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 Tuesday.
We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal.
Indeed, we do lots of interesting things to bring you this morning, including more results from that exclusive Breaking Points focus group of New Hampshire Republican voters. They get into age limits, they get into Ukraine funding, they get into whether or not they would vote for former President Trump literally from prison. All of these things are very interesting, so we'll show you those and we'll of course give you our thoughts on and reactions to them as well.
We also wanted to take a look at a weird phenomenon yesterday on nine to eleven, you had both the White House praising Saudi Arabia of all countries. You also have the New York Times publishing some sort of Saudi backed propaganda in the paper of records, so we'll dig into that as well. And quite a moment from our current president, Joe Biden about where he was the day after nine to eleven that is raising a whole lot
of eyebrows about what he says there. We also have some really interesting data about, as you guys know, we've been covering here, the fact that there was a huge shift in terms of population where people were moving to, where they wanted to stay, etc. During the pandemic that has persisted post pandemic, and interesting report about how that is raising some tensions in some of the rural areas that attracted a lot of new folks, so we'll get
into that as well. Also, Wall Street Journal had an interesting breakdown of how parents they're kind of freaking out about what their kids are watching and how they are not going for the normal Disney movies. They have these obsessions with different YouTube creators and YouTube shorts that the parents have no idea what's going on. I include myself in that phenomenon, so we will dig into that as well.
And this comes right as Disney has also finally struck a deal with Charter Communications, which has a lot of implications for the future of the cable news business. Coyerson Rocana is going to be back in studio with us today. We're going to ask him about Ukraine war funding. We're also going to talk to him about a new anti corruption plan. But before we get to any of that, thank you again to all of the premium subscribers who made this focus group a reality.
Yes, thank you all so much for supporting our work here.
And as a reminder, we'll be giving you the full view of the focus group in a couple of days. You'll be able to watch it before anybody else that we put it out, because you guys are the ones who helped pay for it. As we said, we're really excited with the results so far. We've gotten coverage and Semaphore write up of it. We've got quite a bit of reaction as well outside of this, so this has
been a big deal I think for Breaking Points. It's a validation of a lot of the work that we're trying to do here in order to iterate and actually compete in the areas that we're able to against the mainstream media. You guys are making that possible breakingpoints dot
com if you're able. Very proud of our focus group, Crystal, because I think some of the issues and the way that we are moderator James press people but really getting into the questions about not only the politics but in some of the policy ones that we're going to be able to get in today, very distinctive from how most people actually conduct these things.
Yeah, you know, it's funny James being a brit with that great accent. He actually has a great poker face number one and number two since he doesn't have any of the like American context cultural signifiers of which side he might feel help. I think it actually was very effective and comes through in some of the responses we were able to get. So let's go ahead and dive
into this latest piece. So obviously, with both our top presidential contenders, the current president and the former president being quite elderly, and with recent incidents with Mitch McConnell, recent incidents with Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi announcing at eighty three years old she is once again running for re election, a lot of concern I think across both parties and independents and literally everyone about how aged and elderly. Our
elected officials have become so. James asked our focused group participants whether they supported hard and fast age limits for politicians here in Washington. Let's take a listen.
Age limits.
Some people have talked about age limits of public office and whether it's in the Senate, whether it's in the presidential race.
You know, it's like kids in the candy store. They make money for themselves, they go win, then they don't have much money. They come out they're millionaires and even know where they get their money from. But they end up becoming millionaires, and they vote themselves raises all the time. Ridiculous, ridiculous, you know, and uh, you know, as far as term limbits call, they're the ones.
That vote for it.
Where it should be the people who vote.
To the term limits, not them.
What offices are you thinking about? Seven limit?
Four?
Is that we're the main government itself in Congress. It's just ridiculous, just ridiculous.
Is there anyone in particular you've got you might have in mind?
All of them, all of them.
I just like career politicians like you said, they go in, come out millionaires, multimillionaires.
Just there shouldn't be anybody in there over fifty years, you know, making their way to the top after just being in there for life.
It's not an age thing or how long people have been around thing.
I think it's how long they've been around. I think that people are just so entrenched in the way that they're doing things, that they've been doing it so long they can't see other ways of doing it.
I just feel like it becomes routine, Like it's just a routine. It's routine. And I feel like the voices of the people, even though they say that they're listening to the voices of the people, it would be a different world if they truly were listening to the voices of the people.
You got Nancy Polos, He's going from there four more years today. I mean, my goodness. I don't think there should be age limits, but let's look at their cognitive abilities. That's you know, Crouse, That's all becomes a judgmental issue. I realize that. But you know, it's just because some people are older, I have better wisdom because of the years of experience. So we want to limit in their age. But if there's an eighty some kind of tests that could take you know, but once again, who's going to
be fine? What the test limits are.
People need to know their boundaries, and I don't think that we should judge them and say, oh, you're this age, you can't do that because we don't understand. But I also think that if you look worldwide, as you get older, you do forget things and you do like that's just a known fact. But I feel like taking on the responsibility of a president or a senator like I do, think age is a factor.
I don't disagree a bit.
Just because I know some elderly that are sharpest tacks and and then some young people that have no common sense. So I think it. I would like it to be able to be a case by case basis, but no, but they won't always know their limits, and not everybody stops driving when they should stop driving.
I don't think you need age limits because everybody is different at different ages. The question is why do Senator Feinstein and Connell keep getting elected when they're not competent, And it's because the entrenched incumbetency makes it very, very difficult to get somebody out of there. Because once you have your connections, you have the fundraising, you have years and years and years and there the Congress does not
turn over like it should. You have people in there for fifty years even when they're not competent, because it's just too hard to beat them.
Who's in support of an age limit on the office of president?
Okay, I don't know.
I think past seventy five this should be a limit as far as that there goes. Just like voting, you have to be a certain age. But I think if we had term limits, whether they have it upstairs or not, they would be out. And whether it be four years or eight years or twelve years, you know, they'd be gone. And it's good to have fresh new blood in there with fresh new ideas instead of keeping the same people over and over and over.
It's a broken right.
Well, I like the idea of being in the seventies, your past your retirement age, so you can still like understand that demographic and you've been through pretty much all the stages of you know, going to school, working, you know, raising families and then retirement and grandkids and all that. So you have like a good idea of everybody at their own stage of life. But I'd say like mid seventies, like seventy five or so, it is good.
Like I really feel like eighty.
I don't know. I'm probably the outlier in that age, but I feel like that could work.
Put your hand up if you'd like to see some sort of cognitive test for those who run for office for president? Hands up?
If so?
Yeah, interesting, because I judge it.
Yeah, Like I said earlier, how do you judge that? Because something can make a definition of what is cognitive and what isn't. And with this government today, they'll twisted any way they can to get their agenda down what they want to do. And I've seen some people who you know, I mean, think of President Reagan. He is in his lower eighties when he left office and some of his better years a second term.
Donald Trump too old to be president? Or is he still the right age?
I think he's the right age because he's he's got the ability to do far more than most thirty year olds can do today. I mean, the guy just goes.
I don't think that's why. I'm not sure age is significant. I think it's more about their capabilities. So I don't think he's too old.
What about Jay Biden? But you end up eating Jay Biden's to oldre president.
I thought that was a very interesting exchange around age limits and cognitive tests and how do you draw the line and who do you draw the line? What did you take from that soccer?
I mean, I think they actually identified a lot of the catch all. So, yeah, he had the blackjacket guy, the Trump guy. He actually said seventy five. I don't know if he knows as a chosen candidate of seventy seven Donald Trump.
That's fine, but that shows the challenge with this. And I actually thought the lady who was like like she was aware Trump is seventy seven, so he's over a lot of these age limits. But I still think he's up to the job. So I don't know if drawing these hard and fast lines is the right.
That's why it's difficult.
It's one of those where as she correctly identified, there are people who are about eighty nine ninety years old who are very with it, who are very I wouldn't say capable of like the highest function of their like in the highest level of their game. But the idea that they're like they have dementia, they're totally gone is not true. But if we just look at risks and all those things, I think it obviously makes them uncomfortable. I I also, you know, in terms of term limits,
I've never necessarily been a proponent of term limits. I think there's a lot of trade offs in terms of that, you know, we can have faith in democracy. But then also the one gentleman, the guy who is a disantist voter, he also he was like, look, at the same time, you know, you have incumbency problems. If I had to, if I had to say that there's a real solve
to any of this, it's actually disrupting the incumbency issue. Agree, and primary because allowing fresh blood into the system really comes from that pipeline that feeds into elected office, rather than once they're there and entrenching they're set on power. But it's a very thorny one. I personally, I think I'm coming around.
To actually an age limit.
And yes, I understand that could be discriminatory against people who are you know, still with it or not, but it's just we have too high of a tail end risk for somebody who is just far too old or the risk of you losing it, you know, is just it's far too high whenever you're that age. And I understand that can be uncomfortable, but you know, we're about to get into the American people definitely agree with me.
Yeah, No, I mean, I'm very sympathetic to the view, but I don't agree with it because I think the solution isn't. When you start putting additional limits on whether it's term limits or age limited limits or cognitive test limits, you're actually constraining the choices in democracy. What I would like to see is more democracy. More to the point of the guy who said, you know, the real issue here is we got to disrupt the power of incumbency.
And you know, we've talked before about the reason why we've ended up with all of these elderly people staying around in Washington forever and ever, and at its core, it is a failure of democracy. So I'd be much more in favor of things that would instead of a cognitive test, which they correctly identify.
That one Guy's right, we can't do a com It's very.
Problematic because who defines who's up to the task. It's just it's it's impossible to come up with the test that everyone's going to feel comfortable with, like, yes, this is determining whether they're really up to the job or not. Instead, they need to be required to subject themselves to the job interview portions of the democratic process that allows voters to assess for themselves whether this person is up to the task. And there's a lot of things to weigh here.
I mean, on the one hand, you have do they share my values? On the other hand, you have are they really up to the job? Do they have the level of vigor that will be required, whether the communication skills, et cetera. And so I continue to think enabling tibocracy and allowing voters to have more information and be able to evaluate this themselves is probably the best way to go.
