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 Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have for us?
So indeed, we do lots of interesting things that are breaking this morning.
First of all, we have more.
Amazing results from our exclusive focus group of New Hampshire Republican voters. We ask them about some issues things like abortion and also social security, so we will play some of that for you. We also have kind of peak eggs over on the Democratic side about their very likely ticket headed into twenty twenty four. There is a freak out about the top of the ticket. There is a
freak out about the vice president Kamala Harris. In fact, Nancy Pelosi just this morning on CNN refused to say that Kamala Harris was the best choice for the ticket, So we will play all of that for you, which is very interesting. We also have some new, very troubling numbers coming out in terms of the economy of inflation has ticked back up, child poverty has skyrocketed at the fastest clip literally since they've been tracking it.
So we'll dig into all of that.
And there is a lot of of course spin and cope coming from the Biden White House on those numbers. At the same time, kind of a surprise announcement from Senator Mitt Romney that he is going to retire. We will break down for you behind the scenes what is going on there and what he is saying about his reasons. And we have some new spin with regard to Hunter Biden, his business dealings, his relationship with his father, etc. We're on the brink of a big possible strike tonight. We'll
break that down for you. Saga is doing a little debunking of some alleged alien do it alien creatures that were presented before the Mexican Doubt. We'll give you all of those details as well. And late breaking last night, Bill Maher has decided to become a scab and restart his show real time in spite of the fact that the writers are still out on strike.
It's an interesting choice. We will be covering it, okay, But before we get to that, just want to say again thanks to all the premium subscribers. You guys were the ones who enabled our focus group. We're planning on doing many more, so make sure you go ahead and sign up for breakingpoints dot com. You can help support our work. And we are going to be delivering the full focus group to all of the premium subscribers at some point later today and it will be available fully
on the public feed tomorrow. So if you want to get it early and you want to be able to support our work, a little bit of an incentive there breakingpoints dot Com, as I said, But other than that, let's get to the actual focus group.
Yep, absolutely so.
We did this in partnership with Jail Partners and phenomenal moderator James who came in and did just a great job leading all of these We're already talking to them about what we might do next, so keep that in mind.
As we're moving forward.
But we wanted to get into how they felt about some of the top issues that are on people's minds as we head into the election. Of course, one of those top issues is abortion, and even more so than on the Democratic side, there has emerged a real split in terms of how Republican candidates are approaching the issue of abortion.
This was represented by.
Mike Pence versus Nicky Haley really in the debates, where Mike Pence has always been very stridently pro life, he has sort of stated some of his national reputation and certainly his presidential run here on that issue. Explicitly Nicki Haley arguing in the direction of more moderation and how she would put it sort of like pragmatism and practicality. Let's take a listen to how these New Hampshire Republican base voters reacted to the clip of Mike Pence staking out his position in the debate.
My lifeless governor and as vice president. And to be honest with you, Nikki, you're my friend, But consensus is the opposite of leadership. When the Supreme Court returned this question to the American people, they didn't just send it to the states only. It's not a state's only issue. It's a moral issue. And I promise you, as president of the United states. The American people will have a
champion for life in the Oval office. Can't we have a minimum standard in every state in the nation that says when a baby is capable of feeling pain and abortion cannot be allowed. A fifteen week ban is an idea whose time has come. It's supported by seventy percent of the American people. But it's going to take unapologetic leadership, Leadership that stands on principle and expresses compassion in crisis pregnancies. I'll do that as president.
Of the United States. It is in the hands of the people and that's where it should be. Well, when you're talking about a federal ban, be honest with the American people. We haven't had forty five pro life senators in over one hundred years. So no Republican that can ban abortions anymore that a Democrat president could ban all those states. Wells, don't make women feel like they have to decide on this issue when you know we don't have sixty Senate votes.
In the House.
I just think putting a band on it right there, to me seems like a control thing. When I think about that, every baby is a baby, I mean from when they're conceived, and I don't think you can say fifteen weeks is a limit on it.
It's a baby.
I don't agree with a blanket ban.
You're taking away a lot of choices for people, and not necessarily you know, in pro of you know, an unborn child or anything like that. It's still somebody's going to find a way one way or the other. It's not going to stop happening. And you're putting a band and you're forcing people into a corner, and it's not going to help anybody.
Fifteen weeks feels our reshare to me actually personally, rather that it went back to where there was no government support for it.
Save the child, take the child into adoption. People who can't have children want to have children instead of aborting them killing them. That's change the way we look at life.
I still think it should be at the state's state level. I just don't agree with the whole federal oversight of that. I am a pro life candidate person, but I also think that Nikki Haley and the debate had a lot of points about consensus, like what are the things that people actually agree on? Like I know, I understand like intellectually that it's a human life and we shouldn't be
bargaining with that. But I also think that there are things that people do agree like you don't think a federal ban is where it's at.
I'd prefer to see a federal ban on all more murder, including them board child as well as our elderly. Any type of murder, in my mind, should be federally banned.
Who would like to see that low? That fifteen week man? It hands up if you'd like that to be lower still.
Okay, So I thought very interesting conversation there. You can see that group is fairly divided, and some of the people who had objections to the fifteen week ban, it was like it doesn't go far enough, and I think it's sort of underscores the buine Listen, Donald Trump is kind of in his own category. He can kind of stake down his own positions and people just like accept it and deal with it. For every other candidate, the people who are voting on this issue in the Republican
primary are the most hard line. So they're the ones like the one woman in the front row who's all the way on the right. She seems to be sort of the most ideological and possibly like staking her vote on this issue, and so you know, they might accept someone who goes further than they want on abortion, but there are people in the Republican base who will not vote for you if you don't have a pretty hard stance on the issue, and that's kind of the bind for some of these candidates.
Very difficult, very difficult. I did note though, that a lot of the people who were on the side of the issue, some of them were very Trump and it was clear to me that the Trump people it's not their top priority, but rightly undecided, it was a priority. And also it was interesting to see the viviake Ramaswami
supporter there who talked about how this was. She was like, I don't know, I don't like the idea of the band, and it actually tracks because she is not only more independent minded, but she's a bit more libertarian, and that's one of the reasons she was supporting viveg So I really loved the way that that you could see that come through in normal rhetoric when they're like, well, I don't really like the idea of a national ban or like telling people what to do, seems like going up
to the States is a reasonable position, even though I have a pro life position, and I was like, that is that's the big divide around how a lot of people feel about this. And this doesn't even take into account how non GOP voters feel, you know, amongst them though you could see even they don't agree, and so that shows you how minority of a position it is.
Yeah, that's a great point.
Even within the Republican base, you don't have anywhere close to unanimous consent for a even a fifteen week band, which is a more moderate position than frankly what we've heard Mike Pence articulate in the past. I mean, this is someone who would certainly be on board with a absolute complete federal ban. I think he's floating the sort of more moderate position and make it more palatable to
a broader audience. But yeah, the fact that you don't even have anywhere close to consensus within this group is noteworthy. The fact that the people who seem to be voting on the issue are the most hardline is noteworthy. And of course there's a huge gulf between how this plays within a Republican primary and how this plays with independence with Democrats in a general election, and that's kind of
the bind that these candidates find themselves in. Another issue that has long been the sort of definition of the third rail and American politics, what about Social Security? And so Nikki Haley, after the debate, she became this kind of media and she's long been a donor class darling, and one of the top issues for the donor classes cutting Social Security. So she took the cable news airways and was making the case that we got to do something about this program. We got to cut benefits for
some group of beneficiaries. So we wanted to get our group to react to her comments on that as well and see where they stood on the issue.
Let's take to listen to how that went.
Well.
You know, you've got multiple candidates on that stage that said they wouldn't touch in titlements, including Trump. And any candidate that says they're not going to touch entitlements means that they're basically going to go into the go into office, and then leave America bankrupt. Social Security is going to go bankrupt in ten years, Medicare is going to go
bankrupt in eight. So the way we deal with it is we don't touch anyone's retirement or anyone who's been promised in But we go to people like my kids in their twenties when they're coming into the system and we say the rules have changed. We change retirement age to reflect life expectancy instead of cost of living increases. We do it based on inflation. We limit the benefits on the wealthy, and we expand medicare advantage plans.
How'd you feel about the argument she's made that anyone can come in here? How do you feel about the Ocguman?
She's not wrong. We are going to run out of money for it.
There has to be other ways that we can look for pensions and such for people that have put in their time.
It's not going to be there. My age group is not going to have it.
To mean, it's just a scare tactic. They've been talking about this for decades and something that she says to make the vote to say, yeah, wow, she's right. But we got and increase people at social Security. I think it was last year sometime and it was a good increase.
And for her to be.
Saying that she needs to scare the people into voting for her.
