Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Christal, indeed we do.
We are making a little bit of breaking points history this morning. That focus group that we have been teasing now for I guess weeks, that's this point. We have some results that we can share with you. The gentleman who ran the focus group, James from Jail Partner, is going to be here to go through some of the top clips. We've got stuff for you though that we're going to be unrolling all weeks, so we're very excited about that. In addition to that, we have some big
news stories that we want to cover. There was a real big expos in the New York Times about an American arms dealer to Ukraine. That is very revealing. This is just as the G twenty summit has also wrapped up. We have some big news I know you guys are going to be excited about. Nancy Pelosi has announced she is running for re election again, Sager, So everyone rejoice about that. And in terms of JFK news, this is
an interesting development. One of the Secret Service agents that was there in Dallas at the time of his assassination has decided he wants to tell his story and it does not line up with the official narrative.
So we'll break those details down for you as well.
But before we get to any of that, huge, huge, thank you the premium subscribers who made this focus group possible.
Yes, I look, we keep saying it. We finally have finished work product. You guys can be able to see it already. Our coverage, our focus group has been getting mainstream media attention and that's only possible because of all of you. That's a big deal for an and show like ours, and these things cost a lot of money. We want to continue to keep doing them. You know, they're well out to the five figures in terms of
the cost. So any one of you who was signing up, you were being tremendously helpful and funding these expansion endeavors. So Breakingpoints dot Com, if you are able to it means the world to us, and we're producing good work. One of the things I'm most proud of in our focus group, not only about the attention it's already got, you know, even though it's been one day, is that we got to things that the regular media companies just
were not getting to. And I think what we really did is we are giving people a very good view of like this is what people actually think. Show don't tell is the most important thing. Too many people are always speaking on behalf of others, and you know, we're very proud to elevate just normal voices and be like, listen, this is These are the people who support Trump or support to Santis, to support for vacer some people who are undecided. This is where they get their news.
We got we got a Doug Burgham supporter.
Yeah, we got a Doug Burgham supporter, which is hilarious. But the point, you know that from watching the whole thing, which our amazing crew did such a good jobs, I was like I just came away with a way better understanding of like how people think of like people who are engaging this you know, normal everyday life on Facebook, moms, school teachers, people who are retired, and they're like, this
is what they actually think about politics. So refreshing actually to take a break from whatever, you know, pundits and how they're talking about.
Yeah, I mean listen, Like polls have some use that can be limited, but to actually hear voters in their own words subscribe, who they support, why they support, and what they think about the major issues of the day, I think, you know, it's it's not scientific, but it's incredibly valuable just to give people a sense of how
we're doing this. So for the main show, we're going to be showing you some of the top clips every day this week and providing you, you know, with our thoughts and reaction to some of the really interesting moments.
Today we're going to focus on kind of.
The top line, who is everybody supporting and why and some of that that information, and then throughout the week we also have some more issue specific clips that we can show you as well. From premium subscribers, you are going to have access to the whole thing.
This week, so you'll be able to get.
Access to all of that first and then later in the week we'll have.
Put it all together for everybody.
Here you go. Yeah, So, as you said, premium subs, you guys are going to get the full thing before anybody else. We're going to give you a full, completely produced version of which we're working on. We're again, we're really really proud of it. With all of that, we got James Johnson and Jail Partner standing by. Let's get to it.
As we have been discussing at length at this point, we hear Breaking Points, with the help of our premium subscribers, commissioned a focus group of New Hampshire Republicans to offer their insights, how they're thinking about this primary who they're interested in, who they're not interested in, what issues are the priorities.
Et cetera.
And if you want to help us do this sort of work in the future, and if you want to get the whole beautifully edited piece of video and all the focus group details first in your inbox, make sure you subscribe Breakingpoints dot com. Without further ado, though, we want to bring in James Johnson of Jail Partners, who was the moderator of this focus group, and by the way, did a fantastic job getting a lot of very interesting information and out of these voters.
Welcome James, thank you, thanks for having me.
Yeah, of course, So we want to show some of the clips. But before we do what we're sort of your top line takeaways. Being there with this group the entire.
Time, I think us first we're saying who we actually selected. So we went for likely New Hampshire primary voters. Almost all of them were vegeted Republicans and there was one independent because obviously don't forget independence can vote in the New Hampshire presidential primary. Who intended to participate in the primary, and we got a mix of people, some who made up the mind, some who are on the side is we really didn't know going into the room who they
were going to say they were voting for. And as we'll see, it is still Trump's game to lose that he dominates this focus group, even though there is a split view on him. Some are sort of okay with him, some love him, some really don't like him.
It's all about Trump.
We asked them, you know, what are their most important issues, and we had the economy, we had reproductive rights and other issues. But really, when we got down to the nitty gritty, it was Trump that it was all about.
One of the defining ones that you guys did was where are you getting news from? Which actually revealed a lot about all of them. So we have their clip, why don't we take a listen.
I was saying to these guys, we did have a fight once in the UK, so you know, you have to make sure that you beat the good people of Britain by not having a fight. First, name what you do for the thing?
Where you getting news from?
Okay, James, I work in it and I get my news from podcasts or the internet, like a news site like a CNN or NBC.
Any particular podcasts.
Five thirty eight podcasts.
Yeah, I am Dana. I'm a full time homemaker and I get my news from like a daily email briefing, which one the morning brew.
Hi, my name is Neve. I am a homemaker, homeschooler, and I get most of my news shared amongst other moms and folks in non mainstream type groups.
What kind of sort of can give you an example of any of those, like.
Health freedom groups or folks who are more leaning like opposing mainstream media.
Hi, I'm Jennifer. I'm a business analyst, and I get my news from mostly the internet, different websites NBC, CNBC, Fox News, and whatever. The one that pops up on my computer that I don't even ask for it shows me the headlines, okay, and also when I check my email the headlines there.
My name is Debbie and I am a homemaker, part time teacher, and I get my news from my husband, but I do watch Fox News and techer Carlson.
Great, thanks so much?
Is that calls on X now right, Jim.
I'm in advertising sales and I give most of my news from either Glenn Beck shot Hannity and the two guys at noon, and I heard radio.
Hi.
My name is John. I'm a retired service technician and I get my news from Newsmax.
Hello.
I'm Alexis. I'm an administrator for a state agency, and I get my news primarily from the internet, local TV stations as well as national ones primarily WMR, as well as the local Conquered Monitor and other local newspapers.
So what do you make of that, James? What did where they got their news from? Eventually then inform some of their answers because before we preview what they actually say about who they're going to vote for.
Well, I think what's very worth noting there is that there's a lot of sort of independent news sources, some alternative news sources, and really what sort of fed through the entire focus group was a real skepticism about traditional news media. Yes, and they were skeptical about stories that heard. They talked about how they would go and google stories after they'd seen them to check to fact check them and see there And it's worth saying that is something
we see in all of our focus groups. There's a big move away from those traditional sources, including in the United Kingdom as well as in the US. So I think we see that informing a bit of that. And you saw the chap there mentioned Newsmax, You saw others mention other sources. They are coming at this from a very diffuse perspective, not just lying on one classic cable news network or one newspaper.
Right.
That was what jumped down at me was just how many different answers were given. I mean, no one gave the same answer, and Fox did not dominate.
That's what I was going to say.
If you had asked this question of Republican primary voters a decade ago, I think almost all of them would have been like Fox News, but the landscape is so much more fraction now. Now, I will say, if you're like you can kind of very closely expect who's going to be where on the political spectrum and what things they're going to focus on based on the news preferences that they give at the top there, which is part of why we.
Wanted to introduce them to the audience with that clip.
Now, let's take a listen to another section where you ask them who are they supporting and what are they thinking about the Let's take a listen to that.
So write it down the name of the person, the name of the candidate who you're currently supporting.
I would say Trump, And the reason being is because I would look back at his presidential days and all that was accomplished and what America was like, and then I would fast forward to where America is now and I wouldn't want to keep going that way.
Trump, there we go, sorry, And the reason being is his past accomplishments we did in you know, four three and a half four years, and he does support the working class a lot more, I think than the other party does right now, and also what he's fighting now when he's going through the political firestorm of all these affidavits. As he said, I'm fighting for you because if this can happen to me, it will happen to you. If you say the wrong thing. You're in trouble today.
Trump definitely because he needs to put his back where we were with oil depends, secured borders, great economy, just looking off for us. He made give a military or raise when they hadn't happened for decades or years, I should say, and he made the VA better than what it was, and he's just he needs to take over where he left off, which is making us where we were, especially with the oil independence.
Hey maybe I can't remember the guy's name from South Dakota. I was looking into some of his ideas, and I would think that we should still stay with a Republican but not necessarily Trump. I'd like to see some a
little bit more of rational thinking come through. While I like how Trump had some ideas that were great and his financial abilities were leading us in the right direction, some of his changes that he put in while he was in tterm directly affected my work and I didn't agree with them some of them.
Doug Burgham, is that who you were thinking of?
Great?
Okay, I'm currently undecided, but I would be leaning towards Governor DeSantis.
A main reason we just executive.
Experience of things. He's accomplished in a very purple state, can get things done, had the largest victory in recent memory for Florida even though it's a divided state. So you know, he can get things done. And I just don't think he's quite as divisive or antagonistic as President Trump would be.
I'm considering the vague for my vote. I think he's sort of an outsider, and I don't think he has any political ties that are going to influence everything I think, So I'm not so I'm considering right now.
Leading to Trump because he isn't a politician. He is a businessman. On his list of accomplishments was tremendously good for our country. My main hang up is that he pushed through the sort of COVID things, the shots and whatnot.
I honestly don't know yet. I really don't. I agree with the warp speed kind of did it for me. So I'm not one hundred percent for Trump, but desanded. I see some good points, but I'm not really positive yet. I haven't really made up my mind yet. Might be naive, but I was hoping for somebody out of nowhere to come in.
