Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 01/31/23: Debt Ceiling Fight, Elizabeth Warren Vs. Kamala, DeSantis Campaign, Big Pharma Corruption, CNN Ratings PLUMMET, Used Car Market & MORE!

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss updates with the debt ceiling standoff, Elizabeth Warren endorsing Biden 2024 but not Kamala, DeSantis campaign taking shape, Big Pharma corruption on a widely used drug, CNN ratings plummet even further, used car market seeing dramatic downturn, updates with Ukraine, and Mr. Beast curing 1000 people's blindness.Timestamps:Debt Ceiling: (0:00)2024: (23:23)Big Pharma: (38:53)Used Car Market: (51:25)CNN: (01:00:57)Saagar: (01:10:47)Krystal: (01:21:41)To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it means the absolute world to have your support. What are you waiting for? Become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of interesting things that we are looking at this morning. We have new polling about what Americans say is the number one problem in the country. You might be surprised. It has changed recently. We also have news about how Wall Street is positioning themselves for this debt ceiling showdown. Long story short, they're feeling kind of comfortable because they think they'll get paid, even if veterans, seniors, the poor, whatever, do without. They think bondholders are going to get theirs front of the line. So we'll talk about all of that. We also have some kind of interesting 2024 news. First of all, Ron DeSantis assembling a team.

We'll take you inside of that. But also some question marks around whether Kamala Harris is going to be on the ticket with Joe Biden. So some little inside dirt there. We also have a just shockingly horrific story about the way that big pharma gouges consumers, gouges the U.S. government. I mean, listen, none of this is going to be surprising to you, but the scope and scale of what we're going to detail for you is truly horrifying. Also, some huge fallout in the used car market. As you know, during the pandemic, used car market was through the roof. I mean, you could barely get your hands on these things.

It's impossible. Companies like Carvana just took off, skyrocketed, taking in all this capital, making big acquisitions. Well, now, not to use a bad pun, the wheels are coming off of the industry and some major potential fallout there. Also, speaking of fallout, things not going so well for our friends at CNN. Some of the worst ratings that they have had in history, the new shuffling of the lineup doesn't seem to be working out for them. And the new head of CNN, Chris Licht, just gave a new interview revealing some of the details of his plans and how he thinks that things are ultimately going. But let's go ahead and start with what is going on with regard to the debt ceiling. Let's go ahead and put this first element up on the screen.

So this is the first part before we get to the debt ceiling. ceiling, how Americans are feeling about our country, about our government. New polling from Gallup asking citizens what is the most important problem in the U.S. Now, up until recently was inflation. Now it has switched amid concerns about that debt ceiling, potentially fallout from the messy Kevin McCarthy leadership fight. Now you have the government slash poor leadership as the number one issue that voters cite as problems facing the U.S. Inflation now comes in second. Immigration now comes in third. And economy in general coming in fourth. Now, I do kind of look at these things and I'm sort of like, well, inflation, the economy in general, like you could kind of put those two together and say, OK, the economy overall is still the

number one problem. But I do think it's significant that over just the past month, you've had a significant uptick in the number of Americans saying that the biggest problem facing the country is the government itself. Also, by the way, in terms of how people are feeling about the economy, you've got more than four in five U.S. adults rating economic conditions in the country as only fair or poor. This is especially relevant given the fact that the Biden team thinks they're going to run on the strong economy. When four in five adults say the economy is not strong at all, it's fair or poor. So that's important to note. You also still have 72 percent of Americans saying the economy is getting worse. Only 22 percent say that it is improving. Four percent say that it is

staying the same. And back to what Americans think is the biggest problem facing the country. You know, there is some unity between the parties, at least in the top issue. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So government ranks as the top problem for both Democrats and Republicans, and they throw in their Republican-leaning independents, Democratic-leaning independents. So for Republicans, it's 24% cite government as the biggest problem. Democrats not that far behind, though, at 18%. From there, the list diverges somewhat. Inflation is the number two issue for both Republicans and Democrats. For the Republican side, it is tied with immigration. Then from there, you have some divergence. You have economy

in general. Again, that's one is shared. But Democrats more concerned than Republicans on unifying the country and race relations. But pretty remarkable when you have both Democrats and Republicans saying the government is the biggest problem. Now, they probably mean very different things when they say that. It is, you know, a sort of like very general term. You could be criticizing any number of aspects of the government. But I think in general, the sense that, you know, we're headed to this showdown, things are messy, they're not delivering for me, they're not able to get their act together and really deliver for the American people is shaping this view. What I found most interesting about it was the percent increase. So in November to December during the midterms and almost in the immediate

aftermath, it was people who were saying that the government was at 15% saying that it was their top most important problem. And actually they had the economy in general and inflation above it. But then you have the percent change so dramatically from 15 to 21 percent, just dramatically coming all the way up to the top. And like you said, I'm not so sure how exactly you can rate that. You could look at it maybe from a Democrat's perspective. You're like, well, the government's now the problem because the Republicans took over the House. Maybe that's it. They look at the speakership fight. Same with the Republican Party. They could say, well, now the government is especially more the problem because we had an election and the Democrats still controlled the Senate. So now we have a pure gridlock and that means nothing is going to happen.

I think it probably goes a level deeper than that on a bipartisan level. And it's been two years. I got the news yesterday that Biden's going to end the pandemic in May. I'm like, okay, well, I guess it didn't even know needed to be ended. But legally, that stuff matters. I think there's just a general sense of malaise of the last three years have just been horrible. And whenever you have bad leadership, two years in a row, bipartisan, different houses, and all that changing, and nothing actually does change whenever it's probably called for more than ever in modern history, at least since what, 9-11? And then you look at it and nothing has really gotten done. And we can't really agree on anything. The partisanship seems worse than ever. Intractable problems seem just as intractable.

You have no choice but to say it is the government. And I don't know what to do with that information. I think it's actually very sad. I think it is, too, especially as someone who believes in, you know, an ideal functioning government as an important force in American life and in global life as well. You know, as I think about situating it in this exact context, I do think there's something about the specifics of the moment where, you know, number one, there were some things that did get done when you had Democratic control. You had the CHIPS Act. You had, you know, the burn pit legislation. You had the Inflation Reduction Act. You did have a few, you had the bipartisan infrastructure deal. You did have a very limited bipartisan gun deal even. So you did have some limited things happening. Now there's an expectation before the next presidential election, nothing is going to happen except for, you know, a potentially catastrophic default on the debt. A lot of

partisan, you know, showdowns and haggling, you know, these sort of like witch hunt type committees to look at Hunter Biden, but never to examine anything that Trump or his people ever did. And so I think there is that sense setting in. And I think there's a real warning in here for both Republicans and for Democrats. I mean, number one, listen, the politics of how this is going to work with some sort of debt ceiling hostage taking situation, which it seems like we are inevitably headed towards because that is the deal Kevin McCarthy made with the holdouts in his caucus, people are not going to be impressed with you taking the country to the edge and potentially over. So I think there is a micro timeline, major warning for Republicans in the direction that they're headed in.

But, you know, when you have these increasingly negative feelings about the government overall, and this is what we've seen over the past 40 years, you know, that is a really bad situation for Democrats who tend to be more the party of government to be in. So in this micro battle, it might work out poorly for Republicans. But overall, you lose the specifics of who did what and who was to blame over time. And the general sense that is left is just the government fails. The government doesn't work. The government cannot work. And again, I body that can check the gigantic influence of corporate dominance in American society. There is no other institution that can make sure, you know, food is safe and water is clean and the basics of what citizens should

expect out of life are ultimately met. So that's kind of how I look at it. Also, just the level of small d democratic input. It's like, well, what impact can we have on the Exxon CEO and gas prices? Actually, none. What do you have whenever it comes to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and our foreign relations with Russia? A lot. And as we have found out over the last year or so, well, that is going to have a very major impact on our consumer prices, whether we like it or not. So you can hate the government, but the government is still going to think

quite a lot about you. So I would always behoove people to think about the government. Yes, indeed. All right. So let's talk a little bit more about the debt ceiling. This is a really, really important piece because ultimately, you know, in these various showdowns, the thing that really forces these politicians to the table is when the donor set gets unhappy and default is if Wall Street is putting a lot of pressure on all of the politicians that they have bought, saying this is going to be bad for us, this is going to be bad for the economy. Well, there's quite a bit of new reporting that says, actually, Wall Street is kind of chilling. They're not worried about this at all. Why? Because they think, even if there is a default, that they, as bondholders, will be in line to get their payments first. So they're