The problem is what using social Security? And you've got a lot of legal immigrants coming to this country who are qualifying for some of these benefits which we're paying for, or we're younger paying for this stuff to be using people who don't deserve to have it. It wasn't meant for that.
It can't continue how it is, or it won't probably continue how it is, but I think it could be changed rather than just eliminated.
I believe we had a culture in America at one point where the working class benefited in their senior years after they were done working, based on what they put into the system. And now we have a system that you don't need to work and you can get the most benefits in back we can penalize the rich to pay for those that don't work at all.
Kind of struggling like as if I maybe I don't know something, but don't you have to pay into Social Security to get it? So the notion of people just getting it for free, I'm not quite. It feels like a talking point, but maybe you know that's not I wouldn't have come in here and said, oh, social Security's been number one priorities, so I don't know.
We've had neighbors who've gotten on Social Security and they go on the premise either mental illness, or they couldn't hear. Once they get the hearing aid in or kind of hearing it, they get to fix the problem they could hear. Fine, they still don't have to go back to work. They still gotten Social Security, so it's becoming a handout benefit.
I don't know about increasing it from my generation, like because it's just not going to work. There's too many of us. But for somebody who can't go back to work because they're physically just too old, like we can't leave them behind.
Very interesting, a lot of confused in them.
I love that lady who's like, I think we have to pay into him, Like, yeah, man, we do. That feels like a talking point.
But I don't know she's trying to be very diplomatic there.
But I mean, it's interesting to see, first of all, what they've taken in about the program. Everybody seemed to have taken in this. You know, what they accept is reality that all we can't just keep going in the same way. And you know, I mean, obviously you could change the program in a variety of ways to bring in sufficient revenue. You can just lift the income tap, the income cap, and then you'd have sufficient revenue. To
fund the program. But you know, it felt like the the vibe in the room was very mixed, and so it frees candidates up to take whatever position they want in terms of Republican primary, knowing that in a general election, saying you're coming after social Security is absolutely poisoned.
Yeah, it's It's also interesting that one man, you know, he's talking about social Security, was talking about but he was talking about the different part of the Social Security program. It's called SSDI, which is the Social Security Disability Insurance. He's talking about elderly Social Security payments. And you're right, Look, I mean, I think a lot of people really fundamentally misunderstand the way the Social Security is funded. It's funded
obviously through the payroll tax. The vast majority of people in this country never make enough money to understand though that it's capped. Like if you're a doctor who makes four hundred grand a year, you only pay payroll taxes on a maximum set to one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, which means that they actually it's almost a benefit for them whenever they're going over that. So sure they have to pay federal income tax, but the normal tax that any normal person aut of us would pay is not
even close to that. Yeah, for payroll taxes, and that doesn't even mention the fact that payroll taxes are not touched at all whenever it comes to the income, the dividend income and the other type of income that the fabulously wealthy people in this country actually do earn, where not only they pay lower tax rate effective to what they would have as income, they don't pay payroll tax on that at all. So there's a lot of stuff that we could do actually wouldn't touch anybody below. And
you could even make it over a million dollars. You'd still make jillions of dollars if you just put it towards that. But you know, those people have a very powerful lobby in this country.
Yes indeed, And you remember when just not that long ago, there was this whole freak out in the Republican Party after the Biden State of the Union, like how dare you say that we ever wanted to touch those security And then you know, just months later they're right back to the same talking points of like, yeah, we do actually
want to cut social Security. So, like I said, I think it plays very differently in a Republican primary, where even in a Republican primary, again, like abortion, very mixed sentiment on what to do, how to approach it, whether this is a top issue at all versus the general public. And you know, once again Trump has really staked out the more politically palatable position of just saying I'm not
touching it. This is something he's been saying since twenty sixteen every time he's run I'm not touching it whatsoever, which obviously plays better in a general election.
Very true. But anyway, look, I think the fun part about the group is that we could see like division in real time and how people think very nuanced about the issue. And also you know about kind of first strikes, like that one man that was it's like this one gentleman, he's you know, I don't I'm not going to assume his age. He looks relatively older. It's like he's probably going to be receiving Social Security, but in his mind,
it's not an elderly program. It's a disability program. Whereas the younger people that are like, well, yeah, solvency there. It does make sense in terms of what we're talking about, but I don't think we should let people off. And then the other woman, like you said, I'd be like, I think we pay into it. But you know, the other thing is I don't remember her occupation. But if you don't work, you actually don't get Social Security, which is the whole thing, you know, whenever it comes to
house moms and stuff like that. So it actually makes sense if you haven't worked before, you don't really know that much about peril taxing.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. So interesting stuff.
Thanks again to Jail Partners for working with us on this. We're excited to do more going forward because I think we got a lot of Really, I mean, there's just no substitute for actually hearing real voters in their own words, grapple with these issues and get a sense of what's the priority, what's not the priority, how are they reacting to these various clips that we see all the time.
And you know, reminded, this isn't scientific. This is just this group of voters and their particular view of the world. But I also feel like their perspectives and the breakdown of that group matches up with a lot of the pulling that we see too, in terms of you know, Trumps still being very dominant and who some of the potential second place contenders are and how they're viewing the issue landscape, etc. So always really useful and really interesting to hear voters in their own words.
Absolutely, let's talk about President Biden. There's a lot going on in terms of the media just deciding to turn on President Biden at the elite level. There have been two particularly noteworthy instances in recent days. One is Joe Scarborough mourning. Joe, who once upon a time was on the right now kinds himself a quintessential Biden Democrat, and he has admitted now but that behind the scenes, every major Democrat that he talks to thinks that Biden is
too old to run for president. Let's take a listen.
Everybody we talked to every political discussion, all it talks a lot about Trump, but when it comes to Joe Biden, people say, man, he's too old?
Is he?
I mean, he's not gonna He's not really going to run every discussion. When I say every discussion, I don't need ninety nine percent of the discussion every discussion, we got it. I asked Reveren Now if he was hearing it all the time on our show this past week, He's hearing it as well. So you know, we often will complain about Republicans who will say one thing about Donald Trump off the air and another on air. Well, let me just say, Democrats off the air will say Joe Biden's too.
Old, woah, too old, that he'll close home when it's you know, the elite show. Let me tell you, this show is on every TV in the Capitol building, in the White House, in the Senate gym. Like this is the breakfast consumption of every single politician.
I'm tell you, When I walk my dog at six thirty in the morning, and people who have their windows open or whatever in the living room, it's morning Joe, Morning, Joe, Morning Joe, CNN Morning Joe moriy I probably walked past fifteen morning Joe spans in the morning. And that's how you know every single one of those people. It's like I all work in the government, they all work in
the White House, these types of folks. So look, let it sink in about this level of impact that this segment will have as opposed to anything you and I ever discussed it, even though it's obvious, but the real strike at the heart was David Ignacious. Let's put this up there please on the screen, guys, because this was the most momentous I think jump the shark moment where he says, quote President Biden should not run again in twenty twenty four. I'm not going to even bother reading
it because this is obviously sound. He's like, I respect Biden, He's done some good stuff, but he's ready too old and he needs to have new blood. The thing is about Ignacious is he is of basically the voice of Langley and the CIA. This guy has gotten every leak unhumanly possible whenever it comes to Ukraine, Syria, Libya, going
back more than a decade. And the thing is is when Ignacious writes something like this, I have to ask what's the angle because you could not find someone who is a more vociferous supporter of the Biden foreign policy in Ukraine, of even in this piece, he's like, I respect so many things about preident by any yeah, best presidence, but for him to come out and say shouldn't run again, also this late in the game, I mean their panic. It's a full blown panic at the elite media level.
The timing is so interesting to me because I think the reason why there's this ground swell of elite panic about something that has been manifestly obvious to.
All of us for quite a while.
Now is because it's kind of the last possible moment when you could even imagine pushing Joe out and Kamala out and getting some different ticket in Now, I think it's a fantasy. I think that it's a lot of like Donor and other Democratic politician wish casting. I don't think Joe Biden is going anywhere. I think he has genuinely committed himself to the path, and without something outside of his control, some health event or whatever, I think that we are very likely looking at the Biden Trump
rematch that almost literally no one wants. But that's what I read into the timing of this is there's we've had poll after poll after poll that has Biden and Trump basically tied. And it was one thing in the beginning when it's like, oh, maybe this is an outlier, maybe this is just a strange time period, maybe things will change once all the indictments come out, et cetera.
And even after.
All of that, you're getting all of these polls that say three quarters of the country don't want them to run. They think he's too old, you're getting it's tied with Trump or some poles saying, hey, Trump has a little bit of an edge on this guy. And remember both in twenty sixteen and again in twenty twenty, even though you know, both races ended up being really close, one Trump gets the win and one the Democrats get the win.
He never had a lead in the polls or was even tied in the polls at this point in the race.