But Saria are absolutely right that, especially given the incidents we've had lately with Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Diane Feinstein, now you know, Nancy Pelosi reupping for another reelection. Overwhelmingly Americans are in support at this point of age liments because they're like, listen, these people are not recognizing when it's time to go. So we need to put some sort of hard limit, hard sealing on this, even if it is kind of clunky. Put this up on the screen.
From Axios, they found that over three quarters of Americans think there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials. This is according to a CBS News you gov survey. They say the concern was bipartisans. Seventy six percent of Dems seventy nine percent of Republicans called for maximum age
limits for elected officials. They diverged somewhat on where the line should be drawn, but forty five percent say the max age should be seventy, which you know would run a lot of members of covers that we have in there right now. It's eight both and both top presidential contenders. Obviously, Another combined thirty percent of respondent set either fifty or sixty good for that should be the maximum age. Fifty that's pretty wild, guy, that's wild. I'm against that one
for sure. And only eighteen percent said that eighty should be the max age limit for elected officials. But you know, it's very interesting to me because I wonder if part of why there was more discomfort in this group, because remember, only three of these folks actually raised their hand and said, yes, I support an age limit for president of the United States.
And I wonder if more discomfort came out in this group number one, because they have opportunity to voice nuanced opinions rather than just like a yes or no question like what you would get on a poll. But number two, because this whole thing is about who they support for president, and many of them support Trump or at least open to supporting Trump. And so since they have that in mind while they're being asked the question, I wonder if that changes the way they respond.
It may, and but that's part of why, you know, making it and zooming out trying to look at it as a bipartisan problem is in my opinion, the best thing.
I mean, here's the thing about age liments.
You already have age limits whenever you have to be elected to Congress, Like you can't be twenty five for a thing for the House of Representatives. You'd to be thirty for the US senence. So why can't we have an age limit on the top. We're going to restrict the pool whenever it comes to the bought, which is literally written in the Constitution.
Yeah, getting rid of those age limns.
So yeah, I mean, I guess, but it's one of those where I'm like, look, if we can have a lower bound age limit, then I think we should have an upper bound and you know, looking at this, it's like pretty obvious that the absolute super majority of the American people, vast majority of the American people.
When you get to eighty percent.
Eighty eighty sounds pretty damn reasonable, especially whenever you peg it to an actually aerial table. You know, whenever you're talking about retirement age for fifty or sixty, that's not as crazy as we think.
So I actually often look to.
The commercial airline business, where, you know, because risk is so high for them, guess what their mandatory retirement is, sixty seven. They say that there is quote new risk after that age that you're declining. Faculties make it so that you can't effectively serve in that position, and you have no choice, you have to retire. And they just
raised that from sixty five just last year. So if you if you considered, like, well, the pilot, you know, his health and this condition is age is so important because the risk of him being even five percent bad at his job means imminent death for everyone in basically the same thing whenever we're talking about nuclear war or any of these others. Arguably it could be even more important whenever we're looking at that.
Yeah, but the problem is. I mean, if you are dropping age e limits as low as fifty and sixty years old, the amount of constraint on democratic choice you're putting on the electorate, Like, I just don't.
Honestly at a fifty.
But I'm like, if you can make a good case, and I think there's a great case for why a pilot shouldn't be flying over sixty seven. This is according to many pilots themselves, well then you can you can make the case too, whatever you mean.
I don't think it's not exactly comparable, obviously, But also the big thing here is the core of like, people having real choice in a democracy. And so if you have a candidate who you know, like these people love Trump, they want to vote for Trump again. And I would be loath to just completely take off the table like anyone over seventy, anyone over sixty, anyone over fifty, sorry, you're not eligible. That is just ruling out such a vast swath of society and really constraining the choices that
voters have in front of them. I just can't support that. I think going the other direction of making sure that they're able to adequately evaluate and really feel like they know what they're getting with these candidates to meet. That's a much better choice because in my opinion, and I know, look,
obviously the American people disagree with me. But even if you have a ninety year old that you know is super sharp and people in that locality love and feel like they've delivered for them and feel like they're continuing to deliver for them and feel like they represent their values, I don't want I don't want to take that choice off the table for them.
Yeah, but we do have Look, we have all kinds of like the twenty second Amendment, which requires only two term limits. I mean, Obama could have run for a third term. In fact, a lot of poling shows Obama probably would have won a third term. Or Bill Clinton probably would have won a third term. Harry Truman, well, he probably wouldn't have won a third one. Dwight Eisenhower
probably would have won a third term. But we put that into we put that in after FDR because you know, we had to restrict and we wanted to be able to make sure that we never had.
Yeah, but I liked the VACTU.
FDR was there for you can.
But super majorities of the American people afterwards are like, nah, I don't know.
I don't think so. And that's why three Fords.
I think it was state legislators or whatever ratified the amendment through the democratic process and change the constitution. So I think we can all agree, you know, in some of these cases, like we should have some sort of limitations. We agreed, you know after FDR left office in order to change that. I think it's for the best, I
honestly do, because it creates real turnover. And even if I think the FDR third term was a very great term of the presidency, I mean, if you were looking at it, he did actually implement some very anti democratic things. When he ran for his fourth term, he only lived eighty three days. Nobody knew how sick he was. He basically was coronated because of World War Two. I don't know, that's not really right. You know, everybody looks past it.
But yeah, these limitations in for a research, which is why there should be more transparency and more ability for people to actually evaluate the condition and abilities not only of presidential candidates, but also of how senate and elected officials. Okay, we also of course asked this focus group or not we,
but James on behalf of us in jail. Partners ask this focus group how they feel about the various Trump indictments and also, and this gets really interesting, whether or not they would still vote for him even if he is actually literally in prison at the time of the general election. Let's take a listen to what they had to say.
What do you think of these charges challeges that are happening. How do we feel about those?
It's nothing but a lynching by the Democrats. They're so fearful of them that they're going after them left and right. And this has been going on, what's seven eight years, so it's definitely just a lynching and they're just afraid of them. That's why they're doing Otherwise they'd leave them alone.
As far as the charges go. I mean, I don't have a huge stock in the government conspiracies being like, oh, this is all against me, it's a witch hunt. I'm like, no, it isn't you broke the law, you're being indicted. It's surprising to me that he's even a candidate. I'm all for having a Republican candidate to like stop all this nonsense spending, but him is just you know, if you go to jail just like everybody else. It makes it very clear that you are not above the law.
I think some of it is a witch hunt, for sure, and I think some of it are legitimate claims, like him telling, you know, the governor of Georgia or the Secretary of State of Georgia that he needs to find votes. I mean, the president calling someone like that is obviously trying to intimidate an influence the election, and that's that's something we should all stand up for and say that's wrong.
I wish the charges weren't there because it makes folks like our friends here in the back row really solidify behind them, and he's been able to turn it into that sort of if I think someone back there said, if they can come after me, they can come after you. Well you're not. You're not intimidating secretary's of state, so
you're not. You're probably not in trouble. But I think it's I think it's bad because I think it helps the Trump supporters circle around Trump and make it look like he's a victim, which I think he likes.
Words stupid. I think it's stupid. I think they're wasting a ton of time, and yeah, they want the money and.
So welcome to the Banana Republic of America. This is what other countries do to other candidates. I mean, yeah, if there are things who've done wrong. I think some of the things that were done wrong, they wouldn't make any issue of it if it wasn't a Republican or Trump.
It's deliberately done by I think, actually on a more global level, to have a candidate who could fix America taken out so we can be kept.
Under somebody's thumb who's doing.
Not probably Bill Case.
I don't know.
If he does get convicted, if he ends up in jail, would you still vote for him in the general election?
I would vote for him because other politicians have done their political disuse from jail.
I definitely would vote for him. You have to, you know, it's just everyone here agreed that something's going on crooked what they're doing to him, So how can you believe anything that's going on in the courts of these affidavits or anything else they're.
Going after him.
I would vote for him, and I would hope that the truth would eventually come out.
So, thinking ahead to that general election, let's assume it's Trump versus Biden and Trump is fighting that election from jail. Would anyone here be put off voting for Trump for that reason?
I would vote for anybody who wasn't Biden, whether I like them or not.
Think that it would be odd to vote for somebody that's in jail, somebody who's supposed to be running our country. The commander into you from jail doesn't make sense to me.
Put your hands up if you would vote for Trump in that election if he was in jail, Dana, You're a no.
How come?
How can you govern from jail? Like I think, even if it was not a fair process, I just don't see how you can govern effectively when you're taken out of communication that way.
I mean, that's quite significant.
Right.
We've got four registered Republicans or independence who might lean Republican in this room, and half of you were saying I wouldn't vote for Donald Trump if he was the nominee in a general election.
It doesn't matter, It doesn't matter what you say. You could say, what if he's dead, they'd still vote for him. I mean that there is no line, right, There is no line.
And I want to come back on that.
How about if Biden's the nominee and he's in a hospital, mental hospital spoken to vote for him then.
Didn't really interest my question.
See a little bit of tension there on that. I that's a good question.
You know they're very respectful to each other.
Yeah, they definitely are. I mean you had a I think it was a very representative group. James broke this down for us yesterday when we had him in studio and he was talking about, you know, you've really got three groups of voters here. You have the hard Trump like, you know, all the folks who were like, I'd vote for him from jail, I don't care, it doesn't matter. In fact, I feel like i'd have to vote for
him if he's in jail. You've got the group that is like open to Trump and likes a lot of what he did, but they're also open out their candidates and they have that like normy instinct of know about having a president who's in prison, not sure that might be too far from me. And then you have the two who are anti Trump, you know, who are like, no, he did something wrong, of course he's being held accountable. And you know these people over here would say they'd vote for him even if he was dead.
I would note.
Even the DeSantis guy though he was like, well, I think some of the charges are a witch hunt. I mean yeah, I think that see for them saying they will vote for him even this early, just makes it that, in my opinion, I.
Think a lot of those people would vote for him. So, like some.
People say, they may not, but then when it came down to it, you know, have the actual choice. It also to be ambiguous you jail, like he could be sentenced, but he may not actually be in jail. Then at the time and it becomes president can make the case they won't go to jail, which you know, who the hell knows that's going to work with the Supreme Court.
I do.
I do think that the vast majority of people in the room would end up voting for him as a result in the fact that though that he does have that Again, of the four people who said that they wouldn't they all disagree on who they want to choose and on which way they want. You have one Burgham person who's like pro choice. Then you have another guy here is like DeSantis, and then this other lady who I believe she's the one who said plandemic, but she's also not the one who was.
