9/20/23: Tim Scott And Nikki Haley Attack UAW, Biden And Zelensky Plea For More Aid At UN, GOP Chaos Sets Up Gov Shutdown, Pakistan Gets IMF Bailout For Secret Ukraine Arms Deal, Russell Brand Demonetized On YouTube, Trump Plots Corporate Giveaway & MORE!

Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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But enough with that, let's get to the show. All right, good morning, and welcome to the Counterpoints.

I do have to warn everybody and only came in here fired up this morning. I think she miscalculated on her micro dose a little bit. So this is going to be a very very interesting show. It's also going to be interesting because we're going to be talking about the macro dose.

It became a macro dough, so look out.

So we're gonna be talking about the UAW which has said a noon deadline for its upcoming negotiations. It could be an expansion of the strike coming. Zelenski was here. President Biden spoke at the United Nations. We're going to get we're going to go through that. Got some new news on Pakistan and Ukraine. The IMF that we'll talk about later. Absolute face planted by Republicans in the House that we're not going to talk about these special elections,

Yeah, there was some fun on Capitol Hill. We're going to go through.

We have some really good clips, so stay tuned for that. We're actually going to be talking about YouTube's decision to demonetize Russell Brand. So surely you've followed the allegations against Russell Brand, but YouTube took a pretty serious step in demonetizing his channel.

So we'll get to that.

I'm going to talk about alleged plans among Actually it's not alleged, because they came out and told Jeff Stein of The Washington Post that they're planning a big corporate tax cut if Donald Trump gets an office again, and then Republicans have the House and the Senate. And Ryan, you have a little bit of a scoop to talk to us about the RNC debate.

Yeah, Rumble versus Google, and we'll talk about that. But essentially Rumble had the exclusive streaming rights for the Republican last Republican debate, but there were nowhere to be found, certainly on the front page of Google search results, even though and I'll report on this, Google and Rumble were in contact ahead of time. So interesting stuff there, especially as Google is kind of currently in a trial in an antitrust trual, like it's ongoing at the moment.

Well, let's start with news from the UAW strike. Actually, Ryan over at the Intercept, there's a great news story this morning with details about a truly hilarious development and a big development too.

Tell us what happened it?

Yeah, put, we can put up this first element.

Daniel Bogus law, colleague of mine, Confused automakers braced for strike at the wrong plants and so check out his piece. The whole thing is worth a read. But for people who are you new to these this kind of new tactic that's going on in labor because they're striking all three automakers, and because the supply lines are so spread out, what the union is trying to do is strike as few places.

Along that supply chain.

That gets the most attention from the executives at the at the Big Three. And what the Big Three are trying to do is anticipate which plants are going to be struck so that they can move things.

Around so that they can keep production going.

If the UAW can strike only a small number of plants yet exact a lot of dam image on the Big Three, then they don't have to eat into their strike fund. And so CNBC thought that they were on to the UAW. So let's play so this clip that we're playing here was from CNBC ahead of the strike, and.

Just roll this in all its glory.

Let's get over to phil Abo Live in Detroit for an update on the ongoing UAW battle.

Hi, Phil Scott.

We have received some information from a source familiar with the uaw's plans for the plants that it will plan on striking come midnight tonight if they do not reach an agreement with four GM and Stilantis, and this is our understanding of the plants that will be announced tonight. Ten o'clock is when we will get the official announcement from the UAW. Let's start first off with General Motors, Romulus Powertrain, Toledo, Ohio Propulsion, and the Marion metal plant

We should stress we have reached.

Out to the UAW for confirmation that this is in fact is the plan. We have not heard back from the UAW.

Well, I guess it is good that he stressed they had not earned back from the UAW.

Because Ryan, you have a theory ast to how this happened.

Well, we know that whatever the source they said that they had it was, this was act.

This list was.

Published in an auto trade pub earlier, and probably the Auto Trade prob which has its sources in the auto industry, got it from a consultant working for one of the Big three, and this Big three bring in strike breaking consultants who then tell this is how you're going.

To beat this strike.

And so one way or another, this consultant winds up with bogus information that winds up then with CNBC. And they should stress that they could not confes because every single one of those was wrong. And so what they did is that they moved things from plants that did not strike two plants that ended up striking. So at great expense to the automakers, they shut down production a bunch of places that did not strike, moved things out of there elsewhere, and then they moved them right into

So there's you know.

It's tough to be out on strike. It's easy to be on the sideline saying, hey, strike, strikes, strike. It's harder to be in, you know, to be the people who are actually striking. But it's harder for these executives too. If now they're accidentally shutting down their own production.

Yeah, it's it's like a return to the dance that everybody's out of practice. But the uaw knew that, you know, they had to be tactical and strategic about this and outsmarted the companies.

It's just just just amazing to watch. And this is this is a new UAW with with you know, Sean Fain, the first elected president of the UAW I think about that. You know, for for decades they had, you know, corrupt leaders that would be elected in these processes where there were delegates and then the delegates.

Pick and then you go back room.

