they want to approach this, coming up with a consistent messaging message. And you know, for people who are hopeful about the Harris Walls ticket, like, they are going to find some things that are going to work right there.
They are going to have some ads up and come up with some lines of attack that are going to have some teeth that are going to be more effective than let's say, tamp on Tim. But I think they're still going through that, going through that process of workshopping things on the fly and seeing what might actually stick.
Yeah, we'll see.
All right, let's go ahead and get to some horrific updates coming out of Israel. And I just want to warn everyone trigger warning here before I show this video. I find it deeply disturbing and you probably will too. We've been discussing for a while on this show the horrific abuse and torture and rape of Palestinine prisoners at
this Israeli prison camp. You had a number of soldiers who were initially arrested, although I believe now they've all been released, were arrested by these Raelies because of raping a Palestinin prisoner, specifically sodomizing him.
And there were.
Riots that broke out in including government in defense of those soldiers who u and let's go ahead and put the video up on the screen while I'm talking, who were on camera while they were committing this rape.
So I'm going to play this out.
You can see them getting the prisoner up, they're going to walk him over, They're going to shield themselves because apparently they know.
That they're being recorded.
I believe this is like being live streamed into IDF headquarters, and so they shield what's going on with literal shields. But you know, this is where the horrific sexual assaults occurs. And you know the fact that there's video evidence and the fact that we have multiple mainstream media reports that say this was not an isolated incident that particular person
and we can take this down now. That particular prisoner sustained horrific injuries, and that's part of why they felt that they had to at least initially arrest these soldiers. They're also playing a bit of a political game here with regard to the ICJ, the ICC and also some countries that are putting pressure on them of trying to show through you know, a case or two.
Oh, of course we hold our people.
Accountable, but again, when you look at the body of evidence, this was part of systematic torture and abuse of these prisoners that occurred regularly. So to show you the way that this is all being received within the state of Israel, I mean, this is I don't even know what to
say about this. They were debating on one of the Israeli news channels, and this is a quote unquote journalist for an Israeli daily newspaper who's arguing in favor of raping Palestinian prisoners and actually complains that the only problem he sees is that this isn't systematized, which actually there's a question about whether or not it is. The UN report, the Pramila patent report suggested that it was probably systematized.
Put this up on the scramma to do my best to read the subtitles.
He says, I don't give a rats ask what they did to that Hamasman. I always remember, first of all, the only thing that is a problem for me here is that it's not a regulated policy of the state to abuse the detainees. He goes on, first of all, they deserve it, and it's great revenge that we need to give them, and secondly, maybe it will also serve as a little bore as a deterrent. And he goes
on from there, so unbelievable, unbelievable. And you know, I have been certainly a critic of our country and very much a critic of our country in terms of our support of what is happening here and our inability to criticize even these sort of horrific abuses.
But I have never.
Seen anything approaching this sort of argument being made in public in the US on any sort of cable news channel, etc.
Yeah, I mean I was saying about that interview we did with that liberal Zionist. I mean, they're out of control, like their society and their civil society is being posted to.
The literal brink. Where what are the hell are they going.
To look like after this, Like a couple of years from now, when you open the Overton window to this type of activity and then the you know, basically theak the breakdown of literal rule of law and a basic military justice. That irony too is like you know, you can hate the IDF all you want for the generals are the ones who want to prosecute these guys, but then they are beholden to these far right wing protesters and like paramilitary style groups who are trying to break
them out. So the secular religious divide and then the nationalist divide and all that has now reached a point where they have a literal hostage of the government of this very powerful state Yea, with a monopoly on the use of force in the entire region and with nuclear weapons.
I would add, yes, that's right, and this.
Sentiment has become quite mainstream.
I don't know what the numbers are, but you can see by the fact that you have Lakut party ministers which kud is the governing party BB not in Nahuis party, who are making arguments such as this and protesting in support of these soldiers who raped on camera a Palaestinian prisoner. Also really worth remembering, which we've also learned from the reporting on the ground that yes, I'm sure some of the prisoners who are being held are in fact Hamas
or Palastinian. As long as you had militants, many of them are just Palestinian men who got swept up because if you are a Palestinian man, you are automatically suspect, you are automatically assumed to be quote unquote Hamas. Not that even if this is a Hamas individual, obviously that doesn't excuse anything whatsoever, because if you are a civilized people and country, this is not how you treat anyone.
