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But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. When do we have crystal?
Indeed, we do more chaos in Lebanon. This time we had exploding walkie talkies with more deaths and injuries, so we'll break down that. We also have some more information on how the hell this happened. How Israel was able to penetrate the supply chain and get these exploding devices in the hands of Tedula operatives.
It is a crazy story.
So we'll track all of that and of course what it means for us and for a broader Middle East war. Big, big economic news. This is something that has been much anticipated. The FED significantly cutting rates yesterday. Obviously that is meant to have an important economic impact also may have an
important political impact Trump is reacting to that. We also have some more details about the direction Trump is going in with his economic plans or concepts of a plan, I guess, so I'll break that down for you as well. Teamsters Union decided not to endorse at all in this presidential race. You know, Republicans are excited about this, and it's not endorsement of them, at least Teamsters in their view,
or not endorsing Kamalin. We got some also interesting numbers from the head of the Teamsters about which direction their members are going in.
The Diddy indictment has been revealed.
We now know some of the details of exactly what the charges are and what the federal authorities are alleging, and frankly, it is all quite horrifying. So show you that some of the things that also they seized from his properties and excited for a few guests. This morning, we've got a panel that's going to debate the pro life tactics coming from the Trump campaign. So these are both you know, soccer I kind of had this debate before, but we're like, we're both pro choice, so we.
Don't really have a dog in this fight.
Here, So we decided let's get two people are pro life on to talk through this issue of whether or not Trump should be moderating on the issue or whether it's you know, a moral red line. So Leila Rose is going to be one of those. Chamberlain's the other one. So that should be really good. And we have a reporter from New York to explain what the hell is going on in the Eric Adams administration because some fifteen members of his inner circle are now under some sort
of federal investigation. Some people are saying this is like the worst corruption and the most you know, insanity, since basically, like Tammany Hall is a wild situation unfolding, New.
York is fully back Eric Adams, New York City.
Is the deeply corrupt mayor to infuse life into the city.
Well, the thing I la, I mean he has some he has created some legendary content, That's.
What I mean. I mean, you can't help but love this.
It's like we've got corruption, We've got this like blathering idiot, perhaps savant at times, just being like New York is.
The Paris or New York. He said, you never.
Know what can happen in New York He's like, you could getting a bagel and the other day, you know, the.
Twin Towers could go down. That's a real thing that he actually said. Yeah, Yeah, New York is fully back. We're back.
I have way too much of the video that he did about like searching your child's bedroom. I have like way too much of that memorize, including him calling a backpack a quote popular knap sense right with many different pockets.
Yeah, the vegan who's not really vegan. I could go on forever. Yeah, there's too much.
So anyway, a lot going on there.
We also are going to get to this horrifying situation with the NYPD where they chased down someone who jumped a two dollars and ninety cents fare and ended in a bloody scene. A police officer was hit with friendly fire, the far evader himself was killed the passerbys. It's insane situation. So lots to talk about from New York City. So we'll get it into.
All of that before we get to that. Thank you to all of our subscribers.
As a reminder, you do get the show early on locals and in your inbox for our premium subscribers, So yesterday for example, Counterpoints had a good debate with Matt Walsh over at The Daily Wire, and our premium subscribers got that early and quite a few have appreciated that, and it's gone quite viral now since.
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So that's the way you can support not only our work, but you get the show a full hour early in your inbox, the full show and also available RSS feed on locals, etc. So subscribe if you want to be able to take advantage of that. Breakingpoints dot Com. Let's get the Hasbola though, because this story has really captured the popular imagination outside of the geopolitical context. It's literally like out of a Born movie. Not of the details,
the decision to do this. I mean there's literally like a major death toll geopolitical consequences from the United States, Israeli, Lebanon, a potential broader war. So we have some video that we can share people, but I mean, this is crazy stuff.
Yeah, so let's go ahead and put these new scenes of chaos. On Tuesday, Counterpoints covered that HESBELA pagers and some other devices that were not owned by HESBLA exploded with creating mass chaos. I mean, you're talking about people who were at the market. Here you can see these are new images walkie talkies that exploded, and even things like this is a keypad entryway to get into a building that exploded. This is a picture of one of the devices, presumably after you know, it was blown.
Apart, and it was sheer terror.
You know, you had people who were in markets going about their business and then suddenly somewhere an explosion happens. People are panicking, You had innocent bystanders, you had children who were killed. So you know, some factors, some factions are calling this, you know, this highly targeted attack, but
in fact it's the polar opposite of that. You know, you had people who were at home with their families, down on their motorbikes, like I said, in a market when these things blew up, and whoever happened to be around was hit and was injured. So you now have thousands of injuries. You have somewhere around a dozen deaths, four of them children, by the way. So like I said, I don't think there's any way to describe it other
than terror. It was quite clear Israel hasn't officially taken credit for it, but quite clear that it was Israel behind these attacks, and we can also show you some of the evidence of how this all went down and how they were able to penetrate the supply chain in this manner.
But in addition, you know, here's.
Bibi Netanya, who thinking he's really cool and uh, positioning himself as a new James Bond.
Let's take a listen, deniel I so much James Boone, James Boone.
So let's go ahead and put up the Wall Street Journal article that we have here that has some of the new details. Again, we had attacks on subsequent days. Tuesday was the pagers. Wednesdays was buying large walkie talkies. The headline here is Hez blowwakie talkies blow up across Lebanon. In second wave of attacks, those walkie talkies used by the group, they said, blew up in homes, cars, and
in operative's hands across the country. People familiar with the matter said, just a day after thousands of pagers carried by HESBELA members exploded at roughly the same time, the new attack killed twenty people injured more than four hundred and fifty after Tuesday's bombies killed twelve and injured more than twenty eight hundred people. That's according to Lebanon's government,
which blamed Israel, which is reasonable. There was a quote here from Yoav Gallant in terms of the broader geopolitical implications, because we've been covering here, in fact Monday morning when this I guess Tuesday morning, when this was all unfolding and we were getting the initial images, we were covering the fact that bb Night now who very much wants to expand the official war into Lebanon. Now, there's already been tit for tat exchanges between Hesblah and Israel.
That's not new.
What he's talking about is a much more significant escalation, something that theoretically, at least.
The US opposes.
Yoav Galant, the Israel defense minister, who's kind of on the ounce in the net Yahoo administration because he was war in favor of securing some sort of a ceasefire hostage deal. But he told the Wall Street Journal the center of gravity is shifting to the north. This means that we are moving forces, resources and energy to the north. I estimate that we are at the start of a new phase in this war. So any hope of you know, I mean, one thing that would end the hes Bulah
attacks right away. Is if you had some sort of a lasting ceasefire deal in exchange of hostages. I think any hope of that is off the table as long as you know, it's very clear the US doesn't want to use their leverage to force any sort of result on the Israelis. It's very clear bb nat Yah who wants to not only continue the assault that he has already you know, already been taking in, but he wants to expand into this new war as well. And you know, no end insight basically sober.
It's super it's very There's so much to say, not only about the covert details the attack itself. We'll get to that in terms of how it exactly folded out, showing how sophisticated is really intelligence is. But there's also a big why question, like why now, there's a couple of different stories out there. One is that this could be the precursor to some sort of larger attack. Too is that it actually means a larger attack's not going
to happen. There was a third explanation I saw floated that Hesbola had actually realized that there was something wrong with their pagers and that once they got intelligence that they might lose their ability to detonate these, They're like, well, we might as well just do it right now whenever we have the ability. So all of those seem actually quite plausible. I'm not really sure I did read that.
In Israel, there is a lot of mounting pressure on Yahoo to actually either sign a cease fire deal or enable some ability for those tens of thousands of people in the north of Israel sharing a border with Lebanon to be able to return home. That actually could be a part of the impetus as well, to try and satisfy the domestic and people are pissed. They haven't been able to live home in over a year, so that's
that could be part of it. But yeah, I mean when you pair that with the calculus, it's extraordinarily brazen, right. I mean, you have what over a thousand of them seem to have exploded. Multiple people were killed, multiple bystanders were I mean the videos that we showed and they showed previously yesterday at literal grocery stores and everywhere. They basically didn't really care about any potential collateral damage, and
they sent that page immediately. I mean, it's one of the most brazen intelligence operations and assassination, you know, things that have played out in history. I also think it's a really good reminder modern war is not glorious. It's not like a movie or call of duty. Watch videos
coming out of Ukraine. You have guys who are Russian and Ukrainians napping in a hole and they look up and they see a drone who drops a grenade on them, and then they get literally blow up into smithereens or here and you know, like this this is what actual technological warfare looks like. It's bad, like it's you know, be able to watch people get their limbs blown off. I don't recommend it, but I have watched now several of these videos, and this is what it actually looks like.
You know, this is what this is what you actually want to stop from happening.
Generally, the reaction to it has been really just dark in my opinion, Like the level of dehumanization of I guess any Arab population at this point is really quite astonishing.
And you know, think about us the Russia Ukraine example.
Okay, imagine Russia partnered with China, which you know they're allies. They have and we're able to similarly, you know, infiltrate the Ukrainian supply chain, and we're able to you know, blow up thousands of pages, walkie talkie, cell phones, whatever, electronic devices indiscriminately across Ukraine, with a significant toll on children killed, you know, random people just happen to be
nearby family members, et cetera. Imagine the way that would be discussed, People would see clearly like this is this is horrifying, this is you know, this is INDUS criminate, this is this is a terror attack that would be discussed in a very clear way.
Here.
Not only is it not discussed that way overwhelmingly. There are a few exceptions out there, but it's discussed as like wow, how cool and amazing and lol, look what happened to them, et cetera. And you know, it's just really disturbing the way that people are able to put their humanity to the side, put the humanity of this, you know, entire nation of people to the side, entire region of people to the side, just based on the US propaganda that they're fed. So, I mean that's part
of what's really dark here. Sorry you're alluding to as well, Like once you open these doors, they don't close again. Like this is the new reality is that this could be a weapon in anyone's hands.
It's like, that's scary, and yeah, that's kind of what I wanted to focus on too. Is you know how many years have we been talking about here on the show. We don't make anything. This entire phone is made outside of the United States. The chip inside of it. Do you really know? I mean, as far as I know, you can't even take the back off your iPhone. You have no idea what's in this spide You.
Don't know what's inside. I don't even know what's in any of these cameras.
You know, on how many of us buy new electronics on a day to day basis. So this is a very good glimpse into look it could be used against us, It could be used against anybody. And the details of how this all went down actually shows how frankly easy it was for the Israel. This isn't just because they're Lebanese. Obviously these Reelis wanted to do it to Hesbala. This could happen here instantaneously if anybody wanted to.
And also Israel is a small country.
Yes they're technologically advanced, but the actual details of the plot, they're not that difficulty. That's actually kind of what's astounding. Why don't we get into that. Yeah, you can put that on the screen.
Let's go put this the Financial Times article.
And these details have actually been confirmed and furthered by the New York Times, So you know, immediately people once the pagers blow up, are like, where the hell did these pages come from?
Like, how did this happen?