looking at this state of affairs and going, this has no skin off my back. I'm still going to get mine, even as, you know, who knows what's going to happen with Social Security payments, payments to veterans, you know, basic welfare, children's health insurance, all of these critical programs that ordinary people rely on. Well, those are in jeopardy. They don't care about that. Go ahead and put this up on the screen from Politico. Here's what they say. They say Wall Streeters break with Biden on the debt limit. In this report, they say that these Wall Street bankers are, quote unquote, banking on the Treasury Department's ability to prioritize payments so that bondholders keep getting paid with the limited cash available. Such a move would hypothetically, potentially, avoid a global market crash given that treasuries are the bedrock of the international financial

system. The global chair of research at Barclays says most investors who follow this closely are very aware the U.S. will not default on its bond. So again, translation, we're going to get paid, so we're not that worried about it. Now, there's a lot of pushback on this idea that you can just go ahead and pay the bondholders and not worry about the other stuff, and it won't technically be a default. Treasury Secretary, former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told this Politico reporter that this notion is intellectually bankrupt because the minute that you have the U.S. government not meeting its obligations, whether it's to bondholders or to anyone else, you are technically in default. And you're also in uncharted territory in terms of what the financial fallout is ultimately going to be. So what I have heard is that this is a real scenario that would happen with the debt ceiling. The reason why is even if Congress does not appropriate funding

to the government, the government has all kinds of revenue sources. So for example, let's say this is all going down in the summer. Well, guess what? They just banked a ton of tax revenue during tax season. Also people who pay on a quarterly basis. So they can use that revenue to pay some obligation. So they actually do have some discretionary authority because that's not congressionally appropriated money. That's money that's coming in via taxes. Now what? And that's why the Wall Streeters are feeling very comfortable because they think that what Treasury Department will do is in a bid to prop up at least some of the global financial system, they're going to hit the bondholders first and not pay out VA benefits. The list goes on forever, like pensions,

in terms of health services, Medicare, many of these things which are discretionary spending within the budget, where the Treasury Department is actually much wonkier on what they can and can't do, as opposed to these independent agencies, which happen to benefit the disproportionately rich in the Wall Street. Yes. And Wall Street. And this is something we've been talking about since the beginning of, you know, during the Kevin McCarthy showdown and all of this. This was one of the things that Republicans were talking about is we're going to come up with our plan of how we're going to prioritize payments. So if there's not enough money coming in, we're going to come up with a plan of how to prioritize all of the, it's like 10 million

payments that have to go out from the federal government. We're going to decide who are the winners and losers in this ultimate battle to come. Now, the last time we faced a debt ceiling showdown was like 2011, 2012. They came up with some theoretical, okay, if we hit the wall, if we go over the ledge, what is this going to look like? How is this all going to work out? So they have kind of been through this intellectual exercise before, but it has never actually come to implementing this plan. And, you know, there's a big difference between theoretically having this list of 10 million payments and how it's all going to work and actually coordinating that and making it happen. Not to mention, OK, even if they're able to pull off that incredibly technically complex feat, again, you don't know how the global financial system is going to react

to the fact that the U.S. government is not meeting all of its obligations, even if it is meeting the obligations of the bondholders. It is disgusting and immoral that the economic royalists would get paid first while you have veterans who are not getting their benefits or old people who are starving because they're not getting their social security checks on time, et cetera. So it is still a disastrous situation. It's just not one that Wall Street is particularly concerned about. New York Times has similar reporting. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. They say Wall Street is counting on a debt limit trick that could entail trouble.

If the debt limit is breached, investors expect Treasury to put bond payments first. It would be politically and practically fraught. One former chief economist to Republican Senator Rob Portman, who went through this exercise back the last time that we were talking about these sort of debt limit fights, said prioritization is really default by another name. It is not defaulting on the government's debt, but it is defaulting on its obligation. But another analyst at Bank of America says that prioritization is the linchpin of calmness. Markets will come to expect a prioritization plan much more than they did back in 2011. And so you really have a mix of views on this,

on whether it's feasible at all, on whether it will actually calm global markets. But it seems as of now, most of Wall Street is kind of relaxed about this prospect, which again, the reason that matters is because these are people who, like it or not, have disproportionate influence in Washington. And so if they aren't pushing people to find a resolution to this and make sure that we don't ultimately default, that is another chip in favor of, you know, we may actually go over the ledge here and it could be a gigantic mess and a disaster. Yeah, it's important that we all, you know, we were talking about this yesterday with Jeff Stein. It's like, oh, this could all seem like doom and gloom. Like, listen, we're close. You never know how close we're going to get. And we, you know, I'm actually

going back and reading. Bob Woodward wrote a pretty good book about the 2011 debt crisis. I'm trying to become as familiar as I am with the exact decision points. We came pretty damn close to a default the last time around. We actually had some degrade in our debt, downgrading in our debt that had some pretty big impacts at the time on financial markets. One of the only reasons that we were really able to rescue ourselves out of it is that we were in a zero interest rate environment. So that whenever we came out, things had a bit of a malaise on the way back up in this, quote unquote, fake economic recovery that Obama touted in 2012. Now, we don't have the same cushion that we had at that time. So, you know, going off the edge, like you always point to Britain, who the hell

knows where you end up? You really have no idea what the consequences could look like. Yes, that's exactly right. And if you are someone who is concerned about the debt and the interest payments that are going out, well, having some sort of default and bondholders demanding a premium means those interest costs are going up and you're actually going backwards now in terms of the goals that you are at least pretending to uphold. There's one other piece of this, which is, you know, sort of moving target and interesting, which is that Republicans have decided they want to have this fight. They've decided they want to have this showdown over the debt ceiling to cut spending, even though, you know, during the Trump administration, they didn't care. But now that it's a Democrat in the White House, they do care. So the dirty secret is they don't agree working behind the scenes to try to hash out what their demands would be to raise the debt limit.

Do we have this guy's A5 that we can put up on the screen from CNN? Here we go. New Republicans weigh debt ceiling demands ahead of McCarthy Biden meeting. Group of hardliners met Friday as they weigh options on major cuts to domestic, a trim to defense, but don't want to touch Social Security and Medicare. Okay. Well, guess what, guys? If you are going to cut as much as a lot of these hardliners want you to cut, it is very difficult to do that without touching entitlements ultimately. I mean, the math just really doesn't work out that well. Social Security alone takes up about 21% of the federal government spent in the last fiscal year. Healthcare programs, namely Medicare, Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program, and Affordable Care Act subsidies account for about

25% of the budget. So already you're talking about about half of the budget between healthcare, social security, and then the rest of the budget goes to a range of discretionary domestic programs, including 13% for defense and national security. So you add defense into the mix and you're getting close to like, you know, you're up over well over half of the budget. And these are all items that many parts of the Republican caucus are saying, no, no, no, we don't want to touch any of that. Okay, well, where are the cuts are going to ultimately come from? So we'll see if they're able to work that out. And then the other, there were two other pieces in this CNN article that were really noteworthy to me, Sagar.

First of all, I didn't realize there were a few members of the Republican caucus who were just saying they will not raise the debt ceiling under any circumstance. Just totally no to any, even if they get all the cuts or whatever they want. No, we will not vote to raise it, which to me seems utterly ridiculous and insane, to give you a sense of what McCarthy is dealing with on that side. And the other thing that I thought was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in my life, the quote-unquote problem solvers caucus, this is like the, you know, bipartisan corporatist caucus that they were like, you know, this is Gottheimer and Saltax, that crew. They have a potential contingency plan. They're working on a proposal that would, in part, try to set a ratio for the allowable amount of U.S. debt

compared to the country's GDP and develop a plan for budget cuts if that level is breached. The group is consulting outside experts to help draft the proposal. Now, that might sound reasonable in theory. However, think about the situation you're in. If the GDP is going backwards, that means you're in a recession. A recession is the time when you need to prime the pump and spend a little more money so that people can get the economy rolling again. Instead, what this plan would require is that you cut spending, likely thereby deepening the recession, likely thereby forcing even more cuts to spending in a downward doom loop. That's what these idiots are trying to put on the table for us. So just

really galaxy brain thinking all the way around. Yeah. I mean, overall, I just think that people aren't paying as much attention because we're still a couple of months away. But the initial shape of the fight is beginning to take place. And some of the negotiation around who gets paid, what, what can realistically be cut, et cetera. That's why we're spending so much time just because it could have a huge impact on all of us, really. Government services, I mean, a lot of things really could shut down. I've even seen speculation, the FAA itself, all flights could be grounded if we went into a debt. It's one of those completely unprecedented areas. And you can't even imagine the trillions of dollars that it could wreak on the economy