So for them to be looking at these.
Polls where you know, in their mind and we'll get to this in a minute, the reality versus their mind. But in their mind, they're like, oh, the economy is getting better, and we had all these accomplishments and we're still we're still tied with Trump in the polls. So there is a full blown elite freakout panic happening such that even they are allowing in a little bit of a glimpse of reality of what the rest of us have been seeing for like years now.
Very obvious. And you know, another big moment. CNN even feels like they got to ask the White House about this whenever they have a White House spokesperson on let's take a lesson.
A lot of people in Washington right now. And I know this is probably going to drive your team crazy that I ask it this way, but I think it.
Matters because it's accurate.
Because the columnist who wrote a piece today asking for the President not to seek re election, David Ignatius, is well respected within the building behind you. What's your response to that idea. It's not just about the president, it's also about the vice president, who you work for in the twenty twenty campaign.
Yeah, well, I'm governed by the hatcheck and I want to be really careful. But obviously, the president has announced he's running for reelection, and the President is going to make his case to the American people. And I'll refer you to the campaign for any sort of campaign questions. But this president has a lot to be proud of
and a lot to run on. He's delivered some of the most consequential achievements and economic progress in generations with the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Bill, the Chips Bill, which is opening new factories and creating new manufacturing jobs around the country. That's what he's going to be talking about.
Look, clearly it makes him uncomfortable, but I mean, when you see CNN are asking the question when you see Joe Scarborough admit the obvious part out loud, the Ignacious column, which for me is the most important piece of all this. Like once, you cannot overstate how impactful Ignacious is in
terms of like Washington Group think. He literally is like a spokesperson for the Blob, and the rest of his columns are just all about how we should give Ukraine everything up to like a nuclear bomb, and so that they can win the war. When that type of person decides to shift against Biden, you know that this is not only real, it is like being whispered and talked about everywhere, and if they can get rid of him, they will, But like you said, how is it possible
this late in the game. Also, you'd have to go with Kamala, which we're about to talk about. But in the dynamic that you created, he's basically set himself up. So it's like a prisoner's dilemma where the only real choice is to go along with this man. Maybe Crystal, they're trying to hedge their bets so that in the future they can say I told you so if he does lose, just because they know earlier. Is like you said, I don't know. Yeah, you just don't know the impetus.
Usually that type of like spin and throwing various people under the bus.
That's usually towards the end of the campaign the writing start.
Yeah, exactly when the writing's starting to be on the wall and the fall right before the elector like I told it, I knew this was a problem and they did this and that wrong, or this advisor was you know, the wrong whatever. Usually that comes a little bit later. I mean, I think there is real concern among the donor set. Obviously, they're looking at the polls. They're you know,
really freaked out. It reminds me a little bit of some of the dynamics in twenty twenty when there was all this handwringing about Biden, when Obama was sort of like tacitly backing a.
Variety of their candidates.
You know, a bunch of previous Obama people were going to Bato Rourke, they were you know, Pete Curious whatever. Like there was a whole searching for I can't just be the form of vice Frialy, like there's got to be somebody else. But that in the end, there was a realization of like if we're going to beat Bernie. This is the only guy that's really credible, the only guy left standing.
And then the other problem.
Is I kind of I think that they still believe that they would have to go with Kamala if Biden was to step aside. I don't actually think that's reality though, because she's proven herself to be so weak and her approval rating so low. I genuinely don't think there would be very much blowback. It's not like there's actually this ground swell of you know, black women who were hugely support We've just never seen that that's the case.
Except on Twitter. White guys you call themselves the k Hive.
Right exactly, they're repping for it, right, I mean for this imaginary group of people who are supposedly in love with Kamala Harris. But I genuinely don't think in the real world there would be a lot of low back.
From just opening it up to democratic process.
I mean, who could object to being like, you know what, we're going to have a democratic process, and if Kamala Harris comes out on top and people choose her, then she'll be our candidate, and she's the best person in place to defeat Donald Trump. Whatever but we're going to let voters have their say. I just can't imagine there would actually be a real world off of twitter blowback to letting voters actually get to decide in a democratic process.
Well to your point, Crystal, there was a shocking moment from Nancy Pelosi on Anderson Cooper's show on CNN where he asked her three times are you going to endorse Kamala Harris for vice president? And she won't say it. Let's take a lesson.
Is a vice president Harris the best running mate for this president?
He thinks so, and that's what matters. And by the way, she's very politically astute. I don't think people give her enough credit. She's, of course values based, consistent with the president's values and the rest, and people don't understand she's
politically stu why would she be vice president? She were not, But when she was running for attorney general in California, she had six percent in the polls, six percent in the polls, and she politically astutely made her case about why she would be good, did her politics and became attorney general. So don't people shouldn't underestimate what Kamin Harris brings to the table.
Do you think she is the best running mate?
Then she's the vice president of the United States. So people say to me, well, why isn't she doing this or that? I said, because she's the vice president. That's the job description. You don't do that much. You know, you know, you're a source of strength, inspiration, intellectual resource and the rest and you and she. I think she's represented a country very well at home and abroad.
All right, yeah, much true. By the way, shouldn't be true, but it is true.
Wow.
I mean I don't even know what to say about that. I mean, that's one of the most blatant. I mean, she had every opportunity. Is the biggest lay up in the world, Like, yeah, what's happening here? She won't endorse it. I mean we were talking about this before. What's the I mean, what is it? Is it some weird California stuff possible? Is it just that? I mean, look Pelosi, yeah, no fan over here, but got herself re elected a bunch of times. She's a huge Democratic fundraiser. She's probably
hearing it from every billionaire on the planet. What have you done to us? Why have you saddled us with this woman? Maybe she's speaking on behalf of the constituent. But I mean, I guarantee you in the East Wing or wherever the hell her office is, you can take a notice of that.
I have a guess of what's going on here.
Could be could be some weird California beef from twenty years ago.
That's very possible.
My suspicion is this is representing the donor class, because there's no constituency that Nancy Pelosi is closer to or who she depends on for her power board than the donor class. That's the whole reason why she's had so much power in Washington for so long, because she can raise boatloads of money at drop of a hat and still can. And you know, obviously she represents San Francisco, so all of those Silicon Valley type donors not to mention the wall shereet don't. I mean, she's just plugged
in with the donor set that is her constituency. And so I think the reason why she is so reluctant to just you know, Nancy Pelosi lies all the time, Like why not just tell this particular lie that you think Kamala Harris is the best choice here. I think it's because she's trying to represent the donor angst over the fact that Kamala Harris is, you know, the vice president and is going to be Joe Biden's running mate
once again. And you know, part of why this Kamala Harris question is so critical when Nancy Pelosi, in her very like passive aggressive way, is like, well, the vice president doesn't actually do that much. Why it so matters so much is obvious because Joe Biden is super old and there is a really uncomfortably high chance that he
doesn't make it through another term. So it stands to reason that people are going to be evaluating that vice president finential selection and you know who the number two on the ticket is a lot more carefully than they might be if you had someone who was younger and you know, in the prime of their life.
So that's why this question is so critical.
And it's really I can't imagine how Kamala Harris felt watching that. I'm sure she was absolutely apoplectic that Nancy Pelosi would asked three times cannot bring herself to say yes, I think Kamala Harris is the best choice for vice president.
I also don't have a lot of sympathy. She's terrible at her job. People deserve to be called out when they're terrible. I would personally like to see more of this. It's a slavish dedication. People are like, yeah, I don't think so, think she's bad, and the fact that they're willing to get away with it shows you how little
power that she really has. Celosi, I don't think we'll be offering an apology or any of that, but you know, it's one of those where, yeah, if we read it in terms of the donors, which of course there's got to be some serious angst about this, well, clearly there's discussions going on behind the scenes, but what a clip. I still can't get over it. Truly shocking.
Yeah, solutely absolutely.
And so you know, part of the backdrop here for the tide poles and the Democratic angst is the fact that the economic reality for Americans is terrible. I mean, there's just no two ways around it. Over the course of the Biden administration, you've had two phenomenon that have
been really tragic, honestly for regular people. One is inflation, and the other is the fact that all the pandemic social safety net programs went away and so the things that were previously helping people and get into a little bit more of this in a moment are gone, leaving them racking up credit card debt and struggling to pay the bills at a time when prices keep going.
Higher and higher.
So in spite of that actual reality, you've had lots of pundits and mainstream economists coming out to say, I just don't understand why the American people aren't in love with this economy and giving Joe Biden all the credit in the world. I don't get why they don't love Bidenomics. And we had a perfect example of this from the New York Times economists Paul men going on and on about how great the economy is. Literally the day before we got inflation numbers that showed it had spiked once again.
Let's take a listen to what he was saying.
