Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/20/22: Truss Resigns, Russia vs Ukraine, Energy Policy, Midterm Races, Landlord Collusion, Corruption, & More!

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss the Chicago live show, Liz Truss resigning, Russia-Ukraine war, energy geopolitics, midterm races, FBI raiding an ABC Producer, landlord cartel, & systematic corruption!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. worthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points premium member today at BreakingPoints.com. Your hard-earned money is going to help us build for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in real time. Breaking news from our friends over there in the UK. Prime Minister Liz Truss has just resigned after only six weeks in office. She, of course, became prime minister after Boris Johnson had to resign under pressure for a whole series of scandals that he was involved in. And Sarah, I've been following this really close. I actually did a monologue here on Liz Truss and her economic plan, what they call a mini budget. Yeah.

Which had, like, eye-watering tax cuts for the rich was so sort of doctrinaire that even the, you know, the sort of financial press, the normal sort of, like, conservative economic people were like, what are you doing? The British economy nearly collapsed, pound plummeted, created all these issues with their pension funds. The Bank of England had to come in and basically bail them out because the whole thing was in free fall. I mean, they really came very close to the brink, especially because as these pension funds were having to meet margin calls, they were having to fire sale their assets, which was leading to a potential contagion throughout the entire economy. So this was a complete and total disaster. Her approval rating in the last poll that I saw had plummeted to 8%. 8%. So even, you know, people who were more friendly towards the Tories who, you know, sort of like this ideological direction in general, were like, what the hell are you doing, lady? She has then, she then had to reverse course. She fired a bunch of people. She said, okay, we're not actually going to do this, trying to stabilize things, but obviously continued to be under a lot of pressure. And now we see she has, in fact, resigned. This is the, let's see,

what are they saying? Shortest serving leader in British political history. Six weeks on the job, Sagar. Yeah, I was trying to actually think in my head. I'm like, who actually even lasts as long? No, there's some who only lasted like one or two months. But yeah, six weeks, humiliating fall from defeat. Just to reiterate that, she essentially plunged the economy into complete chaos. She had to fire several members of her cabinet, the chancellor of the Exchequer. Energy prices have been in complete chaos since they've decided to lift the cap. The economy is literally in shambles, and the Bank of England had to bail them out. At the time when it's getting colder across the UK, people are freaking out about, you know, a lot of people don't know this,

but in Britain, most of them have adjustable rate mortgages. So when interest rates jack up, well, all of a sudden they're paying, you know, 7%, 8% or whatever interest rates that they were not prepared for on top of inflation in energy. So they need some serious shock to the system. And now, from what I've read,

whoever comes next, this is going to be real tough. Because remember, there was a battle between her and a guy named Rishi Sunak in order to take over. He ended up not being able to get the amount of support that he needed. However, from what I've read, that what's especially chaotic right now is the energy situation because she actually lost a vote just yesterday when her deputy whip and chief whip actually resigned because they weren't able to deliver. That's really what helped bring down the government and show that the party was not behind her and her policy whatsoever. With Sunak though, he is ideologically a bit similar to Truss. So are they going to go in that direction? Are they going to go back to Boris? Honestly, that seems very likely. The other thing is that if they're unable to get a leader within a week, so according

to this, you know, from what I'm reading in her remarks, she said that she will remain the PM for another week until the conservative party can come up. So there is going to be some massive jockeying. Well, and they're under a lot, they will be under a lot of pressure to call a general election. You can't just like stick different leaders in that no one's voting for and have them make complete messes and think the public is just going to like accept that. And now labor, which was kind of like back on their heels, latest polling has Labor Party with like a 30 point edge over them now, which is also a really stunning turn of events. And I mean, obviously, this has all kinds of implications for us. But, you know, a couple of things to think about here. Adam Tooze has been talking. He studies these like poly crises and he views what happened in the UK as a potential warning sign for the rest of the world. Why? Because our financial system is so complex and so

interconnected, both domestically and internationally, that, you know, no one really saw coming that a drop in the pound and, you know, problems in their bond market would trigger such an issue for these pension funds and that you could have this contagion that really no one saw coming because it is all connected and so complicated in those ways. Well, right now, obviously, we're facing any number of global shocks to our economic system. So he's basically raising the question of like, you know, this little crisis scenario we had playing out in the UK, we could be seeing this happen over and over again in places around the globe because of these various economic shocks, you know, including the actions of our own central bank, including the actions of central banks around the world, continuing to lift

interest rates. What is that all going to do? It really underscores the fact that it is a very dangerous situation. I think the other thing it underscores is how stunningly unpopular this is. I mean, she loves Margaret Thatcher. She is like, you know, modeled herself. She's Thatcherite to the core. She and her cabinet, extremely ideological and had this view of the economy that was just like straight textbook, like right wing think tank neoliberal to the core.