if we do go over the line. Yeah, because people hear like, oh, discretionary spending. Well, you probably got there. And then you realize that that includes like the FAA budget and it means that airplanes don't fly or, you know, I mean, or there are no food inspections and now the baby formula is tainted again or whatever. So it sounds in theory like, oh, I'm sure we could cut here and there. But in reality, some of these programs are incredibly crucial to the functioning of American life that we don't even really realize, not to mention the global financial fallout. So last thing I'll say on this, why we're covering it, why it's important, why there's a real possibility, no one knows what percent,

that we end up in a sort of catastrophic situation is because it really seems like none of the political actors here have an incentive to change their initial negotiating position. If you're Kevin McCarthy and you back down on the debt ceiling, your speakership is over. I mean, really clear for him. For the sort of hardliners in his caucus, I mean, their whole like clout and cred, et cetera, is from posturing as these kind of kamikaze maniacs. So they're definitely not going to back down because it would go against their entire identity and brand. On the Biden side, I think, you know, justifiably their view and they learned some from the 2011 crisis, too, is we are not going to negotiate with hostage shers. We're not going to give in to your demands when you are, you know, unreasonable and just using this hijacking the global economy to try to force on the public something that you could not achieve through Democratic means. And, you know, I think that's a reasonable position.

I also think that the Democratic base would be disgusted if there was some sort of a deal cut with the Biden White House on Social Security, Medicare, these other, you know, entitlement spending. So, you know, they aren't really positioned to to back down either. And then when you add to the mix, Wall Street basically like now we're cool with it. It's fine. You end up with a really disturbing situation. So, listen, we've been to these deadlines and walls before. They've found a way to work through it, and it hasn't resulted in a total catastrophic collapse. But there are reasons to be concerned this time that it is worth keeping our eye on. Yep. I really hope that it works out. All right. Let's talk about the latest. 2024 is upon us, and there are new news articles popping up about whether or not Kamala Harris really has what it takes to continue as vice president, as Joe Biden's pick for vice president. Let's go and put this up on the screen from the Washington

Post. It's always noteworthy when you get elite media like the Post or the Times writing these types of stories, because that means that political elites are basically planting these stories with the Post and with other outlets. Headline here, some Democrats are worried about Harris's political prospects. At a pivotal point in Biden's term, many party activists are not sure the vice president has shown she is up to winning the top job. And of course, obvious context here is when you're talking about Joe Biden being potentially, you know, if he wins reelect, 86 years old at the end of his next term, there's a real question whether he even makes it through that term. Then she would step right into

that top job. And if he does make it through that term, she would be the obvious like next in line to take the helm as the Democratic nominee. So in this article, they interviewed all of these like state level party activists and something like a dozen of them offered concerns about, you know, whether or not she is up to the task. They say such concerns about Harris's political strength were repeated often by more than a dozen Democratic leaders in key states interviewed for the story, some speaking on the condition of anonymity to convey candid thoughts. To give you one example of the type of concerns that are being raised, the former chair of the Cobb County Democrats in Georgia, I think this individual just stepped down, said people are poised to pounce on anything,

any misstep, any gaffe, anything she, Kamala, says. And so she's probably not getting the benefit of the doubt. She said they don't know enough about what Kamala is doing and added, quote, it doesn't help that she's not that adept as a communicator. So these are people who, you know, are hardcore Democratic partisans, are inclined to be in Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's camp, you know, believe in the power of like representation politics and Kamala Harris being there as the potential first black woman president. But they have watched how this has unfolded for her and they have not been particularly impressed and they are concerned about whether or not she could ultimately win

and ultimately handle the job. So the fact that you have this much discontent within the Democratic, the sort of like party establishment of the Democratic Party voicing these concerns in the Washington Post, picking it up and running with it is a very interesting. Yeah, we always pay attention to this. Why? Because what matters is the internal chatter and what's being leaked. And what's obviously being leaked are people close to the White House who have watched how terrible and unpopular that she has remained in the polls all throughout the Biden presidency.

I mean, she's probably been one of the least liked vice presidents in modern times. I mean, I really think you'd have to go all the way back to Dick Cheney. Even then, you know, Republicans actually liked Dick Cheney, at least a lot of the base did. It doesn't seem that Democrats particularly feel all that enthusiastic. I think Dan Quayle is probably the best example. And again, that's not even in my lifetime that that happened. That's how far back we'd have to think to somebody who is so unpopular and actively a drag on the ticket for a sitting president of the United States and just a lack of political skill. That's the problem that they

face here. But how are they going to get out of it? I just think, look, I think this is all Washington talk at the end of the day. How do you ditch her? The black woman, you can't do anything about it. That's right. I think that's exactly right. They put themselves in a trap of their own making. And the person who told Joe

not to pick Kamala was actually his wife, Jill. Yes, and she was on. She was totally right about it. I'm sure now he's like, damn, I should have listened to her. But I agree with you. I don't see how they back out of it.

I would not be surprised if it was Pete Buttigieg and Liz Smith and his camp who are planning some of these stories, trying to drive a wedge that, or exposing a wedge that really already exists. And I think the way that the Democratic Party, like these local county chairs and whatever, the way they feel about it and the way a lot of the Democratic base feels about both Joe and Kamala is a level of personal warmth. It's not like they despise them, but deep concerns about whether they are actually up to the task to win again. And remember, Joe Biden's whole case in 2020, the whole reason he is there is because of

electability. This is a front of top of mind concern for the Democratic base. It is the thing they care about seemingly more than anything else. And so when you see the fumbling performances from Joe, when you see the fumbling performances with Kamala, it really strikes at the core of what their key concern is for the future of the Democratic Party. We also noted this. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has certainly proven herself to be a highly political animal, was asked about a Biden candidacy. And she was very, you know, very clear that she supported Joe Biden for running for another term and was behind him for the next time around. But then she got asked about whether Kamala Harris should be on the ticket as the vice presidential nominee again. Let's take a listen to what she had to say.

Speaking of you're having run for president, should Joe Biden run again for president? He'll be 86 by the time the second term is over. Yes, he should run again. And he is running again because he has gotten a tremendous amount done. It's been two years. He's had the skinniest possible majority in the United States Senate and only a very small majority in the House. And yet look at what we've done. If he's that old in a second term, that vice presidency becomes even more important. Should Kamala Harris be his choice the second time around? You know, I really want to defer to what makes Biden comfortable on his team. I've known Kamala for a long time. I like Kamala. I knew her back when she was an attorney general

and I was still teaching and we worked on the housing crisis together. So we go way back, but they need, they have to be a team. And my sense is they are. I don't mean that by suggesting I think there are any problems. I think they are. So anyway, she really hedges there. She won't really say, well, whatever Joe feels comfortable with, I'm not going to really say. Now, after the fact, she did kind of come in and try to do a cleanup job. Okay. Well, revealing moment there. Yeah. Very revealing. What do you think? Do you think that she's going to do? She thinks she thinks that she could still do it. She's so delusional. Yeah. She might. How could you possibly? She really might. I mean, just remember, like part of the reason why going back to the, my 2020 Democratic primary trauma, part

of the reason that she like held out and stabbed Bernie in the back and all of that was because she was like imagining that she was going to be the vice presidential pick, which was always fanciful. And then she thought maybe she'd get like a cabinet pick or whatever, also fanciful. And so, you know, ends up she was wrong about all of those things. And she's still in the Senate, which is a perfectly fine and important place to be. But she she has demonstrated that level of delusion before. So it wouldn't surprise me. Yeah. I mean, I just looked it up. She's 73 years old. Spring chicken in Senate years. In Democratic politics. In normal years. That's pretty old. And, you know, I was thinking I was like, well, maybe this is her last chance.

I mean, this is basically the last shot that you have at higher elected office, realistically, if you look at an actual Oriel table. So maybe this is the right time, even though it is, what, a 0.01% chance or whatever of it actually happening. I mean, OK, number one, they're not ditching Kamala because they can't get around the trap that they made it for themselves and the way that they've set up, you know, identity politics as central with the Democratic base. So that's number one. Number two, even if in some crazy scenario, Kamala steps aside or whatever happens, they're not picking Liz. They're picking Pete. They're picking Pete. I mean, he's the one he's a kiss ass extraordinaire. He's positioned himself with the donor class. And I mean, one thing that we noted, like in New Hampshire, he's now actually beating Biden, which is gross for a million reasons that Pete is on top.