The striking thing if you look at it's not just you know, the economic data have been surreally good. I mean even optimists are just donne by how quickly and how painlessly inflation has come down. We're, you know, no hint of a recession, least so far, never know, but no, so far inflation not too far from the you know, the target of two percent and under three percent by most measures, and all of that just achieve painlessly.
So this is great.
This is this is a Goldilocks economy. People say it's a terrible economy. But what's really odd is that people don't behave as if.
It's terrible economy.
You know, we can talk about surveys which in which people seem to be relatively happy with their own financial situation, or can just look at behavior. People are out there with a lot of discretionary consumer spending, travel, hotels, restaurants, all of that is booming. So people are acting as if they're in good shape financially. And yet they say, wow, this is a disastrous economy. Somebody must be a disaster
for somebody, but not for me. And you know, they we don't really understand why this is happening, but you know, and I can come up with with multiple stories, but it is I think important to point out that there is a really profound and peculiar disconnect going on.
Goldilock's economy. Really good.
This man has a Nobel Price in economics and he can't figure Outlet let me, let's help explain why people are not feeling the love on bidnomics. Well, we just got some numbers in let's put this up on the screen that inflation actually ticked back up again, and the primary reason is one that's kind of important to ordinary people.
Gas.
Gas is the biggest factor, accounting for over half the increase. Shelter, especially rent, also a big factor. Now, there were a million stories, Sager that listen, I am as nerdy about this.
Stuff as anyone.
I like to get it, okay, what things are going up and what's not and what's driving it, et cetera.
There was a lot of spin about.
How, well, actually these numbers are not that bad because it's just gas, and it's just rent, just gas, and it's right, what do you think that most people are spending their money on? Like what is hitting their pocketbook the hardest? And obviously those are two of the biggest factors in terms of people being able to make it month to month.
Chrystal. The price of gas as of this morning, national average is three eighty five, which is very high. In California, the national of the average state price is five point fifty. All across the West, it is well over four dollars and remains five in some very very populous states. The only some of the cheapest gas in the country is down south in Georgia and in Texas, where it's still
only three point forty a gallon. That's that's very high, especially when you compare it to where things were pre pandemic levels. There's no getting around it. There's a lot of conversation around why and what and how and energy production. Some of it usually doesn't keep in mind the Ukraine element to it, which unfortunately we don't discuss nearly enough.
But the significant point.
Is is that guess what, it's not good right now. Also his whole point about I'm doing well but other people are, that's not even true. Put this up there. Real incomes fell last year. Everyone keeps saying, oh, real wages rose, and they're talking about a quarter. Look at the overall dip in the real income for most people
from twenty twenty up until now. I mean, whenever you have American real income overall fell in twenty twenty two from the previous year and then maybe have some slight increase in twenty twenty three, you're still down by almost two point three percent for the average real income on American's actual salary that's almost all entirely because of inflation.
And so when you have that, you have a record and amount of people who either drop out of the labor force or are finding underemployment so they're technically employed but then unemployed to like the highest degree, and the you know, I mean, what if you go to the grocery store, try walking out of there with less than a hundred dollars in a single bag or sorry, in a single trip. It's almost impossible. Yeah, for the vast
majority of people, it's just so obvious what's happening. But White House won't learn, and people like Krugnant and all the matter just keep scolding them. It's really like the Obama era. They're like, you're doing well, you're doing well, you're doing well. Yeah, but I don't have a house anymore. It's like, you know, it's like we're not talking about the last quarter. We're talking about I had a house and now I don't have one and I probably never
will have one. Oh and now I'm sixty seven and inflation is nuking my entire salary.
Yeah.
There's the real disconnect is between pundits like Paul Krugman and the reality that people are actually facing.
Put B seven up on the screen.
It's a Jacobin article from our friend Bronco Marcitic who broke down. Hey, guys, here is why people are not feeling the love when G seven Sorry. When it comes to quote unquote bynomics, he writes, inflation is slowing down, but working class life in the US is still hard to afford, and he goes through the numbers. This is not hard to do, guys, This is not hard to do.
The spike in child care costs far outpaced the general inflation rate, forcing parents to fork over thousands of dollars a month or to drop out.
Of the workforce to take care of their kids.
And by the way, there is more funding that is drying up that was put in place during the pandemic to help make child care more affordable, so that situation
is only set to get worse. Prescription drugs, which sixty six percent of all US adults use often as a condition of staying alive and healthy, have likewise blown past overall inflation with a whopping thirty one point six percent year to year increase, and the very moderate reforms that were put into the Inflation Reduction Act that only applies to seniors, and it only applies to like ten drugs,
and it only applies in like three years time. So don't hold your breath on that really changed and the dynamic with prescription drug costs.
He also talks.
About how housing is wildly expensive, and obviously the measures that the Federal Reserve took to hike interest rates to try to get inflation under control has made housing perhaps the most expensive that it has ever been in history.
And so and he also points to insurance premiums on homes, something we talked a lot about here, cars and healthcare, so on, all of the areas that are most critical to Americans just being able to afford to live and have a basic standard of living, something approaching or approximating a middle class lifestyle. All of those things have gone up and up and up. Really in a lot of ways predates even this current surge of inflation. But it's not hard to see why people would be financially strapped.
And we have tracked these numbers, you know, I mean every week, I feel like there's a new indication of how much people are struggling because of two things. Because number one, you had all of the pandemic social safety net which genuinely helped people go away. And number two, you had inflation spike at the very time when people were losing the support that they previously had.
Yes, and unfortunately the White House wants to keep telling us about how good things are. Their top economic advisor, Jared Bernstein, took the podium yesterday. Here's his case for why you're doing better than you actually are. Take a listen.
Turning to Bidenomics, we start from a position of strength. The US economy is in solid shape, with real GDP growth supported by strong consumer spending that is itself supported by a strong labor market delivering wage gains accounting for inflation. I have a next figure showing that the extent to which you see inflation coming down and prices and wages actually beating prices there both for all workers and for middle wage workers.
Well, once again, you know, we come back to that canard. As we just showed you, it's not even true if you look on the actual timescale. They're trying to shrink it so that they're like, oh, well, only in the last quarter, everything's good. Oh, unemployment is so great. Look, vast majority of people you can't tell them. You can't spin them away from the facts. It's obvious, it's true, and it's their own fault where they find themselves right now.
You know, it is interesting the one group that has actually seen their real incomes increase is Americans with no high school diploma. Yeah, they saw their incomes increase by six point four percent over and above inflation.
And that is a testament to the one.
Number that you know, they really want to point to, which is the very low unemployment rate, which is part of what has enabled you know, the labor actions that we've been covering and all of that going on. But there's a lot more to the economy than just what is the unemployment rate. There's also does your job pay enough that you can live? How much are the costs of things that are critical to the thriving and basic
survival of yourself and your family. And there seems to be just a total, I don't know if it's intentional blind spot or what, but complete blind spot over those pieces. And so let's move on to this next part. I mean, this is so predictable and so stunning. So we had during the early days of the Biden administration, they passed some pandemic recovery programs. They included a child tax credit that was fully refundable that you know, really dramatically reduced
child poverty. And the assumption was that, all right, we're just going to do this for a short term, but it's going to be so popular that Republicans are going to be forced to join us, and Joe Manchin is going to get over himself and also get on board, and we're going to be able to make this thing permanent. Well that didn't happen for a variety of reasons that I'll just get into. And the long and short of it is that we've now had child poverty spike the largest.
Amount that we've ever had in history. Put this up on the screen.
Child powerty in the US more than doubled, and median household income declined last year when COVID era government benefits expired and inflation kept rising. This is according to new Census Bureau numbers. Let's go and put this next piece up on the screen, because you can just visualize it so clearly. So, the child poverty rate in twenty twenty two was twelve point four percent. Now, this individual, Zach Perilan points out that from nineteen sixty seven to twenty
twenty one. Previously, the largest year over year increase in the child poverty rate was ten point seven percent. Now we had a record increase, a one hundred and thirty nine percent increase in child poverty from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two. This is a policy choice. You can see it right there. When politicians in Washington decided that it was important how the child tax cred and put it in place, child poverty fell off a cliff. And when they decided they didn't care about it that
much anymore. And I want to say, listen, it was mostly Democrats who supported this thing.
Joe Manchin kind of tanked it, and none.
Of the Republicans supported So let's be clear about you know who stands where on this. But when the politicians in the town decided it was no longer a priority, it jumped up by record numbers. I did a whole thing last week about my view of Bidenomics. I think there are some genuine and genuinely good things that have been put in place for the long term. Industrial policy important, something we will never have seen under Obama, Bush Clinton,
Corporate antitrust like trust busting. A rethinking of corporate power also really important. You see the Google anti trust lawsuit going on right now. I talk a nauseum about labor power and this Biden National Labor Relations Board and how that could be changing the game for union density and labor power in this country.