So horrifying.
There, our own Ryan Grimm did a fantastic job, of course, pressing State Department spokesperson slash School Matthew Miller on Hey, now they're running this open torture camp. It's very clear, we have multiple documented instances, and now we have this rape on camera. What do you think, US government? How do you feel about this? And of course you get nothing but denial, dodging, obfuscation as usual.
Let's take a listen.
Finally on this, like this rape and torture center, that seems to be pretty clear. All sides seem to agree that horrible things are taking place here. How is it still open? Does the US believe that it needs to be closed at this point, and.
Just so, we believe that all of the investigation, all of the allegations need to be fully investigated, and anyone responsible needs to be held accountable. I think that's the appropriate first step before moving to anything else. We have seen the video and reports of sexual abuse of detainees are horrific. They ought to be investigated fully by the government of Israel, by the idef ought.
To be investigated fully by Israel. I'm sure, I'm sure they're going to.
Be and that look by actually considering that we were all basically gaslt about fake rape claims on October seventh, and it was held up by our president, by their government and by our media, and this one is on camera. That's look, what really drives me crazy is the hypocrisy. Like, that's actually where I just come down. I'm like, what are we doing? Why are we Why are we subverting ourselves to this client state that it's supposed to be
a reverse relationship, but they just can't help themselves. And look again, for the Israelis, I think domestically what's been happening over there, especially recently, is crazy and is going to be so detrimental to them in the long run, not only in terms of international legitimacy, but their own domestic populace. I mean, when you straight up can't prevent prisoners in a jail from being set free and having right wing or like protesters be hostage, you don't have
rule of law as a country anymore. You straight up it's over. And this is a tiny ass country. This is not the United States of America. You can't even argue federalism or local or any of that. I mean, this is a small population, small place, and when they have control over nukes and all this, who knows what's going to happen there in the next ten years.
It's a big problem.
About in the next ten days.
Yeah, because you know, we're really on the brink here, and you know, I think we're all surprised that we haven't seen the Iranian response yet. But no, that has a blow response yet. But that doesn't mean that it's not coming. In fact, in some ways, the length of time that has gone by between the provocation and the expected attack is deeply worrying. So yeah, I mean, you have a society is completely hinge, And I don't throw
the Nazi word around freely. But there is no other way to describe the rhetoric and the ideology that was being expressed on that television program, and the fact that that has become a mainstream enough view that the military is afraid to act to, you know, adjudicate our whole accountable even the most egregious and obviously well founded abuses, is a terrifying state of affairs from our great friends, the Israeli governments.
Really crazy, Chris, what are you taking all well?
When LBJ was considering joining JFK's ticket, he was famously counseled by former Vice President John Nance Garner that there wasn't much to be gained from the VP slot. As Garner colorfully put it, the vice presidency was quote not worth a bucket of warm piss.
Now Trump and JD.
Vance both been desperately trying to convince themselves that's actually the case. After Trump's own pick rapidly descended into heavy negative ratings. When asked if Vance was ready to serve on day one, Trump dumard before insisting that electorally the vice presidential pick, it really doesn't matter. Vance has, in humiliating fashion, picked up the talking point of insisting that his existence is really utterly inconsequential. This is, of course
extreme cope, even if we're just talking electorally. Biden mattered for Obama's election, Palin matter for McCain's loss, and Pence mattered for Trump's twenty sixteen victory.
As for LBJ, he took the job, of course.
Because he understood that's become vice president is to be placed on a likely path to power. Think George hw Bush running and winning after being VP for Reagan al Gore winning the Democratic nomination, of course, losing to Bush and Kamala Harris's sudden elevation to the top of the ticket. But in my opinion, the significance of Tim Walls could
be even more far reaching than that. Walls's selection has added weight because of the amorphous nature of Kamala's own ideology, due to how Walls breaks the mold of typical Democratic politicians, and most of all, because his selection comes at a pivot point in history when voters are desperate to shed the neoliberalism of the last forty years but have not yet settled on what might come next. In fact, Walls could just end up being the most consequential Vice presidential pick.