How were the Israelis able to penetrate the supply chain in this way? They say, here Hesbela's preliminary investigation. According to one of its officials, allegis Israel spy somehow hijacked delivery of pages to Lebanon, packed them with tiny load of explosives and components, and then detonated them almost simultaneously. They traced it back to this sort of shell company called BAC Consulting, according to Hungarian company records, was just set up in May of twenty twenty two by this
woman you see on your screen. She's apparently the sole director of the company. She did not reply to calls and messages seeking her comment. Her LinkedIn profile lists a PhD from ucl in particle physics among her qualifications, as well as stints at other elite UK institutions like the London School of Economics. One person who met her in
recent years described her as an academic. So immediately there were a lot of questions about why this lady is selling Taiwanese pagers to Lebanese buyers, And like I said, the New York Times was basically able to confirm, like, oh, these are this BAC consulting led by this woman who you know very likely or very clearly has Israeli ties. They're the ones who inserted the explosives before selling these
pagers to Hesbela. You know, they went and tried to find her office building it's empty, and try to find her apartment it's empty but has like a multi like complicated multi luck on the door. The people who were neighbors that we haven't seen her here forever. So anyway, this appears to have been the way they were able
to effectuate this plot. And you know, the irony here is that Hesbela knew that they needed to get ditched their like smartphones and their cell phones because they were worried about they knew about Israeli innovation.
We've even covered here. Was it called Pegasus, the.
Advanced hacking tools that they have where yeah, where you're able to basically get access to any phone that you have the phone number for and.
It's able to see what's going on. I'm a text message nothing, Pegas is one. You needed to send something like a compromise message. Pegas is too. If they want it, you're done.
If they can get your phone number, then that's it. They can get access to your phone. So they knew that they've been tracking that as well, and so there was a big push of like, all right, we got to get rid of all.
The cell phones.
We got to go to this more like you know, sort of terrestrial, outdated tech, the low tech that will be more difficult for the israelis to be able to track and be able to penetrate, to keep our communications and our location networks secure. And you know, once they made that move, that's exactly how Israel was able to jump in. As you said, Tacker, there was some reporting that the reason this happened now was because somebody in Hesbela had figured out this was going on, and Israel
was able to assassinate that individual. This is all you know, this is all not fully confirmed. There's as you said, there's a lot of different stories about what might have happened or why now, But Israel assassinates that person to prevent them from you know, telling the chain of command what the hell's going on. But they realized, you know,
the gig was kind of up up. The other thing, though, I think that makes sense is we've seen anytime that beb is a little bit on the rocks domestically politically.
What does he do?
He you know, assassinates a like top has what commander in Beirut, or he assassinates Ismael Honeya in Tehran, or he does some sort of you know, a taxa and embassy in Syria. He does some sort of escalatory provocation that his domestic population absolutely loves and takes the pressure off of him politically so that he can keep holding onto power and keep doing exactly what happens.
It could be the best explanation, right, And that's actually one that makes quite a lot of sense. That bond video went quite viral in Israel makes sense. You know, there's one of those where look, we got to think about it. I guess in their domestic terms, I mean the problem is is that in Lebanon two there could be a lot of chaos now in terms of what the fallout from this could be for Hezbola and for any of their Iranian proxies for them, Like, can they really take this sitting down?
I mean you could see it both ways. One you'd be.
Terrified, You're like, wow, every element of our communications chain is totally compromised. We're going to get wiped, you know, if we ever have to go to a war again. The other is, well, this is this is the thing about Husbola. Yeah it do they commit like terrorist acts, yes, but it's difficult to describe really in the West because
it's a non governmental like governmental institution. It's like almost part of the Lebanese society and government at a basic level of like schools, kind of like amas, you know in Gaza. So it's a lot like the Bath party in Iraq after our invasion, we were like, oh, we can't have any Bath members. What about the teachers, what about people run the electric companies. It's just it's difficult to parse, you know the difference. That's also another thing
about the operation. I think it would be one thing if they were all like in a meeting and you exploded a meeting, right That's that's certainly like one area. But the way that they did it, well, people were in public. I don't really know, Like I don't know if it was a message or if it was just we have to do this right now, otherwise we're not
going to have any ability. But that's what's opened themselves up to a lot of criticism from its own allies like the US and others who at least behind the scenes, were stunned that something like this happened inside the Middle East.
It certainly has created.
A lot of tension. We're going to get to this. Flights have actually not been canceled to Israel. We can put that up right now.
If we want.
Yeah, that's seven eight seven.
So multiple carriers have canceled there. They have canceled all flights at Israel Amid Lebanon explanation, Luftanza Air so not like Arab like f the hot Airways or whatever I'm talking about, Luftanza Air, France and multiple others that have canceled it. I mean, I guess out of fear that somebody's gonna blow up on their plane, which is not you know, unfounded no, I would say, I mean.
We could have, right, I mean, if somebody happened, if a you know, a person happened to be on one of these planes when the signal was sent. I mean, I don't know. It seems pretty reasonably as pausible. Yah, seems pretty plausible. But I mean again, if you think, like, try to put yourself in the shoes of the Lebanese people.
Imagine if you had US service members who were at the market, at home with their family, like, with their kids, whatever, and their cell phone explodes with thousands of you know, people who were injured, many of whom were innocent, bystander's children who were killed, etc. You can imagine how we would view that. We would rightly view that as a terror attack. Put a four up on the screen. Just one of the details here of one of the young girl's nine year.
Old child who was killed yesterday.
Fatima was in the kitchen when the pager on the table began to beep her. According to her aunt, she picked up the device to bring it to her dad and was holding it when it exploded, mangling her face, leaving the room covered in blood. Fatima was trying to take courses in English. Her aunt said she loved English, and this is one of the children who was killed in this attack. Matt Miller was asked a little bit about this in a State Department briefing, specifically if he
supports it's the operations at target has. Well, let's go ahead and take a listen to this exchange which has to do with that, and also talks a little bit more broadly about legitimacy of targets in general.
Yes, of course we support UH operations to target has below militants who continue to launch terrorist attacks against civilians. Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorism and a right to carry out legitimate attacks against terrorists, not civilians, but terrorists. So as a general proposition, yes, of course.
Okay, So let me go take you back to the legitimacy of targets and so on. Yesterday a group of settlers attacked that's school in Jericho. They beat up the students, they broke their bone, they beat up their teachers, and so on. Are they a legitimate target? Should they be a legitimate target by the same kind of definition that in which you have defined the other target.
Are are civilians who the settlers attacking legitimate targets. Absolutely not.
I'm saying the settlers who are who have attacked.
The settlers should be stulers should settlers should be held accountable through law enforcement means site hold on, not through any type of uh extra judicial process or military process. They should be held account by law enforcement, which is what we would say about any type of violent attacks on individuals, that the law enforcement hold them accountable to the folkstad of.
The law, although they do take the law into their own hand time and time again.
Very violent, absolutely, which is why we believe they should be held accountable. And as you've seen, the United States make clear through our own actions, if and when Israel does not step up and hold people accountable, we will do so ourselves.
Interesting.
Yeah, I really help people accountable.
One I think very reasonable take for those out there. A guy named John rob who often looked to He says, the reason the governments don't do this is it green lights the booby trapping and sabotaging of civilian supply chains. Electronics that explode devolve into contaminated food and or water. And that's actually, frankly, what scares me the most and part of the reason why I really wanted to flag. This of like, this is what modern war would look
like if you think about total war. Almost every war of the twentieth century major conflict between nation states escalates into like a true do or die situation, especially if America or to ever get involved. Think about how compromised our supply chain is, how much we rely on exports. Even our own military often runs on stuff from Afar.
But then think about too, about the legitimacy of target allegedly like here in America, and like we would count for that you and I could technically qualify like, oh, propagandists of the state, you know, depending on whose definition, if somebody was in here and they happened to be one of those people, which certainly possible any of the supply or the transit networks that we take whenever we come here to where you could just see how this
could very clearly go crazy. And that is actually probably what I'm most afraid of is watching both watch the Russia Ukraine War. I mean, if you look at it, what are the Russians strike Whenever they do missiles, It's not the civilian popular they're going after, like energy centers and the power stations inside of Ukraine. With Hamas Israel
has mostly done that as well. But now with Hesbolo, you're like you're giving you know, uh, these these tainted pagers that have been exploited through some sort of supply chain. You're just blowing it up wherever you want. Same with these cheap, commercially available drones which we're seeing all over the Russia Ukraine war.
A lot of them fall out of the sky and blow people up all the time. So this is what it's really going to look like.
This is why war is a nightmare and you should avoid it at all costs. And we're getting now four K video of what it really looks like when you get your entire face blown off. Previously, you know, at best it's a government sensor. Lets some guy ride about it two years later, like now you're seeing it four k irl and that's that's really scary, honestly.
Now it's a Pandora's box, like it really is.
They really are opening Pandora's box with this, And so you know for all that we can put John Fetterman out here up on the screen a six to finish this sound fools like him who celebrate these types of actions. I fully support efforts to target and neutralize any existential threat like HESBLA and think it could never happen to us, Like have the arrogance to think that this could never be done to us or one of our allies or some population that he happens to care about. You know,
you're a full You're an absolute fool. And what can we say about it if slash when it does happen to some group that we care about, What will we have to say about it when we you know, maybe behind the scenes we'll have another tough talk with Netanyahu or whatever. But there's no expectation that the US government is going to come out and condemn these indiscriminate attacks on you know, this technology and infiltration of a civilian
supply chain, et cetera. So very scary world that we're entering here.
Certainly, let's go to the next part the economy. There's been some major developments here with the Federal Reserve. Let's go and put this out there on the screen. The Federal Reserve has announced now a half point rate cut yesterday, lowers interest rates by quote fifty basis points.
You can think of that as half of a percent.
It still is the largest reduction I believe since two thousand and eight, and is the first time since twenty twenty that a rate cut has been announced now by the Fed. Really, what it is is that it's an admission by Jerome Powell that this effort to curb inflation just through interest rates is now over. But it also reveals, i think, frankly, an extraordinary failure on their point, because what ended up happening is that we had effectively supply
side inflation that was not entirely fiscally caused. I'm not going to say fiscal policy didn't have any impact on it, but throughout the entire time recall, we had very very low unemployment rates. Now we're actually beginning to see those
unemployment rates take up. Inflation to the extent it is cooled is largely because again of supply side factors, and all they have done really is that jack interest rates up so high that it has made the basic attainment of American life from a car loan to a house
loan incredibly expensive. The ratio now worth prices where they are at all time highs or near all time highs for houses specifically in like the majority of housing markets compared then to the mortgage, and then when you put that up against what the average income or even frankly like a decent income, let's say one hundred and twenty thousand dollars per year, you just put a vast majority
of housing unavailable to a lot of people. Another really bad thing that happened is that high high interest rates at the current time, at least compared to our relative history, locked a lot of people in who have low interest rates into their houses. So the housing stock took a dive. And so what happened is that the housing supply actually constricted significantly. Then you had borrowing costs significantly go up, credit card interest balance in all these other things are
all time highs right now. People's savings are very very low. So I mean, look, I'm happy to see it. I guess some people are calling it to you know, election interference and all that. To be honest, like, this is part of the problem I think with the so called like independent Federal Reserve and all that. It is actually quite common to cut interest rates in an election year. You could read it into that kind of what you will.
Dave Ramsey talks about all the time. He's like, election year is coming he's like, you know, they're going to cut interest rates out. Just it's one of those where you could almost you could also basically bet on it. But also at the current time, it is pretty clear what the net effect of these very high interest rates were, which was very high credit card balances, a mortgage unattainability,
locking people a lot of the housing stock up. The only question is if this is even enough to still unleash you know, some borrowing or some interest in the real estate market, just because compared to where a lot of people still are with a two or three percent mortgage rate, you know, five percent still a lot, you know, if you especially if you look at the comparison for the same amount of downpayment and what your new mortgage would be in some cases like thousands of dollars more
depending on the house, especially if you live in a market like we do in the DMV, where like the average house costs is like eight or nine hundred thousand dollars just extraordinary.