I want to pick up on why you're sort of leaning away from Trump.
I think we'll have a much better shount of winning without Trump at the top of the ticket. I honestly think if Trump isn't on top of the ticket, we're going to lose all the state races in New Hampshire because he's very unliked, very unlikable. I appreciate all the things he did, but in office, I think he did do a good job, but he's not a likable person. He's not a great person, and I think it would be a devastating effect on Republicans across the country to
have him at the top of the ticket. I think we would feel that everywhere not worth it.
Going with the vaccine, I too do not agree with the vaccine and got a vaccine vaccine myself. It's a free choice to do so. I know Trump did say I would not force the vaccine anybody. I do believe that Trump was given some bad advice pit Chucky with doctor Fosse and I forget the other woman that was there. There's a lot of manipulation going on that the media will not be truthful about, but that is allow what took place. I think you got some bad advice.
Well, there's many things that I agree with them on. I mean, the four years. There are some things, like I think a lot of times he speaks without thinking, and I think that that's a detriment to himself. But I do think that the media warps so much of what is truly going on, and I feel like that's a huge problem this in many areas, like with many of these candidates. I mean, it's hard to know the true person underneath the met because it really it depends.
If you listen to CNN, it tells you one thing, if you listen to Fox News, it tells you a different thing. How can we make America great again? Because it's not great right now. It's not great. And I've got six kids and I'm watching them have to grow up in this and that worries me about what they're going to have to live with if somebody doesn't start shaking the boots somewhere.
He's a businessman and he has a lot of hot back on him, and that's why he says some of the things that he does because he's just he's a businessman, but he does right by the people. He could walk away anytime he wants, with all his money, but he's still fighting to come back and say, I have to finish the job. I have to make as great again. When he put the tarifts on China, was bringing jobs back and doing the border. So that's why I like
the guy. And yes, he doesn't say a lot of presidential things that he should be saying, but he also says a lot of things that people are thinking, but they won't come right out and say it. So let's call it what it is.
I've seen you shaking a head a couple of times.
I'm baffled by these arguments. I mean, he got bad advice. You want a president who got bad advice? That's really a cop out. But I think mail and ballots are here to stay, So they're here. So the Beadia trumping up COVID and bringing COVID into the story, you think that helps President Biden to have a COVID outbreak on his watch. That definitely does not help him. So I think could Trump beat him. Maybe we all agree that Biden is totally incompetent, I think, and Trump already lost
to him. Now maybe it was a rigged election, but it shouldn't even been close. Right, He's Biden is totally incompetent. He shouldn't even win five states. So why don't we choose a candidate it doesn't come with all the baggage and all the issues and all the media hating him and all that. Let's get a fresh voice in there that can really whoever is the Republican nominee, should wipe the floor with. But it not be in a situation where a mail in ballad or media thing to swing.
It shouldn't even be that close, you know, don't leave it to the rest.
Right, So obviously these things aren't scientific.
They're just a snapchot. But that being said, I feel like.
You got a lot of the like, Yeah, that was a lot of what you see in some of the interpersonal dynamics and some of the things they like about dropping some of the question marks. They have also love the lady who's the Doug Burghram supporter who doesn't remember his name or what state he's throwing. And I genuinely mean that. I appreciate she's like, I researched it and I linked his policy positions.
But what did you make of that?
Because it does seem like, even though there was some favorable sentiment towards the Santis and even towards some of the other candidates, Trump is really still the central defining issue of this whole thing.
He is and this audience matches really what the New Hampshire poles look like around half backing Trump and the other sort of diffused across other candidates.
Yeah, that's right, I fell there are three key.
Groups in this focus group that are in that New Hampshire Electra as a whole. One of the sort of Trump true believers. And you saw that with those three people at the back there, you know they were he had made a values connect with them. He was their guy. He smashed it as the president in his view, in their view, and they really wanted to see him come back. Then we had the sort of Trump agnostics, those people
in the middle ground. You saw the lady in the front row there talking about she liked him, she had a few concerns about COVID. They doubt Trump's effectiveness. But you can still see them backing hit them, you can still see them backing him come a general election. Yeah, and then you have that third group really sort of exemplified by James on the front row there, who we just saw these people who are opposed to Trump. They think that he's not only lost his effectiveness, he's lost
some of this sort of more right to govern. And those three groups are absolutely key to sort of who can win because Trump and he needs to carry the first two of those groups, and he's got.
It there you go.
He doesn't even have to carry all of the first two of those groups. And so part of what I'd love to get more from you on to me, well, yes, Trump is the dominant central figure. It did show if you did have one candidate that could consolidate the other two groups, they maybe would have a path, They maybe would have a shot. And there were some questions raised there that were, you know, part of the Desantas pitch.
We're going to talk more about COVID in a minute, but I was actually surprised how many people at this late date are bringing up COVID and as a core critique of Trump. Of like, well, I liked a lot of what he did, but what he did in the pandemic, I have some questions about that. I'm not sure about that. That's something that DeSantis has tried to run on. What did they think of some of the other the other candidates.
Well, Rond de Santis came out of this pretty well. Okay, they're not saying they'd vote for him, but when we asked them about what their views on him, they were uniformly favorable. One of the Trump true believers at the back there said why couldn't he run in four years time? And others were positive. These Trump attack lines on DeSantis haven't landed with Trump supporters. And also you see that with Tim Scott as well. There are positive things said
about him. Nicki Haley was a little bit more divisive, Mike Pence a bit more divisive, coming up against that, coming up against those pro Trump people, you know, rubbing up against them badly a little bit. But you know, the Santists, the Tim Scott's, they are liked. The problem is is, as you say, there's no one name for them to rally around, and as long as that field
stays diffused, It's exactly what happened in twenty sixteen. Trump won in New Hampshire in twenty sixteen because he had a split field up against him, and we're headed towards the same thing.
Well, the important is Doug Burgham's race to lose.
The important thing to also see is that they disagree on where they depart from Trump. So like James, the IT guy, he's like, well, I think he was divisive. I think he's got bad advice. But then the other people are like, well, actually I don't like the act they did, Operation Warp Speed. You know, it's like they have very different views about how exactly that's going to go, which is why I don't think one person could unite. And let's turn then to COVID, because COVID actually leaped
out to us. It became really interesting the mainstream media, who we shared our focus group with, they actually picked on on this immediately. Was a lot of the fears around return of COVID restrictions and of impact on the election, mail and balloting and all that. Let's take a listen to that and we're going to talk about it afterwards.
Like candidates have said it, I've said, can can Donald Trump beat Jay Biden?
Problem is the fair election? So here you go again, we're starting the cranking up with the COVID supposedly with the masking, and you know it's going to it's the same play that it did four years ago. They're going to play the mail in ballots and the chieting's going to take place, and you know it's just it's gonna be the same scenario again.
I work in the schools and a couple of the teachers were like, you know, already Gove's coming in the masks. Some of the schools are already going online, some of the things are getting some of the colleges are getting shut down, like it's it's like a deja vu. And then you think about it, Okay, so then the mail in ballot's got to come, Like do I think he can beat them?
Absolutely? If it's fair.
So you think that that that COVID stuff, you think is linked to the elections and who's who's doing that, Who's orchestrating that?
The Democratic Party? It was It was an articles written by I figure what the news magazine was, but as a as a little news magazine, and they came out and basically said it was planned to have the election go the way it was and a lot of Republicans went along with that plan because they wanted to keep the swamp. They want to keep the dirty politics. And some of the Republicans are involved with that, and it was a planned event and they use COVID as a way to push it in.
With the pandemic. We see it coming again, and there's a lot of writing on the wall. I think there's a lot of money exchange. There's big farmers behind it all. As far as can Trump beat Biden, I think I could probably beat Biden at this point. The guy's stumbling around, forgets where he is, can't remember his words, doesn't know what he's talking about, And so I wonder, like, really, who's
who's running. We put the name Biden on it, but who's really hold those puppet strings and can jump win over those?
Put your hands up if you think the twenty twenty election was rigged. I'm repeating what you guys have some of you guys have said back to me. Here this idea that COVID is coming back up again. Put your hands up if you think that's a deliberate plan to try and basically stitch the next election up for the Democrats.
It's all about fear and that's what it is. It's all above fear. Scare everybody, stay indoors, wear your masked. COVID is coming back. I'm here to help.
It's fear, it's.
Control to divide people.
Well, if you think that's the case, you know, I ask the question again. You know, for at least four of you nodding there. You know, I don't know about the exact semantics, but you're repeating, aback what you said to me. You put your hands up if you do think that there's at least some connection between COVID coming back and the next election being rigged for the Democrats.
So clearly it's not only about return of COVID restrictions. I've seen this too in terms of people, you know, like talking about stories of this one college bringing back mass mandates, so like, oh, that's going to justify you know this, I know Alex Jones and others who have been talking about it. So clearly that is going through, you know, to a lot of the voters. But then you also saw the divide in terms of somebody like James, the person in our focus group who didn't raise his
hand whenever he said the election was stolen. He was the only one who departed in the previous clip. He's like, why would that be good for President Biden? But I mean, the divide there seemed one of the starter ones and one of the things that really jumped out that we didn't expect to see.
Absolutely, and it's correlating with some sort of pro Trump on the one hand, concerns about twenty twenty election and these you know, couple of people in the group who were resistant to those kind of things, but that was the majority of you in that group that COVID is linked to the next election basically going the same way in their eyes as the previous one, which they view
as being rigged for Joe Biden. Now this says to me that, you know, if we fast forward to an election where Trump and Biden of the candidates, which obviously is not guaranteed, but let's assume that is the case, and we get a bides and winning that election, that is going to cause a lot of rancor and a big, big pool of distrust amongst these voters.