It is also a tremendous sign of weakness with Biden. But if they're looking at it and they were actually thinking about, OK, who would we pick for vice president? They would look at these sort of polls and imagine that, OK, Pete would bring something to the ticket here. Ultimately, I remember Joe said before, basically, he wanted to build a bridge to the Pete Buttigiegs of the world. So, yeah, I think Elizabeth Warren, if that is the delusion she's harboring under, it is quite astonishing on a number of levels and fanciful on a number of levels. Good luck. That's all I have to say. Yeah. All right. We also have some news from the Republican side that we can bring you this

morning. It looks like Ron DeSantis is increasingly positioning himself to take a crack at the White House this time around. Let's go ahead. And we had reports from Politico and The Washington Post about the team that he is assembling here in Politico.

They've got meet Ron DeSantis's inner circle and they just kind of go down through the list of who the top advisors are and who is being lined up for what position moving forward. I don't really know any of these people, so I don't know if anybody stuck out to you in particular. Not in particular.

I mean, some of the names, like we don't have like the biggest heavy hitters, but you have people who have been kind of around the scene for a long time. Phil Cox is the only one I have any like direct relationship with from the past. Pretty seasoned, kind of a communications guy. He's a campaign general consultant.

The rest of them- Former executive, they say, of the Republican Governors Association. So that's like a high level- From what I hear, the most influential person in the DeSantis world is Casey DeSantis, is his wife. Almost everything that I've heard is that she is the one driving his presidential ambitions to the extent that there are any that are involved and kind of very tightly managing his image.

She featured prominently in a lot of his ads. By all accounts, they have a very, very close relationship and they're kind of a unit the way that they think of themselves. They aren't very trustworthy. They don't let a lot of people in. That is actually kind of a problem just because, I've said this before, he doesn't have really a lot of people that are around him in the same way. The biggest name that actually jumped out to me was Miriam Adelson because that is an endless pile of money. Miriam

Adelson, for those who don't know, is Sheldon Adelson's wife. He's since died that he was the casino magnate. I think he was like the Las Vegas Sands chairman. I think he's worth like 40 something billion dollars. She is incredibly active in Republican politics and has been for a long time. Her own personal views almost perfectly align with Ron DeSantis. So to see that on there as a connection, as somebody outwardly floating herself, and she was kind of pro-Trump, or at least Adelson was, had a long relationship with Trump because of the casino world. For her to go with DeSantis this early on, that was actually the biggest deal for me because they need a lot of money. And if you want to do that, he's got Miriam Adelson and Ken

Griffin. I mean, Ken Griffin is worth like $30 billion. I just talked about $70 billion in wealth that you can tap right there. Yeah. So he has like an endless well of deep-pocketed, I mean, Ken Griffin is worth like $30 billion. I just talked about $70 billion in wealth that you can tap right there. Yeah, so he has like an endless well of deep-pocketed. I mean, you only need one, really, like multi-multi-billionaire who's all in for you. And he has at least a couple here on hand. So that is noteworthy. Let me go ahead and put the Washington Post piece up on the screen. Similar reporting, they say, advisors to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis actively preparing for a possible presidential run. They're exploring staff options. Phil Cox,

who you just mentioned, and Janera Peck involved in ongoing talks about 24 expected by some to play a role in the run. Potential early state hires also identified. And so, like I said, Cox was former executive director of the RGA. So that's a relatively well-known person. And Gennaro was a key member also of DeSantis' 2022 reelect team. They both were ultimately. So those are people he like, you know, brought on. They were involved in the reelect and now probably going to help run a presidential campaign.

One last piece that I saw here just this morning is it's about FEC report time. So, you know, candidates and potentially they have to file these financial disclosure reports showing how much money they've raised, what they spent on, et cetera, et cetera. And so it's the end of January and Trump is going to have to file one. And apparently the fundraising numbers are going to be pretty weak. So we talked yesterday about how Trump was doing these lower key events in New Hampshire, a low key event in South Carolina. And this they were portraying as an intentional strategy of like, oh, we're harboring our resources and we're doing things a little different this time.

In reality, it may be a bit of a sign of financial weakness that they just don't really have the funds, not that they couldn't stage the rallies and don't have the money to do it, but that it would be a more significant strain on their resources. And that's the real reason why they're opting for these lower key events. Yeah, exactly. I mean, obviously, money is not going to be the same as 2020. Just the level of support just doesn't exist as whenever you're the sitting president. At the same time, though, I do have to wonder, I mean, what happened to all that stop the steal money, right? I mean, last time I checked, you banked some $250 million.

Actually, in a way, he did himself a disservice because he actively declared for president, which means he can no longer tap that super PAC money from Save America that they have sitting in a bank account waiting for the 2024 general election. Now he can only fund either himself, which, you know, that never happens. Donald Trump making you some NFT money that he made to fund his campaign. Some of the live golf money from Saudi Arabia. Yeah, why not some live golf money?

Transferred on over there. Or you have to go and you have to do smaller campaign events. I actually think, though, that Trump is at his best whenever he's in the small contingent, flying by the seat of his pants. The more consultants and RNC types that all get involved, the worse off that he is. I mean, the 2016 campaign was a bunch of clowns. Trust me, I literally know these people. They are some of the least sophisticated political operators ever. That said, that's what he needs. He needs somebody who really doesn't restrain him. It workedrain him. Yeah. I mean, I think Hillary outspent him like 10 to 1. So it's not like money even matters all that much. He had more money than God in the 2020 election.

He still got beat by some accounts. He outraged Biden in the early days of the campaign. So a lot of this I just take with a grain of salt. Does it matter at all? It's more like the message of the candidate. He's going to get a ton of earned media no matter what. And honestly, what's he most comfortable in i think this is his like natural habitat yeah i've always thought he looks more comfortable on trump force one than he does an air force one

yeah so for him to be back on his plane the familiar band back together it makes sense we'll see i mean the question mark is whether in the interim listen 2016 2015 that was a long time ago at this point and this man has been in a presidential bubble of his own making for quite a long time and seems to have lost a bit of his touch that he had back then. So is he able to get that feel back? There have been a couple signs of it. You know, his coming out really hard on you will not touch Social Security, Medicare and the debt ceiling thing. That was one sign of it. I would say his positioning himself in terms of the Russia-Ukraine war is another sign of it. Abortion. Abortion. Absolutely. I mean, even before the midterm results came out, because that, you know, that you could rationalize is like, OK, he's trying

to cover his own ass and just pit it on like it was abortion that was the problem in the midterms, not me. But the reporting is immediately after Roe was overturned, he knew this was a problem for Republicans. He knew this was a problem for Republicans. He knew this was really bad for Republicans. So he does have a little bit of that. You get glimpses still of that little bit of like normie sensibility that is lacking in many other corners of the Republican Party. So we'll see if he can recapture any of that original magic. Yeah. Well, I'm semi-doubtful, but I think that the ingredients are possibly there. Let's go to the next one here. This is a really interesting story, and this is one that I think

highlights something that a lot of you have shown quite a bit of interest in. Big pharma and how they make a ton of money with the U.S. government's help, with lawyers, and with regulations. So this is probably the best example so far from a big investigation. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Quote, how a drug company made $114 billion by gaming the US patent system. They specifically, for years, delayed competition for its blockbuster drug at the expense of patients and of taxpayer with the monopoly that is about to end. So this goes back to a drug that some of you might have even taken before. It's called Humira.

In 2016, it was poised to become a lot less valuable because the key patent on this anti-inflammatory medication, which is used to treat stuff like arthritis, was expiring at the end of the year. Regulators had actually blessed already a rival version of the drug, and more copycats were already willing to come as the patent was about to expire. This was going to push down the medication, and I'm not

kidding here, its actual sticker price, $50,000 per year. So how did Humira and the manufacturer actually do this? Well, they blocked the competitors from entering the market and actually over the next six years continued to continue the price rise. And today, this drug is the most lucrative in the history of the entire pharmaceutical industry. So what they did is they used their monopoly power to orchestrate a delay by building all this intellectual property protection around its drug and then suing would-be competitors before them settling with them to continue delaying their product launches. So even though they knew they were going to lose, they used IP law, patent law, and legal chicanery to continue suing them pushing things into active litigation

delaying the release of the drug and then doing it for a year and delaying it because every year is printing so many billions for the entire company 114 billion now at this point the current sticker price of the drug is 80 000 a year a year, which they continued. Remember this, they had 50 as the most lucrative drug in history. So they know it's going to end. So what do you do whenever you have a limited monopoly and they know the time is going to expire? Eventually, you just keep jacking the price of that drug up significantly. It's now up over 60% from one of its original, and it's actually increased 30 times in the life cycle of the entire drug, including just 8% this month. And by doing that, you just print ungodly amounts of money. I mean, it really is difficult to actually even wrap your head around what $114 billion actually is from a

single drug. And then when you also consider, we're talking about anti-inflammatory and like, look, I don't want to go all Instagram health here, but let's just say there's a hell of a lot of inflammation in the United States. A lot of people have arthritis, a lot of people do not eat well, and a lot of people turn to drugs and doctors in particular are not going to tell you a lot about anti-inflammatory foods or any of the other things that you can do on your own. And instead, they're going to go ahead and prescribe you this drug. Maybe by the time you get the drug, it's just too late at that point.