Going to vote for Trump. There was none agree on anything.
Vic Yeah, one of the one of the women there in the front with the dark brown hair who said that she couldn't just couldn't get her head around like voting for how could he govern if he's in prison?
I think that was the the Vake supporter. So listen, I think I agree with in terms of the primary, a lot of these folks are gonna end up voting for Trump or they're going to end up dividing between Vivek and Rond de Santis and Nikkia whoever, right, Doug Burghram Apparently the bigger question for me though, is in a general election, if this legal trouble for Trump and the trials are ongoing, and I don't even know if the timeline is going to be such that will have
convictions or results by that time, but it is possible, it's possible he's waiting sentencing. How is that going to weigh even on some of the people who are kind of sympathetic to him. Even if you have, like that's a room of Republican primary voters, right, these are some of the most committed, even the ones who you know claim their independencies. These are committed Republican voters who show up in elections, who show up to focus groups, et cetera.
And if half of them are saying I don't know, I can't vote for him if he's in prison, I do think that's a problem for him in a general election that may not be showing up in the pulsar.
I'm excited to see a focus group, you know, or polling all that from the actual general election in genuine swing states, because I agree with you. I think that there is far more actual independent like people who are not going to vote in a primary process, who might be very different whenever it comes to real charge is prison or any of that. I've said this, you know, and I know people don't like to hear it, especially if they're very online.
But you know, a lot of.
People in this country still do trust the justice system. Don't ask me why, but they do. A lot of people still have you know, a real like like a they have a reverence for the courts and for the idea of like jury trials and prosecutors.
And the law and all of those ideas.
So you know, if Trump is convicted to something like wow, wow, you know clearly that's wrong. The other side of that, though, is that they had that trust, and if it is blatantly political and they see it as such, which most people do well, it can erode trust and said justice system.
So I can argue it both ways. I think it's going to have an electoral impact no matter what.
You know.
What was interesting to me was that lady I was referencing before, who I think is the big supporter, and she said, even if I feel like the process is unfair, it's almost like a level of national embarrassment. Yeah, like I can't vote for this guy to be present from prison. Like that's just too embarrassed, it's too weird, it's too
outside the norm. I just can't go there. And you know, a lot of traditional Republican voters, even though Trump was the guy that upset the Apple card and you know, anti institutional and all of this stuff, you still have a lot of Republican voters who are you know, personally conservative, meaning that they actually like some of the norms and
for things to stay within the lines. And I think that's the visceral reaction that you're getting, especially from the two women there in the front row who were like, I just I just can't go there. Like, even though even if I think the process is unfair, even if I like some of what he did when he was president, even if I'm considering voting for him in the primary, which I think both of them are open to voting for him in the primary, I that's just that's a
bridge too far. I just can't do it. I thought that was interesting.
Absolutely, Yeah, So I mean, look, there's a lot there, guys, And like I've said, one of my favorite things about this is just hearing people show, don't tell, like, let people some people are contradictory, but you know, this is how people really think about the election, and a lot of people who are very, very tapped into politics often forget that there's millions of people who actually vote, and the stuff that they digest is not necessarily the same.
It's snippets.
They're living their daily lives, and this is a snapshot at the very least of what we can look at. Next, we're going to talk a little bit about Ukraine, and this is again a very significant part of our focus group where even though you know, as I said, people tune in and out, there was universal findings amongst our focus group, even when pressed by moderator James about funding to Ukraine and about how they view the conflict.
There's a lot to get into here.
Let's take a list and we'll break it down on the other side.
But the Ukraine War, has the funding for that been too high? About right? Or too low?
Too high?
I'm not convinced it's being used effectively.
Too high.
I don't think we can afford it too high, unnecessary much too high, and I'm not sure there's enough accountability for it.
Too high, and we'd like to see more accountability as to where.
It's going exactly too high, and I think some of my is going places we wouldn't want to see. A God, it's too high.
That there's a lot of scamming going on with the money, and uh, look how they forgot about MAUI.
Too high, And I don't believe it should be always us paying for everything.
Who would you rather saying? He who would you rather see be the victor of that war? Ukraine Russia? Or if you don't care, so you don't.
Care Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.
Don't care Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.
So the Ukrainians might be watching this and go, but we need the weapons, we need the one funding to do it.
Seriously, we could say, right, so what's your wrong went back, but it's such a cricket government.
We just have a history of trying to fund the right side that we think is the right side. We look at like Cuba and Castro and you know, we we have a hard time picking winners like that. So we could support Ukraine, but we don't need to be funding their entire military.
Don't forget there's a lot of Russians in ukrain that'll faud that that are living in Ukraine.
People don't realize that.
They think they're all Ukrainians, but there's a lot of Russians who want Russia to take it over.
I just think that America needs to be a little bit more concerned about America.
My heart goes out to Ukraine or any country that's being maybe under the sum of a larger force, but I think we need to take care of America first.
I mean, look, I love that clip because in it they're all like, I think it's been too high. But every single one of them say, for one said that they want Ukraine to win. They're like, my heart is
with Ukraine. I feel bad for Ukraine, but we have to, you know, have an actual priority here, and a lot of them are very aware, Crystal of some things which a lot of people in the media do not like to talk about, except very recently until Selenski fired his defense minister, where they're like, listen, I'm concerned about coruption in Ukraine. I'm concerned about where this money is going. I feel like it's been too high. They people feel
as if we're getting ripped off by the Europeans. I mean, these are not views that you were going to hear articulated, you know, in the media. And yet still it is the overwhelming consent, the unanimous.
Consensusanimous offense the entire focus group here.
That's shocking.
I mean that that actually even flies in the face of polling that we've seen from previous months. Out put us up there on the screen. Please, this is from NPR. This is from a few months ago, and this showed, you know, that rural voters and GOP voters were beginning to have a turn against this. This was in May of twenty twenty two, and then we found that even
more so again in May of twenty twenty three. But you know, Crystal now to be sitting here in September of twenty twenty three, to see a unanimous finding in our focus group. We're not going to claim that that's you know, in any way represented all GOP voters, but these are primary voters. These are people voting in the state of New Hampshire. And you know, I even found it fascinating. He was telling you before, even the guy who said of Nikki Haley strong foreign policy, he thinks
who's been sending too much money to you? Play?
Yes?
Even he yes, yeah, yeah, I mean that's one of the things that's so fascinating when you actually talk to voters, you realize there's a big disconnect oftentimes between you know, if you ask him about the policy where they are, and then how that connects to their political candidate choice. And I think that's somewhat on display here. But also you have to say, I mean there's a reason why
obviously Trump he's got his finger in the wind. He was the first one to sort of like come out on the side that these voters have now found themselves on. You can see why Ron de Santis has found this issue very difficult to navigate because he can read a poll, he sees where the base is. He knows the donors that he depends on, who, by the way, have been like sort of fleeing his campaign and droves many of
them are on the other side of that. You can see why Vivek has positioned himself the way that he
has and as clearly as he has. But it's so funny because on the other hand, you know, when he had that direct exchange with Nikki Haley in the debate, even though the majority of Republican base voters would say, like, you know, on the policy level, they're more in agreement actually with the vig stance that exchanged, it a lot for her in terms of people saying like, oh, she won that debate just because she came off in this strong way and leads to one of our focus group
participants who says, we're spending too much in Ukraine to say, oh, I like her foreign policy. So I mean, it's just listen. This is not to like, you know, shame them or anything. They're just like normal people going about their lives and trying to sort through these things the best that they can, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But it does show you that there is not a one to one connection between I think X on this issue and this is the way I even feel about this candidate on
this particular issue. So that was fascinating to me. But obviously the fact that it was unanimous, I was surprised it was one hundred percent in it because we obviously had in that room a lot of very different people with a very different view of the political landscape also who were taking in very different news sources. We played
that clip yesterday. You know, you had one guy who's like and you probably remember which is, you know, the hardest Trump guy is like Newsmax one hundred percent, and you have Tucker Carlson. But then you had like five thirty eight, and you had now mainstream other mainstream sources. So there was a wide variety of news input going into this group, and yet all of them one hundred percent had come to the same conclusion for maybe a
variety of reasons. But even though we are really sympathetic to Ukraine, we feel that it should not be the US one hundred percent floating this thing, and what we are doing is too high here.
Yeah, I mean, I'm talking to my monologue.
There's a very interesting moment President Zelenski finally defined pro Russian. He has defined it as anything that goes against the counter Ukraine consensus. And what I would show President Zelenski is that clip. You know, there are many people in this country, including me, we're like, yeah, we feel terrible for you.
We think that what's happened to you is unjust.
That doesn't mean that we're going to bankroll this conflict for all of time and you get to do whatever you want, and you get your pick of the US weapons armory, and that we get to sacrifice our national security on your behalf.
I feel bad for a lot of people.
You know how many times today do you walk down the street and you're like, wow, I feel awful. Could you realistically go through and you know, pay each person homeless bill?
No, it's not how it works.
And these are realistic trade offs that everybody makes in our daily life, that we all make in our foreign policy, and yet we don't make apparently at all, whenever it comes to the conflict in Ukraine. And it's one of those where the inability to have nuance in the discussion has just been maddening. Now for the last almost two years of this entire conflict, and I guess the only thing I'm heartened by is voters get it now. I mean, let's be clear, this is a focus group. These are
GOP people. I guess they're probably the most predisposed to hear this. I'm very curious though, to hear what an actual like broad general election focus group would have to say too, because beginning to suspect, it's a hell of a lot more than people are thinking.
I think it's a lot more nuanced than the media portrayal would have you believe. So don't worry. We'll be looking to produce maybe some general election focus scar Oh don't.
Yeah that when the time will come, if people keep signing up and we can afford it.
Yeah, exactly, Okay, exactly, all right.
I got to get the sales pitch of them there. All right, let's go to Saudi Arabia. So yesterday was September eleventh. You know, obviously it's always it's one of theo's a strange day, you know, twenty something years onwards,
because it's like, how do you think about it? Some people who watch our show, actually a lot of people watching show weren't even live whenever that happened, where they have no memory of that, and it's difficult in order to think about it, you know, in terms of the day itself.