So this is finally somebody who's represented by you know, who represents the rank and file, came in with a Milton attitude and so he's his new statement is noon on Friday, September twenty second, is a new deadline. Either the Big three get down to business and work with us to make progress and negotiations, or more locals will be called to stand up and go out on strike. And so what he's saying there is that, look, c NBC, you botched it last time. You didn't know which ones

Doing much better.

The ghost though of Ronald Reagan haunting these conversations. Do we have we have We've got to use you flagged this one so good?

Yeah, So Tim Scott was actually asked about how he would handle the strike hypothetically as president, and Nikki Haley was talking to Neil Cavudo on Fox News about the situation as well. Let's roll these clips to for a glimpse into how some Republicans are handling the question.

I think Ronald Regan gave us a great example when federal voice side they were going to strike, you strike your fire civil concept to me to we can use that once again. Absolutely. The second thing I would do those very important this is it probably not a well known fact. The first thing part of the challenge that we have today with President Biden is I don't mean this would be disingenuous. I mean this would be since here.

Well, I think that's it tells you that when you have the most pro union president and he teullts that he is emboldening the unions, this is what you get. And I'll tell you who pays for it is the taxpayers. You know, here, from what I understand, the union is asking for a forty percent race. You know, the companies

That is a bizarre take on so many levels because it actually lacks of rude mentory understanding of the dynamics at play, which is that the Biden administration set off a lot of the problems with the union that supports Democrats basically across the board been supportive of President Biden. A lot of this is pressure that was implemented as a result of legislation that Biden's passed executive actions on

Talk to auto workers.

Sean Fain weighs in, and he says, every fiber of our union, this is a statement from Faine is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expensive workers. We can't keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don't have any understanding of what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by by expecting them to

Strange stuff right, and the politics are completely different. There's a reason that Reagan, you know, could fire the air traffic controllers and he could get away with it. Air traffic controllers, by the way, endors strong Reagan, yes like that, And so people I think might have a hard time kind of putting themselves back in that time period. But that'll help, like understand this, Like this was a union that in actually endorsed Ronald Rick and.

Then they came in.

People are gonna fact check me they either endorsed or like spoke highly of them and didn't endorse the Democrats. I think they actually endorsed, I think them, and then he fires them all. But it was in this moment where there was this kind of public backlash against unions which were getting blamed.

By the kind of capitol class vulgar.

For inflation because the union a lot of union contracts, and you had you had significant union density, and because the union contracts said that our raises rise in tandem to the cost of living, the cost of living being inflation. So then when the federal government say, okay, inflation is this, then unions would get wages like that, and then because the wages went up, then.

The inflation number would go up.

And they were getting blamed for this big, this vicious kind of cycle down the drain there.

So but that's not happening.

Now we've got union density of like five or six percent. Uaw could quadruple their wages and we're not going to see you know, inflation as a result of that go throughout the economy. Also, the cost of labor in a car equals about five percent of the price of that car.

And it's not like ups and teamsters or air traffic controllers where you have basically an entire system that the country relies on shut down at the drop of the hat. Which was weighing very heavily on Ron Reagan during the strike and he was constantly invoking that problem. Tim Scott didn't even try to make specific parallels. It was again, it was like a reflex Reagan fire them all. Yeah, and again Donald Trump is you know, whatever you think.

Stein of The Washington Post.

But he at least understands the dynamics, the political dynamics, whereas these guys don't even get that. I mean, they're just like rehashing, trotting out canned lines. Now, maybe it's a question of whether you'd rather have a Republican party that is transparently anti union, or a Republican party that wants to be or is rhetorically pro union but doesn't

Yeah, And one last point on Tim Scott there, so his his second piece there, he said, and if you remember the American Rescue plan that didn't spend enough on vaccines also that that's kind of weird for a Republican primary. He said, it was eighty six billion dollars, you know, to go to union pensions. Those were miners, those were construction workers, manufacturers, factory workers, and most of those pensions went bust because private equity companies came in bought up

Worked their whole lives for it. We've got it covered.

And for Tim Scott to be like that's the thing that I'm upset about, like, get out of here.

I think, Ryan, you might be underestimating how badly the pe dudes need that money for fleece vests and campaign checks.

To Tim Scott like.

I love the CNBC guide his little fleece vest, it is checking out, just being completely wrong and undermining the whole case that these capitalists make of that their strategic genius is why they ought to make hundreds of times more than the workers. Like they're like because you know, they really know what they're doing. In the one case where we can test whether or not they have any idea what they're doing, the workers just completely outsmart at them.

Amazing.

Let's move on to the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. We have a lot of clips to play from that because President Biden spoke and Vladimir Lensky spoke as well. Let's start with b one here. This is Biden yesterday at the UN in New York.

Second year in a row. This gathering dedicated to peaceful resolution of conflicts, is darkened by the shadow of war, an illegal war of conquest brought without provocation by Russia against his naghvy Ukraine. Like every nation in the world, the United States wants this war to end. No nation wants this war to end more than Ukraine, and we strongly support Ukraine and its efforts to bring about diplomatic resolution that delivers just and lasting peace. Russia loan, Russia alone,

No.