Since LBJ let me make the case so uptill morning the announcement, I really personally couldn't quite believe Kamala might actually select Walls.
Just think about it.
Her choice came down to a literal Obama mimic in Josh Shapiro. And I'm not just talking about the caden's and mannerisms. He's got the legal background Obama and literally every other Democratic ticket has had for decades.
Like Obama, he kept.
Unions at arm's length, even mirroring Obama's school voucher and charter school friendly approach. Shapiro was the darling of the Democratic conscier class and the pro Israel donor set, and these are the types of groups that typically get their way, and Shapiro is the type of highly educated technocrat who Democratic elites have found absolutely irresistible. But in what came to me as an absolute shock, Kamala instead selected the most diverse pick the Democratic Party has perhaps ever made.
He's diverse in that his entirely ordinary, everyman life is rare to the point of near non existence in Washington. A veteran who went to a state school before transitioning to become a public school teacher and football coach. This man literally just traveled to San Francisco for the first time ever this year. He wasn't a lawyer like Kamala and Obama, or a ventry guy like Vance, or a
billionaire like Trump. Walls literally doesn't even own any stocks, bonds, real estate, crypto investments of any kind outside of his state pensions. He's never had a book deal, He's never done a paid speaking gig. It's actually unbelievable and diametrically
opposed to the current makeup of the Democratic Party. But Wall's most clearly shadowed the typical Democratic Party mold by actually being interested in delivering policy wins for working people around simply having power for the sake of having power. As he said last year, quote, you don't win elections to bank political capital. You win elections to burn political
capital and improve lives. Can you think of an ideology more foreign to a national Democratic party obsessed with finding excuses for inaction than this stated commitment to taking the reins and throwing your weight around. The list of policy accomplishments Walls pushed through with a one vote majority is quite astounding. Kle has been touting this record for a while now. It includes universal free school meals, working class tax rebates, free college for anyone earning under eighty K,
twelve weeks paid family and sick leave on unions. He instituted sectoral bargaining for nursing home workers, ban noncompete clauses, and ban captive audience meetings. And this is really just the tip of the iceberg. The Minnesota Democrat Farm Labor Party called.
It the LSG agenda. Let's fucking go.
Walls's house record, while overall more centristy, includes some real gems too.
We actually stood up to Obama on TPP fast track authority.
He appears to be sort of instinctively anti warr opposed both the Iraq War and the bombing of Syria. But it's not just Walls's break from the typical dem mold of virtue, signaling and inaction that matters, both electorally and substantively. This agenda puts pretend pro family populace like JD Vance and the supposedly newly pro worker GOP in quite a bind. Asa Bamari wrote and a Peace warning Republicans about Walls's populous strength based on his rock solid pro family record, of achievement.
Quote.
It's the sort of legislation that self proclaimed pro family Republicans have too long resisted, even as they have lamented declining marriage and birth rates. There's a reason these types of Republicans resist simple and popular agenda items. It's because child tax credit, family paid family leave, and the like. They're all coded as liberal. The only real consistent Republican
ideology is worshiping Trump and owning the Libs. That's why Vance, for example, can't just say he supports family leave or a child tax credit and studies got a pure edgy by ostentatiously offending a large group of people a la childless cat ladies. Or he's got to advocate for some bizarre and constitutional hair brain scheme like letting parents cast more votes than non parents. Trump, for his part, doesn't
even really pretend to care about any of this. In other words, Democrats are finally showing up to play in the battle for what comes after neoliberalism, and Republicans, outflanked now on populism, find themselves flailing around talking about tampons, definitely trying to recreate some swift boat magic from two thousand and four, hurling around accusations about anti Semitic microaggressions and inventing Olympic gender controversies, which, yes, to both voters,
that all seems pretty weird. With another candidate and another time, Wallas's record as the vice presidential pick might be as important as that bucket of warm piss. But this is not a normal time, and Kamala is not a normal candidate. A look at her long history in the public eye leaves one fairly convinced she has no real ideology, no real core beliefs. There seems to be no commitment on which he won't ben, no principle on which she won't budge.