Or maybe you just congenitally have arthritis, any one of these other conditions. So you actually need it in order to live a functioning life. In the meantime, these people earned insane amounts of money. And you have to think too about the consumers, even if you have, and I want people to understand this too. Everybody's like, oh, insurance. Everybody likes their doctor. And whenever you go to the pharmacist, you're like, thank God I have insurance. But you should think a couple of times around that. Because the insurance companies negotiate these pre-rebates with the actual pharmacies, where they pay X amount per drug, even if the production cost of that drug, if you bought it out of pocket, might be 200%, 300% less. So you think you're getting a deal,

but you're actually getting screwed. And the reason why you're getting screwed is you have a preset amount that you can actually spend on drugs per year. This is actually very common in elderly plans. So you'll have, let's say you're an elderly person, you're 65 years old, and you're like, oh my God, I got this drug, and it covers up to $10,000 per year.

And I only have to pay 2,000 out of my pocket. You don't know that you're actually paying way more than if you didn't even have insurance. You have no idea. The pharmacist is not even allowed to tell you about this. A lot of these are secret, uncompetitive agreements that are all negotiated behind the scenes. I have no idea how any of this is even legal. But there was a real human cost to this, which is people had to spend a lot of their life savings or social security checks effectively bankrolling the manufacturer of

this drug, $114 billion. Think about how much money that is. And this is a particularly egregious example because you had, for example, Medicare, which covered in 2020 the cost of this drug for 42,000 patients, spent $2.2 billion more on this drug from 2016 to 2019, so just over three years, than it would have if competitors had been allowed to offer their versions of this drug. So $2 billion just thrown out the window for this drug because of the way they were able to manipulate the patent system to their benefit. And so what I really want you to understand here is what the pharmaceutical shills and lobbyists would say is, oh, we need these patents because we're going to, you know, this is what enables us to invest all this money in life-saving research,

et cetera, et cetera. What they really spend their time on in terms of drug research, most of what they spend their money on is like new formulations, minor changes to their existing suite of highly profitable drugs. That's one thing. So like, oh, we'll have it instead of a 12-hour time release. How about we have a 13-hour time release? That enables them, by the way, to help them gain the patent system because then it's, oh, this is a new innovation. We can get a new patent on this and extend our monopoly on this product. So that's one piece. And then the other piece is the sort of lawfare that they wage in protecting

these patent regimes. So one example that they give in this article, just to give you a sense, is an early Humira patent that expired in 2016 claimed the drug could treat a condition known as, I don't know how to say this, something spondylitis type of arthritis that causes inflammation in the joints, among other diseases. In 2014, they applied for another patent for a method of treating this same type of arthritis. But the only thing that was different about this patent is they said specific dosing of 40 milligrams. And guess what? That patent application was approved, and that added 11 years of patent protection beyond 2016. Just for that one little tweak of, oh, it's not just for this particular type of arthritis. It's the 40 milligram dosage in particular. And that was considered by our legal system a sufficient innovation to justify 11 additional years of this monopoly that is costing patients

millions of dollars and costing the federal government billions of dollars on this one drug. The other thing I want to highlight here is they talk about the real world human beings who are impacted by this, and it's terrible. You have people who, you know, one of the things this treats is painful skin condition, psoriasis. There is, you know, no other drug that does what this one does to deal with what is an incredibly uncomfortable and painful condition. And so you've got people who are delaying retirement because they have to keep their health insurance to be able to afford this critical drug for themselves. You have one example where a woman was employed.

Her employer, what they did rather than authoring health insurance, they actually paid all the medical costs on a pocket. And it was costing them $70,000 a year for her prescription, which was actually more than her entire salary. So the HR department actually called her up and was like, hey, would you be open to flying to the Bahamas to get this drug from a place that has it much, much, much, much, much, much cheaper? And so that's what they ultimately ended up having to do because of our system. The amount we pay for prescription drugs, completely insane. I actually have a little bit of this in my monologue today. You have people who, you know, they were tired, who didn't realize the way the costs were going to skyrocket for them with this essential prescription.

And they just can't afford, and they're just having to go without. So there are massive human costs for this. And the lies that we're told about how these big pharma companies are just like looking out for us and investing in life- lifesaving research, it's bullshit. They're spending most of their time and money and research and efforts trying to find ways to keep their monopolies and gouge the American consumer. Makes me sick thinking about some 80-year-old lady who's not able to afford this drug. Suffering. And literally getting breakouts of sores all over her face.

You know, I mean, she's 80 years old. And or even one of the revelations here, you know, you were touching on is it actually costs more for Medicare patients. So that means that the government is directly benefiting and subsidizing quite a bit of this. It's one of the most corrupt schemes in history.

And I don't even know how to describe how evil all of it is. Let's put this up there on the screen just to make sure that we link it to something even bigger. Big pharma groups right now are actually rejoining a battle with governments on drug prices. And I love the subhead here. Tight budgets and U.S. reforms are ending after a truce between industry and health authorities. Now, what exactly was that truce? The truce was during COVID, there was obviously massive subsidization

by the US government and by many governments around the world around COVID drugs, around pharmaceutical research, around directly profiting, not only to vaccines, but you've got to think about therapeutics and many of the other extraordinary measures

that the government went to to make sure that these companies had everything they need to help fight COVID. Well, now that all of that is ending, the pharma industry is basically going and playing hardball with all of these governments, which are rightfully pulling back on their spending and on their subsidies. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We want to keep those subsidies going. We want to make sure that you're going to be spending as much as

you can. They point to a couple of examples, the same company pulling out of a major price or strict price regime in Europe after the National Health Service in the UK actually made the industry draw back some of its costs by over $3 billion. So it's a major hardball situation in terms of which companies were willing to work with some of these regimes. And it's not just here, it's literally all over the world. And you should remember here, we spend more on branded prescription drugs than any other country on earth. Some cases spending more on the same drug in this country than others, simply because they have straight up price controls over there. But it goes to the fact

that these mandatory discounts and all these things were taken away by many governments. And in many cases, they were subsidized. And now these pharma companies are fighting for their life to get even more of their profit after having this, quote, temporary truce. So this goes even deeper than this one drug. Absolutely. I mean, we pay. They have the numbers here. Overall, we pay about 2.5 times the average drug price paid by a group of 32 comparison countries.

And on name brand drugs, that disparity is even larger. We are the pharmaceutical industry's piggy bank. Individual consumers and the U.S. government are their piggy bank. They feel free to gouge us to insane degrees. And, you know, part of the problem has always been that Medicare is not allowed to negotiate with these companies on the prices of drugs. So where you have France and the UK and other countries that are like, we're not paying more than X, we're not allowed to do that. Now, they just passed legislation that would allow us on a few, this is like such a limited reform, and a handful of drugs to be able to negotiate prices. And these drug companies are freaking out even about just that incredibly moderate reform that we ultimately instituted.

So it's a racket. I mean, it really is just like a criminal racket. And you guys are, they're guinea pigs. You guys are, you're their piggy bank. They think that they can go and gouge the U.S. consumer and gouge the U.S. government endlessly and that there will never be any pushback. Why? Because they bought off so many of our politicians, people like Kyrsten Sinema, who have been like consistently making sure that any sort of reforms in this direction are completely limited. Yep, very true. All right, let's go to the next one here. Speaking of rackets, used cars. I can't be the only guy who was in the used car market over the last two years. And I was like, what the hell is going on in here?