We also have Vladimir's a landscape. We can play a clip of his address the United Nations.

Ukraine gave up its sword largest nuclear arsenal the world don decided Russia should become a keeper of such power.

Yet history shows it was Russia who.

Deserved nuclear disarmament the most back in nineteen nineties, and Russia deserves it now.

Terrorists have no right.

To hold nuclear weapons, no right, but truly not.

The nyukes are the carriage.

Now, while nyuks remain in place, the mess destruction is gaining its momentum. The aggressor is weaponizing many other things, and those things are used not only against our country, but against all of yours as well. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrant for Putting for this crime. And we are trying to get children back home. But time time goes by, what will happen with them?

What will happen to them?

Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine at all. Ties with their families are broken, and this is clearly a genocide. When hatred is weaponized against one nation, it never stops there. Each decade Russia starts a new war. Parts of Moldova and Georgia remain occupied. Russia turds Syria into ruins, and if not Russia, the chemical weapons would.

Have never been used there in Syria.

Russia has almost swallowed Belarus. It is obviously threatening Kazakhstan and other Baltic states. And the goal of the present war against Ukraine is to tour our land, our people, our lives, our resources into a weapon against you. Again, the international rules based order now right.

It's extremely interesting to note actually that of the five Security Council countries, only the United States sent the head of state, so no head of state from Russia or China, or France or Britain, just the US. At the UN General Assembly, meeting. Biden obviously was first to speak. That was really difficult to listen to. It's increasingly difficult every time he opens his mouth in public. But Biden advisors

At the u N, I.

Thought, performatively, he did okay, and that in those short clips there will have some more that we can play where he was kind of stumbling all over the place and you're like, ah, God, somebody, somebody helped, somebody helped this guy.

But on the substance of it.

I just feel like the United States is missing an opportunity to be the country, not that they would do this that's putting forward a peace plan, absolutely because the chances are that Russia wouldn't take it, that Russia would continue.

It's kind of it's aggression there.

And it's clear Russia did invade, like you say whatever you want about whether it's provoked or whether on and on like it did. It did invade, like Putin had a choice and he made that choice. But the US misses an opportunity to say, look, we want this war to end, and here here are ways that we could see this war ending, clear steps, clear steps, and not

You know, whether or not Biden can kind.

Of appear up to the job to voters. The entire election almost hinges on that. And so here here are a couple clips. We can play one more that.

I think the R and C was circulating this one.

As you evolve, our institutions drive creative new partnerships. Let me be clear, certain principles are in the national them are sacracy. Simply put, the twenty first century. Twenty first century results are badly needed needed to move us along.

You're like, ugh, makes me think somebody who loves him should tell him he shouldn't run for president again. I mean, let alone somebody who loves his country, but somebody who loves him should tell him this has.

Got to end.

And he ran for presidents saying that he was going to be a bridge and somebody, and I think this was in particular reference to Gretchen Whitmer. Somebody was talking about Whitmer and the new rising stars of the Democratic Party and Biden said, I'm a bridge to the next generation. And he and so he said that literally, as Spiden loves to say literally, but.

He also had a joke. Yeah. He also kind of configured his entire campaign around.

That that he was going to be there for one term, that his whole mission.

He's running because of Charlotte Vale.

Trump is, you know, a nasty creature at monster that needs to be beaten back into the cave. He's going it's his mission in life to beat him and then be a bridge to the next generation. So he did those things. Now he's in office, he's like, no, I think I want to run again.

It always appen, and there was a term limits, but oh not for me. Right, there was a kind.

Of democratic resistance, kind of There was a Muller she wrote at a Post yesterday that was complaining about media coverage of Biden's age and whether or not, you know, Biden's step aside, and they were saying, you know, the only the media is handringing about this, Democrats are not And it's a very interesting definition of democrats or because something like seventy percent of Democrats would like to see a different nominee. And what people like that mean by

But even that's not.

True because David Ignatius wrote a column in the Washington Post, and I think David Anaxious is known to be one of the Biden administration's favorite columnists like they pay very close attention.

To David Ignatius.

Yes, and he even said last he wrote a whole column yeah, in the Washington Post saying time for Biden to step down.

Yeah, it's so. I don't see how you can watch that and think otherwise. Franklin's had a really funny, kind of almost meaningless comment the other day where he said, the only Democrat that can lose to Trump is Biden, and the only Republican that can to Biden is Troutes.

It's actually one hundred percent true, and it was true in twenty twenty two.

Oh, I think DeSantis could lose to Biden, and I think Biden could lose to a bunch of people, and Trump can actually lose a bunch of So it sounds cute, it's funny, but there's such bad candidates, both of them, that they could actually probably be beaten by multiple people.

But there's something about the matchup of both of them that's like the perfect mirror image and the perfect inversion of one strength and the.

Others called the two old guys in the balcony muppets, and it's perfect.

It also reminds me it's like the Soviet Union right when they had that carousel of aging leaders that in the West we mocked because it was this clear. It was a very clear sign of decline and that they didn't have a grasp on the country and obviously they didn't have democratic controls in the way.

That the US does.