Those are all long.
Term trends that isn't helping anyone out right now in the current reality where they are trying to pay their bills, trying to you know, keep their kids fed, trying to keep a roof over their house, trying to keep the lights on. All of those things have become more difficult during the Biden administration. And then you have these people turning around like I just don't get it. I don't get why these people don't love us. I don't get
why they don't love Bidenomics. I don't understand why they're not flocking the polls and like enthusiastically ready to support us.
It's very clear, guys, it's not complicated.
It's really not complicated at all. And you can just watch how it all continues to drop structurally as well. Not even we're just talking about child poverty, because that just feeds into so many things about how people feel insecure, and it has a lot of developmental problems and impacts
on children. It puts people behind because they have to go into debt because they want to provide for their kids, and then that makes it so that they can't reach even further milestones, you know, further on down the line. But the story of the Biden presidency is just pretty obvious. It's like, and also why people and why it's so stupid. I saw recently they're like, well, we're going to define
Bidenomics and Maganomics. So I'm like, well, actually, if you look back, most people feel like they're doing pretty well under Trump. Unambiguously it maybe not even had anything to do with Trump, low interest rate, environment and no COVID and low inflation. But it was better then and it's not now. So if the story is that you're getting worse worse, worse worse, well things aren't. Uh, things aren't looking up for you.
Here's the other thing where they do themselves no favors by completely denying any sort of democratic primary process. Is part of why Biden was forced into promising anything on economics in twenty twenty was because he had to be on stage with primarily Bernie Sanders, but also you know, Elizabeth Warren was pressing him on certain things whatever, and so he had to have at least somewhat of an
affirmative economic vision. It was, you know, one of the lowest common denominator in terms of the people on the stage, but he had to say and promise something, and some of those things he went ahead, and the you know went forward with you know, we had checks at the beginning of the administration.
We had this child to ax credit at.
The beginning of the administration that now has expired with a student loan debt cancelation.
So the fact that.
He isn't being pressed in any sort of a democratic primary process means what is he He hasn't promised anything for our next term. So if people aren't feeling the Bidenomics love now and again long term, I think there are some really good things. I personally think that you know, supporting the Biden National Labor Relations Board versus the union busting Trump National Labor Relations Board is really important.
But these are long term things.
This is not I'm going to benefit materially right now today, and that matters. So if people aren't feeling the love you got to make a case for them. What are you gonna do that's going to help him out? Like it's not enough just to point at Trump. I don't think it's enough, even though it has been a very potent issue, to just say, hey, we're not going to
make things worse on abortion. I genuinely believe that if they want to get out of this slump, they need to persuade people that they're going to actually deliver them, make things better for them, or else they are in a world of trouble and no, you know, additional Trump charges they're going to save them.
We'll find out. I'm excited to see that test case. Who knows they've gotten away with that on abortion once, which means they're just going to play that all over again. Let's go to Mitt Romney. Stunning, I guess not all that stunning. He was slated to decide on whether he's going to run for reelection in the state of Utah, where he's currently the junior senator. He obviously would face a brutal primary in the GOP. He already has multiple
people who had announced against him. He is well into his seventies, and he had decide, am I going to step down or am I going to actually run for reelection? And look, there's a lot of disagreement here on the show with Senator round Me on a variety of different topics, but this one part of his retirement video I deeply respect and I want people. I want to hold up anybody who is willing to actually say the honorable part out loud. Let's take a lisson.
I've spent my last twenty five years in public service of one kind or another. At the end of another term, i'd be in my mid eighties. Frankly, it's time for a new generation of leaders. They're the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.
Now.
We face critical challenges mounding national debt, climate change, and the ambitious authoritarians of Russia and China. Neither President Biden nor former President Trump are leading their party to confront those issues. On deficits and debt, both men refuse to address entitlements, even though they know that this represents two thirds of federal spending. Donald Trump calls global warming a hoax, and President Biden offers field good solutions that make no
difference to the global climate. On China, President Biden under invests in the military, and President Trump under invests in our alliances. Political motivations too often impede the solutions that these challenges demand. The next generation of leaders must take America to the next stage of global leadership.
So look, he've listed a lot of different things. Well not even to get into the issue number one problems a national debt. Okay, but he said I would be in my mid eighties. It's time for somebody else's step in. I cannot help but celebrate that. And there's a new profile of Senator Romney coming from a fourth point book about him written by the McCay coppins over at The Atlantic, And he actually has a great section that Romney describes about why the Senate is such an old folks. So
let's put this up there on the screen. The average age in the Senate was sixty three years old. Several members Romney included were in their seventies or even eighties. He sensed many of his colleagues attached enormous psychic currency to their position that they would do almost anything to keep it. He talks about it this way, Crystal. Further, they're free meals on site, barbers doctors within one hundred feet at all times. There is an edge to that observation.
And he also says most of us have gone out tried playing golf for a week and it was like, Okay, I'm going to kill myself. He told me. Job preservation in this context became almost existential. Retirement was death, which tells us what it's all ego. It's one hundred percent ego. They don't care about you. They care about themselves. They care about the feeling of being important, which is why the Capital tried to describe it before. But it's difficult
for me. People who've never like been in the inner sanctum. It is the greatest old folks home of all time. You never open a door. You got dreams of people around you at all times who either care about what you think in the form of the reporters, or you got all these lads whose salaries that you pay. Your literally a titan. You can force your interns and others to go get your dry cleaning for you. You don't
do anything. It's like being a billionaire without having to be a billionaire, and why would you give that up? And the taxpayer they fund everything you do. You get to have important votes, you get to go on the news.
You know.
That's the thing you always find about really old people, is they you know, they always like want to relive their glory days. They don't want to give up the glory day at all, and there's no forcing mechanism to make them get out.
I thought this was a very simple comment about why they hang on. I mean, Diane Finestar, so come on, wait, miss McConnell, you don't think anyone else could fill your shoes. Come on, you're not that special. Joe Biden same thing, You're not that special. I mean, I think he's deluded himself into thinking he's the one and only guy that.
Can beat Trump.
I mean, to have a Titanic ego.
To be Titanic. Yeah. Absolutely. But you know, they're they're actually they're basically.
Addicts to this kind of you know, sense that they're rush that they get from feeling like they're at the center of the world and they're so special and important and whatever. And you take that adrenaline that they get every day from that away from them, and it's, like Mitt says, there, they feel like they're going to kill themselves.
They just can't. They can't get off the sauce.
It really is like a drug to them and they can't let go of it. So, as you said, lots of issues with I mean, mtt Romney is not a moderate, right, this is a very hard line economic conservative, very culturally considered, Like, very few agreements with Mitt Romney in terms of policy. But the fact that he is able to as a billion or however much money he has, like it shouldn't.
Be that hard to do.
He's going to have a very nice life. But apparently for many of these other individuals who are also very wealthy, like they just can't give it up. So kudos to him for being able to take a step back and step away from all of this. And I also think saga what comes through in this McKay coppins piece too, is he talks about the way Ronny thought about how his Senate term was going to go and what kind
of role he could serve. And he thought because Utah has been culturally the most skeptical of Trump, like it's.
One of the least Mormons.
Yeah, yeah, it's one of the least sort of trumpy
Republican states. Although I think it has shifted some now over time, but he felt like coming in representing Utah, he might be able, in being the former presidential candidate and one of the leaders of the party whatever, he could maybe serve as the leader of a coalition of people who were able to be critical of Trump from within the Republican Party, and that just didn't work out, you know, to the extent whenever he would pype up and say something critical of Trump or vote against him
on different things, he would get all of these pats on the back behind the scenes of people saying like, oh, I appreciate you saying that I appreciate you doing that. I wish that I could do that too, But in terms of giving anyone else the courage to stand up and say what they actually thought about Donald Trump, it just didn't happen. And so I think he also realized, you know, whatever his listed priorities.
Were, they weren't getting done.
His vision of being the leader of this kind of like anti Trump resistance within the Republican Party that was not coming to fruition whatsoever. And so you can see how he's like, well, gee, why would I stay when the core things that I came here to try to accomplish are clearly not happening, and I have no hope that they're going to happen.
Oh he's right. I mean so look, if you want to be a legislator, actually do something, then you're hearing the wrong job. Which sounds ridiculous, but that's basically how it's been for a really long time, especially if you've got no seniority. So look, I want to commend the man. I'm glad he's leaving. I hope somebody and look, I hope that the people of Utah have a rigorous primary democratic process and can select somebody who best, you know,
fulfills what they want. That's what they deserve, and I think we should see a hell of a lot more of this. Okay, let's move on to Hunter Biden. So there's a lot going on with Hunter Biden. Counterpoints did a great job yesterday of covering the impeachment inquiry that the Republicans are opening over on the House side into
Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, and the business dealings. But on the Hunter side itself, the Biden White House has just found itself contorting in every different direction as to what level of legitimacy they can grant. The idea that Hunter Biden a did something bad and to what level that Biden was involved because recall, first, Joe Biden had never
spoken with Hunter about his business dealings. Then, he had never met with any of Hunter's business partners then, and now the current line is he did do that, but they didn't talk about business. And now the latest line from the White House is that he did these business meetings because Jess he loved his son as any other father. Let's take a listen, is.