And it shows you what a disaster those economics policies when actually implemented actually are and how incredibly unpopular they are as well. You know, you had newspapers celebrating this budget when it came, like, finally a real Tory budget, all of this nonsense because it was so hard ideologically driven. And in the first days, even as this crisis was unfolding, she wouldn't back down. She went on BBC, she was defending it, she was trying to blame all the problems on like, oh, it's Putin's fault. It's really, you know, it's really not us. It's these other things that are going on around the world, the war in Ukraine, et cetera, et cetera. And so finally, you know, with her approval rating at 8% and her own party completely abandoning her, she is ultimately forced out. This apparently came after a meeting with the chairman of the 1922 committee, which knows how many conservative lawmakers have issued letters

of no confidence in her leadership. So clearly they have majority of the conservative party issuing the letter of no confidence. The leader of the labor party, Keir Starmer, I'm probably saying that wrong. I'm sorry. Keir Starmer? Keir Starmer. Keir Starmer. All right, let's go with that. Keir Starmer has said that they need to call a general election ASAP as to whether conservative party can even draw enough votes to come to some sort of consensus and avoid this remains totally unclear. So massive political upheaval. As far as Ukraine also, it does, you know, Liz Truss was frankly even more hawkish on Ukraine than Boris Johnson. So here, nobody really knows. From what I've read, he had declared

what unrelenting support. At the same time, the labor left is a lot stronger than the democratic left in this country in terms of their real pushback against some of the Ukraine policy of the government. So how that would work out in terms of for the geopolitical situation, it matters. But hey, it just shows you there's always 40th order consequences to wars. And this appears to be one of them, as it has in almost every general, in almost every European conflict to date. Shameless plug, we're having Owen Jones, who's a British commentator on Crystal Cow and Friends this week, because I wanted to dig into this crisis, which he calls the Liz Truster F. Right. And so it'll be a great time to talk to him and really go in depth here. And, you know, he's on the left, so he'll have a lot of insights into Keir Starmer and the Labor Party.

Obviously, all of these parties have different factions and tensions within them. The Corbynites have been sort of like crushing away, and the more centrist elements of the Labor Party have been more ascendant recently. So we'll see what he thinks this all ultimately means. But obviously, incredible, shocking, quite historic news out this morning. My personal favorite coda to all of this is that the Daily Star had a live stream whether a piece of lettuce would outlast Liz Truss, and the lettuce actually won.

The lettuce won. People should check out the live stream. It was hilarious. They dressed it up and all that. And today, actually, on the day that she resigned, they had the lettuce with a wig on and a keep calm and carry on mug on top of some British flags. I saw this picture on Twitter and I was like, what the hell is this?

It's the lettuce. I did not find a look into it. Apparently, there was a cheeky comment in a column which was like, a piece of lettuce will outlast Prime Minister Trout. And it actually did. So, there you go. I love the Brits. We're going to get back to our show. Let's do it.

Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of big stories breaking this morning. Also, by the way, it is nice to be back here. It is fantastic.

Emily and Ryan did a wonderful job filling in for us, but great to be back in the chair. Lots of big news breaking this morning. First of all, there are rolling blackouts being instituted across Ukraine. Zelensky telling Ukrainians to conserve energy as much as possible after a bunch of Russian strikes. We also have reported Russian evacuations from one of those illegally annexed areas, Kherson. So we'll tell you about that. We also have big news from Biden on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve trying to get gas prices to go back down where they were and to stem the, you know, they've been

going up and up and up. So we'll get into all of that and what it means. Some new news out of the swing states. Georgia has early voting now in full effect and they have had record-breaking turnout. It's actually quite astonishing, not just on the first day, also on the second day of early in-person voting. So what does that mean? We've got some new polls. We also have Democrats increasingly throwing each other under the bus and making excuses and trying to set the narrative for why it is not looking so good for them at this point. And also a mystery this morning, the FBI raided a prominent award-winning journalist, national security journalist, in sort of stunning fashion, too.