But nineteen seventeen is over. Move on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

The other thing I wanted to point out here, there's something about the UN backdrop, by the way, that's a little different than when you're on.

The literal world stage.

Biden mumbling at campaign events, okay, it's bad, Biden mumbling in front of the UN. I think there's something that hits different about that. But also Jackie Heinrich a Fox News made a good point. We can put this element up that he talked last year. He had a line where he said we seek to uphold peace and stability across the Taiwan straight and then actually did not mention Taiwan at all in the twenty twenty three address. So if he hadn't mentioned at either time, it's maybe not

I found that worth noting at least.

Yeah, so that's good, Okay, maybe little like not to the antagonia rattling. Saberdling.

Yeah, anytime a saber goes back into a sheet for that, well.

It's not really a surprise to anybody. But yesterday the Republicans' efforts to fund the government on a stop gap basis, this is something that a lot of establishment Republicans really want to do. It fell apart again. Efforts to pass a Pentagon funding bill fell apart again. A lot of this is due to the internal dynamics in the Republican Party, and we're actually going to get to some of that.

It's rare that a post like that news will just make me laugh out loud. You were just enjoying it, just the phrasing up. I mean, it's it's terrible. It's gonna suck for millions of people, probably including myself. Washington gets hit the hardest during a government shutdown. But just the framing of it, it's just he's right, like he's left. The passive framing of it, maybe laugh too, because yes,

Yes, for Democrats.

Yet the world must go on.

I was gonna say Matt Gates was offering Alexandria Kaser Cortez to work with or just Democrats in general to work with him once again last week, a total troll move. But for Democrats, none of this works unless you throw that house into total chaos, which again, like as a kind of anti establishment person, I don't care about, Like, fine, throw the house into chaos. They're going to be doing dumb stuff either way, whether they're whether the government's shut

Mitch McConnell is.

Not wrong about that on a national level. He is once again totally wrong about that when it comes to representatives that comprise the House who answered to smaller districts where voters are not just favorable to a shutdown, but are demanding a shutdown. They're calling constantly on these lines to the Capitol and saying, shut the damn government down,

Well, McConnell has this incredible line that he uses that when it comes to a government shutdown, where he says, there's no there's no education in the second kick of a mule. And that's how he kind of avoided previous government shutdowns because the first one prompted by Ted Cruz back in twenty thirteen, which he did basically for email fundraising purposes, and McConnell people hated, hated it.

It went terribly for them.

Republican voters liked it.

Some Republican voters.

Chip Roy was the chief of staff for Ted Cruz at the time.

That's a that's a great poll.

Yes, so right, so and the so the arc from twenty thirteen to today, it's right, you have so You've got Chip Roy as Ted Cruz's chief of staff. Ted Cruz does this, you know, basically forces a government shutdown. He really elevated his profile at the time, creates a split between him and McConnell. But Roy, his chief of staff, clearly believe came out of that believing.

Oh, this was a win. Absolutely, this was the way, this way to go.

So now Roy is a member of the House of Representatives leading this effort here.

Yeah, absolutely, along with Matt Gates, who we have on the House floor yesterday. Let's roll. Let's roll, mister Gates.

I'm not voting for a continuing resolution. I'm not voting to continue the failure and the waste and the corruption, and the election interference, and in some cases, the efforts that could lead this country into World War III. I oppose the CR authored by my friend and colleague from Florida, Byron Donald's. The Donald CR continues the Ukraine policy negotiated by Speaker Pelosi and Mitch McConnell in the Omnibus that

My friends, we are approaching the days where.

We're facing two trillion dollar annual deficits atop a thirty three trillion dollar debt. This is unsustainable and just to continue things with some facial eight percent cut over thirty days that will lead to no programmatic reform is an insult to the principles we fought for in January.

So he's talking about Byron Donald's there, and Emily, am I hallocinting here? Or did I not sit in the balcony in January and watch Matt Gates give speeches comparing Byron Donalds to Frederick Douglass when he's nominating him to be Speaker of the House.

And now he.

Anyway, this is this is your party? You all think of this out, No, not Emily's party, but it's her problem.

Yeah, so to the extent they consider themselves conservative, that's my problem. But Matt Gates is a master of theater, and Byron Donalds understands that. Now reporters caught up with Byron Donalds and c SPAN cameras happened to capture his interaction with those reporters. He had a great response to Matt Gates.

Check this out.

You're Philip Erni and Matt Gates that you're telling us is working to develop the coalition to quote to beat the Donalds.

Cr What do you think of that?

I would challenge my colleague from Florida to create a coalition and tries to actually get a victory for the American people. If he wants to have a personal thing with me going back and forth, he's entitled to. But I don't care about that foolishness. I want to win.

Your colleagues said they want to see Oh, by the way, no no no no.

No no no no no no no no no no no.

Okay, we wanted to play the clip basically because of the end there, which was so great. He was about to spill some tea clearly on Gates and the reporters like, please please continue, sir, we have plenty of time, and he's.