They're already been set up for it.
I mean, and I've seen these I've just noticed this in the past few weeks.
There are a couple of little stories.
There's like an elementary school near here that did masks for ten days or something. And these stories have been blowing up huge in right wing media, and you know, it's partly what those media outlets are choosing to coverage cover, and it's also partly what these voters are primed to really believe. And so they you know, they when they see that story, it fits into their mental pattern of, oh, this is what happened last time, is what's going to
happen again? You know, I thought, not only in terms of jeez, we saw what happened last time, A majority of Republicans thought the election was RAI its catastrophe on January sixth, and it was, you know, a genuine sort of threat to the core of democracy here. But if we have that happen again, obviously that's a scary scenario. The other thing that I thought about, though, is doesn't this end up being sort of self defeating for Trump?
If your voters think it's going to be rigged anyway, does it make it.
Harder to motivate them to the polls?
And we saw a little bit of this in the Georgia Senate races that happened, you know, came right on the heels of twenty twenty, and you had some influencers and I think the President's son, Don Junior going down to Georgia and basically saying like it was rigged.
It was stolen.
And there was a lot of analysis at the time that this really demotivated people, because what's the point of, you know, upending your day and doing some of the hurdles that it takes to show up at the polls if you don't think your vote is going to count anyway. So to me, it's sort of a double edged sword for them that they already have this idea baked in that the election is going to be rigged and their votes are going to be stolen.
Absolutely, and particularly when you think the Republicans do skew older and older people tend to use mail in ballots more so that is obviously a factor as well. What I would say is that local Republican party state parties have been changing their message on mail in ballots over the last year since the midterms, at least yeah, saying you know, we actually sign up, we need to do this, We need to play the Democrats at their own game.
We expect that to have an impact.
But what these focus groups tell us is they tell us not just what people are thinking in terms of their.
Vote, but whether they might vote.
And this turnout question is going to be absolutely crucial that's twenty twenty four election, because which song they can get its people out is critical to the result. And we're going to see that with the election integrity argument. But we're also going to see it on abortion and reproductive rights. Democrats will be hoping to put abortion plev sites on the ballot in various states to try and boost their turnout overall. So these focus groups also give
us insight into that what's driving them. Are they actually going to turn out, what's their enthusiasm like?
Yeah, and to turn out more of what these individuals thought about some of the other candidates I mentioned before. I was surprised how much the pandemic came up in the context both of you know, the election being rigged again and also in the context of some of the critique of Trump. And you know, this is one of the things that Ron Desantas had been leaning into.
I actually haven't been hearing him making.
This case as much, but this raises for me perhaps perhaps he was on to something with that original with that original critique and contrast that he was making with Donald Trump. You did something really interesting, which was you, you know, asked them all to write down what they thought about each of the candidates. Let's take a listen to some of what they had to say.
If you don't know who this person is, I think you might have been living under a rock. Donald Trump a word or phrase to somewhat how you feel.
I don't mean it rudely, but my word is loser.
I'm confused. He's not confused. I'm confused about how I feel.
Competent, competent, but I don't necessarily trust him.
Competent and wavering, making America great again, unhinged, the.
Vag Ramaswami refreshing ideas, but not serious.
Optimistic, suspiciously fake.
I don't know enough the Trump.
He's well spoken, but I don't trust them. He took money from sorrows and denied it, and so I don't trust them.
He looks like a and he acts like a clear politician, but he has no shot at being a president.
Nicky Hayley, strong and foreign policy consensus builder.
I'm afraid of completely uninformed. I don't know who she is. Kind of naive.
I have to hear more about her, but.
She's very liberal, liberal leaning on social issues.
Rhino.
She seems confident, but I feel like she's not strong enough to be our president.
Mike Pattins experienced, has a good temperament for the job.
More of the same.
Not necessarily a bad person, but not sorry anything to offer.
Sellout, confident, kind of likes to try to please everybody, and that can be an issue sometimes.
Rhino ultra ultra conservative.
Next on guys, Tim Scott World or phrase Tim Scott.
I like him, but when I see him speak, it just seems unremarkable, like doesn't doesn't set himself apart.
Strikes.
He's honorable.
I want to say, too new, but I don't. That's not quite what I want to say, but I can't think of any other words.
He's more experience, he's well spoken.
You make a great VP for Trump.
I think he's too strict on reproductive rights.
Chris Christy tells it like it is no.
Way, Yeah, Frank, I think he's a phony, outspoken, more liberal Rhino.
If he didn't have Trump's name to mention, and he won't go anywhere. Let's know, if he get Bridgegate.
Seems like he's too in dated with the Jersey shore.
Ron de Santis.
It's a strong record of getting things accomplished.
Experience, morally solid.
It's got a lot going for him.
My wood was experienced.
Can you wait for more years?
He's well spoken. I think he's hurt flowing a lot of ways too, but he's well spoken. He's a takes charge guy.
He certainly can talk very well. But he's done some bad things for Florida that has directly heard, you know, the elderly as well as some of the families down there.
There's so much to dig into there. Let's actually talk first about.
Trump, who, of course, is you know, the elephant in literally every room in this entire country. I feel the critique of him was lacking in competence, but then there was obviously a lot of strong sentiment in favor of him as well.
There was and people who liked him to pick up on the fact that, Okay, he might not always be the most presidential. He might say things that perhaps he shouldn't already, might come down and tweet things or whatever else. But that was funny to them. They like that, you know, this is not going to be the thing that ruins Trump with them. Yeah, to be honest, I thought that those three at the back were locked in for Trump.
They're going to vote for him at the primary. That's very hard for the way there's people in the middle of the key.
I think, yeah, absolutely agree. You know, it was interesting to see them on Nikki Haley, that one woman she's like, I don't even Yeah, yeah, it's worth saying.
I think that, you know, no candidate here has not only had not had a breakthrough moment, but also no one's had a New Hampshire moment. No one was sort of saying, oh, they've turned up to a lot of events, They've done a lot, and you know, that's bad news for candidates like Niki Haley and Viveke Ramaswami, who spent a lot of time in New Hampshire.
They weren't. They weren't noticing that.
I think actually the comments about the Vike were some of the most critical.
You had some people who said.
You know, I like him, he seems he seems pretty good. But then they would flow like maybe he could be Trump's vice president. But some of the negative critiques of him were also interesting. They found him, they found he came across politiciany and also like they didn't trust him. There was some skepticism of him that clearly existed in this group, even among people that you know that you might think had a favorable impression of him.
Yeah, and it seems that the vake Ramaswami. You know, we did a poll after the first debate which lead breaking points covered and vike Ramaswami came to top on that pole. But he does not seem to have converted that debate performance into sort of solid support. We've seen that in the polls. He had a boost before the debate, but he hasn't really had a boost in the numbers
since the debate. And it seems like actually his manner and his style on that debate, even though people like what he was saying, seems to have rubbed off a bit negatively on some of these people. Now, big caveat. It's only one focus group, you know, there's lots of time to go. But certainly this is not someone who you know, got a clean sweep and got a lot of momentum from that debate. Perhaps somewhat predicting he might.
There were two people who got less negative comments than what I was actually expecting, and that was Mike Pence and Chris Christy. Chris Christy, even some of the people who were like, you know, sort of Trump curious or Trump supporters were described him as like he tells it like it is.
You know, he's frank.
I mean, there was also he's a rhino, and there was that sentiment there as well. But I actually expected basically everyone in the group to be like, he's a rhino and I don't like him, But there was this sense of like, oh, he's brash, he tells it like it is. There was more of that in the group than I expected. The other one was, as I mentioned Mike Pence, where because there's been obviously January sixth year
of people running around saying wanted to hang him. He has now at this point become more outspoken about Trump and about Trump's governance and you know, just gave this big speech really contrasting his vision with Trump's vision, etc.
Etc.
I thought there would be more negative sentiment towards him, and again there was some of that. You know, he was described as a sellout. The one gentleman who's clearly like very strong Trump supporter called a lot of these folks rhinos, but Mike Pencil was one of the ones who got the rhino label. But you also heard people saying, oh, he's experienced, you know, they felt like.
He was a good person.
They just disagreed with some of the values in some of the direction that he wanted to go in. So I was I was actually surprised it wasn't more sort of vicious and negative on Mike Pence.
This is the perennial burden of doing these focus greens is saying, never, never overestimate how cludin people are. Yeah, because you know, people are not following the contours of this like we do. You know, they're not following the ups and downs of the race. And to some people, they see Mike pens of that debate and they think, oh, he came across quite strong. He came across quite principle,
and they quite like that. It's come off a little bit in the numbers now, but in some of the early primary polls of this of this cycle, we saw quite a large chunk of Trump voters were saying that Mike Pence was their second choice.
And that's still the existence he was a vice president. Yeah, it makes sense.
Yeah, and then the last one for you to weigh in on is actually two of them, so Tim Scott and Ronda Santis. People didn't have really strong views on Tim Scott. There was a sense again of sort of like, yeah, he's fine, but maybe needs some experience. He seems honorable, but I'm not sure. Ronda Santis actually had a pretty
positive reception. You know, the one gentleman who is very hard Trump and called almost everybody else a rhino, he didn't say that about Ronda Santis, even though Trump has been obviously aggressively going against Ronda Sanctimonius to beat ball Ron whatever the latest nickname of the day is. He said that he sees him as well spoken and kind
of a take charge guy. And so across this group, with the exception of the one woman who's the Doug Burghram supporter, there seemed to be pretty positive sentiments towards him presenting possibly an opera. I mean, if he were to consolidate some of that and consolidate the people who are like I'm not sure about Trump, consolidate some of the people who are definitely anti Trump.
Then he would have a shot.