So some of that is coming to an end. And actually, while that is some good news, if you are a consumer, it may not be the best of news for the overall car market in the United States. Let's put this up there on the screen. This guy, by the way, his name is CarDealershiphip guy on Twitter, is an absolutely fascinating follow with a lot of insight into the industry. So he says, quote, I spoke with the smart CEO of a major dealer group today. He believes that used car prices have bottomed and it's possibly only up from here. He talks about how less used car supply is in the market. Dealers are actually holding leaner inventories due to higher holding costs. Their day's supply, the average number of days

it takes to sell a used car, has significantly dropped over the last couple of months, and less supply generally does going to equal higher prices. Two is that actually new cars, and this is part of the problem, even if the used car price does drop, it was so high, and new cars being unaccessible are at record highs. So right now, even at the current price levels, used cars are still generally cheaper than a new car. It was a little bit of a flip during the pandemic. However, we're returning somewhat to normal. And then finally, there is a possible, and this is one thing I do hope for, some pent-up demand entering the market because used car prices have finished 2022 down about 15% year over year. So overall, as a consumer, it might be a good time to buy a car, although you never know, really know what's going to go on with that. But on a

bigger and a broader level is actually these used car companies, of which I'm going to be honest, I took full advantage of. Somebody, one of my cars was involved in an accident and the mechanic was like, hey man, I'm just going to tell you this as a friend. He's like, you should sell this car right now. He's like, this car is not going to last for a while after such a catastrophic accident that it was involved in. And he's like, these idiot, you know, Carvana Vroom companies, he's like, they'll buy anything. And he's like, they'll just write you a check. And he was right. So maybe it turns out that wasn't such a sustainable business model. Let's turn off the screen. The pandemic used car boom is coming to an abrupt end. And they talk about how dealerships seeing sales and prices drop as

consumers are tightening their belts and that especially companies like Carvana, which were printing money to a historic degree over the last two years, may be completely screwed. We're talking again about used car prices that are falling 14% on the year, but actually declining even more and more as the months go on. And all of that is significantly hurting their bottom line. Carvana reported a quarterly loss of more than $500 million and had to lay off 4,000 employees. In the last 12 months, they have piled up significant amounts of debt. Its stock price has fallen 95% in the last 12 months. At this point, I'm like, maybe I should buy it.

Whenever you look at that. That's not financial advice, by the way. They may be headed for bankruptcy is what it looks like, to be honest. Three states have actually suspended the Carvana operating license from consumer complaints. And what they're saying is, quote, we think there's a decent chance the company will just end up having to file for straight up bankruptcy. They have too much debt for the level of sales and profitability, can't support that debt load, and will likely need to restructure. Carvana, to be clear, says that they have sufficient funds

to turn its business around. I've heard that one before, pretty recently, actually. So who knows? This entire experiment in the used car world, it seemed like everything was changing. You could buy and sell a car online. It's not looking so good right now, Kristen. This is one of those things that people get caught up in the hype of the idea. It's got a feel of, like, a sexy idea that time has come. And they built these gigantic car vending machines that, like, you know, your car would be delivered to and then you can go and pick up. I mean, they look super cool. That's what the image, for those of you who can see on the screen, was one of these big car vending machine towers. Unfortunately, it's completely empty in a sign of the times and the

troubles for Carvana. There's kind of a deeper story here, though. Let me read you this piece because I think it reveals it connects to like the tech recession stuff and some of the other things that we've been covering. They talk about how when the pandemic forced car buyers to shop online, Carvana became a Wall Street darling. Its stock soared, reached a high of about $345 a share back in 2021. But that hoopla obscured some operational troubles. The company has never reported profit for a full year, never reported profit for a full year in the nearly decade that its shares have traded on the stock market. It has spent a lot of money to add retail locations, build those fancy towers, refine its online platform. In some markets, it has struggled to grow amidst stiff competition. And it goes on to talk about some specific

problems that they had in the Denver market. But again, when interest rates were basically zero and cash was cheap and easy, something like Carvana, which had a good story and seemed sexy and seemed like an idea that time had come, could continue to float its operations and can continue to move forward and have these insane stock market valuations based on the story. Well, now with the Federal Reserve lifting rates, the music has kind of stopped. And so now if you don't actually have a profitable business model, that is going to be a real problem for you. And adding to their troubles is the fact that they made a gigantic acquisition at sort of like the peak of, you know, the market. And that has added to a massive debt burden that has made it very

difficult for them to ultimately overcome. So it's kind of a shame because, you know, I, the idea of it is really cool. I also hate going to car dealerships. A lot of people do. They find the experience very stressful. The idea of just being able to like pick and choose at home and have the thing delivered to your door or at one of these local car vending machines. It sounds like a cool idea, but the economics of it at this point just haven't worked out. They just don't have the kinks worked out. That's why they got their license pulled in a couple of states because people are having so much trouble getting the titles to the cars that they supposedly already purchased. So not looking too good for Carvana. It's tough. I wanted Carvana to work. I wanted

Vroom to work. And look, it's because these used car dealers, they're basically legalized mob bosses. I don't know if people know this, but, you know, they did an analysis in 2019 of who the richest people in America are. So get this. 20% of people in 2019 who filed an income tax return who made more than $1.58 million, they're used car dealers. These guys are making more money than God. And it's like if you really want to be a millionaire in this country, you should be a used car dealer or a mechanic and body shop owner because nobody knows what the hell it should cost. There's all these hidden ass fees that are in there. And if you use just even some basic business sense, it looks like you can extract a hell of a lot of rent. I went deep on this. I was like, how is this possible? Why then are there not used car dealers

all over the place? There is an insane licensing regime that goes from the county, state, and business level where you both have to team up with the so-called dealer itself, right? Like the brand Honda. You got to get permission from your local county. You got to deal with some real estate guys in terms of zoning laws and all this. It's incredibly corrupt. So a lot of this is actually regulated at the state and the county level. And of course, why would any average citizen ever know about this? They're like, yeah, that's how it works, whatever. But actually, you're really getting hosed. One of the ways I learned about this was from the battles that Tesla has in terms of having to open different shops and

all that. But the more research you do, you're like, wow, this entire thing is a racket to a degree where I don't even know what an actual car should cost. Like if you were able to just buy it straight from the distributor, it might be as much as $10,000 less. It really might. They also, they have a lot of local political power. I mean, partly because they have to be able to navigate this regime and whatever, but oftentimes like your local car dealership owners are very politically connected. They're doing local donation, their state rep, their state Senator, et cetera. So anyway, they're sort of like locally, very politically powerful group. But, you know, bigger picture, one of the things we've been focused on, obviously, is the way that the Fed lifting rates has dramatically impacted our economy. We focused

a lot on the housing market and how much just a moderate increase in mortgage interest rates makes housing dramatically unaffordable, buying a home impossible for so many people. That's why the market is kind of like frozen at a standstill right now. And it's a very similar picture for car buying. The interest rates on auto loans have also gone up significantly. And in fact, there's a piece in this article where one of the owners, I think it was of CarMax, was talking about, you know, they see that people go on the website, they're looking at a car, they pick something out, they go and they calculate what that monthly payment is going to be given where interest rates are today, and they bail out. They say, I can't do it. It's not affordable anymore. So having a huge impact on the auto industry, and in particular in the used car

sales, which of course was like red, red hot during the pandemic. Red hot also matters in terms of loans and the way that also, you know, cars, status symbol in the United States. A lot of Americans buy far more cars than they actually need and they buy new cars all the time. I guess it's one of those things that we just really love to spend a lot of money on. And that's actually a big driver of consumer sales and really a lot of satisfaction people find in their lives. So how this impacts all of you is actually pretty significant, especially, you know, used cars is some 70% of the entire market. It really does matter. People don't realize that.

Okay, let's go to CNN. Couldn't help but resist this particular one. Just a hilarious new analysis of the data. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. CNN just suffered its worst ratings week in nine years. So let me just read you these numbers because they're genuinely stunning. Average across all of CNN, according to Nielsen, was 444,000 in primetime, 93,000 in the all-important age 25 to 54 news demographic,

417,000 total viewers, 80,000 in the demo for the total day. By comparison, they're doing so badly that they even look like a joke in relation to the other cable industry, which is also doing like a joke. Fox News drew a total of just 1.4 million. That would have been terrible even five years ago, and only 176,000 of them in the key demo. MSNBC notching only 629,000 total viewers, only 69,000 in the key demographic. I mean, just imagine this. At the peak of Fox, MSNBC, and CNN, not a single one of them can crack more than 250,000 people in the key demographic. Imagine a basic YouTube creator out there is getting more than 250,000 views in the key demo.