Like, yeah, you're not going to get head to go there, and so people will understand what happened here. So Byron Donald sat down with basically moderate Republicans and other House Freedom Caucus members chip Roy, chip Roy, and they hashed out a c R, a spending bill that that they all could live with. And they're like, Okay, let's put

And Gates is like, no, yeah, not doing that. Whoever got to Donald's cr.

This is a great quote from trip Roy.

And yesterday with the vote was a procedural to allow the vote to continue, and so that vote, the vote to have the vote basically to allow for the vote, was voted down. Trip Roy comes in and says, I find it extremely difficult to explain or defend opposition to an eight percent cut over thirty days in exchange for the most conservative and strong border security measure we've ever passed.

Out of this body. I think that is inexplicable.

I think it's malpractice, and I think there's some outside groups who are trying to advance themselves that are a part of this, that are pushing this narrative that it's somehow malpracticed to do that. So in a normal situation, it's very difficult for Republicans to fund the government and to have this negotiation between the Freedom Caucus, Main Street Caucus, Tuesday group of people.

That's already hard enough.

When you graft on the Trump DESANTUS dynamics to this, which is some of what you're seeing right now, it gets.

Even more difficult.

It was heading for a shutdown either way. Nobody wants a CR because it means you're kicking the can to December and nothing is going to get solved in December. Nobody wants to have to solve these problems around Christmas. It's just a nightmare to try to do that. People

But when you have Matt Gates going after somebody.

Like Byron Donald, it makes it even less likely that they can sit down in a room and figure something out.

I think they will if I had a bet on it.

I think Matt Gates has shown with the speaker vote, he'll go along with it. At the end of the day, he'll find something realize at the last minute he can work with it. But man, we're not even talking about the Bobert Marjorie Taylor Green Dynamics. Just a hell of a week for the Freedom Walks.

And it's got to be interesting for somebody like Roy to be the kind of fire breather, fire eater over you know, back in twenty thirteen, to now be kind of cast as some like compromising, you know, squish by people who are out flanking him, even though you're going to get a shutdown either way.

Yeah, So what's that? I mean? I know, we got to move on here.

But I just I don't understand, Like what if you listen to kind of the Bannon wing of the Republican Party, they're celebrating people. Matt Rosendel was just on his podcast because he was one of the five against this or saying like and they're saying that they went from eight or ten against the cr of to maybe two dozen because of the you know, Bannon's posse like haranguing people in the house. So what do they what do they think is move Like, what are they going to get out of this?

I think it's the same thing for fighting. I'm just curious with their what the plan?

Yeah, I think that it's the same thing with the speaker battle, where everybody knew it was going to end up being Kevin McCarthy, but they realized that they could push way further than people thought and get even more concessions after concessions after concessions, and you heard Gates actually even get in on the Ukraine spending and the clip

So again conclusion, will.

They get them or will they just look like they're fighting? What's what's your guess.

McCarthy doesn't have a choice for the reason that you explained earlier in the segment that it's either he's out the door, and there's literally nobody who steps into that vacuum, Like there's nobody that a handful of Democrats and a handful of Republicans would settle on. There's nobody Republicans can settle on other than McCarthy when you have such a slim margin. So it's McCarthy or basically, and again like

Okay, yep, here we go.

At least we get the theater.

It's good theater, so we'll stay on top of it, that's for sure. Ryan, updates on your excellent reporting with Mirtaza Hussein in Pakistan.

Yes, thank you.

So.

I've got a new story out this week with my Intercept colleague that uncovers the way that secret Pakistani arms sales to the United States helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the International Monetary Fund earlier this year. That's according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement and confirmed by internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arm

The new reporting starts.

To put that soft coup into context as a Refrafiak, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told me, quote, Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine's counter offensive, But why did the E needed Pakistan?

Now?

That goes back to the question of our lack of an industrial base. We're great at making one hundred million dollar airplanes that fall out of the sky and get lost, but were not very good at making the basics. Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of

Now.

At the meeting on Friday, Dar brought up the IMF question with Blum, according to a report in Pakistan Today, which said that quote, the meeting highlighted the significance of addressing the stalled IMF deal and finding effective solutions to Pakistan's economic challenges. Now, securing the loan eased economic pressure, enabling the military government to delay elections and deepen the

Now.

A spokesperson at the Pakistani embassy in Washington declined to comment, referring questions to the State Department. A spokesperson for this State Department denied the US played any role.

In helping procure the loan. Quote.

Negotiations over the IMF review were a matter for discussion between Pakistan and IMF officials. The United States was not party to those discussions, though we continued to encourage Pakistan to engage constructively with the IMF on its reform program unquote.

The United States has been very instrumental in making sure that the IMF came forward with its emergency economic relief. Obviously they're continuing challenges now.

I talked to him in the hallway and the Capitol and asked him how he had learned of that, and he said, quote, my understanding based on conversations with folks in the administration has been that we supported the IMF loan package given the desperate economic situation in Pakistan unquote. Now, the Pakistan government's response has been even more extreme than

Okay, sure they are.