But what's not difficult is to assess the legacy.
And I always actually like to think about September twelfth, two thousand and one, because that's the day that everything actually changed, that we are now what the twenty second anniversary of Paul Wolfowitz decided of floating Iraq and Saddam Hussein and the Camp David meeting so exactly, you know, literally the day after nine eleven, they were already planning on vading Iraqi.
You can go read about it if you're interesting.
And it's twenty two years I guess, you know, on the date since we began covering up the role of the government of Saudi Arabia in this conflict. And our friend Klippenstein flagged this in one of the most disgusting displays that I've seen from the White House yet where they open when he praised Saudi Arabia on nine to eleven. This was the spokesperson Adrian Watson of the National Security Council.
She says, quote, we welcome this weekend's announcement by Saudi Arabia committing twenty billion dollars to support President Biden's signature initiative, the Partnership for the Global Infrastructure.
So even if.
They are funding, said, you know, global infrastructure, is nine to eleven really the day that we should be praising the Saudis as you flagged also Crystal the New York Times ransom bizarre agit prop. Let's put this up there, please on the screen. A pro Saudi normalization op ed on nine to eleven and did not even disclose that the writer works for a think tank which is funded by the government of Saudi Arabia. And I mean literally the column itself is directly pushing for like a Saud Look,
they're pushing for Saudi, you know, Saudi normalization. Ties between the US is railed Saudi Arabia. I think that's all, like, that's a legitimate point of view. But you know, right there at the very top, a residence scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
Low and behold, like where does that money come from?
And then they have the goal to run it on nine to eleven, you know, without any shame, without any mention. I just find this an exact run through of what has happened over the last twenty two years, where we've erased the government of Saudi Arabia's role in this entire conflict, of their inability or at least complicity in order to stop this plot, some say fund this plot, say at
least very aware of what was going on. We know, you know, we had that gentleman on our show not that long ago who talked about how there was a confirmed you know, FBI informant in Saudi Arabia, Saudi national who who was interacting with two of the nine to eleven hijackers before the entire plot happened. There's still so much to be said about their role with the Taliban and how deeply they were involved and knew of what bin Laden was doing.
And then that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.
The Bush administration openly flying Saudi people out of the country and covering for their safety, you know, at a time when three thousand Americans were smoldering dead, and you know at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center and on United ninety three. So anyway, there's so much to say there twenty something years on, you know, in terms of what the impact has been, but I really think today is the anniversary I always look to in terms of the jump off point for really where everything
went wrong. You know, the entire modern era that you and I are living in began that day, September twelfth.
Yeah, I mean, listen, it's been said many times, so it's worth saying again. If we did absolutely nothing in response to nine to eleven, it would have been far far superior than what we ended up doing, which has been a you know, complete calamity obviously for our men and women who served and were injured and died and you know, still suffered PTSD to this day. The rates of veterans suicide are absolutely a tragedy and really a
moral stain, I would say, on the country. That's to say nothing of the you know, unbelievable toll on Iraqi civil millions and civilians throughout the Middle East. So the way that we know upended in entire region with complete disastrous results. The amount of money, I mean, this is like the least of the problems, but the amount of money that was spent there when we could have been investing in things that would have helped people here instead
of just murdering people and creating chaos. But you know, on that, I think it's words funding. One more minute on that Adam Johnson Chase, which flagged the Saudi propaganda and the New York Times, because he had a really good paragraph in his sub stack right up here. He says, listen, wandering influencer. Think tanks is but one way the Saudi
government attempts to influence the US public and lawmakers. He goes through, you know, Saudi funding of Vice News that led that company to pull punches on their coverage, including removing a documentary critical of MBS from its YouTube page. They are the second largest investor in Twitter, helping Saudi authorities gain favorable treatment, jailing or executing regime critics. Saudi Arabia is now a major player in Silicon Valley, in Hollywood,
and the DC lobbying world. But he says, nothing white has the subtle and respectable impact of a well placed think tank. Op ed in the English speaking world's most influential newspaper, the pretense of academic credibility, the serious foreign policy person pros the inability for even the most skeptical observer to know who is footing the bill for the writer in question. If The Times once to publish writers commenting on Saudi affairs who are backed by the Saudi
regime on nine eleven, no less, that's their prerogative. But if they do so, they should at the very least let readers know about the glaring conflict of interest at work, because obviously that would inform how you read this piece. So, yes, this could be a completely legitimate perspective, one point of view that this individual is sharing. But it matters that you know who this person is being paid by and why they might hold that view.
Yeah, of course it matters.
It matters a lot, and especially again in the paper of record and for the Times. This is still the worst media screw up of our entire lifetime, of which, look, we got a little bit of accountability, but we didn't get nearly enough. This is the New York Times. They basically drove us, helped drive us into the war in Iraq with their ridiculous Judy Miller coverage of Yellowcake uranium. But even post nine to eleven, there's a lot still to be said. Glenn Greenwald has done some incredible work.
I still recommend people go and look at it. In terms of how the media dropped the ball on the anthrax crisis and then end up using anthrax in order to manufacture consent for even more like WMD freakout, which led to the invasion of Iraq. It is the single most insane period of our entire lifetime. And if you weren't alive at that time, or if you were too young to remember, I was really on the cuts. But I've really only read more about the most insane parts.
But at least you know cognizant enough to remember the day that we invaded Iraq and even.
The time just like, this is crazy.
This is nuts, you know, in order to watch this and then the subsequent fallout, you're talking about so many people we know who've been you know, injured or wounded and combat or came back and never felt the same. This is this is the reality I think of the fallout. It's also funny because I was flagging for our team. We tried our best to find some of these ads,
but we weren't able to put this up there. I always like to try and remind people the government of Saudi Arabia spent billions of dollars on US AD campaigns. In terms of like television ads across nineteen different cities and including on radio, to try and prove that they had nothing to do with nine to eleven and to say they'd been a loyal ally. Here's a hilarious report. August seventeenth, two thousand and four. Saudi's used nine to
eleven report in their US AD campaign quote. Stung by criticism about its role in fighting terrorism, Saudi Arabia has launched radio advertising in nineteen cities, citing the September eleventh Commission report as proof that has been a loyal ally
in the fight against al Qaeda. What they failed to mention, obviously, is that there were secret pages withheld from the report which directly discussed how a Saudi national and likely intelligence agent almost certainly knew of the plot for nine to eleven and at the very least had reported some of this back to RIOD that wasn't even declassified until a couple of years ago.
Crystal.
So, I mean, just to think about how we used the nine to eleven Commission report, which has all sorts of problems, and then it directly covered up the Saudi role inside said report, and they used that to spend billions of dollars trying to, you know, rebuild their image. This is why, you know, we freak out so much about live golf and you know, all the stuff that
was going on there, even you know, Saudi connection. Because at the basic level, this government is the most responsible for one of the worst attacks on our soil since freaking Pearl Harbor, and they got away with it scot free.
I mean, the Japanese, you know, you.
Could at least say they got paid back for what they did. This Now that most of the people were responsible, they're sitting pretty they're multi billionaires, and they're hanging out in riyadd.
Today, all of the Biden administrations rhetoric about human rights and democracy, I mean, it's just our uncritical support of Saudi Arabia and Israel, I should add. I mean, it just makes a mockery of any idea that those values are really at the core of what the Biden administration is up to.
Yeah.
Absolutely, and then that's not none of us was even to mention an insane moment from President Biden yesterday. He's flying back from Vietnam, came back the Pacific route, landed in Anchorage, and decided to give a speech when he was back in US soil commemorating nine to eleven, and during said speech, claimed that on September twelfth, two thousand and one, that he was present at ground zero. Now, let's hear from his words, and we'll give you the fact check on the other side.
Each of those precious lives stolen too soon when evil attacked.
Browns are in New York, and.
I remember standing there the next day and looking at the building. I felt like I was looking through the gates of hell. It looked so devastating because the way you could away from where you could stand.
You know, And Chrystal, it takes not a genius to know Joe Biden was in one Washington because he was on the Senate floor on September twelve, two thousand and one, where they voted on the Senate floor to condemn the nine to eleven terror attacks and began much of the freak out and the lead up to the war in Iraq from that point forward. He wasn't there on nine eleven Ground zero, And when I first heard about it, I was like, well, I was like, did he mean
the Pentagon? You know, because it's conceivable that senators and other elected officials had gone over to the Pentagon to go see the room. But no, he literally said ground zero. He talked about New York City and the World Trade Center. It's just straight up lie. He wasn't there, and this is the first time there with him. Yeah, I guess Cornpop is really Cornpop actually flew him there. Never no other flights were flying in the United States. It's just like,
I don't know, I mean, is it funny. It's just like an open thing that he does over and over and over again where he just makes up these stories completely. And we're talking about this earlier. This isn't just an age thing. He's been doing this.
Forever, right, this one you can't chalk up to like, oh, Grandpa, Joe's having a dimension moment. No, Like, this is very consistent pattern throughout his career. I mean, where he just you know, stuff up. He's studying what got arrested with Nelson Mandela or something was one of them, remember that one.
I meansed just I just I never understand in instances like this, or like Kamala with her fweedom thing or sorry, I mean, the most ridiculous example is George Santos, who lives literally everything or you know Trump also will just like completely embellish or make up things too. You know, Vonda Santas came with me to me with tears in his eyes whatever. Some of these things. I'm just like, why would you lie about that? Like why do you
need to say You don't need to say that. You can express, like, you know, condolences and the gravity of the moment and really convey how much you get it without just like making shit up. And we'll never We'll never understand it. One side, interesting side note that was
flagged about this is his stopover in Anchorage, Alaska. A whole suite of Biden administration officials have been like making a olgrimage to Alaska, and the reason is because it's the home of Senator Lisa Murkowski, who is the Republican in the Senate who is most open to working with them on anything on their agenda and confirmations, etc. And so you've had Merritt Garland, HUD Secretary Marsha Fudge, EPA Administrator,
Administrator Michael Reagan, White House Senior Advisor Mitch Landrew, Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Boudreau, Senior HHS administrator Tom Coderre. I think Pete Boodagie made a trip as well. And now you've got Joe Biden making a point of stopping over in Anchorage on nine to eleven to do his remembrance there. So very noteworthy the full court press that has been for the charm offensive that has been laid upon Lisa Murkowski there.