The president was present at some of the meetings between Hunter, Biden and his business associates. Why was the president at those meetings on those phone calls?
Well, again, I think this is part of the right wing's misinformation machine to try to confuse people about what the truth is. The truth is that the President, as he has said publicly for years, calls his family every day to check in. He calls his son every day to check in. He calls his other family members to check in to see how they're doing.
He loves them.
They're a tight knit family.
And what the GOP's own witness testified in this case is that that's exactly what the President was doing. He was checking in with Hunter during a particularly hard time I might add a time where the family was going through Hunter's brother, BEA's illness, and of course the president checks in with his son and talks to them. But again that witness testified no business dealings of Hunter, Biden's,
or any ones was discussed in these conversations. And so again they're trying to make this sort of strange connection when their own investigation has disproved in these claims.
That is actually not what Devin Archer said at all. If you recall Crystal we had Archer I almost respect his disgusting level of cynicism in that interview that he had with with Tucker, and he's like, look is how Washington works. You guy, get a guy on the phone. He got a bunch of Ukrainians in the room, and they're like, wow, man, he's got the vice president there on the phone. It doesn't matter Hunter was using it, even if he was just checking in. Biden knew that
he was being called into business meetings. He said it happened on dozens of times. Yeah, that had a direct monetary benefit to Hunter. And then there's the question of well Hunter said ten percent of the big buy I don't know. I mean, listen, That's part of the reason
I think Gampeach Winter inquiry is fine. I actually would love to know whether he got any of that money or not the whole We do know his brother got some, Joe Biden's brother, and that the Biden family was getting all it would basically a slush fund for what they were using to use all these foreign, foreign corrupt monies in order to fund lavish lifestyles that all those guys
are doing. And then you've got all these crazy things going on since with the art and all this other nonsense, and it's like, guys, having love for your son is
obviously something that people can relate with. But what people you know, and I think we've talked about this before too, whenever it comes to Hunter and the previous you know element where Biden would refuse to acknowledge his like Hunter's love child until she signed away the mother signed away the right for them to use the Biden family name. It was one of those where you know, a lot of people can forgive, like supporting your son, but what a lot of people can't forgive is that said son.
When your son is going through a hard time, if you're a normal American, they go to jail or they face consequences, and that actually he's gotten special treatment in every single area of this, and it's been writing off of your name with no consequence to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, and you obviously knew about it and do and do anything. There's also an infantilization element that really bothers me on this whole thing. He's just a dad.
He loves his boy like Hunter could be my dad is fifty.
Okay, let's look it up, all right, let's okay.
I completely agree with you that he could be my father.
He literally could be my father. Yeah. Yeah.
As a parent, I can say part of loving your children and being a.
Good parent is also saying no.
Yeah, when your son is like, hey, dad, will you just like hang out on speakerphone on this like shady ass business call up?
No, the answer is no. It's really not that hard to do. Just say no.
I got a lot of thoughts on this, I mean, because everybody is just sort of shameless on this issue. Number one, I am perfectly happy and comfortable with Republican setting a precedent of we're actually going to care about presidential Please apply this across the board. Please, if Donald Trump gets back in there, let's have that precedent. Let's actually care about the disgusting, outrageous, like brazen levels of family corruption going on.
It's better than a perfect phone call.
Inside the Trump white ass. Like let's talk about Jared Kushner, Let's talk about Evaga, Let's talk about the way that they you know, cashed in even during the presidency and post presidency and Trump himself with live golf and all this crap, Like, let's actually care about corruption one hundred percent here for that particular precedent to be set.
So that's number one. Number two.
On the Biden side, it has always been absurd for them to pretend like, oh, he's just you know, it's fine, he's just doing business. And of course Joe had no idea about it. They've changed their line on that number of times. So obviously they're not being straightforward here either.
Republicans have wildly overplayed their hand. You know, they've claimed, they've claimed all this evidence of like, you know, having direct evidence of money being exchanged directly to Joe Biden, etc. They have not produced that proof, and so they've wildly over played their hand.
On the politics of it.
The impeachment inquiry from Kevin McCarthy feels like an attempt to placate people in his caucus who want an actual, you know, actual impeachment, because an impeachment inquiry it's kind of meaning it's just an investigation, right, So he's trying to placate them. It's mostly like a kind of conservative virtue signal is the idea here from McCarthy. It's not
even appeasing the people he's trying to appease. But I think, just like Democrats were punished when they spent so much time doing impeachment actual impeachments with Donald Trump, I think for Republicans politically be a disaster. If they tied up the nation's capital in endless impeachment hearings and actually went forward with that, I think the American people would be very frustrated.
There's a lesson from the Perfect Phone Call impeachment, which is that the American people turned on the Democrats. A lot of people forget. There's January twenty twenty GOP identification and never been higher because people didn't give a shit about the Ukraine funding and all that other stuff, which is a real precursor to a lot of the debates now, but that's beside the point. So my thing is is, do not impeach him unless you actually have the goods,
as you said, I had. Listen, let's set the precedent. I love it. You know, this is far more legitimate in my opinion than that the idiot phone call on impeachment. This is one of those where we should have this and now that it's been broken. But like you said, you sure do it against Trump, do it against anybody. I don't care who the president is, if they have bad business dealings or any other stuff. Everyone likes to look back at what was the Hillary one that was
happening white Water Whitewater. No, this is deep cut Whitewater, which is nineteen ninety four. I want to say. They're like, oh, it was a witch hunt and all that. If you actually go read the details, they're totally nuts about the Clinton family and how Hillary was profiting even at that time off of the governorship of Arkansas. Anyway, I think those are legitimate. I think they are good. I don't care if they are a partisan right now, because it
just sets better precedent. So that's great. Yeah, the point though, that you said is very important. Do not go forward on us unless you have smoking gun proof. Yeah, the issue is I don't know if it exists. That said, if it does, I mean it's one of those where at this problem we've had four years, the president obviously is subject to some level of scrutiny on irs and all that we have. They have to go and uncover the actual ten percent payment or the actual like exchange
of money. That's very difficult to prove, unfortunately, because people who do this stuff usually are very good at hiding their tracks. So we'll see. I mean, I would really like to see whether the actually did financially profit or not. And there is a basic point though where their lifestyle absolutely does not match you know, how much money they make. He was actually quite poor before he became vice president. So it's like, well, yeah, how are you buying all these houses?
But one percentage of DC of DC politicians, do you think is guilty of that same type.
Of one hundred percent maybe one hundred and fifty percent, right.
Which is why they never take it seriously, which is why you know Ted Luke can come on with us on rising like what people sit on board?
They are in salaries, what's a big.
Deal because that's how all of these people operate. And so that's the problem for the Republicans is proving something beyond the shit that they're all doing too and so far they have not been able to produce that evidence. And lord knows they've been looking. I mean they're looking for certainly years now, trying to find some smoking gun proof that there is natural money that went into Joe
Biden's hands and Joe Biden's bank account. So that's what they're you know, that's what they're trying to find and listen, more power to Like I said, I would love for DC to take corruption seriously in a bipartisan manner where both sides applied the same set of rules.
Do I have a lot of hope that that's going to happen? Absolutely not.
Well, we will see, Chryssel. What are you taking a look at?
Well?
At midnight tonight, the negotiating deadline for Big three automakers and the United Auto Workers expires. As it stands right now, looks very much like these workers are headed into a historic and possibly transformational strike and a sign that they're on the brink. Uaw's new president, Sean Fain, took to Facebook live last night to reveal the strike plan.
That they have devised.
In order to exert maximum pressure on these auto executives, let's take a lesson.
For the first time in our history, we may strike all three of the Big three at once. Our message to the companies was clear, if we don't have a fair contract by midnight on Thursday night, we will strike. The second big difference is the way we're going to strike is going to be very different. In fact, we're inventing a whole new way to strike, and we're calling it the stand up strike. The name stand up strike, of course, recalls the movement that built our great union,
the sit down Strikes of nineteen thirty seven. Just as in the nineteen thirties, we're living in a time of stunning inequality throughout our society. We're living in a time where our industry is undergoing massive transformations, and we're living in a time where our labor movement is redefining itself. In the spirit of the sitdown strike, the stand up strike will keep the companies guessing. It's going to rely
on discipline, organization, and creativity. The stand up strike begins with all of our locals from parts distribution centers to assembly plants maintain a constant strike readiness. It's really important that we're clear on this point. We will not strike all of our facilities at once. We will strike all three companies a historic first, initially at a limited number
of targeted locations that we will be announcing. Then, based on what's happening and bargaining, we're going to announce more locals that are going to be called to stand up and strike. These locals will join those that are already on strike, so that our strike at each company will continue to grow over time.