They rolled in super hard with big equipment, almost like a tank. It was a crazy situation. No one knows exactly what's going on, so we'll tell you what we do know about that. But before we get to any of that, we wanted to say thank you so much to Chicago. We had a great time.

We had a really, really good time. The crowd was awesome. I think that the people who were there can attest that we really tried to switch things up. As you guys saw, we had a lot of visual elements. It was much more of like a produced show, and I feel really good about it. I think we've got a good template for the future. Yeah, I have to say, I think we upped our game a little bit on this one. We did. I think so. We learned some things from Atlanta. Atlanta was amazing, too. Yes. Amazing, like super high energy crowd in Atlanta, too. And we added visual elements.

We also figured out the technology to have people be able to like vote on their phones from their seats. So it was cool. Feedback was great. And like you said, I think we figured out a lot of things for future shows as well that really worked quite well. Absolutely.

Okay, let's get to the actual show, Ukraine. So what is going on? It's been a while since we've been able to update everyone and quite a bit of things have changed on the battlefield. In terms of the most immediate news, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Vladimir Putin declaring martial law in the occupied regions of Ukraine. There's been a lot made of this and it is a pretty strange announcement. Essentially what he's done is by declaring martial law in the regions, he has actually given the security forces there the power in order to

take over and evacuate the civilians from what is going to be clearly a very, very contested area. So what this essentially does is it gives the Russia's governors and these fake governors of these territories to, quote, maintain order, ensure supplies for the armed forces, aka be able to take whatever you want from the civilian population, and protect critical infrastructure. By that meaning, they can do whatever they want. It's not like that wasn't already de facto the case, but the fact that they had to announce it does show that the situation here is dire, including, by the way, what was missed in that announcement by some people in the media is if you look in Russian,

something that Putin says is that not only are we going to have martial law, but, quote, other measures, if necessary. Put this up there. So what do those other measures actually mean? Well, they could include, but not be limited to, sweeping censorship, wartime economic restrictions on things like the free flow of goods, services, and funds, according to existing Russian law, which means that they can seize whatever the hell they want. And we're moving closer, unfortunately, really, to almost a total war type situation, forced evacuations of the civilians, total mobilization of at least the population and its resources in that area, as Ukraine is making very stunning advances.

Intelligence coming out this morning, claiming, again claiming, this is from the U.S., leaking, of course, to the New York Times and other establishment media outlets, that the advance on Kyrsten actually could come before the fall muddy season, when it's far too muddy in order to make any mobilization. We talked previously, November 15 around then is historically when snow begins to fall in earnest and make it just completely unmovable in that area. So the window is closing on both Russia's ability to defend its existing territory

and also on the Ukrainians' ability to advance. So I read like 18 news articles about this martial law imposition and none of them really made any sense. Yeah. Like it was so unclear because the one thing that's the most clear is that martial law declared in these four, you know, illegally annexed territories. OK, that's sort of like the most definitive. But then there are these other pieces of like the border regions in Russia. There's like kind of sort of martial law. And then there's this other provision that's like actually anywhere in Russia, the governors can impose these measures.

So and I was trying to make sense of this with our friend Igor, and he was saying basically, you know, this is classic Putin. The war is not really a war. It's a special mobilization. They did a quarantine without calling it a quarantine. All these sorts of things where it's it's squishy, it's ambiguous, it's vague. It's not really clear what it means. It's not really clear what the implications are. It's not really clear how far they'll go. And so that's why when I was reading all of these Western news media accounts, it was so damn fuzzy to figure out what any of this means.

That's because it was intentionally made to be really unclear. I mean, I think the things that we can say for sure is, you know, this gives them sort of more powers to crush dissent is another thing. This enables them to really shift those four illegally annexed territories into full, like, mobilization in terms of their economy and all of those sorts of things. Like you said, being able to seize and do whatever they want in those regions. The other regions, it's entirely less clear exactly what it means. The potential path is that, you know, this is sort of like the boiling the frog thing. You just keep making these steps a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more into full nationwide war mobilization. And that's sort of the fear of where this is going. Yeah, I mean, personally, I think that's just inevitably where it's going to have to go, which is that Moscow doesn't have the ability right now to quote, win the war in its current orientation. Ukraine, obviously doing

stunningly better than anybody had previously thought. So what you do, you start with, you know, and this is where you got to just really feel for the people who live in these regions. They're being used as pawns, no matter what, whether they're pro-Russian or pro-Ukrainian, you're getting evacuated from your home and your entire area is being turned into effective battlefield wasteland. And as the war continues to move towards that Russian border, which we'll get to in a little bit, well, frankly, it's a preview of what's to come. Possibly in Crimea, all the border regions. We're going to talk about Belarus and more.