I think, as Sagara was pointing out before the challenge in doing that is that people's reasons why they don't want Trump again are so different and so various that it makes it really hard to have one cohesive message that would bring all of those individuals together.
It does, and I think Ron de Santis and Tim Scott will now be thinking, we need to have a moment. It's not good enough for Tim Scott to have a solid debate, it's not good enough for Ron Santas to have a solid debate. They need to start really carving them out as the clear opponents and challenges, and they need to do that quite quickly now that there is time. But look at what happened in twenty sixteen. You know, you have Iowa, you have New Hampshire, you have South Carolina,
and then it's not long until you're into Super Tuesday. Now, if there's still a fractured field by then Trump mops up.
He gets it.
But I mean, if I was advising, you know, one of these candidates, so it was Tim Scott, Rondo Santa's, you know, how do you break through? Well, clearly they need to have a big sort of presence on the debate stage, but it might also be worth thinking for them, what the sort of policy issue that they can really
make a splash with. And one of the things that really united this group quite different perhaps and sort of what we might expect Trump supporters to be like, is that they were very, very keen to see the federal government become a lot smaller. They were keen to see spending cart they were keen to see the government step back from from their lives. Now, if DeSantis or Tim Scott could come up with a really punchy economic policy,
don't quite know what that is. Perhaps there's a flat rate tax, perhaps it's something that really appeals to those sort of small state Republicans, then you could see them start to break through a little.
It really makes sense in the live for your dire state. I'm curious about how it would look like, you know, on a national level. I think one of my takeaways was with DeSantis is the COVID critique. For some reason, he has that critique of Trump from the very beginning, criticized warp Speed, criticized Mount Fauci. But not a single one of those people was like, yeah, but that's why I'm supporting dessantas the one Desanters guy didn't even cite COVID.
The other people were not. They were like, yeah, I kind of agree with the critique, but they're not immediately saying his name. And if he hasn't, wont him over at this point, I'm like, man, that's kind I'm just curious, you know, what could possibly we had those two undecided ladies, both of them are very concerned about COVID, but none of them they're like, yeah, I'm considering, you know, but he still has not been able to win that over.
So I actually a bit of a red flag, you know, he needs consolidate that if to the extent that that's a large group in there. But I'm just not sure given the amount of the disparate kind of concerns about Trump are just so all over the map from right to left. I don't know if a single candidate can do that.
Maybe the big moment comes if Trump attends one of the debates, right, yeah, somebody can pit themselves as the sort of andi Trump candidate, But who also appeals to that key group in the middle. And I think, you know, to listeners, I think i'd say the key thing to take away from this focus group is that group in the middle of these Trump agnostics.
You saw a couple of them there.
If they can be one round, then it's possible that Trump's lead could fray. But look, there's no doubt based on this Trump is the clear front.
Yeah, very true.
The last thing I'll say, we're going to have, guys, some of the more issues specific questions and some of the clips from that, you know, on abortion in Ukraine and other things later in the weeks that we're going to have some of that as well, just as a preview.
Yeah, we've got a lot more, don't worry.
But you know, I was curious from your perspective because you're saying, you know, they're interested in smaller government, they're interested in, you know, the pandemic. They have these things that they raise, but when they're actually talking about the candidates and how they feel about them and why they're supporting them, it's very little that's issue specific. It's much
more seems to be about personal characteristics. So what was your sense in the room of how much these is it the vibes, is it the like, you know, the personality contest or do you think it comes down more to like, here's my top issues, here's how prioritizing them I.
Think come a general election, that matters a little bit more, and I could certainly it was interesting when they were talking about things like the economy and abortion, they were talking about it not in reference to different Republican candidates but against Joe Biden.
Correct.
So I do think that matters later, but at this stage, I think one of the problems is for anyone trying to differentiate on this. We've seen, you know, Nikki Haley, for example, take a different position on social security with see Mike Pence take a different position on abortion. The problem of that sort of approach is that these voters sort of assume most Republican candidates are probably on the same side on these issues. They sort of instinctively trust a lot of them to be so, and that makes
it hard to differentiate. So I think it is personality. US polsters call it brand. You know, it's the brand of these candidates. You know, in the same way you might go to your favorite you know, chocolate bar provider or your favorite you know, telecoms provider. It's the candidate and how they come across. Are they competent, are they good? Are they reliable? Are they strong? Will they stand up
for you? And that is, policy matters as a flag for that, but it's also so much more about can they convince the room, can they persuade them?
It's personal, characteristic and great point two about how it matters also in terms of how they see the other candidate and whether they'll get some of what they want, you know, Visa VI Joe Biden. So anyway, James, you did fantastic job, you really did. Hopefully we'll see you again. Great w and we're excited to continue to bring everybody all of this work that we've done in conjunction with
Jail Partners. You guys do amazing work. As we said, we've cited previous polls and other things, and glad we got to work together.
I don't know, people remember we showed before these word clouds that you guys did of.
All the cod its.
I mean, they were really interesting because again it's like you can pull on these issues and people all, I support this on Ukraine, I support that on abortion, but like their gut check of when I hear this Canada's name, what's the first thing that comes to mind? That's in some ways the most revealing material. So that's why we're so excited to work with you guys, and you came through.
This was phenomenal.
Thank thank you so much. Gus appreciate it very much, and we will continue on with the rest of the show. Now, last week we brought you the news that President Zelenski had fired the Defense Minister over corruption. We're apparently allowed to talk about corruption in Ukraine now, and the New York Times, because they've gotten their marching orders now that they're allowed to talk about it, are giving us an
even better insight into what this looks like. It's effectively like the plot of the War Dogs movie or of Lord of War. Crazy mercenaries who are very unscrewed are getting hundreds of millions of dollars from the US government on their ability to procure weapons and pump them into the Ukraine conflict. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is just one view. Remember this is just one what twenty something months or so into the conflict. They
look at Florida based arms contractor. His name is Mark Morales. He has regaled people with the stories on his new ten million dollar yacht called trigger Happy Crystal that manages his company's nine digit portfolio. Said portfolio includes like hundreds of millions of dollars that are given to mister Morales. They have awarded his company approximately one billion dollars in contracts,
mostly for ammunition. Record show he has built roughly two hundred million dollar side business just selling to the Ukrainians directly. He employs multiple Ukrainian officials, some of whom are pictured there, one of them literally a former Defense ministry advisor. I mean, why would you employ such a person right whenever you're trying to sell weapons to the government. But the thing
I love about mister Morales is that quote. The Justice Department indicted him in two thousand and nine on conspiracy of money laundering charges after it said he was caught on tape discussing methods for paying bribes to foreign officials. Quote thissally said, you just gotta be smarter than the government, mister Morales said on one recording. Ultimately, FBI agents badly botched the case and prosecutors had to drop charges. So he's not been convicted. He stands innocent of the charges
in the eyes of the law. But what they really go into with mister Morales, and again we're using him just as a stand in for how many there's probably dozens of these types of guys who are operating inside of Ukraine. Is these guys were instrumental in the Syria and Afghan conflict.
Yep.
They have deep and shady ties for ammo dealers all across the world. They can snap their fingers and they can get a plane full of ammunition. And the Pentagon was like, Hey, the guy can get the job done, So we're just gonna pump money, you know, into his pockets and doesn't really matter where it's coming from, or what's going on, or where this money is doing or who exactly he's paying inside of the country. And it's
just so obvious. I mean, one of the reasons they tried to indict him in two thousand and nine is because that directly violates the Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act that the United States government has in place, in which US businesses are not supposed to be bribing foreign officials or engage in any of this corruption to procure business. And that specifically would be a violation of business violation
in terms of that revenue. But when that revenue is directly based on the government itself, they're obviously looking the other way. So I thought This was just a perfect example of you know, now it's twenty something months into the conflict, the Biden administration is on the verge of sending long range missiles to Ukraine, of which they directly had said before it would escalate the conflict. And we don't have enough said missiles because if we ever get
into a conflict, we may need them. Of course I've said this before on a long enough timeline, Ukraine always get what it wants. But you know, if people like mister Morales, who are the go tos between these it's not just a direct arms transfers. We take the money, we give it to people like him. He gets it from god knows where, and then he gives it to Ukraine. And he's making a very tidy little profit enough to get a ten million dollar yacht in Florida. Must be nice. It's nice life. He's got down.
He's gotten a billion dollars in contracts from the Pentagon. I think this story, first of all, some of the details here. There are so many Yize details in this, starting with you know, the image of him on his quote unquote trigger happy yacht and partying with these Ukrainian officials and current members of the Ukrainian military that he also employs in order to help him get the meetings with the Ukrainian government that he wants to secure further contracts.
So he's not only doing business with the Pentagon. You know, the Pentagon is hiring him to procure and supply certain weapons and in particular ammunition, but he's also getting money directly from the Ukrainian government. He is walking right up to the line of directly bribing foreign officials.
I mean, there's just no other way of describing this.
One of the people that he employs is a sergeant in the Ukrainian military. He has done a lot too, So he pays this man, and then this man gets him these meetings with foreign government Offirato.
So you tell me what that is.
Ultimately, I think it's also important, outside of the details of this particular individual, that people really understand the nitty gritty of how this business is done, and that they remember that this man is becoming wildly wealthy off of this horrible, tragic war, and he's not alone.
There are a lot of others who are just like him.
The article sort of gestures at this massive arms market that has sprung up and the amount of money obviously flowing around all of Eastern Europe, and they say that it could reshape the politics and markets in that whole region for years and years to come, even following after the war, because this is defining sort of a new group of oligarchs who are getting wildly wealthy off of this.
So it's always important to remember as these wars are going on, you know, we as the public see it, and we see the tragedy of it, we see the atrocities that are being committed, we see the absolute carnage and horror of it. But it's also important to remember that there are people who have a financial incentive to keep these things going and who are turning huge profits off of this carnage and killing.