Yeah, you're right, it's odd. It's also yeah, like to do it from Alaska. There was also the White House was pressed They're like, hey, why is President Biden not at ground zero today? And they were like, well, twenty two years after Pearl Harbor, it's not like the President was still going to Pearl Harbor. But actually people went back and checked. JFK did for like twenty two years.
I'm not look, I'm not saying you need to go.
I'm just like the justification that you're saying as to why you didn't go, and then to spend the day again lying about what you're doing. I think it's a self aggrandizement thing. There was there's stories with like Lyndon Johnson. Johnson is a notorious liar as well, and then Bellischer and one of the things he didn't realize is that when he became president people would actually begin to check some of the things that he's right, and he just couldn't.
He was it was congenital, like he'd been doing it for so long that he just couldn't get away from telling stories that were false. And his age would be like, sorry, you need to stop saying it that it didn't that didn't happen, but in his mind it did happen.
I think Biden is the same way.
I think they both of them are very similar to lifetime in the Senate, lifetime in Washington. He's probably spent a lifetime at cocktail parties, dining out on stories which is completely not true. And you know, whenever you're you know, by the time you're that old, it's baked in. And there's also a media thing here where he just gets away with it. I only saw a conservative media do
something like this. It was once upon a time when you know, the New York Times and others would have been like, hey, just so we're all aware, how the president, you know, marked like supposedly a hallow day and remembrance all that actually just didn't happen at all, Like, yeah, told it outright falsehood on that didn't see one, not one story.
It's an interesting point about LBJ because I think part of it with Biden too has got to be I think it probably he's told these stories so many times they are just ingrained to the point where he, I don't know, thinks it. Yeah, I mean, he just doesn't even think twice about rolling them out. But then the other part is probably the fact that people now with the Internet can just ease like they don't need the New York Times to tell them where you were on
September twelfth. They can just easily look it up and the record is all there and available for the public. Like he hasn't probably really grappled with that new reality. Good point with that now multi decade old reality, since I conframed yet.
This is a very interesting story I know that a lot of you are very interested in, and it just highlights the changing nature of our demographics, of land use and of the housing markets. So let's go and put this up there on the screen. This is about how the pandemic population boom in rural areas has sparked resentment from a lot of local residents. And one of the things that we have there on the screen which is
really useful is this map. If we can keep it up there, you can see how populations by county which have gained over two thousand, or at the very least have gained population disproportionately are in the heartland and in counties which previously had never seen that type of growth. Counties that lost over two thousand people, you'll see are overrepresented, like the Miami Dade area, population centers in Texas, population centers in California, and population centers in the industrial Midwest.
All of this was driven by work from home, people retiring early, people deciding that they want more land, the suburban life.
We've talked about that before.
But part of the problem is that the booming of rural America, which would be a good story if it was the rural Americas themselves who were booming, is creating both a land use crisis and an infrastructure crisis and a housing crisis in many of these areas. So, for example, you know, Montana has seen a massive amount of net in migration from California, second home homers and others. Population increases in some cases crystal have sent skyrocketing prices of
forty percent. In rural areas, schools are overloaded, farm land prices are dramatically higher. Land use is becoming a huge problem. Many of the people who live in said areas are finding it completely unable to sustain the way of life that they already had or to be able to purchase
the house. Some of the counties in particular that they show which have boomed the most Jackson County, Georgia, Flathead County, Montana, Hawaii County Hawaii, Gallatin County, Montana, Moore County, North Carolina, Harnette County, North Carolina, Iron County, Utah, Bonnard County, Idaho, twins Fall County, Idaho, and Bullet County, Georgia. So basically it's like Georgia, Montana, Hawaii, North Carolina, Idaho. These are states,
you know, with pretty smaller populations. They're definitely didn't we were not ready for the infrastructure or boom that they would need to cope with this, and residents themselves are left with lesser services and more expensive quality of life. It just again just goes back to the housing supply problem that we have right now. And I don't know, I mean, it's hard to villainize people who just wanted
to move somewhere else in America. There's nothing wrong with that, but there is something wrong with if you live somewhere the Flathead.
You know, I've been there.
It's a beautiful part of the Country's one of my favorite parts. It's really tough, you know, for me to imagine you live there, grew up your whole life.
You know, it's the outdoors and all that. Everything starts to get more crowded.
You're getting crowded out of places that you've been going to for a long time. That's really difficult to swallow.
It's like a rural version of the problem of gentrification in cities where people have been longtime residents, suddenly their neighborhood becomes like the cool hit place for young professionals. The next thing you know, there's luxury high rises going up and they are priced out of the neighborhood where they grew up back when it wasn't so cool in hipster. I think this is, in a sense, sort of like
the rural version of this. And what makes it interesting and even more complex is the fact that it's not like there was an even dispersal of people from cities into places across the country. Is very concentrated in certain areas, so the two places in particular that saw a lot
of growth. The two types of places that saw a lot of growth were suburbs, which we were talking about how rent has become just like insanely expensive to get an apartment in a suburb, and that people who moved to the suburbs during the pandemic because they know they wanted more space and they no longer had to worry
so much about a commune. They aren't moving back. So this is kind of like new reality, and there's a rush to try to figure out, you know, housing and do we do rent controls to how do we surge a lot more apartment housing and affordable housing for people in the suburbs. And I mean, in some ways those locations, because at least there was some level of density before, may be better positioned to be able to cope with
the influx of residents. But then the other category of places that really surged in terms of population growth where these sort of like vacation hotspot destinations. Yeah, where like Montana is a great example of that, where you know, it's really beautiful and if you're a person who's super outdoorsy, this could be a dream come true true to be able to live in, you know, the town of your
dreams in Montana. But these are small rural communities that weren't prepared for this influx, and so and we shouldn't
understand too. There's like a culture clash as well. You know, you've got a very red conservative state in Montana and some of the folks who have moved there are from California and have very different you know, values and world views and outlooks, and so there's also even beyond the concerns about being priced down of their own hometowns, people coming in and you know, still maintaining their La or San Francisco jobs and the commensurate salaries and what they're
able to afford. But there's also a sense of like is this town even going to be what this town was to me. It's like a sense of an attack on a way of life.
It's tough to with the farmland I was referencing farmland. It's the highest level that it's ever been. Farmland prices are up over seven point four percent. We also have seen that a lot of this land, at least if zoning allows for it, even though it's been zoned or was used for agricultural purposes in areas where they're able to just buy into their building developments, and once again I'm like, okay, well we have housing prices where you have problems with land and all that, but we all
got to eat. And you know, whenever that happens, you're destroying an entire way of life that's existed there for generations. There's a lot to say here, you know about what that is. I don't know what the answer is. It's really hard. It's one of those where I really feel for the people if you lived in an area your whole life and you're now not able to afford the place that you were, and you know, in some cases
like flat at It, we're talking about that. I only know because this is the one place I've been to when I went to Glacier National Park is one of the most pristine, incredible places that I've ever been in my whole life. I totally get it why anybody would have the time and the money or the resource or whatever would want to relocate there, at the very least
for the summer. But there's a threat in population and people who have been there for a long time, long before you know, any of these lake houses and all those things, yeah, start to pop up.
What do you do?
You know, and especially if you were working poor you work at one of these ski resorts. One of the things they point to is that the North Carolina counties I mentioned, they just have a bunch of golf courses. Well, what if you work in the golf course, Like, how are you supposed to get to work? So if you can't even rent or anywhere in the area. I was just in Martha's Vineyard. They were taught me about the
same thing. They're like, yeah, the biggest problem here is all these rich people moved here during the pandemic, but now and then they want all these services, and then they're shocked whenever nobody can afford the rent, or that the prices are super high, because the rent is sky high for any of the people who are serving in the service sector have to live on set Island. Like, it's a huge competition for housing. It's a very difficult problem to actually solve.
I mean, the economic piece is not easy to solve, but it is solvable in terms of surging affordable housing
and you know, innovative programs there. I'm optimistic that in terms of the culture class that these things kind of work themselves over over time as people get to know each other, and you know, the way that you feel about someone Theoretically, when you're just encountering them in like an online exchange or like you know, through the prism of whatever news outlet that you happen to be consuming, it's very different from when this person is your neighbor
and you're meeting them and you get to know their kids and their reasons for being there and what their lives are all about. So and and by the way, you know, I live in a rural area where I grew up. I so even though I'm not conservative, I am also very personally attached to like the rural character of my town. So I have sympathy for the view of like you're changing this place that I like it the way it is. You know, this is how I think of it, this is my perception of it, and
I don't want it to change. So I'm very sympathetic to that perspective. But I do think those sort of like cultural tension probably somewhat works itself out over time, and then you've got to I mean, the housing is the key. It's the core of so many of these issues.
That we talk about, and it's just the most basic building block of people being able to live and feel stable and be able to have families and be able to raise kids and you know, be able to really like achieve the things that they want for themselves and their family. So that's so much at the core of all of this.
Absolutely.
Okay, So, speaking of culture clash, Wall Street Journal had what I thought was a really interesting article which perhaps you know, I related to a little bit too much in terms of my own children, about how kids these days they're not watching you know, they're not really watching TV shows as much. They're not really watching like the Disney movies that I grew up on. It said, there's a little bit of that, but it's not what they're
really going for. Many kids are super into certain YouTube creators. Put this up on the screen from the Wall Street Journal, they say, sorry, mom and dad, but sitcoms, cartoons and Disney movies are out. Kids today prefer to be entertained by the likes of Mister Beasts, Unspeakable and Linky Box.
And the basic dynamic here won't surprise anyone, which is that now that it's not just like you know, one or two family TVs that everybody has to to, you know, gather around or that's on in a way that everyone in the household can at least see what sort of
content is being consumers consume. Everybody has their own screen, and so they can choose their own entertainment options, including kids, and they are choosing things that are you know, not that their parents are not even aware exist, let alone have any interest in consuming alongside of them. And since it's on their own individual screen, they're not even getting sort of like ambient awareness of what's going on. So let me read you a little bit of this. They say.