Yeah, well it costs you.
It's insane the amount of difference at one point in the mortgage industry.
You should play with those calculators, and it's really important to.
Understand it's insane like, I really didn't hadn't done that math until we started looking at it in the context of FED policy, and I was blown away.
But I never needed to because of eight right, just low.
Interested like lower zero interest rates. And yeah, when you start looking at it, oh, when you're in mortgage interest rate is five percent, six percent, seven percent, how much of a difference that makes in terms of what you're getting, how much house you can get for your money. It's pretty mind blowing. So I think that'll be one of the major impacts is you know, hopefully it will help to start to get more movement in the housing market.
I did see that housing starts, like new house building is up, but not enough to overcome the fact that you have you know, you can imagine if you have a low mortgage interest rate, even if you kind of want to move or kind of want to get something else, they're no way you're going anywhere until mortgage interest rates come down. So that will certainly be one of the
things we will be looking towards. You know, there are a lot of people who argue this rate cut, and I think emblematic of the fact that they went with the you know, the fifty bps or that the half point rate cut rather than the standard point two five
percentage point. A lot of people feel like this came kind of too late, like they hung on to the interest rate you know, hikes and keeping it static for a little bit too long, because we started to see these troubling signs in the labor market in particular, where you're having job misses in terms of the number of new jobs created, you start to have that unemployment rate tick up, and so you know, there are many who would argue that this actually came a little bit too
late and that's why they're going with this.
Larger rate cut.
But you know, obviously huge impact in terms of the economy. Impossible to predict how much because these are you know, there's a lag, and these are very powerful tools, but sometimes it takes some time to see what exactly all unfolds.
And also potentially you know, powerful impact.
On the political situation, given that we are close to an election, and any positive movement in the economy, which people expect. You know that when lending and when it's cheaper to borrow, it stimulates more economic activity.
That's typically how that works.
So the expectation is that this will help juice the economy in a way that could be beneficial to Kamala Harris, which is why Trump is that's.
Why, well, let's talk about that. Trump addressed this yesterday. Let's go ahead and take a listen.
I guess it, Josie, economy is very good. To cut it by that much, assuming they're not just playing politics, the economy would be very bad, or they're playing politics to one of the others.
But it was a big cut.
It was a big cut. You know.
Trump A lot of people forget this, but he was obsessed with actually giving I remember this. It was smart because he was one of the first presidents to in a long time. A lot of presidents have this religion around the FED. They're like, oh, we can't impact the Federal Reserve at all. And he would openly just tweet and berate Jerome Powell, being like, you need to keep interest rates low. It's because of his real estate background. I mean, he knows that he lived through the seventies
and eighties. That's when he made his money. So imagine playing in a world where nineteen percent interest rates. I can't I really honestly can't imagine what mortgage payments and all that would have looked like even if the prices were crazy low. So his interest and knowledge of interest rates was one where as president he had consistently campaigned to keep low interest rates and to pressure the Federal Reserve.
And he understands also the power now, as you said, the idea that a low interest rate cut or a cut of fifty basis points is going to material materialize in a real way for most people in the span of was it forty something days now to election?
That is kind of ridiculous.
But I mean he does understand too what the overall economic picture of that can look like like. If you're willing to take a federal like interest rate view of history, going back and reading the eighties, you know, you really have two choices.
You can look at it as a change in interest rates.
You can look at a change in fiscal policy, and it kind of tells you. Both can tell you a very compelling story as to why growth in an economy occurs or why people feel the way that they do.
I think the number one lesson we can all take away is we now all understand why like boomers are so obsessed with inflation because of what it was like to live through the nineteen seventies and so we didn't get it nearly as bad, but I get it now, you know, in terms of what it looks like, and a lot of people will pay a lot more attention.
And politically, of course, I mean, inflation is probably the single biggest blow to the Biden that other than his age, and to Kamala Harris that she has to work through. So we're learning really the impact that that has, and it wakes everybody up to what politics looks like.
Yeah, that's right, And just let's put this CNBC article up that took a look at some of the overseas, you know, sort of the global impacts of what a fat rate cut could mean. They say, from currencies and command of these equities to bonds, global markets are braced for that rate cut.
This was written before it happened. They talk about how oil.
And other commodities which are usually price and dollars, often receive a boost with the rate cut. A lot of emerging markets very sensitive to these factors, and they say much of the global stock market volatility over recent months was linked to speculation about when and by how much the US Central Bank will reduced rates. Quote interest rate cuts reduced the cost of barring US dollars, there by
creating easier liquidity conditions for companies around the world. Lower interest rates should also lower the yield available on US assets like treasuries, US, making other markets relatively more attractive. So that's some of the prediction about some of the global ripple effects of the FED lowering rates. The FED was actually a little bit slow by global standards. Some other more advanced economies had their central banks had cut
rates before we did. Even though you know this is not to minimize the pain of inflation here, but if you look around the world, we actually fared a lot better then many other advanced countries and were able to lessen inflation more quickly than other advanced economies. So the FED a little bit behind the curve globally in terms of making this move.
Yeah, you're right.
And now we've got to turn to some more recent economic news. Trump with one of the most hilarious flip flops of all time. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. I wonder if he even noticed that he was flip flopping. So Trump somehow put buried this in the middle of a tweet whenever he announced a rally in Long Island, New York, an area that has slowly but surely turned very maga. He says,
Nasau Coliseum will be a really big deal. It's going to be packed, and it was packed, hundreds of thousands of migrants, cry, etc. What the hell do you have to lose? Vote for Trump? I will listen to this. I will turn it around. Get salt back, lowerre your taxes. Okay, So we spent hours and hours on this show talking about salt. It remains one of the most hilarious policy areas in Washington because this is a blue state, specifically
rich person ub session. The way it basically works, it's kind of hard to explain, but the previously, prior to the twenty seventeen Trump tax bill, blue states where they had high tax rates.
Let's say California. The easiest ways to think about.
Alighi in New York California or primary all right.
But California is an easy one. And let's take a million dollars. So, and there's a reason I'm saying a million, because that's really the only people this applies to. If you have a million dollars, you have to pay what is it thirteen something percent income tax to the state
of California. Okay, so what used to happen is that that thirteen percent one hundred and thirty k roughly would then get subtracted from your overall federal income taxable burden, as in, you would then pay the top individual rate after whatever cutoff on that eight hundred thousand dollars. Well, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act removed that so called beneficiary and made it so that your taxable income at the state level was no longer deductible from your overall
tax at the federal level. This massively hurts rich people. So you actually tweeted out this graph, and it's very beneficial to put this up there on the screen. For the absolute vast majority of Americans, this does not matter at all. But as you can see right here, the benefits of assault cap. Basically what happened is they capped it at just ten thousand dollars.
If you remove that.
Cap, you massively benefit people who make a lot high, high dollar income. So we're not talking about carried interest, we're not talking about stocks. We're talking about specifically people who make over about a million dollars a year. So what you could see here from the Tax Policy Center, is after you pass the three hundred and sixty thousand level, you start to save a ton of money, especially like I just gave that example.
Some five million dollars.
Well you can imagine now you know, thirteen percent or whatever of that five million then getting knocked off of what you are eligible to them to pay for federal income tax. We are now talking in the ballpark of five figures. And so that is something which rich people in Blue states and California, California and New York, but New Jersey as well, and you know very other ones. This is their number one priority has been now for the last basically twenty seventeen, so the last like seven years.
Josh gottheimer famously, as we hear on the show, he called himself mister Salt. He even said at one point quote no salt, no dice, because I mean, people are up.
In arms over this.
I was on what was that?
This was during Built Back Better very both Anyway, Basically, he tried to get it all through.
You tried to hold the whole thing hostage, just getting this tax benefit for he represents New Jersey, yes, and you know the rich people in his district. This was priority number one. So I guess he's representing you in particular, because, as that chart points out, the tld R. To make this really simple, is that what Trump is floating here is a major tax cut for.
The rich, specifically the Blue rich, the rich rich in New York.
New Jersey, California, et cetera. And so, like you said, this was something that was in the Tax Gets and Jobs Act. It was controversial at the time because Democrats were saying, like, oh, you're targeting our states.
I'm like, okay, so what and then it passes.
And not only that, but if you lift the cap and then you know, you don't make it. It's it's also like it's expensive.
It's extremely expensive because as I this.
Is I'm talking about, it's expensive for the federal government.
Excuse me, it adds significant amount to the deficit. Like it is a very expensive benefit that you're talking about giving to wealthy Blue state.
Because and again because wealthy people they may not pay the same percentage, but they owe the vast majority of the you know, is made up of a lot of let's say, the top five percent of all households in the United States. I forget the exact stats, but it may be something like fifty and actually in Blue states.
Part of the other reason the Blue States hated it is that New York in particular, especially in New York City, they basically designed their entire tax in their entire tax strategy, to rely on the top one hundred individuals in the city of New York. So I think it's like the top one hundred individuals in the city of New York made up almost fifty percent of all taxation coming in to the overall city.
So when just one of those people leaves, it's a disaster.
And what happened is that we had massive Blue state outflow, specifically of the richest individuals. So for example, you had Ken Griffin move his entire Cityldell operation. I think from Chicago down to Miami. There's been multiple very very wealthy individuals who change their permanent residents and they spend six months in one day in Florida and in Texas, and in fact, that's part of the major problems that they've had.
So one of the reasons that the Blue States have been campaigning so hard is that they are getting hit by this because of out migration of their wealthiest population.
And that is so David clan He was saying, look, there is actually a progressive case.
For this blue state wealthy.
I just want to make the case, like to play Devil's out of his her case, She says, I'm going to stand up for salt on progressive grounds because someone has to. It's good actually to incentivize the rich to stay in states that tax them and provide services, rather than encourage them to relocate to states that don't, enforcing
austerity in states that do so. He's basically saying, you know, if you don't have this tax deductibility, then it incentivizes a kind of race to the bottom in terms of states just trying to cut their taxes as low as possible provide very few services to their lower income population in order to attract the you know, driven or whoever.
I'll give you the philosophical case.
I don't believe this, but i'll give it to you as it has been made to me, is it's unfair to tax money twice, which again I don't think that's right. But the philosophical argument is like, look, you're paying thirteen percent on a million, but then you're also paying for what's the top individual rate like thirty seven or something.
Whichever part of your income is eligible for that thirty seven, you're getting double taxed on that money, which means you're effectively playing a much higher tax rate.
So that's the philosophical argument.
The practical argument also is that it incentivizes people not to get paid cash. So what means is that a lot of people in the Blue States and others, they change their whole compensation structure, so they're like, look, I don't want money anymore, pay me in stock, and then I'll let it best and I'll just pay long term capital gains, which is fifteen percent. It's a broader problem, and it's generally indicative of how screwed up our entire
tax system is. But that's the only philosophical argument. Yeah, again, I don't believe it. I mean, I just think that especially I mean the type of people who make over a million dollars a year. There's not a lot of people who make a million dollars cash on their W two per year. It might be I think it might be less than a million people or households in the entire United States.
I mean, to me, this argument makes sense in like a broader contact if you were going to do a whole overhaul, because the bottom line is, like people who are making that level of income a year, they get off with such a low tax rate.
You know, they really are. They have so.