So, look, it's a bad, bad situation. And on top of that, you know, Putin has still got his domestic problems after the draft. Obviously, the, you know, the regime survived, but go ahead and put this up there from Western journalists who are actually on the ground in Moscow. They're like, hey, where the hell have all the men in Moscow gone? They're talking about visiting places like barbershops and other bars and areas where men used to frequent. And they have seen a precipitous drop in just the number of military age males who are in the city. They've either fled

or they are straight up on the battlefield. And already we're seeing reports, Crystal, that some of the people who have been drafted after only two weeks of training, and we should be clear, you know, the way that we think about the U.S. Army Reserves, that is not what's happening here. The people who got drafted are like people who did one year of mandatory military service

haven't picked up a rifle since. Some of them not even that, according to the reports. Right, and our guys, you know, they go, I think it's like once a month or something for training. Anyway, they're far better equipped and far more manageable on the battlefield. And they volunteered. And they actually volunteered. That's a whole other story. But anyway, so the people were essentially just thrust, put a rifle in their hands, went through some basic training.

Already some of them are dead on the battlefield in the east, and we're seeing increasing signs of fighting. So, look, no nation can survive this level of strife without coming out the other end significantly changed. What that looks like, I don't know. You know, is the Putin regime and all that going to survive? But I think that this martial law declaration in the east, in the eastern part of Ukraine, is a preview of what will come for total Russian society as the sanctions continue to bite away, as the winter is going to approach, and really just as the war continues to grind on. It is, you know, as much as we talk about in Ukraine, you know, the domestic populace's ability to survive this and continue either its

support or, you know, possible, not revolution necessarily, but riots and other areas of descent, it all just becomes more and more likely as the Kremlin continues to double down. But no sign that they are abandoning doubling down. At every chance, Putin has decided to choose escalation. Well, there is one sign that potentially they're moving the other direction, which is they at least officially announced that this latest mobilization is over. That they've taken in all of the conscripts that they plan to for this wave. Is that true? Is it false? Who knows? But that's what they're pitching to the public. I think in part because there has been such upset and just mass exodus of men, men who are in hiding domestically, men who have already been shipped overseas already. I mean, not overseas into Ukraine, men who are already dying on the battlefield.

So, you know, there's at least an attempt to reassure the population like, oh, that's as far as we're going to go right now. But yeah, the stories that are coming out of Moscow also paint a portrait of, you know, a drafting process that really focused on the people who were sort of the most vulnerable. There are reports coming out of, you know, clearing out homeless shelters, going after men of military age who are staying in hostels. So you get the idea of people who maybe don't have as much sort of roots or connections who they think could easily be sent and have less blowback from the domestic population. We also covered that story about how rural areas were really heavily targeted, where it's, you know, it's more isolated. They're also fed more direct,

they have nothing other than basically direct Russian propaganda that they're fed. They're more impoverished. And so there was an idea that, you know, those would be populations that would be easier to send as well. So that's as best we can tell what's going on in Russia domestically, but pretty stark. I mean, can you imagine being in a city where just all of a sudden, like all of the military age men are just gone? I mean, some of the numbers is kind of funny, but it's also really not funny. They talked about a local media report that attendance at all of the military-age men are just gone. I mean, some of the numbers is kind of funny, but it's also really not funny. They talked about a local media report that attendance at one of the largest strip clubs in Moscow, down by 60%. Fewer security guards available because they'd either been mobilized or fled.

Lots of business owners who even, you know, those who decided, like, we're going to stay because we've got a responsibility to our employees or whatever. Now they're faced with a situation where half of their workforce is gone. And so they are struggling to continue their operations, even though they had decided to stay because so much of the population has vanished for one reason or another. Yeah. Bottom line, the war is truly coming home to people in Moscow, across the country. And for the people who are in it, they are not just in it. They are now seeing their lives like more irrevocably changed than ever before. So let's go ahead to the battlefield section here and let's put this up there on the screen. This preview is exactly what we were saying, that the new commander of the Ukrainian operation, the Air Force general who previously had served in Syria, said that there is going to be, quote, tense problems in Kursan. Now, there's no real way to decipher this. Essentially, what he says is that it's going to be tense and it will, quote, be not easy. What exactly he's saying there is difficult. There's been a lot of criminology in trying to