She has sat for no interviews since Biden's dropout. She has hastily dropped previous policy commitments that she personally found to be unhelpful. She appears easily moved by whoever happens to have her ear, and now Tim Walls he's got her ear. She could have picked the Obama clone, and instead she chose FDR in a Camo hat. Now this should not trick you into thinking Kamala is herself secretly pining to be FDR. Actually it indicates something that to
me is far more important. And far more exciting for the ambitious power seeking politician with no discernible ideological commitments. It is more politically expedient to seek out the modern new dealer than the technocratic neolip. Kamala reportedly did extensive pull testing before making her choice. Ruthless operators Obama and
Pelosi both reportedly lined up behind Walls as well. Yes, Kamala may have enjoyed his affable demeanor and non threatening answers as opposed to the blind ambition oozing out of Shapiro, but ultimately she and her team made a hard nosed, data driven political decision, and for one of the first times ever, that calculus led to an unambiguously good and
populist result. Well, personally, I can't think of anything that is more exciting as for that path to power, I got to tell you today, I think Kumlin Walls do defeat Trump advance. The vibes, as they say, are off the charts. But whether she loses or wins, Walls is now in the pole position to be the next Democratic nominee, noving Walls as opposed to Shapiro, Mark Kelly at all setting the course for the future of the Democratic Party
is actually quite consequential. Instead of a lawyer rerunning the Obama playbook, we've got a Midwestern populist trained in the Paul Wellstone school, so disinterested in the success of the stock market that he literally doesn't own a single security. Doesn't mean the battle is one far from it. US is still aiding a genocide. The world sits on the precipice of a massive war crafts or emerging an economy that was already far too geared towards the wealthy and
Wall Street goruls and billionaires. They still brazenly throw their cash around to extract political favors.
All of that's still true.
There is nothing inevitable about progress, but the width of possibility is in the air, and that, frankly, is far more than I was expected just a month ago. Now, in two thousand and eight, I naively believed in the promise of hope and change, the idea one guy could come out of nowhere and be totally transformational, charting a new course for the country. Everything about that political lens was dead wrong. Obama is just Bill Clinton politics in a cool modern disguise, and I now believe that the
political moment is more important than the individual personality. Walls is a sent coming on the heels of some Biden
shifts towards domestic populism. Is evidence that perhaps the era has shifted, that the anti populism practiced by neoliberal technocrats is on the wane, and a new logic is on the way in that the best of the Biden administration on unions and anti trust and industrial policy wasn't a blip but a beginning, that the labor movement is coming back to life and exerting real pressure and influence, along
with other left organizing like the Uncommitted Movement. So though you may find a cringe, I do find myself once again filled with hope, not for a savior, though, because what is most important about Wall isn't who he is, but a possible shift he represents. And it is because Kamala is so devoid of any And if you.
Want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
So here with the aforementioned reporting on sanctions, and also weigh in a little bit on the conversation Saga and I were just having with regards to Tim Walls is Jeff Steining.
Great to see Jeff.
Good to see you, sir.
Thanks for having me guys.
Yeah, of course, so you tweeted this. We can put this up on the screen about Tim Walls. You were taking a little glance at his economic philosophy, and he had apparently put out this idea the economy is a garden, not a jungle. When you combine this with his record in the state of Minnesota, you know, what can you say about his sort of economic view and how he might add to a potential Kamala Harris administration.
Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at his record as a member of the House, he was clearly aligning himself with the more moderate wing of the party. He had a vote score that was pretty centrist. But when he had the chance to implement pretty progressive legislation in Minnesota, it seems like he ran with that everyone knows by now, a creational marijuana the biggest child tax credit for low income families of any state in the country. After the Biden one fell apart all kinds of other
progressive legislation that you know, they had a trifecta. There were people, you know, who were pushing it, so we had the opportunity to do it, which a lot of governors probably would do if they also had the chance. But at a minimum, we can say he did not stand in the way of progressive legislation and seems to be quite outspoken, particularly about free school lunches, which I think is an issue that Democrats see as a very effective populist policy that they can run on.