Many loopholes that they're able to exploit. They typically pay a lower rate than just like an average middle class person. And so then it makes it very tough for me to swallow, like, yeah, but we should still give them this other tax benefit back that they previously had. So broadly speaking, going back to like the Trump point of this, this is very consistent with the way he has operated
in this campaign. I mean, it's been pretty shameless the way that he has given his donor set whatever goodies it is that they're looking for, whether it's consistent or totally you know, opposite of what he said in the past.
This isn't very obvious example the complete one eighty on Crypto another various, very obvious example going into room of oil and gas executives and saying, give me a billion dollars and I will cut the regulations and make it sure, you know, make sure that your return on investment is rewarded.
I mean, it's just absolutely brazen and shameless. So I think, you know, this falls into this category of he's got some blue state billionaires who are on his team now, and he's like, I'm going to deliver fishes because most average people they're not even going to notice the like salt part of that truth. But the people who it's important to oh, trust me, this is number one. Trust me, they are taking a look at that. They are noting that very very strongly.
Absolutely, especially the two hundred and fifty k, the three hundred.
I mean, look, I guess again, I could make a case here in DC if you make three hundred and sixty grand, you're not actually that rich. I mean you are, like, you're obviously way more rich than the vast majority all of the Ericans.
Yeah, I'm not saying you're a freaking farmer, but you're not. You're living.
I mean, for example, I remember looking at kavanaughs financials. His his how or his household income was something like three hundred and twenty k.
He is basically living.
Paycheck to paycheck between it was like NATS season tickets to private school educations, and a very high mortgage on a million dollar plus house. I see that a lot, you know, with a lot of people in this area in particular, just because the cost of living is so so high. So for them, you know, a couple of grand that they would be able to save actually is kind of meaningful. So anyways, that is the latest Trump flip flop.
We're also we're also getting some war on the concept of a healthcare plan worth talking about. Let's just touch on this quickly as well. I can put this up on the screen from Axios. They wrote this up. They said the Hill Gop anyway, is setting their sights on scrapping drug price talks. So one of the accomplishments of the Biden administration that is overwhelmingly popular in the comic touts on the trail for good reason quite frequently is
on certain drugs. They are now able to negotiate with the medic Care program to lower the cost of those prescription drugs. Well, you have a lot of Republicans in Congress who hate this because I mean by them, because they're on the take from the pharmaceutical industry. But they say it squash's innovation. Blah blah blah, that's what they say. So anyway, they've made this a priority to try to if Republicans are able to gain control, try to get
rid of even this. You know, it's a pretty modest reform, frankly from the Biden administration because it only covers a certain handful of drugs. But in the next administration, there's an additional wave of drugs that would be subject to this price negotiation to lower costs as long as the law remains in place. So Trump hasn't said any thing.
You know, you use this as general rhetoric about pledging to take on big farm of blah blah blah, but he has not said actually anything specifically about the Republican plans to roll back this. This was in the Inflation Reduction Act, these Medicare drug price negotiations.
It'd be a huge fight.
I mean, if I recall Josh Holly actually put it up fifty one on over forty nine in the Senate, voted on behalf of flowing prescription drug price. This will be a titanic fight. I just looked at it. I couldn't find the exact voting record, but it looks like he sponsored at least some bill. I believe he voted on it on reconciliation because there was a whole Kirsten Cinema showdown on this as well. The whole point is that this will preview many of what the Trump admin.
Major fights are going to be. We just talked about taxes and salt. Actually it's funny because if I were to guess, Republicans would be much more likely not to give him salt in favor of something like prescription drug prize. They don't care about salt because it's abou Blue states and they like it. They think it's funny to tax blue states, even outside.
Of the like you know the Republicans that represent Long Island, right.
Yeah, outside of that, but in the Senate, specifically the Senate, what matters the most in reconciliation. So then it comes back to what their major priority would be. Drug price would actually be probably much more on the table. You should recall this. Both of these are incredibly expensive in terms of the deficit. Like you just said, I mean,
I don't forget exactly. Remember the prescription drug price legislation is frankly bs even the way that it's currently been enacted, which is it only what is it only allows them to negotiate the top ten drugs that Medicare buys, not even all the drugs that Medicare buys, even though Medicare is the largest purchaser of pharmaceuticals in the entire United States. So every other what is it, PBM, you know, like blue Cross, Blue Shield, they all get to negotiate, but the government doesn't.
They just have to pay. Yeah, I mean it's a ridiculous policy.
It should obviously apply to all drugs, but I mean it's one of those things you're like, it's an improvement, and it genuinely is. And you know, the top drugs that they're negotiating, like, there's been a huge significant impact for seniors in particular Medicare recipients.
It matters.
I don't want to say it doesn't, but yeah, I mean, this is a very modest, modest reform, and you know, just to rebut directly the argument that Republicans and some Democrats, by the way, make who are on the take with pharmaceutical in history about this, like oh, they're not going to have the money for innovation, blah blah blah. First go and take a look at what we pay for these drugs versus everywhere else in the world, and you
will be utterly disgusted. Why should our country be the piggy bank for these pharmaceutical giants, who are wildly profitable too, by the way. In addition, every single new drug molecule that has been invented in this century has been.
With the aid of federal tax dollars.
By and large, the research and development that these pharmaceutical giants are taken is like, let me reformulate viagra because it's very profitable, so that you know, it's a different dosage or it's a different delivery mechanism to try to.
Extend patent life.
That's a lot of the R and D type, you know, investments that they're making, not developing the new life saving blah blah blah, because that's risky.
And by the way, you know.
What, if not a lot of people have that incurable disease, then it's not going to be all that profitable. And so that's why public federal funding has been absolutely vital in the development of new drug molecules and drug company development not so much because they're driven by the profit motive and not you know what would actually be like most beneficial to society. So anyway, the talking points against
this are total and complete bullshit. And one look at what we pay versus what the rest of the world plays.
Should tell you that.
Let's go to the next part about the Teamsters up this is actually really honestly, it is.
A crazy development.
It's very interesting.
The first this is.
The first time the Teamsters have not endorsed a Democrat since nineteen ninety six. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. The Teamsters has announced they will not be making an endorsement in the presidential race.
I'll go ahead and read here it says the General Executive Board of the International brother of Teamsters on Wednesday elected not to endorse any candidate for US president after reviewing six months of nationwide member polling, wrapping up nearly a year of rank and file roundtable interviews with major candidates, the union was left with few commitments on top Teamster issues from either President Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris,
and found no definitive support amongst members for its parties nominee in data release publicly earlier this day, President Biden won the support of Teamsters voting in straw polls at local unions between April to July prior to his exit from the race, but an independent electronic and phone polling from July to September, A majority of voting members twice
selected Trump for a possible Teamster's endorsement over Harris. The union's extensive member polling showed no majority support for Vice President Harris and no universal support amongst the membership for President Trump. He goes on to say, the Teamsters thanks call candidates for meeting with the members. So this is an extraordinary development, obviously for a couple of reasons. Traditionally the teams always just endorsed a Democrat at a candidate.
But Sean O'Brien has made some interesting plays in the last couple of in the last couple of months, So he spoke at the RNC convention where which is kind of shocking. And not only did he speak at the RNC convention, he gave, you know, a blistering speech against corporate profiteering.
The crowd kind of didn't know what to do with it. They were like, do we support this? You know, they're like some people were like yeah.
The other people were like, I don't know what's going on with this communism here in the building.
He's given interviews in the past. He was praised JD Vance. He praised.
I believe Josh Holly, but he's put down people like Mitch McConnell and others with Trumpet was very much like a questioning agenda with Kamala previously. I mean, look, let's also be fair, he was relatively complimentary to Joe Biden when we had him here on the show.
He'd been complimentary of that.
He seemed to portray himself more as like a hard line like issues guy talking about the pro Act and others. We've interviewed him twice here in person. So regardless, I've aways found me to be an interesting character. But you know, this development is actually major, especially because I think it reveals a lot about cultural politics, something I've been talking
about here a lot on the show. But you know, when you had some plus fifty percent majority of the Teamsters union members in that poll switched from Biden to Trump, you can't help but just say that's crazy, Like obviously we have and look, let's also be fair, teams is probably the most conservative union, not in terms of like the union itself, but its membership.
It would makes sense, but among one.
Of them these are white working class folks, so to be to be surprised that white working class people are supporting Trump at nearly a sixty to forty margin. That's not really a surprise in these days, but it does tell you the power of a lot of culture and how these individual union members have voted. Remember, Trump won some forty percent of the union vote back in twenty sixteen. He shocked everybody against Hillary. That was a way higher
number under Barack Obama. So there is actually a lot analytically, this is a very interesting result.
Yeah, your cultural point is really important. I saw someone tweet that this is a real blow for quote unquote deliverism, which is, you know, the theory of politics that I would like to believe was the way it actually works and probably isn't, in which if you deliver for a
key constituency, they reward you. The one thing that in the Teamsters announcement they point to that's legitimate is they have some members that were impacted by that railway strike and the way the federal government came in with a heavy hand and crammed down, you know, a deal on them that they did not want and blocked any sort of continuing strike activity.
That's legitimate.
But if you you know, okay, and Trump also you know, would not commit to doing any better on that, So they're kind of like, you know, even on that one. On the pro Act, very clear, you know, Democrats, almost every Democrat supported the pro Act. Kamala Harris supports the Proact, Joe Biden also supports the pro Act. Donald Trump doesn't even more clear though this question of deliverism.
Democrats, over the.
Objections of every single Republican, saved the Teamsters pension as part of the American Rescue Plan. And you know, I know Teamsters members who were close to retirement where this was really quite existential for them. Their pension fund was totally screwed. They were looking at, you know, maybe I'm going to get a quarter of the pound I was promised that I worked hard.
For my entire life and career.
And it was Democrats, led by Joe Biden Kamala Harris, who again over the votes of every single Republican, made sure that that pension fund was made whole so Teamster's retirees would be able to retire with you know, the levels of funding that they had worked for and had been promised. So yeah, when you you know, I think
there's a lot to say here. I mean, first of all, Sean O'Brien, how strongly did he, you know, educate his members about the disparity between the Republicans and the Democrats on that issue by going to the Republican convention Even though he wasn't just like flowery towards Republicans, he really gave them a kind of a talking point, and I think also didn't do an effective job of educating on the very clear disparity between Democrats and Republicans just purely
on labor issues. Then with regard to the difference in how the membership voted between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Yew, on the one hand, you're like, this is perplexing because they're in the same administration. On the other hand, saga to your point on the culture like Joe Biden reads's moderate old white guy, Kamala aras black woman who has a more progressive record, comes from California, et.
Cetera, etc. It's hard to think that it's anything.
Other than that cultural vote, given that on labor they have an identical record and posture.
I mean, I guess the case you could make.
We had teams as president on talk about Gavin Newsom a lot of the teams just people hate California. They don't like Avin for signing what was it that bill about driverless cars that he overruled.
The Teamsters on. That's the last time we talked about. No.
I'm just they're like, look, she's some California Stilicon Valley, you know, liberal, which is kind of true.
Her record on unions is rock solid, though, you know, and Trump's record on unions was horrific. So there's a lot of debate, and always there's a lot of criticism when unions come out and endorse like lefty causes like the ua W came down and you know, in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza.
A number of other unions did as well.
And there's always this refrain from the right of like, just stick to the policy, stick to wages, stick to like what you're focused on. And here it almost feels like the reverse because again, if you're just looking at the issues, it's really not close between the Democrats and Republicans. I actually I not only understand, but I support unions withholding their support for Democrats who don't deliver for them.