analyze exactly what happened. But in the first televised interview, he said the enemy continually attempts to attack the positions of Russian troops. And he also said further actions and plans regarding the city of Kursk will depend on the developing military tactical situation, which is not easy. We will act consciously in a timely manner without ruling out difficult decisions. I mean, I think that that is Kremlin speak for we might have to abandon this place because we're getting our asses kicked. And I think really that appears to be the case as the Ukraine is continuing not only its forward operations, but a lot of like shaping operations in terms of advances on strategic villages and others from what I've been able to read. And the opportunity is there for them to retake the entire city, which should be just a tremendous blow to the Russians, given that they not only recently annexed the territory, but, you know, their seizure of the city was hailed as like a massive victory. We covered it at the time, you know,

and so for them to lose it so quickly on top of the humiliating defeats that they've already had after the conscription, it just highlights the weakness. But also I think what it does highlight, given what we've seen this new commander do, his track record in Syria, is I think that they will fight to the death. I think they will lose a tremendous amount of human life rather than suffer that humiliation. So I think regardless, a bloody situation is afoot where we're seeing. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. And it just shows you the absurdity of their idea that they could have these referendums and annex territories and that would have any sort of legitimacy. I mean, how are you even a state when you can't tell your own people where your national boundaries are?

And so now they're trying to finesse this, say, oh, you know, just like they've done in other areas. Like, oh, we've got to regroup. You know, that's the sort of language that they use. No, you are very worried that you're about to lose this area as well and get pushed even further back. It will be a stunning defeat if it does in fact happen, because this was one of the first cities that Russia was able to overtake and take control of after that initial February 24th invasion. So if Ukraine is able to push them out of there, yeah, that would be a stunning turn of events, no doubt about it. Yeah. I think something that you found, Crystal, here in terms of Russian media watch is that in Russia, they are very angry.

So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. We have it cut as a voiceover. It does have some subtitles who are watching. What they say is here in the Kursan region, things are bad during all these months. The Ukrainian side has been systematically working to cut off our forces from our supply routes in the area of the dam and in the area of a bridge. And really what you're just seeing here right now, logistics for our forces are on the left bank. This is an interview on are very complicated. Of course, they are being supplied.

And then he continues by using pontoon bridges and ferry crossings, just highlighting a bad situation, saying there is no full-fledged connection between our forces, and this creates the difficulties for the Russian troops. And what this really does highlight to us, Crystal, this entire interview for those who just watched, is that you're talking about an actual interview with forces on the ground who are like, our supply lines are shit show. They're like, this is a disaster. And this is actually being aired on Russian television. So for this level of anger and disappointment of what's bleeding through to the Russian population and on state-controlled TV, let's be very clear, what's the real situation like? I mean, there's no way to know. But to get this on television?

A seemingly at least like sort of accurate portrayal of what's going on in the ground. I mean, it's from his mouth. You know, how can we doubt that? And he's being interviewed on television. So for him to admit supply line problems for the studio there, they're basically like, why were we so wrong about this in the beginning? And why did we believe that Zelensky would run

and that NATO would not help? So look, some criticism bleeding through, but as we have warned from the beginning, criticism in Russia does not mean that they necessarily want the special military operation to end. They want a full-fledged war. They want more of the missiles raining down on Kiev. And every time we've seen these little bits of dissent or accuracy slip through, it's always been used to push and justify more hawkish actions, more mobilization. That's where all of the pressure continues to come from. So no one push for further mobilization, more brutal attacks, and some of the things that, frankly, they've already been engaged in.

Yeah, I mean, what it highlights, I think, is just how dire the situation is and also the straws that they're grasping at now in order to try and change things strategically. Let's put this up there on the screen. Lots of analysis on this, and they're still very difficult to make of it. Essentially, the Belarusian president, Lukashenko, was resisting previously being drawn directly into the war, despite serving somewhat as a supply depot and really like as a supporter of the war, but in name only with some limited amount of assistance. But now Russian troops in Belarus are actually sparking fears of a new front for Ukraine and pressure from Moscow is increasing. Lukashenko really does, you know, owe a lot of his political legitimacy

to Putin and Belarus, the population, how they feel. There's no way to know in some of these autocratic countries, but you know, former Russia, Soviet Union, like some sympathy between the populace and more. It's difficult to describe. But essentially what they're saying is that the majority of the public say that they don't want to join the conflict. Yeah. But that doesn't mean that they're averse to helping Putin launch a new front in the war, which would really require Ukraine to pull some of its troops out of its offensive in the east and the south and have to move back up to the north, which we saw during