So, so this is this is where we are in the In the last couple of days in Pakistan as well, there's been this horrifying story that's unfolded over the last several weeks and months where the child of a man who was detained by the package turns out by the Pakistani military without charges, without having done anything, just as detained as a political prisoner. The kid began began suffering such incredible trauma he had to be hospitalized and this

Yes. Absolutely, And you know, Ryan, I wanted to put this thread.

I think we have the element here.

This is from a Wall Street Journals slash.

I think AEI.

He did a thread basically outlining what he saw as the problem with your reporting. So he says, if this intercept story is true, and listen, this is a great sentence from this fella here, then the PDM government and the Pakistani Army deserve the gratitude of the Pakistani people for definitely using a piffling amount of alleged arms transfer

I think it's this is what happened, yeah, exactly.

Secondly, though he's saying well done for you know, negotiating behind closed doors. It's almost like this cold realist take that, like, well, these negotiations are going to happen anyway, so x Y and Z. Maybe that's true, but then maybe the US should stop lying about what happened.

And Pakistan line, Yeah, it's funny when the countries, like key defenders are going, are admitting to things that the country itself is still completely denying, right rightment by the country, I mean the government. The government is claiming that there's all eyes, all fabricated, none of this is true, whereas it's defenders are saying, no, no, this stuff is obviously.

True, and it's great. But it's great and it's also.

Unimportant, right, like, pick one of these four things and just ride with that.

And I think the fact that the US won't own up to it and Paksan won't own up to it is that there's a sense of shame about it. And when you have the defenders being like, listen, there is there's no reason to have any shame over this. It would be so much better if we could just have that conversation, right and explain why this is just such a wonderful thing to be kind of negotiated in the dark, and then people are reporters are misled about it as opposed to saying.

No, no, we wouldn't do that.

No, And it's not just shame publicly and shame in the mirror.

I think it's it's.

Complicated geopolitically for Pakistan because its biggest creditor is China and its close ally in a lot of ways is Russia. You know, they gone was trying to negotiate to get cheap gas in there.

Which is why he was resisting getting involved.

Right exactly.

And so both you know, Russia for obvious reasons doesn't want Pakistan making munitions for Ukraine. But China too has been pressuring countries to try to get this war to wrap up. It's it's it's no longer a convenient war at all for China. And so to find out that, uh, that they're that Pakistan, which they lend all of this money to, and and trying to help help them get the IMF loan as well by by by kind of refinancing some debt obligations that they didn't have to do

It's really the perfect story. And I don't mean this like perfect in a good way. It's the perfect distillation of the problem with Joe Biden slurring and mumbling at the UN about the US leading the rules based order, and then at the same time, you know, you have him saying you need the rules based order to prevent incursions in Ukraine, to prevent aggressors from starting these bloody invasive wars like Russia did in Ukraine. In order to do that, we're going to sort of violate the rules

Deal with the rules based order. We're on top. We make the rules, even if we don't always follow them.

Right.

It is as a refer feek it said, the Pakistan's democracy is just being sacrificed at the altar of democracy.

Yeah, perfect, perfect distillation there.

Unfortunately, all right, so Russell Brand is not looking so good on YouTube. What's the latest?

Yes, so I know most people have heard by now the allegations that were raised against Russell Brand. I'm going to just read this sentence from the New York Post because I think they encapsulated with some precision here. They say he's been accused of raping, sexually assaulting and abusing for women over seven years in the past. Now, Russell Brand was demonetized yesterday by YouTube over these allegations, not

You can see the.

New York Times there reporting that YouTube suspended the comedian and actor Russell Brand on Tuesday from making money from videos posted to the social media platform. That was three days after British news organizations published their investigation. The channel is a potentially significant source of income. The Time says who was earning money Brand was through advertisements and paid motions.

Here's the quote.

If a creator's off platform behavior harms our users employees or ecosystem. We take action to protect, to protect the community. The spokesman did not respond to The Times question about how long that suspension would last, which is actually a pretty important question. Brand denied everything he posted his clip on Friday. Again, I'm sure people have seen this by now saying that everything was consensual. Essentially, now a video resurface.

We go to that, can we just I just want to read the one text mesters that I think is the most damaged thing that the Times has gotten. So one woman who accused him of rape present presented the paper with text messages that the paper confirmed were from Brand from Brand's number, and so this is the next morning, he texted her, I'm sorry that was crazy and selfish.

I hope you can forgive me.

I know that you're a lovely person x and she writes back, you scared the blank out of me, right, I am a lovely person and for you to take advantage of me like this is unexpected. It's unacceptable. You have a problem, you need help. It's dangerous that you think you can get your own way all the time. You know how scary you are when that glazed look comes over you. And so yeah, you know that it's hard to find corroborating evidence outside of a video.

Yeah, any more direct than that.

And actually the other thing is, as many people know, one of the victims at the time had a rape kit.

She went to actually have the investigation with the.

Rape kit, which suggest I mean, it's obviously not something the vast majority of women do if they don't believe that they were.

Victims of rape.

It suggests that at the time she saw it that way, and it's not the same as many me two cases that have been high profile where you know, we've had this kind of public conversation that changed the way women, for better or for worse, in different situations, saw what happened to them, depending on the severity and the scale of it. This suggests that at the time this woman absolutely saw this as a rape to the point where

At the time.