I think almost 100% of the views on this channel and of our podcast downloads, from what we are able to know, are all in the key demo. And you could probably say that about all of new media, independent media. So this is just horrific. And it doesn't make any sense relative to the amount of money that they get paid because it's a fake industry.

The entire thing propped up by these cable subscriber fees. Can you imagine if someone paid us a billion dollars just to exist? That's basically what it is. That's how their business model. It has no impact on whether people watch their stuff or not. But the funny part to me is that all of the new changes that they've made at the network, Crystal, have been a massive failure. The Don Lemon one in particular, which was supposed to revamp The Morning, they actually dropped from their originally pathetic numbers by tens of thousands of viewers in total. It is now one of the worst, most dismally rated shows in the history of cable television in the morning. And what are they going to do about it? I mean,

look, at this point, I'm not sure if it's possible. CNN CEO Chris Licht, he gave an interview yesterday to the Los Angeles Times. Let's put this up there on the screen. And this is one of those interviews you probably should just never say some of these things out loud because he was like, we want to restore trust. And the interviewer is like, what does that mean? Why exactly do you want to restore trust? And he said, well, we have a lot of data to say that trust has eroded. And you're like, wow, you're just admitting that openly. He can't really explain why, but he's like, we got to fix it because we can see in our data it's a real problem. We can see within our data that people don't trust us anymore. Of course, his solution to that was hiring Bill Maher, I guess. And putting Don Lemon in the morning.

Putting stuff that was available on YouTube for free on 1130 at night. That's an interesting strategy. We'll see if it works out. Yeah, putting Don Lemon in a hoodie up on the morning. Okay. Again, fascinating. Also, of course, you actually worked in this environment. I never have. I've only observed. They're already sniping at each other from behind the scenes. Oh, you can tell. There's strife at the show as it struggles to find its voice. You can tell they- What does that even mean? Despise each other.

Yeah, clearly. And some of that, between Caitlin Collins and Don Lemon, the fact that that's spilled out onto the air tells you it is really ugly behind the scenes. That's horrible. Because, I mean, they really, you know, obviously you're trying to be professional or whatever and try to keep that behind the scenes. So the fact that's spilling out on air at all tells you they, like,

already completely despise each other. And, yeah, the fact that there are these kinds of leaks coming out from the program about its troubles, apparently the EP that was, you know, originally on the show has already been reassigned. Already fired. Which is a major indication that they feel like this is not going well. And part of what, listen, I haven't watched it, so I don't want to claim I, like, really know the ins and outs of why it's failing and why the mechanics aren't working. But what they're talking about is the whole concept is really kind of confused, at least with the, you know, John, John Berman and Alison Camerota.

Like they had a decent camaraderie. They were able to bounce off each other. And you knew what the show was. Right. It's a political morning show. It's a news morning show with the CNN liberal slant. Like, that's what it is. Now, they're sort of trying to bring in these elements of like a Today Show kind of thing. But then it's also trying to be the, you know, CNN news politics thing that it was. And the two things just do not really mesh together. And so there's concern of like, OK, well, you're not winning the morning show watchers from today's show. That's a totally different thing. And you're not winning those people over.

And now you're in danger of losing the audience, the small audience that you did have. So, and then, you know, you put together three personalities that clearly don't like particularly like each other or vibe, which is incredibly important on television. And, you know, nobody wants to watch three people who like hate each other's guts. No one wants to watch that, except for in, like, a viral clip. That I'll watch, but as a sustainable, like, this is how I'm going to start my day. Absolutely not. So that's a disaster.

Their other big change that they are making is instead, at least this is the way I read it. I don't know. I read this, like, four times to make sure I was understanding it correct. Here's what they say. The network is going to host a standalone weekday 9 to 12 block anchored by John Berman, Kate Baldwin, and Sarah Sidner. Then they're going to have a 1 to 4 p.m. standalone block hosted by Brianna Keeler, Boris Sanchez, and Jim Sciutto. So instead of having like the individual anchors per hour, they're going to do two more giant three-hour blocks with these trios of anchors, which again, like, you know, if the vibe works out, maybe. I mean, but if any of these

people have friction or they're not able to gel together, it's going to be a disaster. I don't know. And the whole thing just has the, it's giving rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Absolutely. Not bringing in anything new, not really doing anything new. Just like, let me just reconfigure what I've got here and sell it like it's some brand new concept and we're doing something totally different when really it's just kind of the same old thing in our new, probably worse reconstituted form. Their biggest problem is, how can you go outside the form when anybody with a brain would not work within that form?

Imagine if they came to, first of all, it would never happen, but like if they came to us, all right, whoa, you should come. You're like, so we should shorten our show, give up our business, give up our independence, all to come and work for you so that we can speak in between

advertising breaks, all while having a corporate censor over your mouth the entire time. Why would we ever do that? Of course, they say money. But look, some of us value things much more than money. It's called independence and being able to say what you actually think. And there's a lot of people like that that are all in this business, none of whom would even conform to what CNN would want. And then number two, anybody that would probably be willing to go work there, well, that's not really somebody who's going to even really be able to bring an audience in the first place. The Marr thing is not a bad strategy. I mean, since he has a big fan base that does watch him on HBO and you have some of that, but I just keep coming back to, if you really want to watch,

just go on YouTube. Like, why are you tuning in live? That impetus, I just think that's gone. I think it's dead. Outside of premier prestige television, like The Last of Us, which I'm currently obsessed with.

Dying right now from the last episode. People who know what I'm talking about. Well, there's that. There's sports, which people like to watch live. And then there's if there's some major breaking news event. I mean, that's still where CNN and MSNBC and Fox News, but CNN in particular, that's where they really still have a value add because they do have this gigantic global footprint. And if you're just in a situation where the facts are coming, you're trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

You know, that's still where they are kind of like at their best. But you can't think there are going to be a lot of weeks where you don't have that gigantic breaking news tentpole type of event. And I think your initial point is the most important one and one that, frankly, all of these cable news operators are aware of, which is that their business model is a zombie shell. It does not make sense. Like if you were going to invent this thing today, it would never work. Yes. Because people would be like, I'm not paying these premium ad dollar rates for your show that nobody watches and which has like a trash reputation. I'm not paying, you know, to add you to my cable bundle, like charging my cable subscribers more to add you to my cable bundle when people

aren't even really watching. I'm certainly not paying you what they're getting paid right now. And so that's why you see all this cost cutting across the industry. I mean, in particular at MSNBC and CNN, Fox, because they have a larger audience, they have a little bit of a larger, longer timeframe, but the writing is on the wall for them as well. You know, they're trying to hold on as best they can to what they have to pare down their expenses and be able to make it work. And, you know, you can see it in this sort of like rearranging the deck chairs approach that Chris Licht is taking because you can't pay to bring in gigantic new talent. That's not going to work out. They cut the, you know, original series that CNN was paying a lot of money for those.

And frankly, they were successful. Yeah, some of them were good. But even that they, you know, they're cutting all of that out. He's saying, oh, we're going to do it in-house and it's just going to be just as good. I'm highly doubtful of that. So anyway, that's the situation that they're in.

We'll see where it all ends. Good luck. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, one of the most consequential foreign policy minds in American history is probably someone you've never heard of unless you were an international relations major, George Kennan. He was a diplomat for the United States and towards Russia, expert who after World War II became the father of containment strategy towards the Soviet Union. In a nutshell, containment was a winning argument at the time in a debate about how to handle the Soviet Union. In a nutshell, containment was a winning argument at the time in a debate about

how to handle the Soviet Union. On the one hand, you had McCarthyites and others who advocated a policy of rollback, which effectively meant confronting the Soviet Union where they were and trying to push their domination of the Eastern bloc of Europe back to the core territory of Russia. Kennan's containment strategy recognized the danger of Soviet expansionism, but struck a more defensive tone, that the policy of the United States should be, quote, but struck a more defensive tone, that the policy of the United States should be, quote, that of a long-term, patient, but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. Kennan argued that containing the Soviet Union from further expansion avoided the risk of direct confrontation, and that if pursued, would eventually cause it to break up. He was right, of course, at the time, in a debate that

could have easily led us to nuclear confrontation, and his analysis was built upon years of dealing with the Russians, both before and after and during World War II, having suffered through the trauma of watching millions of people die. Usually, though, the hagiography of Kennan in official circles, it ends right there. People who see him rightfully as one of the most important architects of the post-World War II international order and the father of containment like to disregard much of his realist tendencies, which governed his thoughts throughout his life, and especially in his thoughts of how the United States should approach Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Those of you who've been watching for a while will remember Kennan's warnings about NATO expansionism in 1997 when he wrote, quote, such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic,