An entertainment golf has long existence between adults and their children's stars, and shows that attract kids can repel parents. Happen with Mottley Crue, Beavis and butt Head, South Park, even Elvis. Today, though we consume media, the way we consume media has widened that chasm. Not long ago, a single TV blasted from the living room. Parents didn't always enjoy what their children watch, but at least they were
exposed to it. And then they've got some quotes from parents who are you know, posting on parent forums, what do I need to know about the YouTuber beluga.
I just look at that.
It is a cat, said one reply in the Chicago area. Emily, Ryan's oldest son, Bear started constantly talking about unspeakable. Who is that? What is that? Ryan, who's forty, recalls asking, yes, I recently, sager, Yes, had a very similar experience.
You show me to this or these gentlemen whoever run this channel?
Yes. So my son who is ten, and his bestie, we were driving them to their soccer game and his best friend is they're both really into YouTube, and his best friend is always interested in the fact that we're on YouTube. He was always talking to us about it whatever, and he's also always shaming us. He's like, you only have a million subs, like mister Bune, know how many
subs mister beast has. And so we got into this conversation about some of the most popular YouTubers and they started talking about some YouTube show called Skibvity toilet which I was like, is that I've never heard of?
That?
Is that a real threat thing? What is that? Put this up a screen? This is what this thing looks like. It's this bizarre animation. Okay, these toilet head people who are apparently in a war with cameraman people, there's a lot of music, there's shorts. These are YouTube shorts, so they only last like a short period of times. And none of it really at least to me. I watched several episodes quote unquote of this. It all just looks like this to me, none of it makes any sense.
But this is getting like hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, and not only was I not aware of it, Like I can't relate to it at all. So this one's sort of landed close to home for visa.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. It's funny because you know, we make our living on YouTube. As you said, it's funny. Whenever I meet kids, the cool the coolest thing is being a YouTuber. They're like, oh my god, I used have a YouTube sticker on my phone, which I never thought about and which ended up being a big deal for a lot of my Yeah, a lot
of children that I have interacted with and met. It's funny because apparently when you ask them, every single one of them wants to be a YouTube creator, Like they all want to be YouTubers. Yeah, whenever they grow up, it makes sense. I mean, and I kind of sympathize. What the journal points to is like they're like parents have always been baffled by what their kids are into.
It's like like they.
Pointed out South Park and these other things, which seemed ridiculous at the time to a lot of people who grew up with different type of animation. But then this is like very cheap, but it's funny and it's crude. And then you know, for this again, I'm not gonna pretend I've never been an anime guy or some of our staff are very into anime.
Just looking at both of our producers.
And that's fine, you know, it's okay, especially for what these kids are into. I actually the Mister Beast one is the one that makes the most sense to me because.
I really like some of those videos.
Yeah, Like my favorite videos is Private Plane. I really like to fuy so for me, like I loved watching that video the Anti I've always been obsessed with Antarctica. He's got a great video on that. But even some of them, I mean, if you're into gaming. Again, I'm not a gamer, but I know a lot of people who will watch hours of game content. Well, if that's something that you like to do, then watching I mean,
I sympathize with this. I love to watch anybody who is the best at what they do, and especially if I can relate to it like a little bit. So if you're really into gaming, they watch somebody was in the top point zero one percent or whatever of that, I would totally understand.
Help me think.
I'll be like, oh, maybe I can do this whenever I'm into the game. It would be very entertaining. So I'm not gonna put a value judgment on that.
Oh there's some value it. I just think it's interesting. So I even noticed a difference between my oldest daughter's fifteen when she was little versus now. When she was little, you know, it was very like she really loved Dora the Explorer, and you know, she really liked like she there were very Disney movies that she was really into. She liked this cartoon I think it was called Madeline
than she was. And I was very aware of these things, right, And then even when my son who now is ten, when he was very little, there was more of a connection between what he was watching. But now my youngest daughter who is six, like, she is not really interested in watching a Disney movie, which you know, again very different. She loves this channel on YouTube called Ninja Kids. She loves these people. She will do like you know, the
fandom is very large. She's always asking for their merch and she wants to meet and do they do anything in public? Can I go see them? Like this is her thing? And so it just is very different. And she's still in an age where she doesn't have her own screen in her own device. So that's why I'm sort of more connected to what she's watching all the time versus the older ones are doing their own thing.
Now.
The last thing I'll say about skivity toilet, which both our producers were like, oh, yeah, we know what that. I asked though, my fifteen year old daughter about it, and she was like, I've no idea what's talking about. And she's on TikTok all the time, and apparently this is also on TikTok. But so that could be like
a gender thing. I don't know. So, I mean it just goes to show that even within this generation, the level of silo between the content that they're consuming and that they're being pitched and that the algorithm and is serving them is also really vast. Because I guarantee a lot of the boys that she goes to school with are all about skibbitty toilet and she had zero awareness of it.
Absolutely.
The toddler video I'm aware of is Miss Rachel. I know she's a big, big celebrity amongst people who have babies. I saw a video of like a toddler meeting Miss Rachel, and it was like watching watching a toddler recognize YouTuber.
It was just it was interesting.
I'm like, huh, that's that's something that they're really growing up with it from a very early age. Her videos have hundreds of millions of views. Yeah, her most popular d is four hundred and ninety million. I don't know how she only has six million subscribers.
That's wild.
She lot crazy.
I don't even know who this person is. So I guess it's because toddlers can't subscribe to YouTube channel.
Yeah, but I think I think a lot of parents put it on. I mean these some of these they look good. It's like baby learning with Miss Rachel, baby song speech and sign language, wheels on the bus, more nursery rhymes and kids songs, learn animals with Miss Rachel.
So these all seem like very productive. I was a parent. You know, I guess when I become a parent, I'll probably lean on some of this stuff. It's interesting to think about.
At the same time, it relates a little bit to a news story I've been very interested in less pass up there on the screen. Disney and Charter have ended their dispute and have restored ESPN and ABC to fifteen million households. This dispute was very interesting because it pulled ESPN and ABC off the air for char Rder Communication subscribers. That's almost fifteen million households in the US which were
unable to watch college football. They ended up coming back so that they could watch Monday night football for the big game that happened last night, that New York Jets. Rip Aaron Well, best Aaron Rodgers out there. I hope he's feeling better.
The interesting thing about it, we'll say yes to his season.
The best that we can say about Disney and Charter, and the reason I was watching it closely, is the fact that they were only able.
To come to some sort of consensus.
Eventually was overpriced, and it's because Disney wanted more money for ESPN and Charter was like, what are you talking about more? And more people are dropping cable. We don't even think cable is a huge part of our business anymore. And the only reason they even came to a deal was for live sports. But a lot of other Disney programming is not going to be in the bundle anymore, like FXX and some of the other channels that they had that they've been running for a long time that
will no longer be included. So this is a big story because even though they were able to come to a deal, we don't know yet what the financial terms
and all of that looked. Like the fact that a cable company was willing to stand up and be like, I'm not paying you what you want that has never really happened before whenever it came to ESPN, And it shows the diminishing power of Disney and of all these cable companies, And it's the foreshadowing of what I think will come with CNN, Fox and MSNBC in the years to come.
Yeah, it's notable that Number One, they came to a deal hours before I Think It's Monday Night Football was set to air, so clearly, like the live sports part of it was really critical to them feeling we've got to figure out something here. But the underlying business story is really interesting because Disney, to use one example here, they feel like the streaming is their company's future. However,
right now it's not really profitable for them. So today with their business model, the cable carry fees are far more profitable for them. So they're effectively using the money that they're making from this dying industry to subsidize their streaming product that they feel will be the future. And obviously, you know, Charter and other you know, paid cable TV companies are not happy about the fact that they feel like they are subsidizing the very thing that is going
to destroy their own business. So that's sort of like the core tension here. And Charter wanted Disney streaming apps Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN Plus to be made available at no extra cost to their pay TV customers, and Disney was like, get out of town. There's no way we're doing that. But that's sort of the central fight here, And you know, everybody who's involved effectively recognizes that cable TV is a dying format and so everyone's trying to
protect what they see as the future. And you know, for Charter to be able to protect what they have and hold on to it as long as they possibly can. And so that's why this fight is so interesting, because it really foreshadows some of the battles to come, and just the fact that this is, this whole model is dying before our eyes.
Well, I can only hope. I wish Charter had not given in. I wish they could have let them burn. But it's okay, we'll get there one day. I'll enjoy seeing it, Crystal, what do you take it?
A look at?
It turns out rich people cheat on their taxes a lot. Research suggests that the top one percent hired roughly twenty percent of their yearly income. The amount for the point one percent is even higher. Also turns out the IRS hasn't exactly done a lot about this situation. In fact, low income Americans earning less than twenty five thousand dollars per year are five times more likely to be audited than anyone else. In other words, create a bunch of
shell companies and hide millions in the Bahamas. You'll scape by the Feds, no problem. Fail to fully record your cash tip income from your job at the waffle house, and the IRS will be at your door tomorrow. Now, there's a pretty obvious explanation for this. IRS has faced huge budget cuts. It's way easier to go after the poor. Their tax avoidance is less fancy, and they don't have
high priced lawyers and accountants to defend them. So after public outrage about these numbers and this blatantly unfair situation, Democrats actually secured some funding through the Inflation Production I for the IRS to hire more agents in order to go after wealthy tax cheats who routinely stiff the government. So everyone must have been happy, right, problem was identified, there was widespread outrage and now, for once the politicians
are trying to do a little bit of something. Joy must have spread across the land, right, of course.
Not.
Instead, Fox News, apparently desperate to protect rich tax cheats, concocted a conspiracy that the IRS was hiring eighty seven thousand new agents not true, who would be armed with guns also not true, to target the middle class. Take a listen to a sampling of their freak down on.
Their website that listed the job requirements for a special agents position. The major duties require agents to quote carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force if necessary.
A little like James Bond.
But instead of hunting down evil maniacs, these agents hunt down and kill middle class taxpayers on the.
Heat it passing legislation to fund this new gestapo at the IRS. The organization is going to be used in the same abusive, corrupt manner as the FBI and the DOJ have been used.
Deep in the army.
Yeah, it's a praetorian guard that will be unleashed again. Joe Biden said he was going to grow the middle class, Harris and unite the country. Instead, you have a government targeting the citizens and now arming this praetorian guard to go out and grab all the cash they can.