She confirmed with multiple Deadline confirmed with multiple sources that this was about Brand. She said, I, in front of loads of people in the format of the show, said to this person's face that they are a predator. Now, one of the sources told Deadline. This person said other comedians may have also called up Brand, though that has not been confirmed by those.

Who worked on the show.

Two other sources said he demanded that producers protect him from being roasted by his fellow comedians. Finally, we have from the Hollywood Reporter BBC saying that it's actually removed some programming featuring Wreussell Brand from streaming services amid these allegations. BBC has says it does not ban or remove content when it is a matter of public record unless we have justification for doing so. There is limited content featuring

Action to protect the community.

Ryan allegations of Russell Russell Brand, we both agree are serious now demonetizing people amid those allegations when things are being litigated in the court of public opinion, certainly in the United States, within the discretion of a private company like Alphabet, Google, YouTube BBC is another question with UK speech laws, what do you make of it?

This is such a This is such a tough.

One because I think he's guilty, Like I think that the evidence is very clear.

But because we have.

This bizarre system where we go on this case by case basis of you know, who gets to have a platform and who doesn't get to have a platform, then it leads every single person that has to then adjudicate each case and say whether or not that they kind of, you know, fall above or below some arbitrary line that that we don't like, that we don't have any say over anyway, like the holth just pawing in the dark here and so it it again I think speaks to

But it's but it's a very but it's not an easy it's not an easy question.

Because like and I, and the guy has said that what what he has admitted in the past is that he was a second addict, which is a nice way of saying that he was a predator. Probably I don't think there's anybody I doubt he would even necessarily disagree with that kind of description. What he disagrees with is whether or not there was consent in these occasions. At least in the one case that I mentioned at the

Apology text exactly the next morning. So he's guilty. Like I think we can barely say that and it's.

Hardly, by the way, given Russell Brand's intentional public persona, especially before he shifted more and more to politics, surprising he openly I think he actually openly joked once about some of.

The stuff and Luis King did it, yes, and so it was it's.

There's a there's a really great line that Camille Polia wrote Paulia in the heat of the Me Too movement, for I think it was the Hollywood Reporter.

It was a column.

She said that this idea that she said, great art has often been made by bad people, and the idea that the artist has to be some sort of moral paragon. She called it a sentimental canard of Victorian moralism. And I really liked that line because it's true. And we do in the post Me two era, in the Me Too era, and need permission to accept what we all know, which is that great art has often been made by

Sorry?

Also guilty, clearly guilty fantastic artists? And these questions are they're hard, But also that that question of whether or not you can enjoy art from bad people isn't hard. You have to be able to do it, otherwise you'll only be watching like the worst art basically.

And as a yes, as a society, I think we have to be able to separate.

Politicians and artists and.

The art and the art and the artist.

That doesn't mean that the artist is free of criminal implications.

And R. Kelly is a great example prosecuted.

And so if it does appear like there are cases that can be made here against Russell Brand, and they should go for that. And that's why as a public we want to have legal frameworks set up. There's established and give give people a fair trial, and but give victims a chance to bring charges forward and then if

And for you toube so based on that point, for YouTube to say this kind of broad justification that the content from somebody who is a very like accused of very serious crimes harms their users or their employees. That is going to implicate a whole lot of content that YouTube a is just not going to take down and be if they were pressed too, would not want to take it down, nor would their users, because users can

And you know what, if they want to.

Watch a Woody Allen interview, or they want to watch a Bill Clinton interview, if they want to watch a Donald Trump interview, they can make those decisions for themselves because this is all part of the world that we live in, and YouTube is an incredible resource for understanding the world, and it doesn't have to be an endorsement of all of these amazing primary sources that we have access to via YouTube. It's just a crazy standard, I think think in a really dangerous one. I hope it's

To those questions. What are you looking at today?

Well, Last week, Jeff Stein of the Washington Post had a report that did not get nearly enough attention. I'm going to read from it right here. Trump and his advisor, Stein reported have discussed deeper cuts to both individual and corporate tax rates that would build on his controversial twenty seventeen tax law, which they see as a major accomplishment

The sharp new.

Tax cuts would help offset higher consumer costs by the tariffs.

Now it's a long.

Article, but let me read one more part of it that caught my attention. Still, Trump may propose using that revenue, so revenue raised by the tariff, to send a dividend payment to US consumers, similar to the state of Alaska how they cut a check every year to residents from oil revenue. That's according to New Gingrich, who of course served as GOP Speaker of the House and remains an

And actually expanding on it.

I think this is really interesting because it brings in this entire quot question of whether the Republican Party has Ryan and I opposed to sarab Amari recently, can truly become the party of the working class in a way that sort of matches the rhetoric we talked earlier in the show about Tim Scott and Nicky Haley's statements on the UAW strike, which contrasts with Donald Trump's effort which

To a postcard.