My personal favorite is that it's really not his connections to the Ukrainian government. Every Tom Dick and Harry and Eastern Europe's got a connection to the corrupt Ukrainian government, he says, quote it is not his ties to the government, that is his ties to the Pentagon, which give him an unfair advantage. Quote. Arms brokers from around the world are competing for limited supply of Soviet style weapons, mostly
from Eastern Europe. To sell to Ukraine. With cash pouring in from Washington, Morales can afford to pay more than his competitors do. Several Eastern European arms dealers complained they're mad they're not getting in on the bonanza. He then makes good on his American contracts, then buys even more ammunition with his profits to sell it to Ukraine directly, and in several cases early in the war, Morale US outbid rivals to buy explosive shells, for example, from a
Bulgarian arms factory. All of this is again appropriated dollars from the US taxpayer to missed people like him who go out and you know, these shady factories. Nobody knows what's going on in these plays. They probably are most
likely they're selling to both sides of the conflict. And this is a perfect example of a guy who's got Washington wired, knows how to gain the subcontracting business and contracting enough of a profit there if we can outbid people in there, and then you know, juice things with the Ukrainian government, so we've got a consistent supply, and longer this conflict goes on, the richer people like him are going to get and what I want to be clear,
this isn't even signaling the man out because there are dozens of people like him, and frankly, he's a small fish in all of this. The people who are really cleaning up or like I said that Bulgarian arms factory, our defense contractors who are also those are the people making billions of dollars whenever they are raking that in. He's just like a player in this entire thing. One
of the again I shouted out the movie Wardogs. I recommend people go and watch it because that is a great example of our government is not in control nearly as much as people think. They think we're like flying seat thirty sevens over and just dropping the weapons off. No, no, no, you know we the government doesn't do anything anymore. We subcontract out everything NASA to SpaceX and you know the Pentagon here to arms dealers. We just write a check and then we just expect said weapons to show up.
And the biggest problem with this is not only quality control, but also who knows who's where are these weapons going. We've already done multiple reports here guys in Azov Nazi battalion, brand new weapons just showing up. We did previously that story about the American mercenary who had told stories about how the just brand new crates of weapons just show up. Yeah, if you're there, grab one. Why not? You know? And
who knows? What are they dealing with it? And then also who is stopping people like Morales or any of these people inside Ukraine from taking that crate? Maybe they gave a third to the Ukrainians and they sell two thirds on the black market. That's exactly what happened in Afghanistan. I mean, I've said this before, but the people who really want in Afghanistan bankers in Dubai, And this is
a good example. Guys like him made their bones in the Syria and Afghan conflict being able to procure sketchy weapons and deliver it to the conflict zone. So why not, you know? And the amount of money laundering and other chicanery that's going on behind the scenes is just outrageous. When you see something like.
This, Your subcontracting point is actually really interesting and important because what happens, whether it's the government using subcontractors or you see this like an auto industry or any other industry, when they use subcontractors, they allow that to act as an excuse to not worry too much about the mushy details about how whatever they need is getting done, and so it makes it much more difficult to have any sort of transparency, accountability, the sort of thing that you
would really want inside of a democracy when it comes to.
The core issues of war and peace.
And by sub contracting, not just in the area of defense spending, but really across all of government, by so contracting, so many key functions out and you know, depleting the ability of our government to actually do anything itself. Yeah, it allows a lot of things to be swept under the rug. It allows people to look in the other direction and empower individuals like this one who was formally indicted for you know, some sketchy circumstances. Again he's guilty,
so he's innocent, but you know, raises some question mark. Yeah, anyway, allows our government to work with people like this and not look too closely at exactly what the details are, exactly what's going.
On exactly right, and guess what the rest of the world they're waking up. They have a very different view of this conflict. That was especially in the air at the g twenty summit, which just happened in New Delhi, where it stunningly if you don't pay attention to the news, put this up there on the screen. The language that previously had dropped a condemnation of Russian aggression against Ukraine was actually did not appear in the joint communicate that
was released by the entire G twenty. They say quote G twenty leaders have failed to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine in their joint statement after both China and Russia of course rejected language that blamed Moscow for the conflict,
but it really wasn't just them. The New Delhi actually summit declaration only referred to quote the war in Ukraine after a formulation of supporters in Kiev, and then also people who'd have a very different view of the conflict could not come to some sort of consensus about how
things were going to refer to the conflict. The previous G twenty actually did refer to quote aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, where Western diplomats and also Chinese officials did not put in the same place the blocks to stop that language from appearing, which shows you clearly things have changed in the geopolitical situation where they have enough juice, not just China and Russia, places like India, Brazil and others that have a very different view of
said conflict. They even have the External Minister of Affairs of India, he said, quote it is a fact today it is a very polarizing issue. There are multiple views of this, there are spectrum of views. So I think in all fairness, it was only right to red what
was the reality in the meeting rooms. The big takeaway mine from the G twenty sum in Crystal was just how far the US and Europe are moving away from the consensus of the rest of the world because you had big landmark meetings between Mody and MBS, You had meetings with the Chinese and the Russian officials. Lavrov, the Foreign Minister of Russia, actually met with Prime Minister Modi on the sidelines and they it was pumped up by the Indian government because they rely on them, of course
for a portion of their oil supply. But also President Lula of Brazil appeared prominently in a photo not only with Prime Minister Modi and with President Biden, but came out directly afterwards and he said, hey, I'm hosting the G twenty next year and putin if you want to come, we're not going to arrest you as a part of
the international whatever criminal court tribunal. I mean, these are not things that you do whenever you're afraid of the West, afraid of Europe are in terms of their view on Russia and Ukraine, it's what you do when you have a completely different view. You're looking out for your own interests, and you think that the war in Ukraine, while you think it's important, you think it's unjust. You know what's happening there. You're like, Okay, it's not the primacy of
how I'm going to base my entire foreign policy. So Washington's decision to make everything about Ukraine, every single thing that we do, you know, alienating so many of our allies.
The G twenty, to me, is a much better view of how this is going as opposed to the G seven, because the G twenty is the actual emerging economies all across Asian And it's also no surprise that President Biden right now is in Hanoi and Vietnam because he needs to shore up what's going on with our Asian alliance, and Vietnam is our number ten trading partner, like reality is beginning to hit us in terms of our obsession with this conflict.
It's accelerated the realization of a multipolar world that you know, we were already heading towards, but this has helped to consolidate that new reality. And you can see it when a country like Brazil is like, no, we're not going to go along at all with.
What you think, with what you say.
We're not going to be ugly er mean about it, but we have a different view of this and I feel very comfortable asserting it and looking out for our own interest in this conflict.
Same thing with India.
You know, is interesting the news coverage of the G twenty because this is a sort of understandable given that the language last time around was a little bit stronger, and you know, they weren't able to condemn Russian aggression, which you know, I think that they should be able to do, but there was a lot of shock that that was the case. And if anything, I'm actually surprised they were able to issue any sort of joint communicate because of the size of the divisions at this point.
And you know, it was a big win for Moodi who's facing reelection to be able to get any sort of joint statement out From the US's side, you had Jake Sullivan, US National Security Advisor calling it a set of consequential paragraphs. They're talking about. Listen, you had to compromise some if you were going to get anything done.
Some of their priorities in terms of getting grain exports, restarting the Black Sea that was discussed and you know, commitment to that was realized within this communicay, which is I think really important not just for Ukrainians but for
people around the world in terms of food prices. There was another piece here that you know, there was an effort to highlight climate change and to call for reduction fossil fuels, but there was also no deadline there, so it's just sort of like meaningless words on that one. Saudi Arabia obviously not going to go along with that one either. So while there while the some of the things that were not in the communicy.
Really underscore the deep divisions at.
This point within the G twenty and between the US and Europe and the rest of the world in general. Like I said, I'm actually surprised they were able to put anything out jointly.
At this point, another important point from the G twenty Prime Minister Mode making a big show of inviting the African Union directly as a member of the G twenty. That's again, you know, acceleration. The African Union very very different of view of the conflict in Ukraine than anything else going on in the West. They have much deeper ties with China, you know, I just want to emphasize what you said. We're seeing a huge bifurcation with the rest of the world and US. Now, that doesn't mean
the rest of the world agrees with each other. India and China avil sorts of rivalry. Actually, there was a lot of questions about shishing Ping and China ahead of this because of a map that the Chinese government put out which jos a border dispute. But overall, I want to, you know, just to underscore what you said, which is I actually thought there was criminal undercoverage what was going on in the G twenty, just because what was going
on there and with the bricks. You know, that is clearly going to define a huge portion of geopolitical just of geopolitical not only tension, but division and evolution in the next century. As opposed to the amount of slabbeign coverage that Western based ones like G seven and others get. Our future is in Asia. I mean, like I said, anyone who can read an actual table can see where our major trading partners are, where fifty percent of the
world's GDP is. And to see the divisions also between the you know, the Japanese and the South Koreans coming together at their recent Camp David summit. As opposed to how much attention the administration paced in Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, you think it's the most important thing going on in the world. I thought it was a very interesting, you
know thing, that this even happened. And to see that again going to Brazil and Putin will be showing up most likely and facing some of the biggest critics on the world stage in a year from now. What a crazy development. I mean, think about that. President Biden well be running for reelection a year from now. I guess if he's around and he's you see Putin face to face,
which that's what led to that famous moment. I think it was at the G eight, or maybe it would be in the G twenty when Obama and Putin had the sideline conversation. So you never know how these things are going to go. It's going to be interesting.
Yeah, indeed, we got some big domestic news that's going to be excited about.
Here, so I have you know. It's just one of those where a major failure for small D democracy. Nancy Pelosi, Representative California San Francisco, has decided she will be running for reelection. The fact that she's running for reelection at all is stunning. She's eighty three years old, but the reasons for why she's running for reelection are very telling in what she's chosen to emphasize. Let's take a listen.