Kiev. So it's possible. We have not yet seen the opening of said front. It could be that this is a precursor to what we might see in the spring if we see a massing of troops there in a new area to try and draw troops away and relieve some of the pressure in the east and the south to hold on the ground. But regardless, we do need to watch this very closely. And I imagine that this is going to be one of the most watched satellite pictures by US intelligence and EU and NATO intelligence in the future. We have no idea the amount of troops there that are there right now. They said that Belarus has a 70,000 strong army, which would constitute the base of the joint force. And there wouldn't be any need to, quote,

ask for 10 to 15,000 people from Russia. So that's not really that many people. Now the analysis, yeah, the analysis I saw, and listen, I'm skeptical of every war analysis, every like, you know, military analysis at this point because they've been so routinely wrong. But every analysis I read was basically not thinking too highly of the Belarusian military. Right. However, if you have an additional front that Russia is able to open up with the help of Belarus, look, that just de facto, I mean, that just stretches the Ukrainian forces. Bodies are bodies. Right.

Bodies are bodies. I mean, that's their whole Ukrainian forces. Bodies are bodies. Bodies are bodies. I mean, that's their whole calculus with this mobilization of their own population is basically, I mean, it's cannon fodder. You know, it's just to put more bodies on the front lines to try to be able to make up some of the ground and try to be able to further stretch the Ukrainian forces. So if they did open up another front, obviously that would create some challenges for Ukraine. You know, the way this is portrayed, at least, you know, in this article and other ones I read, is basically like Lukashenko is kind of in a bind because Putin and Russia really helped him overcome this like mass wave of protests in Belarus that was just a few years ago. That the population is, you know, they, like you said, may be like friendly towards sort of generally helping Russia, but actually sending their own sons over to fight and die. is, you know, they, like you said, may be like friendly towards sort of generally helping Russia,

but actually sending their own sons over to fight and die. Listen, we see the way the Russian people themselves reacted to that. So it would be no surprise if politically this would be very difficult for him to be able to navigate, which is part of why I think you see him suggesting that Ukraine is trying to draw them into the conflict, suggesting they're plotting attacks on Belarus directly to, again, try to justify some of this with the domestic population of like, this is why we have to get pulled into this thing ultimately. But we'll see what ultimately unfolds. Totally impossible to say at this point. That's right. OK. At the same time, big news actually just this morning out of Ukraine that they are now instituting rolling blackouts.

Why? Because Russia has hit critical energy infrastructure and really devastated their ability to provide electricity and power for their nation. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So this is from a day ago and this is from the Kiev Independent. They say Zelensky does not rule out potential failure of Ukraine's electricity system. Reason why? Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen from the BBC. It's because Russia has been targeting electricity infrastructure all across Ukraine, causing major blackouts. So this number here, they say Zelensky indicates at least 30 percent of Ukraine's power stations have been destroyed.

As of this morning, the latest numbers say at least 40 percent of Ukraine's power stations have been destroyed. As of this morning, the latest numbers say at least 40 percent of Ukraine's power stations destroyed. You can imagine how devastating that is. And especially, you know, this is terrifying as they head into a very cold winter. Are they going to be able to heat their homes? Are they going to be able to do what they need to do? He's asking Ukrainians to conserve electricity, use only the bare minimum of what they absolutely need. And even with that, conservation has had to institute blackouts. He had also said contingency plans are being made for tackling the consequences of additional attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, including in the case of the complete disabling of the electricity grid.

So it wasn't that long ago, Sagar, that in Kyiv, obviously things weren't back to normal, but people were living a more or less normal life, going out to parks, feeling a little bit insulated from the absolute worst of what the early days of that war was for them and other parts of the country as well. And now this has been, I think, a deliberate attempt to scare and potentially shake the resolve and shake the confidence of the civilian population in Ukraine. Yeah, I mean, no question, which is already you're seeing rolling blackouts of up to four hours. And, you know, I just went ahead and looked up in the city of Kyiv today, the high is 43. So that is a it's a rough situation.