So we will see.
But it sounds to me like they are going out and tonight at ten pm, fans going to do another Facebook Live to announce striking locals if indeed those negaged negotiations fail. So prepare yourself to see one thousand panic headlines about workers tanking the economy.
But the economy that.
They are really worried about isn't the one that determines whether you can earn enough money to feed your family, because workers flexing power can only be good for that economy. The economy they're worried about is the one that funnels all profits constantly to the top. If there is one thing you should know about the dynamics of this potential strike, it's that the Big Three can easily afford to pay their workers a lot more, and it's only sheer corporate
greed that prevents them from doing so. How do we know that, Well, first of all, these companies are so flush with cash that they have authorized five billion dollars in stock buybacks in the past year alone. Now, stock buybacks amount to a giant shareholder giveaway in which companies use their cash not for research or investment or worker pay, but simply to buy their own stock, artificially pumping up the price.
So they got plenty enough money for.
Giveaways to themselves and are wealthy shareholders, but are suddenly crying poor when it comes to people who are responsible for generating all that money.
And the cash, by the way, it continues to pour in.
In the first six months of twenty twenty three, the Big Three reporting twenty one billion dollars in profits. The history of these companies is also critical to remember too. It wasn't just taxpayers that bailed on Detroit in the
financial crash. Workers took a huge hit at the time to bail these companies out per the lever the UAW agreed to eleven billion dollars in labor cuts, twenty one thousand layoffs, a wage freeze for workers, a tiered wage system for new workers, and no strike agreement until twenty fifteen, and the transfer of retirees' healthcare and pension benefit costs from GM to the UAW in order to save GM
three billion dollars. Workers have never made up for the losses that they shouldered to float these abusive companies, even as these companies reach extraordinary new levels of profitability. So now armed with a new militant UAW president, the energy of a union renaissance, the backing of an actually pro worker NLRB, and a massive eight hundred and twenty five million dollars strike fund that's expected to last for nearly three months, these workers are coming for what they have
long been doe. Now, what exactly are the workers demands? While under the slogan record profits mean record compras the UAW is demanding significant gains. They are asking for, among other things, forty percent pay hikes over the course of four years to match the payhikes that the big three CEOs have enjoyed They're also pushing for bold quality of life improvements, like a shift to a thirty two hour
work week. They want to restore the cost of living and pension benefits that they had prior to the auto bailount, and they want to make sure their workers are protected in the event of plant closures. Now, corny and to fain, none of the Big three have come close to meeting these demands, but you can also see they've definitely gotten these companies' attention. All three companies have offered close to a twenty percent payhike over the next four or so
years and some level of cost of living adjustment. Just behold the awesome power of the union. Imagine being able to scoff at a twenty percent payhike and be like, screw you, I deserve more.
And you know what, they do deserve more, and so do you. Now.
In terms of the larger effects here, they have the potential to be massive. Obviously, there will be a direct impact in the short term on the auto market, but in some ways that's the least of the potential impact. There's perhaps no industry in America more iconic or more synonymous with the American middle class than the Big three automakers.
Henry Ford famously was very little anti union, but he did believe his workers should be paid well enough that they can afford the product that they're building, and his imposition of a forty hour work week, along with massive union pressure and organizing, help to invent something we all
take for granted now, that's the weekend. So it is no stretch to say that auto workers could single handedly redefine what workers should expect from their employers in times of record profits, especially coming on the heels of the successful ups contract negotiations which saw their driver's land significant
wage and safety gains. Few things are more pivotable pivotal for the future of the working class in America right now than the ability for unions to grow their membership after years of decline, and nothing could be more compelling for workers considering unionizing than witnessing the massive gains that union workers are able to secure now. There's also a big old political fight tangled up directly in this negotiation.
The automakers of their own accord, but also spurred by investments from the Biden Administration's Inflation Reduction Act, they're working to shift away from gas powered cars to electric vehicles. Now, typically when these industry shifts occur, they're used as an excuse to hasten a race to the bottom shipping jobs overseas or at least to the most low wage, anti
union parts of the country. Thanks to Joe Manchin being the literal worst, the Biden administration has asked the incentives for automakers to keep these new EV jobs, union frustration that has led to the uaw withholding their endorsement from Biden's reelection. So this contract negotiation is also designed to try to secure a just transition to evs that make sure workers are in on the big industry of the future,
which is absolutely critical. So when you put all of this together, this looming strike with a midnight deadline tonight could serve as a wake up call to the boss class and their political allies, and it could serve as an awakening for workers that they do not have to continue to accept a smaller and smaller piece of the pie year after year after year. And that shift in consciousness and the balance of power could be a whole revolution. So I'm watching this one very closely.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
All right, Sager, tell us what you're looking at.
I'm actually not doing a monologue today, or at least a written one, because in a few minutes from now, the NASA UFO report will come out and I'll be doing a live reaction either in this show or probably later on our channel, depending how long it takes to digest. But I did think it would be fun to preview that with a little bit of skepticism, so people do know that I don't accept everything around the UFO topic.
You might have seen the internet dominated recently with these images after the so called unveiling of alien bodies before the Mexican Congress. Let's go ahead and play the video for everybody up there on the screen, Crystal. As you could see, these are basically almost like et level bodies that have been compiled and been put together. Of people
who are watching. This is literally was a video taken directly from the feed that was there, And I've actually got a lot of messages about this, like, oh my god, is this real? Is what's actually happening? Are the bodies? How come nobody is paying attention to this and listen, guys, this is just a massive red flag for me on every level, aside from the fact that the bodies quite literally look like et let's just give a little bit of a background about the person who is behind this,
and once I don't want to smirch anybody's character. I'm just giving you somebody's record here. Let's go ahead and put this up there. All of this has really been pushed by a guy named Jaime Mussan. He's a Mexican
UFO ologist. He's got a big YouTube channel, and just off the bat, I can't help but think of one of the most legendary incidents that has happened in the UFO alien world, where he had something called the Roswell slides and which purported to show a dead alien and as you could see there, this was back in twenty fifteen, he actually had to apologize, admitting that the picture actually
showed the mummified body of a child. I would also know that Ryan Graves, one of the pilots who has come forward and talked about his experiences and also the experiences of others about the UFO phenomenon and encounters by US military pilots, was present and has now denounced the said incident. Let's put this up there on the screen,
he says. Quote. After the US Congressional UFO hearing, I accepted an invitation to testify before the Mexican Congress, hoping to keep up the momentum of the government interest in the pilots. Unfortunately, yesterday's demonstration was a huge step backwards for the issue. My testimony centered on sharing my experience and the UAP reports I hear from commercial and military
aircrew through the ASA Witness program. I will continue to raise awareness as an urgent matter of aerospace safety, national security, and science. But I am deeply disappointed by this unsubstantiate stunt. I also, unfortunately have to flag for everybody that Chrystal. This is not even the first time that Hyma Wassan
has passed some of this stuff off. In twenty seventeen he had actually published videos called Special Report Unearthing Nasca as in the Nasca Lines in Peru where these supposed bodies come from, and in twenty eighteen he gave it another presentation actually to the Peruvian Congress during a four hour meeting, again called the Mummies of Nasca. He has did it in a twenty nineteen documentary. So this is not even the first time that these bodies or mummies
or whatever have been presented. I guess it's only the first time that they've been presented to the Mexican Congress. The other thing is everyone was like, oh, well, he's testifying under oath. Actually that was a pro forma thing. It's not. It's not the same actual under oath as if before the US Congress. I guess what everybody focused on was that one of the people who spoke his
name is Jose Sanchez. He was the director of the Mexican Navy's Forensic Medical Service, said quote, I can affirm these bodies have no relation to human beings, and said how it's bones, muscles, and ligaments were put together, and said that they have three fingers in a wrapping manner
to hold things. I would point out the DNA analysis compared with more than one million species, we found their significant difference between what is known and these bodies, but has not had any peer review of those claims or any.
Of that, So red flags everywhere.