These are the people who create the crime wave. America is suffering under it, and now they're blaming you for it. And for good measure, they're disarming you because you cannot be trusted with guns, because you're too dangerous.
And just in case you missed the.
Theme here, they're hiring another eighty seven thousand armed IRS agents just to make sure that you obey got it?
Got it?
Is it clear? Now? Let me offer a little bit of sympathy, not to the liars and fabulous at Fox News, but to the ordinary Americans who had legitimate concerns about how this increased IRS funding might be used. Perfectly reasonable to be skeptical about the likely use of these government funds after many prior government abuses and failures, legitimate to want to see results before blessing this whole program. But now we've actually got some results starting to come in,
and the early indications are actually pretty good. In July alone, the IRS was able to collect thirty eight million dollars in back taxes from the rich explicitly based on just a few months work. And now they are scaling up that effort, announcing a new initiative to pursue sixteen hundred millionaire tax sheats plus seventy five large businesses that are behind on hundreds of millions of dollars in their taxes.
Coordinator the agency. The effort to collect on these obligations is thanks to the new funding, which allowed them not only to hire some more staff, but to develop technology internally that helps them to identify wealthy tax dodgers for enforcement. The overall enforcement goal for the wealthy, even with the
additional funding, it's actually still really modest. The goal is just to get back to the audit rates on the wealthy, which prevailed back in twenty eleven before sequestration and Republican push budget cuts stripped the IRS of funding, leading it to be critically understaffed. In twenty nineteen, for example, DIRS audited just zero point four percent of taxpayers who are
earning more than half a million dollars. Back in twenty eleven, it audited about four point five percent of that same group. But there are other good things which could actually come out of this money too. Not only could we end up getting more from the rich, but we could also end up with a smoother, less expensive, less exploitative system for the average American. This year, the IRS is piloting a new public run, free tax filing system, similar to
what is available in many other developed nations. For decades, tax prep companies, including H and R Block and into It, which owns TurboTax, they have blocked the government from creating such a direct e file system. Why so that these corporations can maintain their grip on the highly profitable tax prep market. In the early two thousand sies companies struck
a deal with the government. The basic deal was you stay on the tax prep business and we will offer a free version of our software to middle and lower class tax filers. A surprise, surprise, Into It was caught cheating customers, tricking them into using the paid version when they should have qualified for the free one. Republica did some fantastic reporting on all of into its various schemes.
That reporting led to a lot of public pressure. That public pressure led to an FTC investigation and a New York state lawsuit which won victims over one hundred million dollars. For these tricks, lawmakers were paying attention to and put money for a direct e file program into the Inflation Reduction Act. Now those efforts are beginning to bear some fruit, moving US one step closer to the possibility of an easier and completely free tax filing system for many. This
in some ways, it's a small thing. In other ways, though it is meaningful. Research suggests that some seventy three percent of taxpayers are interested in the direct e file option, and sixty eight percent of those who currently use self preparation software were at least somewhat likely to want to switch. And if the government can show any green shoots of re building capacity to actually serve the public, that in
my opinion, is a positive step forward. So definitely keep your skepticism, keep demanding proof that public money is being used to benefit the public, and also keep being skeptical that the rich aren't getting away with cheating and scanning you at every single term. But also keep your skepticism of the narratives being pushed by self interested blowhards will use any trick they can to protect the two tier system that they themselves benefit from. And Sara was heartened to.
See, and if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
All right, sorry, we're looking at a.
New Elon musk biography is making waves in recent days, with particularly focus on his control of Starlink and its use on the battlefield in Ukraine.
The entire episode.
Reveals a lot about how little capacity our government and the Ukrainian government has over our future, over the way that the media treats even a slight deviation away from the Ukraine consensus, and about what the future of this entire conflict will look like. Give then said media environment, start with the basics the first explicit details of some long known news came out from a new passage of
the Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk. Isaacson originally wrote that in September of twenty twenty two, Musk learned via the Ukrainian military's use of starlink that they were planning a sneak attack on the Russian fleet based in Crimea. The attack consisted of six small drone submarines packed full of explosives that relied on Elon Musk starling to guide them to their target before exploding on the Russian fleet.
Upon learning of the attack, per Isaacson's telling, Elon decided that he should switch off starlink access because believe such an action would escalate the war and that, based upon communications to give him from the Russian government, that it could lead to a retaliatory nuclear strike. The claim, which corresponds with multiple other reports of different instances where Elon's direct information had in the war, set off a firestorm of criticism Elon is taking the Russian side, how dare
he cut off the Ukrainian axis? The Ukrainian government, which itself is literally entirely dependent on starlink, even tweeted out a direct condemnation of Musk, top adviser to Lensky's this quote. By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military fleet via Starlink interference, Elon Musk has allowed this fleet to fire caliber missiles at Ukrainian cities. He further accused Elon of quote desperately wanting to defend war
criminals and their desire to commit murder. The media had a field day with this. They accused Elon of undermining the Ukrainian cause and even of treason. Here is Jake Tapper on CNN pressing Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln, why is the government not punishing Elon for his transgression?
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has recently confirmed a report that's in Walter Isaacson's new biography of Musk that last year, Musk blocked access to his Starlink satellite network in Crimea in order to disrupt a major Ukrainian attack on the Russian navy there. In other words, Musk effectively sabotaged a military operation by Ukraine a US ally against Russia, an aggressor country that invaded a US ally. Should there be repercussions for that?
Jake I can't speak to a specific episode. Here's what I can tell you. Starlink has been a vital tool for the Ukrainians to be able to communicate with each other, and particularly for the military to communicate in their effort to defend all of Ukraine's territory. It remains so, and I would expect it to continue to be critical to their efforts.
Why is Elon not being punished?
Jake tapperlongs to now, Then, though a bizarre correction happened, Elon actually corrected Isaacson. He says, actually, what happened is that an emergency request came in from the Ukrainian government to activate Starlink in Crimea, where it had remained and does remain unusable. Elon's surmise that the intent was to sink the Russian fleet. He denied the request because if he'd agreed to it, then SpaceX would have been complicit
in a major active war and the conflict escalation. The next line is actually what stuck out to me, He says. SpaceX is actually building a system called star Shield for the US government, which is similar to but smaller than Starlink. This will then be owned and controlled by the government there is so much going on here to break down. First of all, so what if Elon post starlink service. Even if he did at that time, Ukraine wouldn't have
been paying for it. If they want to strike crimea of their own accord, they can build their own starlink and find a competitor who doesn't mind being party to set active war. Then if the US government wants to co sign Ukraine's actions, they can provide Ukraine with set satellite system if they wish, Except they can't. For all the money in the world that we spend in our military, it reveals how vulnerable that we actually are. We don't
make anything in house anymore. The government is a clearinghouse for checks from the Congress that get sent out to private companies and defense contractors like SpaceX. If they wanted no say from Elon in the war, don't rely on Elon.
For the basics of the war.
Over a year ago, it did a monologue on the show warning we will come to regret the insane degree that the US relies on people like Elon Musk for critical state functions like NASA and SpaceX, or betting the farm on EVS, basically on his company and their charging infrastructure.
Elon is one.
You should never rely on a single point of failure or any billionaire or their whims for inherently democratic questions. But everyone was fine with it then because he wasn't questioning the establishment line. Solution is one Must himself pointed to. If the United States Congress wants to declare war on Russia, then they should make that case to the American people
and they should be held accountable. If the US President believes it is in the US national security interest to sponsor and fund an attack on a Great Powers navy in the middle of territory they consider theirs, do it give Biden the best cocktail of drugs he can have that debate until that time. The mess that the US government of the Ukrainians are in is one of their making. The only thing they rely on is controlling of the narrative and the media, where anything that deviates from the
consensus is Russian propaganda or treasonous. As Glenn Greenwald has aptly pointed out, Zelenski himself did an useful interview just yesterday defining pro Russian propaganda. Zelensky says this quote, if you're not with Ukraine, you are with Russia. If you are not with Russia, you are with Ukraine. If partners doing to help us, it means they will help Russia to win.
That's it.
His most successful battle so far was defining those terms. If you find yourself with a different view, you're not acceptable. You're a Russian propagandist. Luckily for us, though he's not our president, we get to make our own decisions here in this country for ourselves.
And Crystal, I mean this entire episode.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagres's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. Very fortunate to be joined once again in person by Congressman Rocanna, who is here to discuss a variety of issues. Great to see against Sir Al.
Was good to be on set.
Yeah, good you, sir so.
One thing that caught my attention is you have a new sort of anti corruption plan that you have been pushing. Let's go and put this up on the screen. This is courtesy of unusual Wales, who had a breakdown of
some of the core components. He says, justin represent of Rocana has introduced a new reform plan that number one bands stock trading for Congress and spouse's bans ex Congress members from lobbying Congress after they're done, imposes twelve year limits for Congress and bands donations from lobbyists, and Pase goes on to say that you have asked Biden to adopt these plans. So just talked to us about the key planks here and why you think this is important.
You know, whenever I put something out, I can never tell what goes viral. This one did. Yeah, and it's a pretty common sense. I mean, there is a deficit of trust and institutions in America. Because of that, you have people coming in and offering demagagurey. We've got to fix that trust. And these are common sense reforms. I mean, make sure that after you're in Congress you can't pull lobby for the companies where you which you were regulating.
Make sure you don't have any pack money, you don't have any lobbyist money infiltrating Congress, have term limits both for members of Congress and Supreme Court justices, band stock trading, and make sure that people aren't profiting off their service. And then finally, a code of ethics for Supreme Court justices.
Well, I think it's interesting.
I mean, you would personally not benefit from said plans, so I think it's cool that you're actually implementing it. But I'm also interested to hear about the term limit section. We actually a discussion earlier on our show. There was a big disagreement amongst our focus group that we had a primary voters on whether we should have term moments or not.
What made you come to that conclusion? Because you actually serve.
In the House, we're seniority, I believe on your side is still in place.
Why should we have term moments, Well.
They're two termles.
We certainly should have them for Supreme Court justices that are out of touch with modern life. With members of Congress, I understand the argument that wanting't you let the voters decide, But the reality is the Congress has a less turnover these days than European monarchies according to the economists. There's an article that actually looked at it, because you have such a huge advantage when it comes to nay mighty when it comes to fundraising, most congressional seats are uncontested,
don't have a serious test. So if you don't have some term limit. You just aren't going to have change and you're not going to have newer voices. But people say Congress has everyone over sixty one of the reasons this is really hard to get elected to break through Now, I think it is hard to do because it takes ten years to get seniority, so you have to start fresh.