So, Jeff, you have always been so good at this. What has been your experience so far trying to get some policy positions and perhaps some insight into a quote unquote day one agenda from the Harris campaign.
A really good question. Yeah, in some ways, she is a bit of a tabula ross. It's a little bit like what does she actually stand for? Because in twenty twenty she sort of was aiming for the burning wing of the party, right you guys remember, like she called for banning fracking, medicare for all. I think I did a store at one point, I was like, is Kamala Harris's seven trillion dollars green new deal big enough? Like yeah,
looks absurd? Yes, but you know, as a member of the Biden administration, And since then, she's kind of distanced herself. We've seen her say that she doesn't support a fracking band anymore. She's put distance between herself and the Medicare for All proposals. So what is it that she supports? And on a lot of issues she actually seems to be a bit of a cipher. We don't really know where she stands on antitrust policy, which I think you guys have done some work on industrial policy, I think
is another big question mark. My sense from talking to people who have worked with her is that there's a few things that she does really care about. The things that I have heard that she feels in her bones are the care economy proposals, childcare, paid family leave, pre universal pre K. Those are things that she, you know, she's been working with the SCIU very closely for a long time and she seems to feel those those policies
quite deeply. Medical debt, like reforming or canceling medical debt, and student debt are also things that have come up
a lot, housing maybe to a slightly lesser extent. It's an interesting you know, I wouldn't say that she doesn't care about industrial policy or unions or infrastructure, but her you know, Biden had for thirty forty years been like you know, if like he woke them up in the middle of the night, he would have like a theory about what was wrong with the economies, like big corporations, like you know, like his desire to like be union Joe was like solidified over years, and like he had
an alliance with blue collar trades men that like went back decades. He also, I think obviously had a centrist legacy on on credit cards and student debt. Right her, her policy positions are so much more unformed, but we're starting to see an emergence of like this set of issues that I think would sort of make sense to finish sort of the stuff that Biden was unable to do, the parts of the Build Back Better agenda that Mansion killed.
You can see her sort of gearing up to make a push to finish those.
Gotcha all right, Let's go and talk about your work on sanctions, which is extraordinary. I really recommend people read through this piece because I think it's so important to understand this. You say, how for US presence unleashed economic warfare across the globe, and you track the way that the US sanctions regime has widely expanded, and you also track the way that in many critical regards, it has failed to accomplish the goals, the supposed goals that were set out for.
So give us the broad strokes of what you were looking at here.
Yeah, it's like, as a reporter who covers the Treasury Department, I'm on their newslest serve and every week they send an email that's like new list of people who we've sanctioned, right, And it's like I was reading these emails like every it felt like almost every day in my inbox, a new group of people would be sanctioned by the US government. And it's like, what is the volume of this? Like that's with the imputus of the reporting. It's like how
big is this thing? And we reported an analysis we did internally that took a lot of time to do, but we found that a third of all countries on Earth are under some form of US sanctions. And the number that really I found jaw dropping in the piece, sixty percent of all poor low incomnations are under some form of US sanctions. So we are talking about I mean, just off the top of my head, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Mali,
the Democratic Republic of Congo. I could go on. I mean the number of countries Burma, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Like, this is a breathtakingly large list that I think. I'm so glad that reporting has gotten the reception it has, because I feel like the more I report on this, the more amazed I was that people were so unaware. I mean even I, as someone who covers this issue specifically, I was like, I had no idea that it was this.
I know, we're sanctioning Burma.
Oh that would mean yeah, I was gonna say it's actually yeah, that's it's fun, which which one you're saying it portrays it lot. What I found most interesting about it was about both the how obvious it is in many cases of a backfire or of unintended consequences, and not the Treasury Department ever factoring that into their decision making. I see this with the Russia thing all the time. As you point out, you're like, yeah, it's weakened them some.
Now we've also created, though, this entire like offshore fleet of ships which just operate outside the realm of the US financial system. So can you talk about like, is there any feedback loop. Is there ever any assessment because from reading your story, it just seems like it just compounds, like we invent new sanctions and we try something else, but there's never any you know, ask of both bipartisan of does this actually work? Like is this accomplishing the goal that we set out to do?