anti-Western militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion, to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy, to restore the atmosphere of the Cold War to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking. Furthermore, a new biography of Kennan actually tells us even more. Kennan wrote in a private letter after the admission of the former Soviet states into NATO that, quote, nowhere does this choice appear more portentous and pregnant with fateful consequences than in the case of Ukraine. Kennan actually thought a lot about Ukraine. He warned in a series of memos throughout the Cold War that if Ukraine were to get its independence from Russia, quote, Washington should not interfere, at least initially, because,

quote, an independent Ukraine would be challenged eventually from the Russian side. Perhaps an end to this nightmare in Ukraine can be found in his prescience. He actually wrote that for any potential balance of power to work in Ukraine, that the United States should, quote, push for a composing of the differences along the lines of a reasonable federalism. He especially thought it was important for the U.S. to understand the population of greater Russians living throughout the Soviet bloc and anticipated that should breakup occur, it was important to have a genuinely representative coalition in the region. Really what strikes me in reading Kennan's words almost 75 years ago is just how much remains exactly the

same. Now, to be sure, look, he got a lot wrong. He was wrong about how quickly it would take for Ukrainian national identity to form and the ferocity of its defense when under attack. But underlying his analysis was a weary man who went to Moscow in 1933. He lived through the Stalin purges. He saw rivers of blood flow through World War II, and he was animated through his entire life of an intense desire to the end of his days to never see that happen again. In fact, at the end of the Cold War, when he really got a lot of acclaim for how containment would end the Soviet Union, he actually wrote that he thought the entire thing was avoidable in the first place. He pointed to a letter in his biographer when it was alive to a note from Joseph Stalin in 1952, which invited the then president of the United States to hold talks over the shape

of post-World War II Europe. It could have been another Potsdam conference, but the offer was rebuffed internally. In Kennan's view, that was a mistake. Why? Because he thought the United States could have avoided a lot of heartache and nuclear missile staggers if it engaged in, quote, negotiation, especially a real negotiation at the time. Kennan's biographer, Frank Castagliaga, writes of the takeaway, quote, Kennan's lesson for us in understanding the Cold War of the 20th century and in diffusing the explosive tensions of the 21st century is that seemingly intractable conflicts may be more susceptible to settlement than it may at first appear. Now, we should take no man as gospel, but a more fulsome view of what a great man, thinking about our great issues of our time, it's something we should just all consider, we should listen to. In my estimation, the debate around Ukraine today is shrouded in

a toxic discourse, where if you question for a moment American interests over Ukrainian interests, you're somehow branded as a Putin puppet. What Kennan always understood and wrote from was a reality. Russia exists. It will remain the colossus in the region, likely for centuries, even though it is economically and socially backward. That is, and has always been the case in Russia, but it doesn't erase geopolitical realities of power. Fundamentally, the debate goes to a very deep level. Should we engage with the world as it is or ignore risk to pursue what we want? A lot of people throughout history

pursue the latter strategy when they forget the reminders of what that risk actually looks like. In my opinion, we would all be better off if we just thought about the man for a little bit, just like the people who eventually defeated the Soviet Union did. They found his advice very valuable.

I thought the new biography is fantastic and a lot of the stuff I was reading about. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, the latest Mr. Beast video dropped, and it's kind of beautiful, and it's also honestly kind of brutal. In the video, you watch as Mr. Beast, whose real name is Jimmy, pays for a thousand people to undergo a simple surgery to cure them of blindness. As you watch, you see a father able to clearly view his son's face for the first time in years. You see a young man who's able to drive for the first time in his life.

You see providers able to go back to work. You see a mother in tears at having her life instantly transformed by a generous stranger. And because it's Mr. Beast, he also randomly threw in a few $10,000 giveaways, even a $50,000 giveaway on top of all of it. So you get to watch the unadulterated joy of people having crushing financial stress lifted off their shoulders in an instant. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with Mr. Beast, he's got 130 million subscribers on YouTube. He is the number one YouTuber in the entire world. And this type of random act of charity is kind of par for the

course for his content. He's famous in part for these random cash giveaways. So anyway, that's Mr. Beast. But this latest video has actually led to some backlash. You're probably thinking, what the hell? The man cured blindness for a thousand people who without him would still be suffering from visual impairment. How in God's name can that possibly be controversial? Well, here was some of the online discourse courtesy of Distractify to give you a little bit of flavor of what people were saying. Quote, if Mr. Beast truly wanted to do something good and truly cares about disabled people, he would not monetize their suffering and make them tap dance on video just so he can slap it up on YouTube. I'm tired of

having to perform gratitude for wealthy people just to stay alive. Others went even further. This person tweeted, there is something so demonic about this, and I can't even articulate what it is, and they've got screenshots from the video. Sticking with the satanic theme here, this individual really went all in, tweeting, he is literally the Antichrist. He is performing our society's equivalent of miracles through these excessive acts of faux generosity and is garnering everyone's undivided love and admiration in doing so, he will start subverting Christ's teachings next and preaching selfish action. Mr. Beast apparently literally causing that in times or something. Now, all of this is clearly pretty unhinged, not because their rage is unjustified, but because it is wildly misplaced. Mr. Beast did not create a situation where 100 million people

around the world have curable blindness, which could be fixed with this simple 10-minute surgery. In America, Mr. Beast did not architect the disgusting for-profit healthcare system that allows people in the richest country in the world to go without basic healthcare. But the Mr. Beast video, it does definitely expose a grotesque failing in our system here. It reminds me of the meme about how all those heartwarming local news stories just basically illustrate some truly dystopian element of our society. Like, here's a few examples. Heartwarming. Coworkers donate sick days, personal time off for nurse who can't work while battling leukemia. Or there's this one. I hope I make it. Seven-year-old Alabama girl selling lemonade to fund her own brain surgeries. Or getting closer to the Mr.

Beast dynamic, Brighton teacher who went above and beyond for students wins a year of rent payments on the Ellen DeGeneres show. That is nice of Ellen. I'm glad she did it. But why the hell should this or any teacher have to rely on the kindness of a TV celebrity to be able to afford their damn rent? The bottom line is Mr. Beast's blindness video should not exist. It shouldn't be necessary. And if you feel that way, by the way, Mr. Beast, he kind of agrees with you. He tweeted, I don't understand why curable blindness is a thing. Why don't governments step in and help? Even if you're thinking purely from a financial standpoint, it's hard to see how they don't ROI, return on investment, on taxes from people being able to work again. And his point

is a completely reasonable one. If the U.S. government was guided by care and concern for its citizens and a pragmatic interest in human capital investment, his logic would make perfect sense. Why wouldn't you pay for a relatively inexpensive surgery to not just ease suffering, but gain tax revenue from a more productive workforce if that's the thing you care about? What he's missing, though, is that it's not the government's bottom line that matters when it comes to the health industry. What governs policy are the profit margins of the entire health industrial complex, which spends millions to make sure that our disgusting profits over people system stays in place for all eternity. You want to talk about return on investment? We spend more than any other nation in the world on healthcare, and yet we get worse results than any other developed nation. It's disgusting. It should be criminal. All these pigs in the healthcare industry want to feed at the trough, so they will fight with everything they have to block the obvious solution, which is universal health care. It's okay to feel happy for the lucky 1,000 who

can now see clearly thanks to the generosity and the business model of a YouTuber. And it's okay to feel rage. You should feel rage at a system that puts profits over people. Mr. Beast's most popular video ever, it was actually a takeoff on the Smash Netflix series. I don't know if you guys watched the series or his video on it, but it was a takeoff on Squid Game. In the Netflix show, financially desperate people are pitted against each other in a series of murderous games for cash to the delight of wealthy elites who are gathered there to watch the whole spectacle. The last person alive wins a cash prize and a ticket out of the financial stress that made their life so miserable. They were willing to risk that life for a chance

at the cash and the relief. Effectively, their poverty was so endlessly devastating, they'd rather die than continue to live under its crushing weight. Save your rage for the architects and keepers of our American squid game, not the YouTuber who stumbled on a way to help some people within the confines of that system. And the online discourse around this was kind of interesting. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, guys, we'll see you later. As a reminder, we've got a show remotely coming in from Austin, Texas on Thursday for our live show prep on Friday.

We're excited to see all of you there. Stay tuned for the show. We've got a great count of points for everybody tomorrow morning. We will see you all later. Love you guys. See you soon. This is an iHeart Podcast.