Just signed now that in light of the values Fransisco, where she had always been ground to promote, that she may have made decision to seek reelection. I think it's important for me to use my knowledge of the Congress, my knowledge of the city, my concern about the country for the benefit of my constituent. So it was really more respons about responsibility.
Did you ever think about not running, Well, you always do.
I mean for thirty six years I've running. You always have to measure what the value is of your contribution in something like this, and I never thought I'd stay as long as I did.
I never thought I'd stay as long as I did, but I'm staying. Anyways, Let's go to put this up there, and Nancy Pelosi decides that she will be running for reelection in twenty twenty four, dismissing talk of retirement at age eighty three. I mean, this is just someone who is power hungry, and I think their entire identity is wrapped up in their holding office. And at this point, you know, even though she's not the speaker, she's like still the de facto leader of the Democratic Party. She
doesn't want to give it up, Crystal. And you know after the coup that she's pulled off by keeping Feinstein in office, rigging the California Democratic primary process so that she'll never face an opponent opponent so that her chosen Adam Schiff will very likely be able to get them or at least contest the nomination. Why should she, I mean, she's one of those who's like, yeah, it doesn't matter. And she's impervious to criticism about the stock trading, She's
impervious to criticism about her age. She pulls the feminism card anytime you even try and talk about it as if it's a feminist issue that people are way too old in Congress. I mean, we she just should not dismiss the idea that it's disgraceful that people who are this old continue to just hold onto power and not allow any new generation. And my personal favorite was a clip where she was defending like the state of San Francisco.
Someone was like, hey, how's san Francisco done under She's like, you're running for Sanford Goes not doing very well right now. She's like, no, that's an isolated local issue. It's like, well, why are you doing anything about it?
Then?
Yeah, that's your whole ostensible reason for running. So she mentions Trump, she dismisses talk, and she says, san Francisco is fine. It's ridiculous.
I feel like these people feel like they're so core to like that they just, I don't know, they just can't give it up. You know, it's become so central to their own personal identity. They love the power, they love like the spectacle and the yes men and women around them, and they just never let go of their grip, grasping grip on whatever power they have. And you know, this is consequential Obviously it's consequential for people who live in her district. But obviously Nancy Pelosi is much more
than just one member of Congress representing one district. She is a national figure, and as long as she remains in Congress, and probably even if she did retire, you can be assured that as much as Sachem Jeffrey's name maybe at the front of the cock is, if you
know who was really running the show there. And so I just think it continues point to an extraordinary failure at the core of our democracy that these people feel like they can hang on forever and ever, well into their eighties with Diane Feinstein, my got into her nineties and never face real accountability and never be even pushed aside for a new generation, hopefully that's not just a repeat of the old generation that maybe has some different
ideas and perspectives to offer at least open it up to a real democratic process. So I just think it's a sign of more core wrought at how unrepresentative are so called democracy has truly become.
One hundred percent. And you know, one of the things that she continues to say is she even used the Trump boogeyman in one interview that she gave. She was like, well, if Trump comes back, like we're going to need somebody to stand up to him. It's like, well, what are you going to do? How has that gone? I mean exactly how did it go for you?
What makes you think that you did such an effective job at that The man almost won last time around. It's only because of his own absolute insanity and stupidity that he didn't. He's hide with Biden right now while he's facing freaking ninety one different charges, and so you're really the bulwark against Trump and the fascists. Like, give me a freaking break. Where is any evidence that any of the approach you've taken to this man has been successful whatsoever?
And you know, the thing is is that this fake turnover leadership I think is even worse almost than an out retirement as you were talking about with yeah, hakem Jefferies, because I mean, even standing standy Homer is like eighty four years old.
He's the same age as her.
Yeah, same age. Jim Clyburn, I know, is also getting up there. Everyone is allegedly stepping down from their leadership roles, but they're not retiring. And it's like when you don't retire then clearly like you're still running the show behind the scenes. And to see this running for reelection, to remain the main face of the party. She's still the number one fund raising draw which is insane to me.
But it shows you a lot about Democratic downers and to still be like pulling strings behind the scene with Feinstein. You know, we can't emphasize enough just how much of a failure it really is. And also the inability to pass the torch and just let it. You know, who knows how it will play out. They came from the generation, all of these people from when actually there was a huge injection of new blood in the Democratic Party. They're
called the Watergate babies. A lot of people were swept into the office with a disgust of the Republican Party and the institutional decline after Watergate. And it's just funny because they've effectively created their own type of situation where their inability to let go of power has led to the same sort of cynicism which propelled them to office in the first place. But they never wanted to learn
that lesson. They just keep droning on and on. I was talking with someone recently and I think what they said is like, look, Congress is a great place to be old. You have a mandatory staff, You get free flights, you know, all around the country, no matter where you want to go, everyone opens a door for you. You only work three days a week. You don't have to work that hard. If you don't want to, people call. Everyone has to call you, mammer sir. You'll always get
you know, priority boarding on an aircraft. You'll always get a dinner reservation, you get free booze, you get free free dinners. What's not to love. It's effectively a great retirement home, except we all pay for it, and they're supposed to be working for us. Yeah, that's a crazy part.
Yeah, I looked it up.
You're right.
Hoyer's eighty four. Yea, Clyburns eighty three, Pelosis eighty three. This is nuts completely.
The President's eighty one. He's a spring chicken.
Yeah, that's a great point.
This came up a lot in the focus group, and we're going to show you some of this. But they were very concerned about and they brought up McConnell, and they brought up fine set. Of course, they brought up Biden, but they see this also on the you know, this is a group of Republicans in New Hampshire. They saw this also as a really core issue. Now, it was interesting because they differed on how you deal with it.
There was some some people were like I definitely want term limits or I definitely want angelamits, and who were like, I don't know about that, and maybe we should have a cognitive ability test. So there was a lot of ideas about Okay, how do we actually deal with this core failure? But I think there is just wide spread this discussed with the way that these people, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, hang on to power long after the public really want in there.
Absolutely right, all.
Right, we've got some big developments this morning in terms of what happened on that faithful day when JFK was assassinated. Now a little bit of context just for people to remember.
Core to the idea put forward by the Warren Commission that led to the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, was this idea of a pristine or magic bullet which was discovered, which supposedly, did you know all the damage to JFK, but also to the governor that was there with him, and the bullet itself looked impeccable, like it hadn't done anything at all. So this was always one of the points that people were like.
I don't know, but to be on the stretcher.
Yes, on a stretcher, which becomes incredibly relevant. But to make that whole theory work, they had to have this bullet doing things that no bullet.
Has ever done before. Okay, that's the backstory.
So now we have one Secret Service agents who was actually charged with protecting Jackie Kennedy.
He has decided to tell.
His story and he claims, let's put this up on the screen from Vanity Fair. He claims he was actually the person who found that bullet, and he found it in Kennedy's limo, and the placement of where he found it is incredibly important because it would make no sense for that bullet to be in that location if it actually did all those things that the Warrant Commission claimed that it did. Furthermore, part of what allowed them to
draw that conclusion was there were two stretchers, right. There was one stretcher that had Governor Connolly, who was injured but not killed in the shooting, and one stretcher that had JFK. This secret Service agent claims that he put the bullet at the hospital because he wanted to make sure that they had it and it was an important piece of evidence. But he himself health is shocked and horrified and suffered clearly with a lot of PTSD, et cetera. But he decides to put this bullet, he says, on
Kennedy's stretcher. Now for it to make sense that this bullet did all the things they said it did, it needed to have been instead with Governor Connolly's body. So I know this can sound really like in the weeds, but this one bullet, like the Warren Commission, really hung their entire conclusions on what happened with this one bullet.
And so the fact that you now have a secret Service agent who you know, for a variety of reasons, mostly his own trauma, didn't want to speak out before, didn't actually dig into the Warren Commission report, didn't dig in until recently until any of the you know, the other alternative explanations that are out there for what might have actually happened on this day. He has decided here now while he's probably close to the end of his
life to come out and tell this story. So he says that he spotted this bullet resting on the top of the back seat, He picked it up, put it in his pocket, brought it into the hospital. Then upon entering trauma room number one at that stage, he was the only non medical person in the room besides Missus Kennedy. He insists he placed the bullet on a white cotton
blanket on the President's stretcher. And this vanity, Fairs says, as it turns out, may upend key conclusions of the Warren Commission, the body created by President Lyndon Johnson to
investigate the assassination. And part of why, Sagary, you have to have this one bullet doing so many things is because the type of gun that Lee Harvey os while supposedly used like there was no way he could have himself fired sufficient rounds in a short period, is like two seconds that he would have had to fire sufficient rounds, And witnesses on the scene said, many of them said they heard more rounds than what the official conclusion in
the report was. So you can see the way they sort of like cobbled things together to try to make this theory work and to rule out the possibility of any other gunman.
Yeah, the magic bullet theory was invented by Arlen Spector. It was like the Golden bow tie on the Warren Commission to be able to explain how exactly the amount of bullets that were technically fired possibly or thought to be by Lee Harvey Os while he was able to inflict the damage that it had been. We had the pristine billet which found on the stretcher. The important thing from mister Landis's thing is, I think it's not just trum. I think he was obviously he was afraid. I mean
that's really what comes through. If you go through and you read Tom O'Neil's book Chaos, and you have all these people who are involved in Manson. It's clearly the CIA op gone terribly wrong. And many of the cops and others who are involved in that, even decades later, they're terrified to be able to speak to Tom O'Neil whenever he wrote that book. Well, it's the same thing here with many of these secret service agents. And don't forget,
I mean these guys were close up. They probably had blood, you know, smeared all over their clothes, and they were witnessed to a horrific murder and then probably put through the ringer and pressure from the FBI and investigative sources. Another thing that he points to is that the scene was not secured at all. It's very important really where he says that he did not He was very concerned about how the scene was not secured properly, about how
law enforcement was handling the evidence that was around. And look, what are we to make of what he says, Like you said it cast out on the original magic bullet theory itself, which never made any goddamn sense. But really, what it is is the only doubt we could say as well, people's memories, you know, they age over time. Like,
who knows if he's telling the truth or not. I'm inclined to believe him, just because there's never been any like real scrap of evidence for the magic bull of theory in the first place, and because so much of the processing of the scene, of the evidence and all that was so obviously manipulated by the FBI. I recommend Oliver Stones, you know, nearly four hour docu series on this that just came out. I think it came out last year or something like that. It was on showtime.