So listen to this, this is a temperature analysis. The cold season in Ukraine lasts for 3.8 months from November 18th to March 12th with an average high of 39 degrees. In January, the average low is 21 degrees and a high of 30. So it's cold as hell in Ukraine. Not a show. I've actually been to not Ukraine, but the Baltic States in the middle of the winter. It is black as night for a large part of the day, and it is cold as hell. So I cannot imagine what it would be like to have no heating. So it's not the German situation. It's far worse. If you lose 40% of your infrastructure already, this is one of the things the Russians,

in a smart way, took control of those nuclear power plants. And by essentially occupying and shelling the area, scared the hell out of anyone to go even close to them. And so are cutting Ukraine off from some of its critical energy supplies. On top of that, those missile strikes does, it appears, have struck a much bigger blow. The Ukrainians initially said at first they were like, oh, we're back to normal. It's all good. But now we're really seeing some of the damage that those strikes had and highlights exactly why Ukraine is scrambling. Right now, they reached out to the Israelis just two days ago, and they're like, we need Iron Dome right now. The Ministry of Defense in Israel.

In a really interesting way, by the way, Israel has not given any aid to Ukraine, or at least meaningfully. And their Ministry of Defense said, quote, we will not sell any weapons to Ukraine. Interesting how they don't get any criticism of that. Yeah. You know, we have some amazing allies, don't we? We really found out what great allies we have during this war. Yeah. I mean, this isn't going to,

these attacks on civilian energy infrastructure are not necessarily going to, like, change the battlefield reality for Russia. Right. But they're a reminder that even as Russia continues to lose position and continues to suffer defeats on the battlefield, they can still inflict a whole lot of pain and a whole lot of pain on the entire country. So, yeah, if you're a Ukrainian facing down a freezing cold winter and, you know, not sure whether you're going to have blackout, rolling blackouts, not sure whether you're going to have, you know, electricity knocked out altogether. Yeah, that's a terrifying situation, especially if you have young children, especially if you are elderly, especially if you are sick or infirm in any sort of way. So it is a very frightening situation for them right now.

And there is a battlefield difficulty for this as well. I mean, they've been relying on Elon Musk's Starlink. So that's provided, you know, satellite based. And so that's more difficult for them to be able to knock out. But other other Internet infrastructure and connectivity has been down on a lot of the country as well. So their sort of ability to communicate is hampered potentially by these infrastructure attacks. So so that's the latest of what's going on there. But they are not the only ones that are worried about their energy situation this winter. They have the most dire situation, let's be clear. Really weird and very creepy and quite ominous

dark story coming out of the UK. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So the BBC has apparently prepared secret scripts for possible use in winter blackouts. This is from The Guardian, and they got their hands on these scripts. They say exclusive scripts set out how corporation will reassure public in event of major power loss.

A reminder that BBC is a government entity here. BBC prepares scripts that could be read on air if energy shortages cause blackouts or the loss of gas supplies this winter. They set out how they would reassure the public if internet access, banking systems, traffic lights, mobile phones fail across England, Wales, and Scotland, apparently Northern Ireland unaffected because their electricity grid is shared with the Republic of Ireland. Public would be advised to use car radios or battery-powered receivers to listen to emergency broadcasts. One draft of these scripts says that the blackout could last for up to two days with hospitals and police placed under, quote, extreme pressure. Another says the government has said it hopes the power will be restored in the next 36 to 48 hours.

Different parts of Britain will start to receive intermittent supplies before then. You know, the reality of the situation right now is also weird. Like they've talked about how the BBC would go and broadcast from their emergency broadcasting center, which is in some rural location that they won't acknowledge. Just very ominous and creepy details here. Now, politicians have been quick to reassure this is nothing to worry about. We're not going to face blackouts. We're ready for this. But independent analysts are much more concerned. So on Monday, the head of this organization called National Grid said that if everything that could go wrong did go wrong, there could be rolling

blackouts between 4 and 7 p.m. on really, really cold days in January and February when wind speeds are too low to power turbines. The BBC's draft scenario suggests in a national blackout, it would run their operations out of that emergency broadcast center. So that's the reality of what's going on there. It sort of reminded me, Sagar, of remember when New York released that video of like, we don't know how it happened, but it's happened. There's a nuclear attack. Here's what you need to do. Sort of similar dystopian vibes. Yeah, look, I don't know what to make of it.