But this administration, the Biden Harris administration, and I have a million other critiques of them that you guys hear on the show all the time. On labor, they were not perfect. They are by far, by far the best administration on labor in my lifetime.
It's not even close.
Way better than Obama, way better than Clinton, obviously, way better than every Republican. So yeah, that's what's like depressing to me about it is because I would like the politics of deliverism to be a real thing. The fact that on a very specific, really important, very tangible issue, this administration delivered for this union.
And then you know, they get slapped in the face.
What incentive does it give them in the future for just talking like naked political manoeuvering. What incentive does it give them in the future to go to the mat and expend political capital in a similar fight when it's clearly not rewarded.
Yes, but you know, Union's job is to represent as members members close port Trump, you know, at least right now, and so maybe the wash is the best that you are going to get when they're like, Okay, our members clearly are support of one candidate. We don't necessarily think that candidates can deliver us on a policy level. But we can't turn around and support somebody who's got only forty percent of our membership. At the end of the day,
organizations at least are quasi democratic. This is probably the best result, you know, that Kamala could have gotten if the majority, vast majority actually in this particular case, are supportive of Donald Trump. I do think it also is an indicative of just what cultural politics look like and mean today. If you were going to go if I would probably go ask these teams just guys were like, look,
why do you guys support Trump? I pretty much guarantee you mcgrade's can be number one at the top of that list, which they clearly could have major beef with the with the Biden Harris administration.
So that actually validates the thing.
A lot of what we talk about here is that, look, worker issues is not just the pro act. You know, a lot of people were actually white working class people. They don't necessarily care as much about that as they
do a widespread, you know, amount of issues. I also think that this is just part of the further class realignment where we have where regardless of individual issues, the over all cultural orientation of the Democratic Party is trending towards white upper class voters, and the overall cultural orientation of the Republican Party is white working class voters. The interesting thing is that various races began to split them between Democrat and Republican based on their educational level.
And I love this.
I just see a poll this morning from New York Times, siena high quality Harris Trump tied at the national level. Yeah, terrible, Harris up by four in Pennsylvania.
I know why.
White people, white people in the mainline suburbs of Philly who all went to college, probably working pharma or banking or actually right now, Pennsylvania is exploding in healthcare. So it's like this was a bunch of rich doctors and nurses who are pro comma.
Now, I actually love.
That result just because again it demonstrates, like what, First of all, it validates a lot of stuff that we say here about class dynamics and orientation. But it also just shows you how different the current electorate is from the past, and then the various ways that things look. So we talked about salt, right, well, now we have two pro salt candidates, So rich people in blue states should be very happy.
Now we also.
Actually do we know where Kamo stands on salt. I don't sure that we do. I don't know that she does support.
It, but anyway, most Democrats know they don't. A California Democrats don't salt.
It was like a fairly small group the Gottheimer group let me find this, that was trying to reinstate the or.
To lift the salt tax cap. But I don't know.
I don't think they never put out a position. I don't actually think that she does support it. I would be shocked because the administration, at least the bid Harris administration wasn't supportive of it.
That's right, but Joe Biden was not. But I guess is Delaware. I think it's a lower tax state and it doesn't matter. But my point is just at least
Trump is now pro salt. But on the union front, I mean, I do think at a discrete policy level, this is going to have some impact where a lot of Democrats you know, in the future, are going to be like, look, if you got a bunch of white specifically a majority white union and they're not college educated, the likelihood that they don't support you is going to be very high and that will have some impact. That's
straight up, that's what the future will look like. I guess the converse is, I would hope, you know, if you're a Republican, that you look at this too and you're like, hey, we could actually get some votes over here.
So maybe one or two you got JD in the White if he wins, he is in the White House, this would be a chit that him and his staff would be able to use if they were talking about teamsters and they were up against let's say a Larry Cudlow across from the desk, and they could remind someone like Trump, which way will Trump go? No clue evidence suggests probably in the Cudlow direction, but you never know.
I mean, Trump won't hesitate to throw Sean O'Brien on the teamsters under the bus the moment that it conflicts with you know, Bill Lackman or whoever whatever.
Maybe I don't know that's true. I mean, we loves the unions.
Judging by past record, you know, that's what we have to go on. He didn't move any of his positions on unions, and he's a lifelong union buster. Actually, remember when Trump and Elon were like joking about how awesome and cool it was, that Elon fired striking workers. Sean O'Brien came out and called that economic terrorist. And that's the guy you're you know, you're of coursing him, but you're giving him a big talking point that he's celebrating.
So let's listen. I think, you know, I hope it works out for you.
We have Trump's comments actually on this B eight. Please let's take a listen this President.
Any reaction to the Teamsters decision.
Not to endorse.
No, they are.
It's a great honor.
They're not going to endorse the Democrats. That's a big thing. And this is the first time, and I guess fifty sixty years that that's happened. Democrats automatically have the team series. They took a voter and I guess I was at sixty percent or more. And that's a great honor.
I mean, it's really I've.
Had a lot of Teamsters work for I mean a lot of the concrete trucks, and we built all these buildings that you see in New York City the teamsters there, you.
Go, a great honor to not be endorsed by the tess All right, let's go and move on to shocking new details. That we're learning about this federal indictment against Sean Ditty Combs, So you can put this up on the screen tear sheet with some of the details. He's been denied bail. This is per variety. Sean did he cums and I bail on sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
So he was charged with three counts racketeering, conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution. The judge decided there were no conditions that could guarantee Comb's appearance in court. She said she considered alternatives like home detention, substantial bond offered by Combs, but ultimately concluded that the presumption in favor of detention has not been rebutted by the defense.
Makes sense.
This is a man with nearly endless resources. You know, if anyone was going to be a flight risk, seems like it would be him. In fact, I'm a little bit shocked he didn't already try to flee knowing that this was coming. But he is pled not guilty, and is I guess going to have his day in court.
Let's put the next details.
Up on the screen from the indictment, which I read in full. Its fourteen page indictment not overly lengthy. So this is what the grand jury charged. As I said, it was three counts racketeering, conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, and transportation to.
Engage in prostitution.
Go ahead, guys, and put up some of the next details so that I can read this off of the screen. So the core of this, the allegations here involve these quote unquote freak offs, and they say in the indictment that he subjected victims to physical, emotional and verbal abuse
to force them to engage in these freakoffs. He maintained control over his victims through physical violence, promises of career opportunities, granting and threatening to withhold financial support by other cours of means, including tracking their whereabouts, dictating their appearance, monitoring their medical records, controlling their housing, and also supplying them with drugs during and separate from freakofs colms, among other things,
Hit kicked through objects, at and dragged victims, at times.
By their hair.
These assaults resulted in injuries that took days or weeks to heal. He threatened their careers and livelihoods, including if they resisted participating in the quote unquote freak offs. Victims beliefs they could not refuse his demands without risking their financial or job security or without repercussions in the form
of physical or emotional abuse. Comes also used the sensitive, embarrassing and incriminating recordings that he made during freak Offs as collateral to ensure the continued obedience and silence of the victims. Sogra If you read through the indictment, yes, this is you know, Sean Combs is at.
The center of it. But they really framed.
This as a you know, years long, we know, decades long, allegedly criminal enterprise. So Bad Boy Records was not just about you know, media, entertainment, culture, et cetera. They frame a core priority of Bad Boy Records being you know, this repeated system abuse and the cover up of that abuse being at the core of the enterprise. And really, I mean this is this is a portrait of a monster that you're looking at here. And what's being alleged,
he says, he's not guilty. What's being alleged is wholly consistent with what Cassie, the R and B singer alleged he had done to her, and of course we saw in the public domain that horrifying video of her being beaten and dragged in a hotel hallway that comes up in this indictment, and they also talk about how he paid off a hotel worker to make sure that that never saw the light of it.
Yeah, that's right, and included, by the way, in the search of his home they found narcotics videos, three AR fifteens with defaced serial numbers, and quote, more than one thousand bottles of baby oil and lubricant that that were called freakoff supplies. His employees were instructed to ensure that quote Freakoffs were always stocked with baby oil.
Linens and lighting.
Enforcement seized multiple of those supplies as evidence in both of his homes of not only his proclivities, but obviously what they allege is basically a scheme arranging for victims of sex workers and others to be able to move about the country and enable him to continue this scheme. I will say, this really does actually validate a lot of the details in terms of like forcing a lot of the people involved to engage with like male prostitutes is something that they allege here. The fact that he
was denied bail is a pretty big deal. Just to show the way that the court sees it. They claim that they are going to appeal the decision. Their defense basically comes down to this quote, is it sex trafficking, not if everybody wants to be there. That is what his attorney, Mark agne Phillo said in terms of his clients innocence, and that actually is going to be a key part of the case. And I mean, it is an interesting question about consent and about what it exactly
means for that. I mean, I think they probably have him from reading the indictment relatively like dead to rights in terms of transporting people across lines for sex purposes. That is a federal crime whenever it comes to prostitution.
I guess the big question that they're going to get is about the consent not necessarily of the sex workers themselves, but also the other people who are involved and their allegations of being a victim where they have I think a better case is about the violence and then the evidence of the violence that he perpetrated on those people. But I could see some interesting like legal chicanery around that question of like whether people voluntarily wanted to be at the end.
I mean, if the government proves the allegations they made here, it will not be a difficult question. Because you're talking about, you know, any given girl being beaten, you know, and force subject to emotional abuse. You're talking about her being drugs. You're talking about him saying if you don't come, I am going.
To destroy you. I will destroy your career.
There are allegations of arson in here, and multiple instances of arson. They actually don't go into the details, but one allegation that we know that's in the public sphere is that he threatened Cassie that if she left him and continued dating Kid Cutty Rabber Kid Cutty, that he would I think he threatened to blow up Kid Cutty's car, and then lo and behold, Kid Cutty's car blows up in the driveway, So that could be one of the instances of arson that they're talking about. So again, government
has to prove their case. But also keep in mind that allegedly this was all recorded by Diddy himself, and they searched his residences, So I think it's entirely possible, if not likely, that they have a library of video footage to substantiate the allegations that they are making here. So, as I said, if if they prove what's in this indictment, it will not be a difficult question of you know, coercion, consent,
et cetera, et cetera. Like if a woman is being beaten and emotionally abused and threatened within you know, her career, in an inch of her life, and you're amitable of your boyfriend's car to force you to participate in these things, then I think is a pretty clear lack of consent in that situation. Uh So, and he also they also alleged that he used kidnapping in order to get his way, So again, portrait of a total and complete monster. He
will have his opportunity to argue otherwise. But the obviously the other big question here is like who else was that these freak offs? Who else participated? Who else in the Combs enterprise? You know, they make allegations here as well about how employees, assistants, et cetera, were you know, securing not only supplies for the freak offs. Okay, that may not be illegal if you don't know that you know what the supplies are going to be used for,
but who helped to cover up the abuse. Remember, you're talking about women who had to be hidden for weeks at a time because again allegedly of the abuse that they suffered. They're you know, visible marks that could not be hidden. You're talking about him tracking their medical records so that he's in control of their medical care after
they are subject to this abuse. So you know what other stars and celebrities could be implicated here, is you know, Didy the top of the chain, or is there someone else that they're going to try to get him to roll up on? Still a lot of questions. Puts he four up on the screen. We've got some reaction from
the celebrity world. We have fifty cent apparently tweeted a photo of himself and actor Drew Barrymore, captioned here, I am keeping good company with Drew Barrymore and I don't have a thousand bottles of lube at the house, okay. Radio host Charlotte and the Gods said on Monday on a Monday segment of The Breakfast Breakfast Club, if Combs is convicted of rocketeering and sex trafficking, there will be others involved who will be probably.