That's such a good question. And Zaga. I mean, I think when you talk to US officials about this, they recognize that the pressure to impose sanctions, the like sort of institutional force that pushes this apparatus along is something happens anywhere in the world, and then there's there's this like force to to do something about it, and because we don't want to go to war in some cases, because the the impetus for that has has you know,
I think you know, subsequent presidents have seen the dangers of going to war. We've you know, obviously there's the disasters in I Rock in Afghanistan. Following that there was a sense that this is politically that disastrous, and then simultaneously there's pressure not to do nothing, and so sanctions is like in this this this in between position that that presidents find that they can do something that's not war but then there's no evaluation after the fact, after
the new cycle has moved on. And so we have a chart in the story that shows the number of sanctions that has been that are removed after they're imposed is breathtakingly small, because there isn't really any apparatus within the government evaluating whether these have worked after they've been imposed. Cuba, of course, is like the paradigmatic example of this. We've
had sanctions on Cuba for over sixty years. And this is the thing where like you would talk to some you know, you talk to like a young leftist and be like, what are you thinking of? Like the Cuba
sanctions are terrible? But I was astonished by the number of like senior sort of like foreign policy hawk types that I would talk to for this story who would be like like quasi supportive of like Afghanistan, you know, and they'd be like, ca, you believe we still have sanctions on Cuba, and like you're like the guy who like the caricature of the person who's like in the back office of the Pentagon, rushing pushing a more hawkish foreign policy, and even these people are like, what are
we getting out of this?
Right?
And so the thing with this is like the political incentives are only to go forward. No one really thinks the government for moving sanctions. Maybe sort of people in those countries would feel that way, but those aren't important domestic political constituencies where you have you know, in the case of Cuba, members of Florida of both parties are like, do not remove these sanctions or we will have a field day. And so there's there's only political downside for
taking the risk of removing sanctions. And so then you just see them pile up pilot.
Pilot, Yeah, because who wants to I mean, listen, with regard to Florida, it's a red state now, so maybe we could have a more sane policy, like why are we still why are we still doing this thing at this point? But to your point, it reminds me of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Like everyone there was a huge national consensus and Trump flirted with withdrawing with that from Afghanistan, et cetera, et cetera, but actually doing it is messy and no one wants to be you know that guy.
It's the same thing with sanctions. It's an easy political hit. You know, you can see them quing up the talking points on Fox News about you took the sanctions off.
Of Iran and how could you?
And these are evil people, et cetera, et cetera, so there's nothing politically to be gained from rolling them back. I'd love for you to you speak to that as well. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. But dig into the Russian sanctions regime. If I'm not incorrect, I believe this is now the most sanctioned country on Earth.
And yes it's taken a hit.
It's not like it's been totally painless for them, but it's also had massive, significant downsides. And I also don't think has been nearly as devastating to them as was initially anticipated.
Yeah, for the story, we try to come up with a sanctioned severity index because the scale of sanctions is so hard to pinpoint. And I had experts who are like, it's wrong because of this, and experts who would say, like, your sanction severity index is wrong in the completely opposite direction,
which made it hard to reconcile. But one thing people did agree about was that the volume of sanctions on Russia is I think the greatest of any country, Like we have imposed more sanctions on Russia than we have on any other country. But the number of sanctions can be a little misleading relative to their impact. So with a country like Iran and North Korea, we can say
not have business with this country. We can impose a sort of breathtakingly sweeping secondary sanctions regime where we can say to European officials, you guys cannot trade with them either or we will sanction you. Right, that's like the scale of American hegemonys. It's breathtaking. But that can also
just be like two sanctions. You know, you can just impose two sanctions on Iran and cut them off from the global economy, right, whereas Russia you can be like, we will not take the sanctioned step that cuts them off entirely, but we will sanction like Dimitri's like vodka shot that like has no business in the West anyway, and then like thirty suppliers of military hardware that that
like are in like Eastern Russia. So it's like the US has these political incentives to keep pushing out additional sanctions. They like try to like full reporters into writing headlines that are like which I think they're actually quite good at full as strong. So but like they will put out press releases that are like like when they were there was pressure to respond to the Navolni, the Russian dissident who died in prison. There was there was a lot of pressure on the US to do something big,
and they came out with this announcements. US imposes four hundred sanctions on Russian response, and like beneath the hood, like almost none of these were of of economic economically significant imps.