I'm not sure where it's available now. He goes through this in exhaustive detail, like in terms of the chain of custody, the autopsy photos, some of the manipulation that was going on there, the people who were actually at the book depository, whether they saw Lee Harvey Oswald whenever they should have seen Lee Harvey Oswell. I mean, just to me, this is so odd. There's no way that the Warren Commission, us the Warren Commission's narrative of what happened makes any sense.
Yeah.
Zero. And I find it, you know, important that we're also talking about it on nine to eleven, of course, because it's like it's very important to keep up on all of these things, because you know, a lot of
people believe this, at least at the time. But then as the as the time went on increasingly increasingly throughout the seventies and the eighties, there was a feeling with so many of the people who were not only were involved were present on that day, but with the American public, they're like, this just doesn't make any sense.
I think the latest pulling was something like sixty percent of the American people now do not buy the Warren Commission official explanation, you know, just to underscore some of what you're saying there, because it becomes really critical.
You know, in this.
Telling, which stretcher the bullet ended up on. Was it Governor Connolly or was it JFK? And this secret Service agent land as he says that it was, he definitely placed it on JFK stretcher. There was even testimony at the time of how the bullet went from one stretcher
to the other stretcher. There's a Parkland Memorial Hospital engineer named Darryl Tomlinson who originally testified that the two stretchers were in very proximate locations and the one that had JFK on it got bumped and he saw a bullet fall off of that stretcher onto the floor. Now, under badgering and bullying basically from Arl Inspector, his testimony became a little different when it came time for the Warren Commission, which shows you again how this was not just a
straightforward fact finding mission. Arl Inspector and many of the other people who were on that commission who influenced that commission, they had a certain narrative. They wanted that they tried
to get all of the facts to fit. There's also a lot of questions about the autopsy that was performed and some of the pictures that disappeared and were never released and may have shown some evidence of other shrapnel, which again would point to additional rounds, which again would basically rule out the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was
the loan gunman. So somehow those pictures disappeared. Don't know why, but could be very convenient for people who wanted a particular narrative to go forward and to be able to put this in the rear view mirror and not have a lot of people asking a lot of questions.
I thought it was interesting.
Jefferson Morley, who's JFK researcher and former I think Washington Post journalist and run he's has a substack called JFK Facts. His reaction was, he said, the importance of this story is that the newspaper of record, because this was originally published in The New York Times, now acknowledges the official theory of a quote loan gunman is not very credible.
Twice in three months, the paper's ace reporter has broken JFK News, and he goes on to say that he his substacks is going to have Substack is going to have more revelations on the way. But I do think that that the fact that the damn has broken in some ways in terms of mainstream news questioning some of the official narrative that has been pushed for decades and decades at this point, I do think that that is noteworthy as well.
One hundred percent got to give all the credit to Oliver Stone. He's the one who reopened this entire thing in nineteen ninety nine with his film. That film had the JFK Assassination Records Act. That didn't end up working out because we still didn't get it, but that really reignited you know, public attention and in terms of interest, and it's been going on now for you know, that
was before I was even born. That movie came out, and still people like me were able to watch the movie and then engage with his documentary and more so, I give him all the credit in the world. I really think he's almost singularly responsible for bringing this back in terms of public attention and then paving the way over the last thirty years and opening it so that people like Peter Baker can publish this in the New York Times. Really excellent stuff.
Yeah, absolutely, so we'll keep a close eye on that one, Talger, What are you looking at this much?
Well, people in the gun world are often derided as paranoid conspiracy theorists. Nobody wants to take your guns. That's mostly the conventional line. It's held up recently until the twenty twenty Democratic primary race, when Beto Rourke proudly declared, quote, damn right, we are coming for your ar fifteen. Actually appreciated when you said that, because it's just obvious and true in the intent of what the end goal for a lot of people who are opposed to gun rights
actually want. At least now you can have a real debate. The mask off moment from Beto is now the second in terms of what those opposed to gun rights would do if they had the power. After a stunning episode in the state of New Mexico, the governor of the state, Michelle Luhan Grisham, has unilaterally declared a thirty day ban on carrying guns in public areas or state property in the city of Albuquerque. Through use of a public health emergency declaration. The details of the ban are almost too
incredible to believe. The governor decided to put into place this blatantly unconstitutional ban after the death of a five year old girl and believes that the gun ban will provide a quote cooling off period of gun violence for the state so they can figure out the best way to address public safety. What really chills the blood, though, is not how draconian the ban is, but the words that the governor used to in and.
All to the Constitution.
Isn't it unconstitutional to say you cannot exercise your carrying license.
With one exception, and that is if there's an emergency and I've declared an emergency for a temporary amount of time, I can invoke additional powers. No constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is intended to be absolute. There are restrictions on free speech, there are restrictions on my freedoms
in this emergency. This eleven year old and all these parents who have lost all these children, they deserve my attention to have the debate about whether or not in an emergency we can create a safer environment, because what about their constitutional rights? I took an oath to uphold those two and if we ignore this growing problem without being bold, I've said that every other New Mexican your rights are subrogated to theirs, and they are not in my view.
Well literally said about crimes.
There are laws against the crimes, so how are they're right it?
But again, if I'm unsafe, who's standing up for that right? If this climate is so out of control, somebody should do something. I'm doing as much as I know to do.
That is the purest distillation of the doctrine of safetyism I've ever heard. The governor declares that her commitment to the Constitution is not absolute, and worse, he uses the justification of all evil. If I feel I'm unsafe, than my rights trump yours. That's the extension of COVID ideology became normalized with lockdowns during the pandemic. No surprise to me that the Governor's then using the public health emergency
as justification for the order. And just to be clear, this order does directly violate the US Supreme Court and the US Constitution. In June twenty twenty two, the Court ruled Americans have a right to carry firearms and public for self defense after striking down a New York State law that sought to implement a provision that said you must need proper cause to carry a gun outside your
home in the state. The case, colloquially known as Bruin, fundamentally altered any state's ability to infringe upon carry laws in the public and directly set up this challenge now to the New Mexico governor. The iron is, you do not need a pro gun person like me to tell you any of this. Listen here. Anti gun activists David Hogg or Congressman Ted lou both tweeted some version of the following, I support gun safety laws, but this order violates the US Constitution. There is no state in the
Union that can suspend the federal Constitution. There is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the US Constitution. And I guess the worst person you know just did make a good point, as the meme says, As both Hogg and Lou has said, gun groups already assuming the state of New Mexico, it likely won't even
survive much longer. Sheriff's offices are wary about even implementing it because what the governor wants, Even though they could open themselves up now to civil litigation for blatantly violating, as I said, constitutional rights. So at least in this case it doesn't look like it may work. But don't delude yourself. If they could do it, they one hundred percent would, and worse, all of it is a cover for much bigger problems that we are all trying to
move past. The government resferred to action by this death of children killed in recent shooting spates, including one road rage incident in a minor league baseball game, or the shooting of a five year old killed and drive by shooting. Let's stake the case of the five year old killed for example. You can see why this band doesn't even make any sense. Of the five people who were charged in the death of the five year old, only one
suspect so far is even an adult. That adult is the girlfriend of one of the alleged shooters, who's seventeen years old. The others charge an incident are aged fifteen and sixteen, along with other teenagers. So other than the girlfriend of the person primarily thought responsible for the death of this young child, not one of these people could
even legally buy or carry a gun. In fact, if we're talking about handguns, then not a single person, even involved in the shooting, could legally buy or carry one in the state of New Mexico, or in the case of the eleven year old, the shooter is actually still at large. We don't even know anything about them, or if the gun they carried was legal, or how it was obtained. They should be focusing on catching the killer instead of infringing on the rights of actually law abiding citizens.
And it just strikes the core of what the gun first people always reach for. They're trying to paper over what is an obvious societal illness that runs so much deeper than guns. Teenagers are doing drive buys and people are killed in children in road rage accidents. That's what happens in a sick culture. And yes, you can say other countries have societal ills and they don't have shootings. You would be right, but don't forget in our country we do have an enshrined right to own and carry
a gun if we so choose. In such a country with already hundreds of millions of gun in private ownership, that is just simply how it's going to go. That is not to say that we don't have a responsibility to each other, only we must understand and define the actual challenge we seek to address. In this case, it's clear crime was used to justify then an unconstitutional power grab, and it shows that people who are gun owners to what the real agenda is and always has been. I'm
curious what you think of this, Crystal. I know you're supportive of some gun restrictions as well, but what did you make of the governor's order and then kind of what I was talking about in terms of the crime and paper over and we've had this discussion before.
Yes, there's a lot of thoughts I have on it.
I mean, this is uncustomed, like it's just it goes way too far. But I take it a little bit of a different view because I was heartened to see that you had people who focus a lot on gun control or gun safety or how we want to put it, who were like, no, this is too far, and so, you know, far from drawing the conclusion of like, oh, this is what the gun activists really want, I actually saw the limits of what most of the mainstream proponents of gun control, gun orform how you want to label it,
where they actually want to go. So I took the opposite conclusion from that side. The other thing I would question you on is you said that this was, you know, evidence of the cult.