Going to jail.
And singer Audreo Day, who's been outspoken about Comb, said Monday she felt validated after the arrest, falling up the tweet by saying she chose to speak to people who could move justice in the way I needed to. So yeah, there's my sense reading the indictment is it just scratched the surface of the specifics and doesn't get a lot into the evidence of what they have.
I think we're going to learn a lot more here.
Oh absolutely.
I think it's a pretty clear cut case of just like Weinstein, where we know, know none of those assistants never got prosecuted. A lot of the people behind the scenes in the Weinstein company basically walked free or none of their names were brought up, obviously the whole Epstein case with Glean Maxwell. So it's really a question of what the Feds have and who they're able to prove as complicit. Also, I guess it depends on Comb's himself and whether he strikes a plea deal with the government.
You know, like you said, Charlemagne and many other legal observers that he's almost certainly going to jail at least for some undetermined period of time.
So we'll see.
I mean, the details are truly crazy and I think demonstrate again some of the rot within hip hop and a lot of the behind the scenes stuff which were obviously floated out there. But we're ten times worse than anybody new, allegedly for the lawyers.
Yeah, okay, see what we find out next.
We've got a great panel standing by. Let's get to it.
We are very excited now to be joined by a panel where we are going to discuss the topic of abortion and how Republicans should respond. So joining us now is familiar face Will Chamberlain. He is conservative commentator. We have Lila Rose as well. She is host of the Lila Rose Podcast. Thank you guys so much for joining us.
We really appreciate it.
Thank you for having me absolutely.
Okay, So we're going to start off kind of with the way that you guys think Republicans should respond to the general abortion topic in the United States. Kamala Harris out with a new ad and it gets to some of the debates of and happening in the conservative movement and what that should look like. Let's take a listen to the ad and we're going to get both of your response.
I've never slept a full night in my entire life. I was five years old when my stepfather abused me for the first time. I just felt like I was alone on a planet with a monster.
I was twelve when he impregnated me.
I just remember thinking, I have to get out of my skin.
I can't be me right now, like.
This can't be it. I didn't know what to do.
I was a child.
I didn't know what it meant to be pregnant at all. But I had options. Because Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, girls and women all over the country have lost the right to choose.
Even for rape or insist.
Donald Trump did this.
He took away our free.
This is an important ad because it kind of highlights some of the difficulties in the conservative movement right now. Will I want to start with you both of you guys have kind of embroiled in a general topic online about how conservatives should respond on the topic of potential like moderation supposedly on the abortion issue, specifically in terms of exceptions for rape incests and the life of the mother, but also in terms of Donald Trump's previous statements perhaps
either backing or endorsing a national abortion ban. How do you view the Trump campaigns like current navigation of the topic, and then the general idea of quote unquote moderation on the issue in the context of the twenty twenty four election politics.
I mean, I think the Trump campaign is doing what makes sense at the moment. I think they have two big messages. One they think abortion is a state issue now, which it is under the law, that's the conclusion of dods. And second that they generally support the exceptions, you know, rape, incest, in the life of the mother. I mean, whenever you hear Trump talk about abortion, he always brings up his
support of the exceptions. So I think, I mean, when it comes to specific ads like this one, I think you would just point out that they're basically false outright. Most of every every Harpe build that I know of has an exception, has the exceptions in it. So I think I think it's I think the Trump campaign is basically doing the right thing and it's messaging on this issue.
And I think that's largely because you know, for the book, this is in a sense, if you look at the polling, it is where Republicans are seen as weakest, and so it's the issue we wanted to talk about the least, and it's the issue where we are playing defense.
Lyyla, can we get your response because previously I know that you've been embroiled in some of these debates, specifically about Trump at least JD. Van's coming out in an interview and coming out supposedly saying that Trump would veto a national abortion ban, something that you were very critical of. So in the context of the politics and your own activism, how do you view this?
Sure well, I want to start by to such josheeing the ad which was absolutely heartbreaking that you guys share it. I mean, this is the common approach used by abortion advocates is, you know, find the most tragic and heartbreaking story, and usually it's the victim, a twelve year old victims, a sexual assault survivor, and use them as justification for legalizing abortion on demand. And I think it's important to note that, first of all, there's almost a million abortions
every single year. The vast majority of them are convenience abortions. These are abortions not having to do with these severe cases. They're having to do with general choice, and these are human beings. The science is very clear that at the moment of fertilization. This is a unique individual human life, and abortion is the intentional destruction of an innocent human life. In the case of rape and incests, these are the
worst and most horrific and heartbreaking cases. But I think that the focus should be instead on getting justice for that young girl and removing her from a situation of sexual abuse, because the reality is I've spent a decade of my life investigating abortion clinics, and abortion clinics love abortion life sexual abuse because sexual abusers find abortion to be a great outlet, a great way to hide and cover up the crimes that they were committing on their victim.
So this idea that abortion is a solution to sexual abuse or rape, that this is all that this young girl needs, this is her solution, I think it's horrible. I think the solution needs to be to remove her from the sexual abuse situation, to get her the healing and the support that she needs, and to get justice against her abuser.
Often that doesn't happen, instead of filing.
Out the penalty of this crime on this innocent, developing new human life.
So, Lila, just to be clear, you believe that Hadley, the young lady in that ad who also was featured ad in the state of Kentucky, very red, very conservative, and very socially conservative state. She was also featured in an ad there that was very effective. You believe she should have been forced to carry that baby's term when she was twelve years old.
I do not think that that baby should have been killed for the crime of the father.
Okay do you?
And I think she deserved the best medical care and support and she should have been removed from the abusive situation. But in many of these cases, abortion is not taking away the trauma of the rape. I mean, I think people get so horrified by rape, as they should be, and they think that somehow the baby, the new pregnancy, is the fault, is the reason for the trauma and the pain, when the reality is the trauma and the pain is from the sexual abuse.
So, Lyla, that's what you do?
You accept that view that that twelve year old girl raped byerstep dad should be forced to carry that baby to term. Do you accept that that's an unpopular view in the American public and a political liability for Republicans like Donald Trump to run on.
Yeah, I think a lot of people have not really grappled with what abortion is that it's the intentional killing of an innocent human life. And I think that a lot of people haven't heard the stories of sexual assault survivors who have chosen life for their babies, or who had abortions and suffered afterwards trauma from the abortion, not just the rape.
We don't really have these stories or.
These ideas and are lexicon typically when it comes to this issue, because unfortunately the abortion advocates, like Kamala Harris is extremely pro abortion, is using these very tragic stories to justify their agenda, which is abortion on demand.
I mean, don't forget ly, I understand, I understand you forget where I understand your personasive. But what we're trying to get to here is the political implications. So do you think that this ad is problem for Donald Trump? Do you think that his stance generally on abortion, in the fact that he's the person who put the justices in place that overturned Roll versus Wade, do you think that that's political liability as.
Most do, or do you reject that analysis?
Well, as you probably may have seen some of my statements about president former President Trump and his campaign, his campaign is not as pro abortion as the Harris Walls campaign, but they're in support of abortion.
So you know the fact that Kamala Harris is using.
This ad, I think it's very deceptive on multiple levels. But the reality is the Trump Fans campaign supports abortion pills. They support, as Will was saying earlier, they support abortion in multiple cases.
They support they don't want the heartbeat law.
As an example, President Trump has been critical of the heartbeat law that the pro life movement worked very hard for in the state of Florida. So there have been a number of really troubling positions and policies coming out of the Trump Fans campaign, and that's why the prologue movement and the base has been critical and saying, well, well, this is not the correct position to take there.
These are human lives that deserve protection.
Well, this is where I want to get your response, because one of the most interesting points I saw that you make was you previously worked for Governor Ron DeSantis, and you were like, listen, if the pro life community had wanted to come out and the Republican Party generally had wanted to support the best person on the issue of life in that campaign, they would have voted for somebody like a Ron DeSantis or a Mike Pence even
at one point who was thinking about it. So on that political point of what Lilah said, what would your response be to her? I think both of these are totally legitimate arguments, and it gets down to the actual politics of it navigating this in this current election, what do you think?
I think the way the pro life movement ought view what President Trump is doing is that he's he's just the messenger for where the broader public is. Trump was a deeply pragmatic and transactional leader when he was in the White House, and he has even more reason to be pragmatic now that he's facing criminal indictments across the country from a weaponized justice system against him. So, I mean, if anybody was designed to be like, how am I
going to get the White House back? And who's focused on that goal beyond others, it would be Donald Trump. And so when he looks at the abortion issue, he says, this is a political liability for us, And I'm going to take the position that you know, I'm going to try and obviously balance the need the fact that pro life conservatives are a part of the conservative coalition and
we don't want to lose their votes. But at the same time, given that the bulk of the public is not where the pro life movement is, we're going to have to chack to the center. And I think, you know, I don't hear a lot of you know, green saying the Kamala Harris is betraying them when Kamala Harris says she now supports cracking, or that the LGBTQ people are saying that Harris is betraying them when she no longer stands by her earlier position that there should be transition
surgeries available to legal aliens detained. So I think there's I think happens during campaigns.
Sure, I think the equivalent issue right now on the left, speaking of someone on the left is the Gaza seespire and the commitment to you know that many of us would like to see from the Biden administration to embarking weapons. And so there's a very similar debate that plays out between what we call the lesser evil voting that you know that Lilah is somewhat articulating of you know, from
her perspective, Harris Walls are worse on abortion. From her perspective, Trump advanced may be better, but they still don't meet her moral red line. And you know, a part of why I'm pathetic to that view because I find myself in a similar position on the left.
But yet, Nila, if you could just explain.
A little bit more of how you think about your vote and more broadly, how you think about the votes of the pro life movement. Has Donald Trump done enough, come enough towards your position that you feel like, Okay, yes I can vote for this person, as he's not where I want him to be, but he's, in your view, the lesser of two evils, or do you still continue to feel like there's a moral line here and your threshold has not yet been met by him?
Listen, context is key here in the recent history has to be stated. So what happened, as many folks may know or may not know, the Republican National Convention obviously shows Donald Trump as the nominee. And during that convention, after four decades of a pro life platform, due to reportedly Trump's influence and pressure on the convention and the delegates,
they gutted the Republican Party platform on life. So you had four decades of a strong Republican Party platform on Life, protecting life abortion was mentioned and decried twenty three times. Now the platform mentions abortion once, and they talk about access to things like IVF and birth control. They are basically weakening, softening the platform on life. Then you look at the last several weeks President Trump's campaign coming out
and saying they support access to abortion pills. Abortion pills are sixty percent of all abortions in this country. That's over a thousand abortions every single day, killed via children killed via the abortion pill. So these are dramatically huge concessions that the Trump campaign is making, ultimately throwing not just the proloct movement, which has been a base for the campaign in the past and for President Trump in the past, but throwing the cause, the issue under the
bus here. So this is not just these tiny little quibbles. These are significant steps that have been unprecedented in recent decades coming from the GOP nominee. And that's why it is my responsibility as a pro life activist speaking for people who have no voice. Unborn children have no vote, they have no voice. They are being killed by the thousands every single day in this country legally, and is
my responsibility to speak for these children. And so I have been speaking out urging the campaign to change course. The policies that they've been recently upholding and the statements that they're making are extremely pro abortion and it needs to stop.
So that's my position. And look the left talking about the.
Well, but will you vote for him if he doesn't change his position?
Will you vote for him?