You'll be able to do your taxes on a postcard. That's actually kind of a populist priority. It might be good, it might sound good for corporations, it might sound good for really wealthy individuals, but it's not because in order to get your taxes down to a postcard, Paul Ryan knows this, you have to cut all of the loopholes. Do you have to close all of those loopholes simplify the tax code, And people have questions about whether that

They're trying to do.

More of and from the Washington Post article, it doesn't sound like the focus is at all on fixing the tax code for the average individual, basically because everyone knows that's impossible. And by the way, I think they know that really going to a flat tax for corporations is impossible. I think that would in some sense help with on shoring. I think there are ways that you could do it that would help with bringing back jobs, good paying jobs,

Bad, blah blah blah.

They want to keep doing that, and their muscles don't want to allow them to actually govern in a way that is serious, whether it's libertarian populism, you know, the sort of Ron Paul populism that's genuinely anti corporate or you know, economic populism in a way that some people consider on the left maybe more statists. They don't want any of that period, and their muscles aren't going to

What's going on with Google and Rumble?

So the last Republican debate was held on August twenty third, and a couple weeks before that, Google reached out to the RNC and asked the rn C, Hey, do you have a live streaming partner for the upcoming debate? If so, who RNC responded yes, In fact, Rumble has the exclusive live stream results. The civics team over at Google, to their credit, said, sounds great. You either connect us with Rumble or give us a link to the upcoming live stream if you have it. So, rn C then asks

RNC ends up.

Adding Rumble to this chain, and they go back and forth then for a couple of days about whether they get a link, whether they get on the phone, and Emily and I can talk about the bizarre kind of email conversation that unfolds from there. The upshot though, is that this and we can put up this little screen recording is what people saw if they searched GOP debate

That's Rumble general counsel Michael Ellis quote in.

Its own words, Google uses search to highlight other major election events, but chose not to offer the same feature to rumbles live stream. We look forward to proving Google's continued anti competitive conduct in court unquote. Now, Google meanwhile

It's terrible.

And the DOJ said, We're so sorry. These are public exhibits. We're so sorry. We're going to take them down. Google said, great, take them down. A Bloomberg reporter tour credit stood up in the gallery. It was like, hold on a second, these are public. I want to I want at least Google to have Bloomberg to have an opportunity to have a lawyer here. And the judge said, okay, we'll do that. Still, in the meantime, the department just.

Took them down. Pitiful.

You're supposed to be prosecuting these guys, you're just taking public information off. So anyway, so Google's in the middle of this and they know that this trial is coming when they find out that Rumble is going to be the exclusive partner here. Now the email chain is funny, and it'll be up at an article I have at the Intercept, not posting it here because I forgot to redact all the names of the of the innocent, but we'll do that over at the intercept. But so Google says,

A meeting and set up a meeting. Like the ask is clear, just send us a link.

Now, in Rumble's defense, they don't have a live link nine days before so. And then more official there told me is that they're trying to figure out what do you need, like technically speaking, like what do you need from us so that nine days from now you can feature this? And then they bump it the next day and no reply from Google again, and then no more, no further bumping from Rumble, and no further replying from Google until the day of the debate, where Rumble doesn't

A good job of kind of putting in the right keywords. Maybe it was Breaking Points and we put in the.

Right GOP debate kind of parameters that that like juiced us in there and Rumble didn't. But I think the other I think I think that Google might be forgetting is that antitrust law is wildly up for grabs at this point. And if you get a Trump appointed lawyer and you have Rumble as the victim or complainant, better look out. You're gonna They're gonna side with Rumble.

Period.

Your video is fantastic.

Actually, speaking of YouTube, a bunch of you are probably watching this on YouTube, and you guys have probably noticed we post three or four clips from our show every day. The rest of those go out either on the podcast, which you can get anywhere, or to premium subscribers. And so we want to thank all of the premium subscribers who are going to Breakingpoints dot com and giving their hard earned money. My annual subscription re up the other day. It was kind of funny to see on my phone

I like that you subscribed.

So it's actually telling that Ryan's annual subscription just reupped because we're at a That's.

Right, it was when I came over.

Like mine was in June because I'm loyal. Ryan's was in September because he's It's tough.

It's in the media.

It's tough because all of your friends have books and have and you will. You're not going to make it to the end of the month if you don't lie about supporting some of them.

Yes, absolutely, but in all seriousness, we've been here part of the Breaking Twicks team.

Oh gosh, supsac is another level.

And then you add locals and Patreon and it's just it's simply too me.

But anyway, this is a high priority. Yes, that's why I give it.

Why you should too.

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We really appreciate that. It means the world to us and it helps us keep doing what we do.

And we were talking yesterday about how the Pittsburgh Penguins are the only team that hand deliver season tickets to their fans that purchase them.

We got to figure out a way to do that.

But you want to do it, you don't want to do it, you want I would be happy to do it. You'd be good at that. Just Ryan Grimm shows up at your door unannounced with a link. Yeah, I don't know.

We'll have to figure that out. We'll have to figure that out. We'll work on that. Well, the whole team will grab some beers, except for Sager because he's lame, and we'll figure out how to get you those passcodes to your door. But in the meantime, make sure to subscribe. Thank you so much for watching, and have a great week.

See you next week,