Or the view or the ideology of safetyism.
Do you see it the same way when it's Republicans using or pushing authoritarian tactics to deal with crime and law and order. Well, well, because because there's more there's more interest in or crime seems to be actually a hotter political issue on the right than it is on the left. So I'm curious if you see that same concern about like safety over everybody's rights being a problem when it comes from the right in their tactics.
Well, I think that at the very least, and luckily, we have a well defined civil liberties and Miranda rights that you know, defendants and criminals are actually like subjected to, So it's not like we don't have an adjudicated process. But I mean absolutely, I mean I don't support policies like coop and frisk or anything like that, for example. And I think a lot of people look, and you're not wrong. Many people are one hundred percent hypocrites whenever
it comes to this issue. And in fact, like I'm an absolute defender of people's ability to walk the street and not be accosted by police or pretext for any of these ridiculous things for search and seizure that a lot of these cops have. So, I mean we've done plenty of stories on that here. They all hear it from me too, yeah, I mean you probably won't hear
it from them. I mean, I just think we want to live in a society where look, if you're law abiding, if you have a gun, or if you're just walking down the street and happened to be black andron in the Bronx or something, you should be able to go about your business. I mean that's just my view personally.
Yeah, Because there was a lot of support among not only Republican lawmakers but the president of the United States at the time, a lot of you Republican like just regular rank and file people for like deploying the military when there were riots going on during George Floyd, and I didn't hear that being framed as like safetyism, and there was less concern about the unconstitutional power grab nature
of that direction coming for the right. So I actually am more accustomed to seeing authoritarian power grabs with regards to law and order and a sort of like lock them up. We got to crack down on crime above everything else. I'm more accustomed to seeing that from the right. This to me was like the liberal mirror image of some of those tactics that I certainly don't support.
Coming I think you're right, and you know, I've actually thought a lot about that. I think that in that context, one of the reasons why people were willing to go along with it was I think myself included was the idea that people's personal property was not being protected. And I think that I still believe that that was true.
That said, I mean, I think I can look back on that and be like, yeah, that was It'd be a terrible precedent, specifically in a type of civil of civil unrest, and just to think about, you know, in terms of what we're actually trying to achieve and what we were trying to achieve at that time. And I think this is where the Floyd people got it totally wrong, and it uses a pretext for looting. A lot of
cops and others, you know, basically stood by. But at the end of the day, I do think it was a local responsibility and I don't think the FEDS should step in, you know, at that time, So I've thought about that a lot, you know, since then, and specifically also given what happened after January sixth, it was really
just a complete vindication of the idea. It's like, look, when you get these people and they're going to take it all the way, yeah, and you just shouldn't get You should never give it to them in the first place.
Here's the other thing I'm curious about is, I think for people who live in these areas, and I looked up while you're talking, I looked up the Buquerque crime stats. Homicides are up seventy one percent from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty two. They did actually decline some in twenty twenty two from the height I think was in twenty twenty one. However, seventy one percent increase over that time period, you know, people are still feeling like, yes, they're a danger,
their kids aren't safe, et cetera. And I'm curious what the local reaction will be to her order, because we know when people are stressed and fear for their own safety and don't feel secure in their own environment, Unfortunately, too often they are willing to throw their rights or other people's rights aside for that sense of safety and protection.
So while there was a lot of sort of national level condemnation, I'm actually curious how people there locally respond to the order and if they have the same reaction or if they have more of a like good at least somebody is doing something kind.
Of curious too. But I mean, here's the thing, DC, where you and I are right now, we have the strictest gun laws in the country. Our homicide rate is actually not gone down at all. We have over one hundred percent increase in property crime and in genuine like gun death. So it's like it's not the gun laws. People. You know, you could you literally can.
Oh yeah.
I mean but DC is like right in the middle, right next to Virginia, and you know, you can't expect just one locality to take to their gun laws to have it.
I'm more what I'm saying is you can walk. And they do this all the time. I mean, listen, go look at the DC prison and look at the number one way that they throw people in jail gun charge. It will give you five years for a single bullet that you have wrong, Yeah that's in your pocket. I mean they use it as a pretext all the time.
It's not doing anything. You know, if you if you're worried about homicide, people stop people here all the time now, as from what I've heard recently, in search their cars and others look for cuns, and that's one of the number one ways that they try and crack down on crime. We still have a huge homicide rate. Yeah's just one of those where it's like, it's clearly not going to do anything.
I don't I wouldn't say it won't do anything. I mean, in this instance, I actually grew. I doobt it will do anything, just because you're talking about in one little city, right, So you're not going to change the overall national culture of gun ownership by changing the rules or regulations in one particular city. I'm curious about what the public reaction will be to it. If there is a positive reaction,
at least someone is trying to do something. And then overall, I mean, I don't think you can deny that where we are an outlier is the number of guns that we have in our society and the ease of access and all of that. And I mean, in my mind, there's no doubt that that plays into the level of violence that we have in our society versus other countries. But in terms of disorder, one hundred percent agree with you. Unconstitutional power grab, don't support it, don't think it will
probably have much of an impact. Yeah, I don't even think it will have much of an impact because of some of the limitations that you're pointing out. But you know, it does raise for me some other questions about some of the approaches to law and order and tough on crime that seem to get more of a pass.
Yeah, Chris, what do you takeing a look at? Well?
A recent AI news generation program at a major newspaper was pulled after publishing hilariously.
Bizarre high school sports articles. Okay, here are the details.
Gannette, which owns USA Today and whole slew of local papers, started using AI to generate local news stories and the results were amazingly bad. Here is a great example quote, Westerville North escapes Westerville Central in thin win in Ohio high school football action.
Wow.
Totally sounds like a human being wrote that, for sure. Please continue. The article goes on Westerville North edged Westerville Central twenty one to twelve in a close encounter of the athletic kind at Westerville North High on August eighteenth in Ohio football action. The Warriors chalked up this decision
in spite of the warhawks spirited fourth quarter performance. In a different story, AI failed to figure out what the school's mascots were, and they published the Worthington Christian winning team mascot defeated the Westerville North losing team mascot two to one in an Ohio boys soccer game on Saturday. Now, Gannette has since suspended this experiment, presumably leaving it to the actual human beings to try to report on future
thin winds and close encounters of the athletic kind. This particular situation is of course an embarrassment both for Gannett, which has fired a bunch of their employees over the past couple of years as the news business and especially the local news business has declined and become boor difficult, and it is obviously embarrassing for the entire AI industry, which, far from being ready to revolutionize the workforce or decimate
the workforce, can't even credibly publish the most basic information about the most basic events without being utterly absurd, unreliable, and inaccurate. So at least when it comes to the drafting and publishing of news stories. I think the journals for now can rest easy. Chat GPD is in any more prepared to take over the news industry than autonomous driving is prepared to take over taxi and truck driving.
So for now, I guess score one for humanity, But the victory is honestly marginal because in another deeper sense, the robots and their masters, they've already won a lot in terms of how news is generated and how it's disseminated, and we barely even notice the attack. What do I mean here, Well, as you know, I'm a big proponent of independent media as an antidote to corporate legacy media.
But the further we get into this new era, which is in many ways exciting and continues to hold deep promise, the more I see the limitations of what independent actually means. Because while individual creators can break free from the constraints of giant, corporate, profit driven news conglomerate conglomerates, they're still beholden to the incentives created by the tech giants on which they depend. And probably the most powerful force in independent news generation is YouTube's algorithm.
We all live or.
Die by it.
Its whims, preferences, amplifications, and punishments have created the independent news ecosystem as we know it. Individual creators can try to resist its siren song. We have intentionally tried to algorithm proof and big tech proof our business here at breaking points, but it's like one person trying to stand up to a force of nature. The overall landscape is going to be shaped and built by the big tech AI reward system. And it's not just on the creator side.
These robots are also so shaping your brain, messing with your view of the world, driving you towards certain content and away from others. On Facebook, whistleblower revealed how the platform's algorithm rewarded anger emojis at five times the weight
of likes, aggressively pushing highly emotional content into user feeds. Facebook, like other platforms, cares more about how long you spend on the platform, being served ads and having your data harvested than how much you're actually enjoying that time, or whether the quality of your experience is good or bad.
They also use their user base like guinea pigs, conducting social experiments, attempting explicitly to manipulate user emotions, and even to push them to become closer friends with some in their networks over others creepy stuff that we have little awareness of and even less say. Over, Twitter under Elon Musk, has used the for you page to aggressively push certain
content and hide other content. But unlike the other platforms must Twitter has opted to make their biggest content decisions based on the personal whims and preferences of their sovereign Lord Elon, who can bless their punish creators based on his own ego and worldview. In a sense, I actually appreciate the blatant nature of Elon's approach. He strips some of the AI mistique away and just makes it super clear the way that our oligarchs are screwing with us every day.
Now.
On its surface, our universe of multi platform news looks independent, like individual humans making individual decisions and listen. There is a lot of that going on at the micro level, and a lot of fantastic creators out there. But at the macro level, it is a garden of creators and content cultivated, tilled, and pruned by robots. Human beings unaware how they're being programmed by machines who have in turn been programmed by tech giants to drive their own profits
or corporate agendas. So before the chatbots and deep freaks have even really joined the war, humanity has already lost one war that it was being waged in secret under the cloak of the supposedly free market, where they declared victory before we even really caught on to what was happening for this next battle that we're facing now, at least the tech for now it's clunky enough that we can all see what the bosses robots are up to
a close encounter of the oligarchic kind. I guess you could say it did really get me thinking.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching. We really appreciate it. Thank you to all the premium members for supporting our focus group. We've got more stuff for you all week that we're going to continue bringing and we will see you all tomorrow