The vote is at risk right now the voters, and then there are weeks before the election.
He can change course on this.
President Trump actually recently started to change course in the right direction because of pressure. So you know, pressure works. Keep in mind, these campaigns they work for the voters. The voters don't work for them. These are they're trying to be public servants to serve this country and represent this country.
We don't vote work for them. They work for us.
So it's our position and our responsibility to speak out for those that have no voice and that are those are children in the womb.
And one more, one more question for you, because I'm still not really clear if you recognize, you know, the embrace.
Of you know, rejection, you reject the IVF.
We can actually put up on the screen D three the polling on IVF even only ten percent of Republicans even agree with your position on IVF, which, listen, you're you know, you're allowed to have the views that you do.
But would it be resp on to that?
Yeah, well just once, just one second, and then you can respond, would it be worth, in your opinion, Donald Trump, losing this election to Kamala Harris in order to, for example, oppose IVF or you know, oppose you know, even forcing a or support forcing a twelve year old girl to bear the.
Baby of her rapists.
Would you do you think it's worth losing an election over those issues.
Listen, there's a few key distinctions here.
First of all, you're assuming that by galvanizing his base, President Trump will somehow hurt his chances. The reality is this, pro abortion voters, voters that abortion is their top issue for them, that's what they're going to get out their vote for, are already voting for Kamala Harris. I don't think the strategy of the true fans campaign to say, well, I'm going to win some you know, hardcore abortion supporters who care about this so much they'll show up to
vote on this issue. Those people are already voting for the Harris Walls ticket because Kamala Harris has a extreme pro abortion record and that's been tried and true for now her entire career. So to think that Donald Trump is them are going to get the abortion vote, I think is just pining the sky thinking. In addition, he's going to hurt and suppress his own base, the pro life base, by basically again throwing this issue under the bus. And then on the issue of IVF, I have to
state about that. You know, the data shows that ninety three percent there's an education gap on this issue, which is is why the pulling is the way that you indicated, or some pulling may appear that way.
Ninety three percent.
Of babies conceived via IVF are end up being frozen, killed, destroyed, or miscarried. Only seven percent of them make it out alive. This is a highly dangerous and expensive and quite frankly, extremely difficult technology for the women and for the families. It is expensive and it is highly dangerous for the
new human lives that are being created. There's a reason that there is concern about this, and there's ethical issues with this, and what the Trump Fans ticket did recently wasn't just to say we support IVF, it was to say we're going to do tax funded insurance companies subsidized and mandated IVF. So it was saying, we want everyone in the country to do IVF if they want that. This is about sixty thousand dollars to achieve one live berth and there's a million babies embryos that are frozen
indefinitely right now. So no one's talking about these facts, right, We're just up in the one hundred thousand foot view of well, we support choice, we support reproductive freedom. Well what are we actually talking about when we use this terminology. We're talking about human lives that are recklessly being destroyed. And that's why the pro life movement needs to be speaking out right now.
Total understand where you're coming from, Lila Will.
I want to give you, obviously a chance to respond on the politics of the issue. You can go all the way back both with the R and C platform and then towards IVF.
Okay, so I guess back towards the politics of the issue.
I mean, Crystal said something interesting which was the analogy to the left in Gaza, which I think is actually very very interesting and appropriate, and I hope you know, uh, you know, as a Republican who wants to see Donald Trump in office, I hope that these propouse dying people stick to their guns and refuse to vote for Kamala Harris, who is very obviously the better candidate for Gaza pro Gaza for you know, platform, because I guarantee you the
Republicans are going to be pro Israel one hundred percent of the time every time. So you know that said, you know, I hope that Democrats don't take my advice and you know, go ahead and continue to abstain and withhold their vote from Kamala Harris on because of Gaza.
And at the same time, I really really hope that that Whila comes around and realizes that Trump is still in the Republican Party is the home of the pro life movement in the same way that the Democratic Party is the home of the Palestinian sympathizers, and comes around to vote for us.
Well let me, let me, let me say prising, let me ask for I'll get a challenged just a second, Lila, but Will hasn't had as much of a chance to speak. But let me just press you on one thing, Will, because I do think that from Lilah's perspective, and from your perspective as well as a pro life person, you'll Republicans have under Trump. Trump specifically has somewhat accepted the Democratic framing around abortion, and we do see post Row versus Wade, you see an increase in support for choice.
So for the first time, I kind of ever, it's not really a fifty to fifty issue anymore. You have a very clear, consistent majorities in favor broadly of choice. So isn't there a risk of longer term harm to the pro life movement of a Republican who in certain key ways accepts some of the Democratic framing on the issue.
So I want to correct you at the asset. I wouldn't characterize in my politics as pro life. They're more pro natalist. So I end up disagreeing with Lyla on things like IVF for example. But and I don't want to like falsely portray myself to your art.
Yeah, important clarification.
But I think on the on the question of would this too harm to the pro life movement to have Trump in, I think the much greater harm is is
the risk of a Kamala Rigas presidency. Something I tweeted out which I think is true that I think the pro life movement, if they were being strategic, should realize that they don't want abortion to be an issue at the federal level for at least a decade, given where the polling is, because the likely outcome of abortion being salient at the federal level is a national confiocation of Row, or further right, going all the way to saying that
the federal government says nobody, no state can impose any restrictions on abortion whatsoever, or packing the Supreme Court if they get that chance, and then effectively reversing Dobbs and reinstating Row and writing it into the Constitution with a permanent Democrat majority in the Court. So I think I think that you know, I think perhaps the mistake that's being made and worrying too much about, oh, well, Trump is going to move us a little bit to the
left is if the Democrats win. I think they are not considering just how bad it could get. It's like, effectively, I feel like you guys are treating Dobbs as the new baseline and not recognizing how things could get substantially worse.
Leila, I want to get your response to that, because I think that seems to be the key one. It's like, Okay, Trump can lose and then the Democrats will basically resolve the abortion question for all time by nuking the filibuster and making it national. Or you can have the current outcome where multiple red states have at least some restriction.
I mean, I mean, I guess I understand where you're coming from, but you also have to intersect with the practical realities of the American political system.
So how do you think about that question?
Yeah, well, listen a few things.
First of all, again, what the Trump influence has done so far in the GOP and what the Trump fans ticket has done in just the last few weeks is moving left on abortion. And the job of the pro life movement is not to just show up and vote for whoever the GOP candidate is. The job of the prolift movement is to advocate and be activist for a group of people who have no voice.
And no vote. Those are children in the womb. They're in danger being murdered by abortions.
So that's our.
Job, right And I look at you know, Cecile Richards, who is the former president of Planned Parent at the biggest abortion chain globally, and she's in the New York Times just in the last week telling Kamala Harris to be more pro abortion.
The left knows how to do this.
I mean, I think the right makes ourselves increasingly impotent when we just let the politicians do whatever they want and we don't stand up for what is good and true, at what we believe to be good and true. You know, Cecil Richards is out there say Kamala Harris be more pro abortion. It's not even good enough. And she's for
abortion through all nine months that's tax funded. It's obscene, right, And so for the prolog movement to be silent right now and does not say a word of criticism, to say instead, oh, it's fine, whatever you want to do. We don't care as long as you're a little bit better. As long as you're better than Kamala on this, we're going to show up no matter what. I think that it would be a serious mistake. I think it is a responsibility of pro life voters. You know, my top
iss she was life. I know that's not Will's, that's okay, he's going a different track. But my top issue is life. Because there's three thousand babies being killed by abortion every single day in this country. If you care about the future of this country, if we care about justice for the most vulnerable and the most innocent, then we would be all caring about this issue. We would all make this our top issue. This is the leading cause of
death in America. And so my responsibility is to say stop doing this, GOP, stop pushing towards the left on this and becoming more pro abortion. And I will continue to say that the Democrats, you know there are some pro like Democrats, stop being so radically pro abortion as a party. Instead, why don't you embrace justice and human rights for the most vulnerable and create a better view for women that we don't need to kill our babies
as our so called healthcare. We can do better. You know, there's countries like Malta that have one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world, and it's a pro life country. We can do this where we love and care for both mom and baby. That should be our demand, not just for the GOP, but for the Democrats as well well.
Then I got a question for Will So the effect of this pushback from LYLA and the pro life activism appears to have been something like Trump on the debate stage then disavowing jd vance On saying he would veto a national abortion band.
So do you think then that.
Like pro life voices like Lila, which are entirely legitimate, I'm not putting that down, would help put could put Trump in a more vulnerable political position.
I mean it's possible. I ultimately don't think Trent will end up taking to, you know, tacking too far towards the right, given where you know, we're what two months away from a general election six weeks. Yes, I think that that's the context. And I mean, I just I think I just fundamentally disagree with Lilah's political strategy here. I think that was absolutely appropriate. During the primary, I worked for a different candidate. During the primary. I supported
rondas Stantis. I wanted him to win. And you know, even though I'm not personally as pro life as Governor de santis As, I was perfectly happy to support him because I thought he would be a great president. But he didn't win. And you know, the general election is where you know, the two great you know, political forces in our country collide and we see who who's persuading
more of the public. And I think that it's really important that the pro life movement recognizes, you know, and this is for its you know, really for itself, for the health of the pro life movement and its political salients going forward, that it's on the right and the Republican Party is the vehicle for its concerns and imperfect as it may be in their eyes, and so it you know, pro life voters should come out and vote for Trump, even if he's in saying things they don't agree with.
Well, one last question for you, because you know, Lila pointed out took a lot of the pro life language out of the R and C platform. Jade Vance floats he'd be to a national abortion band. Trump won't really say, but there's certainly been efforts for him to moderate on the issue and even just leaving it to the states. You know, if you view this as murder, it's murder, whether it's having in California's murder of what's happening in Mississippi.
That's not the way I view the is shoe, but it's way Lyla and many.
Other people do. So if in spite of being thrown under the bus like that.
Every pro life voter shows up and votes for Donald Trump, aren't they?
Then?
You know, can't every Republican president there on forward basically take their vote for granted. And don't they lose power within the coalition if they're not willing to even threaten to withhold their votes.
I mean, no, I think I think it's the opposite. Actually, I think the way you demonstrate your power within the coalition is by is in the primary and through your strength in the primary. And you know, Donal Trump's use were not a secret during the primary. He was critical of harpy bills like one that Ronda stands before during the primary, and it didn't matter pulling. You know, he won the primary going away. So I think that that's
the place to start. And if you know, I think for any political movement, you know, internal fashion within a party to say, oh, we're going to withhold our vote in the general if you don't do exactly what we want, even though what we want is opposed by sixty five
seventy percent of the public. I mean, for you know that suddenly the end result of that is that movement gets more and more marginalized because ultimately, even a lot of followers of that movement do want to win and do want to see that their their faction take power, because we see what happens when the other guys take power. I mean, people need to remember what it was like
to have you know. I mean, well, we have Biden right now, but even you know, Obama was absolutely terrible on life and religious conscience when he was in power. You know, think of me, think about cases like the Little Sisters of the War. Why is the Little Sisters of the poor a plaintiff against Barack Obama? Guess what the broke Obama administration was forcing down their throats.
So yeah, last word to you, Lilah, and then we got to go.
Thank you, thank you so much. Yeah. Briefly, listen what Will is saying.
I understand what he's saying, but the reality is, what has happened in the last few weeks is new President Trump coming out saying that he's going to do force tax funded tax fair funded.
IVF for all people. This is new.