But at some point we've got to do this.
How have your colleagues received as a plan, especially the elderly ones who've been there for more than twelve years, how do they feel about those?
Well, well, the terminotype even said grandfather some folks in or grandfather folks in in terms of getting there, but we've got to make some effort in terms of reform. I think many of them just say, okay, he'll introduce it, and.
They don't think it's going to go and then it doesn't.
Go anywhere, and that feeds even more more cynicism. And my hope is even if you disagree with one or two of these things, at least do something. And the way we're going to get it to move is for the president and for the House and Senate to campaign on some of these issues.
Yeah.
Well, has there been receptivity from the president I mean, how are you pushing the president to adopt these planks.
Well, I'm talking to a lot of his campaign team. I'm on his quote unquote advisory board in terms of re election. But what I've said is, you can't allow Donald Trump twice impeached, four times indicted to run as the outs and he's going to try to say everyone is corrupt, everyone is not doing their job, and we have to show no, there's a real difference. So let's take some key areas where we can show that difference.
We won't take corporate money for our party. We aren't going to take packer lobbyist moneys, aren't going to do that in the primaries. We're going to be for certain basic reforms on the Supreme Court. These seem to be common sense.
I want to zero in on something you said about great going viral. We've always seen that here. I appreciate that. I mean, virality isn't always everything, but the stock trade ban in particular, this one hits home at a very visceral and deep level. And yet we had learned that the President dropped one of the lines endorsing that from the State of the Union because of vociferous pushback in the House and in the Senate, and we've seen multitudes
of lawmakers now introduce this. So why is this one different? Like, how can we actually get this one done? Because this is one the super majority of Americans actually agree with.
I agree, and this is why to the extent that it went viral because I haven't said anything new. I mean, Abigail Spandberger has been fighting for this. Representative of Calasio, Quortesan Matt Gates teamed up. I'm on both of those bills. What I'm saying, though, is it's not going to pass without it being part of the campaign agenda. If you campaign on it, if you promise it to the voters, then you're going to be obligated to do it. And we have never campaigned on it, We've never had it
as part of our party platform. My view is adopting this as part of the party platform is going to obligate us to do it.
And no one has run on these issues.
In my view that they're very popular and we've got to get it done and it's a distinguishing from the other side.
I agree.
So, turning to some questions we've asked you before about the Ukraine War, there's a new report from writers I'm reading from here that says Ukraine could get long range missiles armed with US cluster bombs. Now, you've been opposed to US arming the Ukrainians with cluster bombs, in particular because you know they're considered human rights atrocity in most
parts of the world. Is there any progress on trying to push forward any legislation that would block the administration from making these kinds of moves.
Well, I voted on the amendment to try to block it. I was in the small minority of House members probably fifty sixty votes. So there's overwhelming support in the Congress for the administration. I mean, we had the vote in the House. The challenge is, I don't think that those cluster bombs are making a difference on the ground, because what you have is Russia. Putin has put land mines in all of the Dnbas area. It's very, very sad. But the counteroffensive because of that has been very difficult.
And if I mean, I'm opposed to cluster bombs, but I also don't think that it effectively is reducing the artillery disadvantage that Ukraine is at. And so I don't see why we would compromise such fundamental principles where we have the moral high ground by giving cluster bombs that aren't being very effective.
So we're at crossroads here, Congressman.
The President is asked for twenty five billion dollars more is attached it to disaster relief program. How do you do you expect to vote for that? Do you have any organized effort against it? You've previously spoken about diplomacy. What's you're thinking about the sextra twenty five billion?
I will support it.
I know some of your viewers will not like the answer, but I'm always transparent. I mean, I think we have to support Ukraine while we also seek a just peace.
And if we don't support.
Them, now they're you know, we're giving license for Putin to make more gains into Ukrainian territory. And I clearly believe that Putin was morally wrong and wrong under an international law. Now, if we can support Ukraine and if they can continue to make some progress, It's been hard fought progress, but some progress, then at the same time we should be engaging our allies, France, India, others to see a just piece.
But we haven't seen that just piece.
Or any of the lot of the engaging with the Allies,
and instead we've actually seen consistent escalation. I mean in considering also in the twenty five billion as I understand it, you know, there's no checks that Congress is been able to ride in as by your own admission here about long range missiles, about cluster moms, or isn't this just a blank check for the administration to eventually just give Ukraine whatever it wants with very little limitations in terms of their use of our own arms and our ammunition.
The President Biden has actually been fairly judicious in saying he doesn't want to escalate the war into Russian territory. He has not engaged in any way United States military, either our Air Force or our army, and he has been careful to say Ukraine, look, you can take back your territory, but don't attack Russia. And my view is that he has those safeguards.
He has said those things, but Ukraine has continued to attack Russia, including droon strikes in the heart of Moscow. So I guess what we're trying to figure out is what is the endgame? You know, what is the limiting principle? Is there a point in time where you start to threaten to withhold this aid so that you can begin to bring the parties to the table. How do you ever get to any sort of negotiators here, because I mean,
this has obviously been just an absolute catastrophe. The number of lives that are lost and the seemingly endless nature of it is horrifying to watch.
It is horrifying.
I mean, the endgame is that Russia moved out of the territory which they took in the Donbas.
I mean that they're illegally there.
They have occupied that territory, they violated Ukrainian sovereign take and we have to figure out how do we prevail on them to do that. But at the same time, we are trying to de escalate the conflict, and there can be efforts at working towards de escalation, working towards ceasefires in different parts of the country, while we hold firm on Ukrainian sovereignty.
So let's say this is twenty five billion, the Ukrainians do with the twenty five billion what they've done with one hundred billion, which is use it make very little progress. When we're sitting here nine months from now, and they ask for another twenty five billion, what's the answer? Then you give it to them again we pursue peace, Like, what is the limiting principle on the amount of aid that we're willing to send to Ukraine?
Well, look, everything is contextual.
I'm not going to sit here and say for the next twenty years we're going to be funding Ukraine. But the point is that, certainly I think we have to fund them in this request, and then we've got to continue to make progress in trying to see how we get Russia out of the Dnbas region and where they've violated sovereignty. My view is you can engage allies in that effort because there are allies who have a relationship with Russia closer to ours who also believed that Russia was wrong.
Right, No, absolutely, but you keep using so I'm just trying to understand.
You don't think a peace negotiation is possible unless Russia restores the February twenty fourth borders in pre invasion.
If that's the case, is this war's never going to end.
I mean, do you think they've lost one hundred thousand people and you know, isolate themselves in the world that they're just going to pull out from that board, Like what level of ammunition would we even be able to supply that? I don't even know if it's possible in order to achieve that sort of solution. If that's what a diplomatic solution looks like in your mind, well that.
Is that, that's what adjust peace looks like. Now, if Ukraine.
Has a different view, I would request I would defer to Ukraine, and you know, at some point what we need to do is make sure that Ukrainian their views, their judgment is taken into account, and you know I would support what they want. But my view of what adjust peace would be is Russian would roll. If Ukrainians come to a different conclusion. Obviously they have a judgment to me.
I got to pick up there though, because their conclusion is derivative of the amount of aid.
They don't exist without USA.
So if their ability to contest or to have this expectation is entirely as a result of USA, then as a result, USA it itself directly impacts what some sort of solution would come to. Now, like if we pull out, if we pull aid, let's say we don't pass said package. Actually, a diplomatic solution looks a lot more likely now. Of course, I'm not saying that's justin if I were them, I would be furious as well. But we also have to consider our own interests here well.
The question is what are they capable of doing and what do they want as a just solution. If they come to a conclusion that they themselves have had too many wants of lives and that they want some compromise that is short of a just peace, that's very different than us pulling aid and forcing their hand, which sets a horrible precedent in my view, for China and Taiwan, for Russia continuing the action of aggression. I mean, Russia took Crimea, now they're taking done Bus.
What's next.
I mean, if we don't stand up and say, as a big power, you can't just take a little power or other country, then it undermines the rule of law in the international system.
Connorson to Rob up here, let me ask you a couple of political questions. So you've endorsed President Biden's reelection, involved in you know, his what did you call it? His advisory council.
Yet now Kyle and I are on the same side, right call on your clip. I said he's going to be on the advisory.
Board supporting Marion her in the primary. So it is a very different position. But I wanted to ask you, why do you think it's so close in the polls right now with Trump? I mean, you've got some indications, you know, you got some top line numbers. It's like unemployments low, and the presence obviously out there selling the economy, but the American people are also really not feeling it.
And they've seen a lot of the support, the social safety net support that they enjoyed during the pandemic that actually helped a lot of people that's been stripped away and stripped away and stripped away under the Biden administration. So what is your just sort of political analysis of why he is struggling so much to get any kind of a lead on a guy who's facing like ninety one different criminal charges.
Three reasons. One, Gas is still high. I mean gas in my district is five point fifty in Nevada. Trying to get young people for the president, it's still over five bucks. Housing costs are very high, rent is high. The interest rates now are at seven to eight percent. So if you're a young family and you want to buy a home or try to get a mortgage, that's hard.
If you have credit card debt, that's hard. So we look at the macro numbers of unemployment low, what this president has done to bring manufacturing jobs back, but when you look at individual families and young people, there's still a lot of economic stress in the system. The second part is that there is a total anger with the status quo. That's why I'm talking about this political reform plan. So if people say, oh, both sides are bad, all of Congress is corrupt, we have to show no, there's
a difference. We are for principled leadership and cleaning up the system and getting packed money out and big money out, and the other side is not. I believe there is a difference, but we have to communicate that. And the final thing is, look, you've had four years of the hollowing out of the working in middle class in this country. This president is bringing that manufacturing back. But we've got to tell the story and say, look, it's just the
first step. We've got decades more work to do. But there's forty years of decline that we're trying to reverse.
Well, conorson we appreciate your transparency and engagement. As always, it's very rare here in Washington. We appreciate it very much. So thank you for joining us, sir.
Thank you, appreciate it, Thank you.
We'll see you guys later