We got a guy who already got fooled once with a dead body to say that it was nailing we got bodies which have been passing around. He's been passing these things around for four or five years. And then we have no substantiation on the DNA claim. We have no real under oath. All we really got is a hilarious video and some fantastic memes. By the way, there's
some great things that are out there. But I gotta tell you, I'm calling bs at least on this, and very very respected people in the UFO community to all. I reached out to them privately, all warned me about this guy's reputation. They're like, look, I basically don't word that the man says. So I think it's unfortunate. I actually think it's step back for the issue because just
it's like, come on, what you think. You know, alien bodies just materialized in out of Nasca and been lying there for a thousand years, and you know, if it was real, then obviously a lot of people will be paying attention, So listen. It's uh, there's a lot of reason to be skeptical. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons.
The visual alone is sort of hilarious.
Come on, god, I mean it just I mean, I won't be the first that it literally just looks like et Yeah, Like they just were like, you know, cartoonish image of what an alien would look like from some like nineteen fifties movie or whatever, and like, let's do that.
And then the dust why is it like dusty? And that I showed this to my kids because we were.
Talking about it was funny. Yeah, and they just.
Started laughing, like even to a child, this seemed absurd and ridiculous.
So there you go.
It's unfortunates all I have thattunate. The thing is is that the reason went viral is because of the video and the whole like oh, they're testifying onunder oath. It's just like it falls apart.
The Mexican government part was the part that and also who you know, there were some news out I don't know, it was like Daily Mail or somebody like that that writes this up kind of like credulously, like all these they say that there are eggs in the body, and you know, and the whole there's the DNA doesn't match one. They don't mention any of the parts of like oh, by the way, they're not under the oath.
By the way, this guy has.
Been caught like pushing things that were complete hoaxes before. By the way, you know, there was no pure review of the supposed DNA evidence or whatever. By the way, there's no evidence of these alleged eggs inside the bodies. Somehow that all got left out of the report, and so people read it and take it at face value when they should not.
Here's the thing dealing with this topic. You mean, a lot of people, and a lot of people really believe a lot of the things that they tell you. So I'm not going to say the guy's a liar. I think he probably believes it. That said, sometimes we believe things a little bit too hard. I want to believe, Okay, I want to believe. I want to see it. I want to be like, oh my god, it's real. But
you got to you gotta if you do believe. Actually, if you're somebody who thinks there's something that there's real truth out there, well you Havetually, it's incumbent on you and especially me in this case, in order to tell people be like, guys, I'm not seeing this one. Even a tiny little bit could be proven wrong. But until some serious stuff goes through peer review and we see a hell of a lot more evidence and our people get involved and all of that. Then I'm going to
be having my skeptic hat on. Now what I don't have my skeptic hat on is that, hopefully soon we'll be able to bring on this channel, is that NASA, by congressional mandate, has had to put out a actual full report with sixteen independent people astronauts and others as well as a NASA administrator to tell us a little bit about what they know based upon the technology that we have in space as mandated and pushed by Congress, that they have fought against at every turn, that I'm
actually very interested in, and we'll be doing some analysis, but this one. Just hold your horses, folks. Sorry to burst your bubble, but no way.
Yeah, just when you want to believe, you actually have to be even more skeptical to check your own biases.
So thank you for that presentation. Welcome, we appreciate.
I'm excited for the NASCY UOFO report though. Look out for that on.
Yeah, definitely stay tuned for that. Okay, we had one that we wanted to had to add this into the show. So Drew Barrymore had already decided she wanted to break the writer's strike and bring her daily talk show back on which I sort of barely knew existed anyway. But she was the first to break the seal and become a scab. Now we have another individual, another real scab here in Bill Maher. Put this back up on the screen Real Time coming back. Unfortunately, songs writers are writing.
Has been five months and it is time to bring people back to work. The writers have important issues that I sympathize with and hope they are addressed to their satisfaction. But they are not the only people with issues, problems, and concerns. Despite some assistance from me, much of the staff is struggling mightily. We all were hopeful this would come to an end after Labor Day, but that day has come and gone and there still seems to be
nothing happening. I love my writers, I'm one of them, but I'm not prepared to lose an entire year and see so many below the line people suffer so much. I will honor the spirit of the strike by not doing a monologue dust Be's new rules or editorial the written pieces that I'm so proud of on Real Time, and I'll say it upfront to the audience. The show I'll be doing without my writers will not be as
good as our normal show full stop. But at the heart of the show is an off the cuff panel discussion that aims to cut through the bullshit predictable partisanship, and that will continue the show will not disappoint. Very similar to some of the comments that he made recently that we covered what he was with Jim Gaffigan, I think, and he was talking to him about the writer's strike, and it sounded very similar to what this justification is here.
But ultimately, I mean, this is the devastating blow to writers because he is so prominent, and the more shows that you have, and the more prominent, famous, wealthy personalities you have that are willing to cross the picket line and become scabs and break the strike, the easier it
is for other shows to follow suit. So I see this as truly devastating, and he seems to place What really bothers me about this statement is he seems to place the onus of the burden of the fact that there's been a shutdown for so long on the writers, rather than saying a word about the studios, who explicitly at the start of this said Hey, We're going to starve these people out. We're going to make sure they're losing their homes and getting kicked out of their apartments.
That's our strategy. And you don't have a word of criticism for them. You're putting all the blame on the writers who are trying to just be able to eke out a living now and into the future.
Just disgraceful.
Another thing I thought which was weird is that he says, at the heart of the show is an off the cuff panel discussion that aims to cut through the bullshit and predictable partnership. You have a podcast, it's called Club Random. You've been doing it right. You actually have panels. They had Tarantino actually watching that one, the one with Tarantino and I forget. I think it was Judd Apatow, the three of them like talking over wis gay. I loved it.
That was really interesting. That said It's like, well, if the heart of the show is that you already have it, and you don't have to do that by crossing the picket line or any of that. Now, Look, I think it's year that he feels bad for let's say the camera guys or any of the other people who are impacted by this, I also feel very bad for them too, But I haven't seen any of those people come out
and demand an end to the strike. A lot of those people are union, they're all they're in a different union, so they're, I mean, from what I understand, very much in solidarity with what's happening with the writers. So overall very puzzling. Let's also see if they do with the Drew Barrymore show has been doing where they're like searching people's bags for pro WGA buttons.
Killing people out who are wearing like, you know, pro union merch what.
Like, what are we doing here? The thing is it also Drew Barrymore, you know, I have you bear a child star, you're an et. We're just talking about aliens. You don't have enough money that you guys, like, what are we doing here?
Listen?
I also have a lot of sympathy for, as he says, the other below the line, people who you know, depend on this work and it's important, Like huge sympathy for them, and I'm not going to pretend that there's no cost there whatsoever. But again, whose fault is it that they're still out on strike? It's the fault of the studios that will not come to the table and give them a decent deal that they could then say, Okay, we're good with this, let's move forward. It's not the writer's fault.
They are just trying to secure the basics of a living. And remember what Bill said, which was even worse than you know, my irritation with this statement is he said something like the writer, these writers they think they are
o a living and they're not. I mean to me, that really gave away the game of you know, a level of contempt, a level of being disconnected from what the reality of your regular There's a lot of regular like paycheck to paycheck working folk in Hollywood, and so for you to, oh, they just don't even deserve to make a living, you know, you put it at the times out you're like, listen, if you're like turning your first script and you've never done this before, Okay, that's
what we're talking about union members. We're talking about people who this is their job and their career and they've been putting in the time and doing the work for a long Yes, of course they deserve a living. So it's very it's just very disappointing to see because I genuinely think it is a big blow to the leverage and ability of writers to be able to strike a deal.
And remember, part of what they're fighting is there's a huge technological revolution that we are right now on the brink of where these studios want to be able to use chat, GPT or other AI to generate first scripts and then bring writers on after the fact, to just do polish work at a much lower rate and for many fewer hours, and be a lot less integral and just basically like strip as much of the humanity and creativity out of these shows and movies and out of
film production overall. So this is something that we all have a stake in and it's to me, it's just really disgraceful to scab like this and have such an impact in terms of trying to break this strike. I just I think it's really going to have an impact, and that's unfortunate.
The real question is how many guests ors are you going to get who are willing.
I'm wondering about that too.
You're actually willing to go ahead and participate in this, I would be very curious to see how.
Yeah, he won't have any trouble getting like his conservative guests. Sure, you know who don't really support unions to start with. But if you're like a democratic politician and you're thinking of going on Bill Maher right now.
Uh huh.
If you are anyone who considers yourself to be you know, at all supportive of unions or left of center or liberal or whatever, and you're thinking of going on that show.
Yes, nope, agreed, We'll be watching carefully.
Okay, thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. Like I said, the UFO report is out. I've got it in front of me. I'll be doing a reaction just in a little bit. But thank you all so much to the premium subscribers who enable the focus group. It was a really fun week, this big week for us to be able to do that, and you guys mean the world to all of us, and so Breakingpoints dot Com. We'll have that full focus group special out for all of you earlier later today and
then tomorrow for everybody else on the public feed. We'll see you all on Monday.
Who