These are not policies that he was doing in the primary. Okay, you know he supports access to abortion pills, this is new. Gutting the Republican Party platform, this is new. They didn't do that in twenty twenty or in twenty sixteen, obviously, So these are new things that are happening. And again I believe it's the responsibility of pro life voters to speak out right now. I do think that Trump will
respond and does respond to pressure. I think that's our responsibility to speak out on behalf of the people that don't have a voice, and so that's what we will continue to do because there are lives.
On the line.
All right, Well, we really appreciate both of you joining us. It's a very interesting conversation, one that you don't generally see on television, So thank you both.
We really appreciate it.
For a look at whatever the hell is going on in New York City, which I've struggled to comprehend. We are joined by a great friend of the show, journalist Ross Barkin, who is a contributing writer for New York Times magazine.
Great Cazar.
Good to have me, and it's great to be back.
Great to have me.
I like that more people need to say that, let's go and put this first hair sheet up on the screen. This is the latest New York Times accounting of some of the developments with Eric Adams and his circle. The headline here is pressure grows on Mayor Adams as key officials leave a mid investigations. We just had two prominent officials resign. We had the police commissioner resigned on Thursday
at the request of at city Hall. Lisa Zornberg, the mayor's chief legal advisor, resigned abroughly on Saturday, largely, they say, in frustration over the Mayor's refusal to follow her advice on personnel matters. As I was looking into this, there seemed to be more than a dozen Eric Adams associates who are under some sort of investigation. He himself appears to be under investigation for relationships with the country of Turkey.
Can you just help us understand what's going on here and if these are all just like individuals doing their own thing, or if it really all goes back to Mayor Adams himself.
A question what's going on? So there.
Four federal investigations into Eric Adams and his administration. It is not clear at this point if Adams himself is a target. His phone in one of the investigations was seized. So right now you had the police commissioner who recently resigned because he is under investigation because his twin brother, stay with me, was running a security a consulting firm of some sort that was helping helping in quotation marks
restaurants and businesses deal with various nightlife complaints. And this business of this twin brother would allegedly go over to these restaurants and tell them, hey, you know, we can make these complaints go away if you pay us a fee. So you have a sort of possible favor trading there. You've a completely separate investigation into Eric Adams as possible his mayoral campaigns, possible ties to the Turkish government, possibly
taking foreign money, which is legal. You have another investigation into a consulting firm being run by a close Adams ally, Tim Pearson, who's very close with the NYPD. You have his deputy mayor for Public Safety and other Adam's ally Philip Banks, he had his phone seized. And then there's yet another investigation. So the question is where does this all go? What does this all mean? It's all very confusing. There are a lot of moving parts we do not
know obviously the outcome. If Adams himself will be indicted, I will say no. Sitting mayor of New York City has ever been indicted. But there's always time, there's always the first time for something right. But already Adams has had people in his administration indicted in another separate case, has built his building's commissioner resigned over an indictment related
to a completely separate corruption probe. So you have many different corruption probes, you have a lot of possibilities for further resignations, and you have a city that quite frankly, a city government that is somewhat paralyzed right now, that is not governing. It wasn't governing very well before all this started, but certainly now even less has happened.
Sticking with that, I want to talk to my personal favorite, which is this idea of business owners being forced to pay protection racket money. Can you tell us some of the details on this is one of those which is often alleged in movies. I did realize it was somewhat real, this idea of like having a pension benefit card any of that. But this seems to go up to the highest levels of the New York administration.
Can you talk to us about that?
Sure?
So, again, this is all you know in various reports that have not been in have been verifying the sense of there in mainstream outlets, but you know, the indictment has not been brought. So basically, as far as we understand, the former police commissioner just resign named Edward Caban.
He has a twin brother, James. James is running.
James a former NYPD officer who was forced out a long time ago and had issues. He was running this private firm that, as far as I understand, would go to restaurants or.
Nightclubs, or nightclubs would come to them. Either way.
The nightclub would have you know, maybe they're having an issue, the noise complaint or something with the city. They've been slapped with, you know, some type of fine or something else. Right, these things happen, and so this firm would help you deal with these issues and would take a fee.
Right.
Of course, the firm is being run by the twin brother of the police commissioner, so you can imagine some of the conflict of interest issues that might surface.
Yeah, and how they're securing that help.
Yeah, help.
Whether this is enough to warrant a crime in the sense that an indictment will come, we don't know, but this is one of the investigations, and it has been enough to force the police commissioner to resign. New York is now on its third police commissioner in a three year peroo, which is quite insane. We had three police commissioners in eight years under build A. Blasio and then one under Michael Bloomberg, So three and three years is so this.
Is this is perhaps an impossible question to answer, but you can feel free to baselessly speculate.
You know, are these sort.
Of things that are just like always going on in New York City government but normally don't see the light of day and some you know, federal prosecutor investigator or whatever got to be in their bonnet and decide they're actually going to crack down on it. Or do you think that there is an atypical level of pay to play corruption scheming occurring under the Atoms administration.
I think it's atypical.
So I will say there have been investigations into prior mayors. There are inevitably scandals of some sort.
Build A.
Blasio was investigated, no charges were ever filed. There were Michael Bloomberg himself was not investigated. But there was this city time scandal many years ago that damaged his administration.
But this is unusual.
You do not see this many investigations, and I think what strikes me is the brazenness. It's very much old school machine politics. But I would add it's old school machine politics without the delivery of public goods attached to it. So you looked at like the old Tamley Hall model. It was corrupt. It was what they would used to call honest graft. You'd take money and get rich, but in turn you'd be kind of delivering something for your constituents.
I've argued for a while now, putting aside all the corruption, Adams has not been a very effective mayor because he hasn't.
Accomplished very much.
And I think most voters look at him and just see a mayor flailing about who's not serious and who now is appears to be corrupt, and they don't see their city getting better, and they don't see what they're what they're getting in return. I think that's a big issue for him. So it's atypical to see this many investigations.
And then further, I'd say it's atypical and certainly modern times for a mayor to be three years plus into their first term and not really have any signature achievement that people can remotely talk about or remember.
Yeah, so we got to get back to those good old tammany holidays, agree, honest graph Ross. At the same time, I also wanted to get you to weigh on an extraordinary and deeply disturbing situation that's unfolding. Their protests now over the NYPD's handling bloody handling of a fair evader on the subways. So we've put up e two guys just to see a little bit of the protests over
this NYPD shooting various people over this fair evasion. We could go ahead and put also this tear sheet up on the screen to talk about some of the details here. Four people were shot after police opened fire on what they're describing as a knife wielding subway fair evader.
Some questions now emerging about that knife.
I'll let you lay that out for us, Ross, But effectively, what they say is that four people are shot, including a New York Police officer, by quote unquote friendly fire when two officers open fire will suing a subway rider who didn't pay his fare. The man jumped back onto the subway platform started approaching one of the officers with this alleged knife. Both officers fired their guns as they handcuffed the man. One of the officers realized he himself
had been shot was bleeding from his chest. The bullet struck under the officer's left armpit, missing his vest and lodging in his back. Two random innocent bystanders, a man and a woman, also shot by police. The woman was grazed by a bullet and the man was struck in
the head. The sub suspect, whose name has not yet been publicly released, has apparently, you know, a long track record, arrested more than twenty times, history of mental illness, etc. But all of this starts with someone you know effectively jumping the turnstile over a two dollars and ninety cents subway fare.
Yes, and it's really a terrible episode.
And I think it speaks to the fact that in too many cases police are called in to handle issues or handling issues in such ways where they're not necessary or certainly one should not be drawing their gun to stop a fair evader. I think that that is the real problem. Supposedly he wielded a knife or brandished it, but then you're shooting enough to hit him, to hit others,
hit a police officer. So it's this rank and confidence combined with features of the system which you know police are trained in a certain way, and there's also a big push now to crack down fair evasion. It's actually a much bigger issue on the buses than the subways, and it's something that on one hand, no one should evade the fair like I think it should be paid.
But this is also one of those problems where.
If the MTA had better gates like they have in other countries, one couldn't really evade the fair of the subway.
And you also would have running around the gun.
So you kind of start there with there should just be better security, physical security infrastructure at the subway stations,
which you see in other foreign metro systems. And of course the MTA in most American authorities and bureaucracies are very bad at spending money and run way over budget, so things that you could do in Asia in Europe for fractioning the costs become these insane endeavors where it should be very easy to secure subway stations and build just nice new gates so one doesn't hop the sort turnstile and then therefore one is not being chased by
a cop of the gun. So it's kind of like all these various problems converging kind of at one time. But you know, also New York is a real problem which which we've talked about actually on the show before, dealing with mentally ill people. There's a lot of mentally ill people on the streets who should not be.
On the streets.
I think one thing I'll say about Eric Adams, and he's been correct about, is that authorities need to be more aggressive at getting mentally ill people help and getting them to secure facilities, not prisons, but places where they can really be medicated and kind of have their lives restored to a degree. But at the same time, you know, setting a cop out with the gun is not the
way to do it. You also need the infrastructure, you need the facilities, need the mental health services, the psychiatric hospitals which we close down over the many decades to house these sort of people. So you see kind of an episode of real incompetence in the NYPD, which isn't new.
And then I think you.
Take all these bigger macro issues and this is an instant that you wouldn't really see in other countries. And I think if you speak to all these issues, you can kind of see.
Why confluence of a lot of things lasting ross to that point about incompetence.
You can put this up on the screen.
So the police said on Monday, we're searching for a man who allegedly removed that knife from the scene of that police shooting at the Brooklyn subway station. That contradicted an earlier claim that they had recovered the weapon from the scene. They said later that it was a different knife. So what exactly is going on here is best we can tell.
I mean, I would say just to sure reports incompetence and also could be lying involved. I mean, police do lie, but I'd say never, never underestimate rank incompetence.
You know.
I'm a bit of an Ockham's razor person. Yeah, I tend to think, okay, you know, I think the average not the average person. But I think i'd say a lot of people in politics think, oh, this is odd conspiracy, right, And then I think most of the time, like the Trump assassination attempt, the more you read about it, the more you realize it it was just a real screw up. I mean a real security failure and lack of coordination.
So here at the police, I mean it's Look, the NYPD is not I would I would say, in one hand, it's a better trained police force and a lot of others across America. I'd rather deal with the NYPD than some like small town, small time police that are paid less money and go through less training and don't have sort of the awareness of these kinds of situations. At the same time, Look, you've got a lot of you know, cops who are in there. I don't know much about
these police officers. A lot of they're just in their twenties and they didn't go they didn't really get much education, and they do some training and then they're on the force of like twenty two to twenty three and you get problems like this. And so I do think we need honestly better policing. I don't think we need the absence of policing, but we do need better police on the force. And that's like, that's a bigger conversation, right, But I do think, like I think of policing like
the German model. Germany has like a highly trained police force. When I understand and they go through like years of sort of education and really are prepared to be out in the world. I do think with the NYPD and most American police, you're just you're getting You're giving very young, inexperienced people guns. You're telling them go out and go to these neighborhoods that are you know, not like the neighborhoods they know. And I don't know much about this
police officer. That's typically what you see.
Yeah, it's part of a confluence of some of the you know, the worst ills of American untreated mental illness, you know, viol relatively compared to other similarly developed countries, violence society, cops that are insufficiently trained to or you know, perhaps feel fearful in the situation anyway. So and it ends in absolute horror. Ross thank you so much for breaking all these issues down, because I've been trying to figure out what the hell's going on.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks man, We appreciate you well.
It's happy to be here. Thank you so much.
That's our pleasure.
Thanks so much for watching, guys. We appreciate you.
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