Yeah, so that's a good point.
So I saw this with regard to Israel. We're going to sanction these yea.
The West Bank settlers, three guys.
And these guys are like, we don't do any business with you anyways, so whatever, we're.
Just we're upset about the symbolic you know, meaning of that. But how much did that hurt is really economy? It seems quite little.
Sorry, no, no, I was just thinking, so in the future was with the assessment and all that first, like why did you set out to write the story?
Like what what? What even you know inspired you to do this?
I think just just realizing that this is the main tool of US foreign policy and it felt so under examined or under explored. It's really tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people that are affected by this, and you look at I mean, I think one of the things that kind of accelerated my reporting was looking at the case of Venezuela. I mean, there's so many international examples to talk about here, but in the case of Venezuela, the number of people hurt by that country's economic collapse
is breathtaking. I mean, they had the single biggest decline of any economy not at war in modern history, seventy one percent economic contraction. That is bigger than Ukraine in twenty twenty two, bigger than Iraq in two thousand and three, It's bigger than Zimbabwe in the last twenty years. Like, this is a catastrophe that is among the worst humanitarian disasters we've had this century. And there's a huge whose debate about the extent to which, like US sanctions exacerbated that.
But the consensus among the economists I talked to is like cutting off Venezuelan economic officials from refinancing their debt on global markets, cutting off their main their their their source of ninety six percent of export revenue, which is there the pair of Vessa, which was the main the state on oil enterprise, which was like the sort of life blood of their economy. We saw malnutrition and poverty and you know, hunger and all these horrific indices increase.
And if you ask, like a friend, you know, like about a rock or Afghanistan, like they'll be able to tell you, like the US like went in and like
all these people died and like they know. But sanctions have operated in this sphere where because the language of economic warfare is so desiccated, is so removed from like the viscerality of guns and bloodshed, we don't see the consequences the same, even if they can be at even if the human toll can be as severe, if not more severe, if you cut off a country's access to food and medicine, it can be worse than it targeted
and military strike. But because of you know, for some un understandable reasons, because of the way the media works and the way human attention works, it doesn't concentrate our attention in that sort of in that sort of way.
So I know I'm rambling a little bit, but no, no, no, it's very helpful.
How much is your what is your sense of how much are sanctions regimes on various countries. You mentioned Venezuela have contributed to immigration flows, and that may be true, you know, here to the US, but also in other places around the world.
Yeah, so we're doing as you guys mentioned the series. And the third story in our series was about how the Department of Homeland Security had produced internal warnings under Trump that went to the Trump White House that said tighter sanctions on the Venezuelan regime risks fueling out migration in the region. So this was a risk that the Trump White House was made aware of in these classified reports that were described to us by senior administration officials.
And the migration crisis out of Venezuela is a key part of the humanitarian catastrophe. More than seven million people have left Venezuela since the crisis started. That predates US sanctions in part, but was accelerated by it. We were talking about something like a don't quotent a fifth or
a sixth of the country attempting to leave. Wow. And then we have this situation at the border, which was, to be fair to the Republicans, was not was not that was not caused you know, by sanctions and only spiked after Biden relaxed some Trump border policies, which the left will yell at me for saying, but is just
sequentially true. True. Yeah, but there's also no doubt that that a big source of migrants that was part of the Biden border crisis was migrants from Cuba and migrants from Venezuela to two country that that had been heavily sanctioned, and as we reported, they knew that that was a risk of tighter sanctions.
That's very interesting, Well, Jeff, we highly recommend people read the piece. We're gonna put the description down on the link. And we always appreciate my friend.
Thank you.
Love being on Thank you. I love being able to like explain things at length and five seconds.
We love having things explain to us.
So read It's really really good. All right, We'll see you guys later