On the one hand, you could, listen, I think that it is a very ominous sign that they felt the need to prepare. They are doing this specifically on the chance that Russia cuts off gas. I don't think they make the script unless there's actually a chance. And so, look, if you live in the U.K. or Germany or elsewhere, and you know, the U.K. is not even as reliant on Russian gas. So if BBC is creating a Russian gas blackout script, I don't know what the hell is going on. What's going on in Germany, yeah. Deutsche Welle or whatever the newspaper or whatever it's called. I'm like, we'll see.

But it's an ominous sign. Crystal, when you pair it with the Nord Stream News, it's especially weird as it gets colder across the country. The one last thing to say about this is not clear. You know, I mean, the BBC is saying, yeah, of course, we prepare all these different scripts for all sorts of different contingencies, even if they're like outlandish, sort of trying to downplay this. Unclear whether they collaborated with the government on the drafting of these scripts,

which is another important question, because as I was indicating, there are some specifics here of like quotes from the government and them reassuring, say, oh, we'll have it back on in two days. Like, how can you know that at this point in terms of what the government line would ultimately be? So anyway, that's the latest from there. But we also do have some strange developments in terms of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage. And this is another one where I don't know exactly what to make of it. So we'll just give you the information you can make of it, what you will. So first of all, we have the first images, which were taken underwater of the area where the pipeline was damaged. Let's go ahead and put this up and I'll just sort of try to narrate it as best as I can

tell what's going on here. So this is like officially sanctioned by the Swedish government, underwater camera, you can see like this sort of pipe and then you see this red area where there seems to have been, you know, it seems to be a big hole in it. That's the best I can tell is like, yep, it's got a big hole in it. And it looks like it would be a hole that's very difficult to create without some sort of, you know, extremely powerful explosives ultimately being used. The other part of this that, you know, again, I don't know what to make of it. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. Sweden has called off a joint investigation team with Germany and Denmark into the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines, referring to information that is too

highly classified to share. I read a Reuters report about this as well, and they're trying to parse. So Sweden did reject the plans for this formal joint investigation team with Denmark and Germany that would require them to basically share everything. Now they're saying, no, we're totally collaborating with them. Like we're totally working together with them on the investigation. Don't worry about it. But they avoided taking that sort of full official step that would require them to share everything. And they're again citing this is because there's information in our investigation that is subject to confidentiality directly linked to national security. So, you know, one theory is basically like they don't really trust Germany and Germany just had to fire someone who they claimed had, you know, a government official. They claim had ties to Russia. So that's one potential reason. The other reason that people are floating is because basically we're somehow involved and went to

Sweden and were like, you need to bury the evidence of this shit. That's the other theory that I've seen floating. I'm not endorsing any of these theories. Listen, I don't know. As I said in the beginning, I think of the day of the attack, Crystal, we were like, listen, I'm not endorsing any of these theories. Listen, I don't know. As I said in the beginning, I think of the day of the attack, Crystal, we were like, listen, I'm not believing anything until I see some cold hard evidence. So if you're not going to show us the evidence, well, I'm not really sure what to believe. I need to see a video, some DNA evidence.

I need to be able to examine it myself. Otherwise, I'm not believing shit on this one. As I heard from the Western spinsters, they were like, this shows that it's so classified, there's no way that we could show how we know. But I don't see how that's even possible because all it would take was a video. And then, you know, if you can claim, so they have seismology evidence, like all you need. We think it's not a secret that there are underwater sensors. Every nation on Earth has them.

Just be like, yeah, we detected it coming out of the Russian area on this day and then leaving on that day if that's the case. But they refuse to share anything. So I am inherently skeptical of all this, and I think it just comes down to the fact that we are never going to know who blew up this pipeline. Yeah, like I said, the spinsters I saw, the pro-Western spinsters I saw, were basically saying, oh, it's because they don't trust Germany

because Germany is too close to Russia. Yeah, so that was the narrative that I saw were basically like saying, oh, it's because they don't trust Germany because Germany is too close to Russia. Yeah. So that was that was the narrative that I saw. If we can't trust the Germans, then like I have a lot of questions about our entire situation over there. Very true. Very true. So anyway, that's the very latest we know. And as you said, Sagar, we will probably never know for sure what happened there. And it's it's so hard because obviously the Russians have already said what they think it was us or UK or Ukraine. You know, they think it was NATO. We have not actually directly said that we think it's Russia. Biden sort of, you know, through process of elimination indicated that that's what we believe that we have not actually come out and said that. But even if they did, like, would I believe them? No. I mean, I believe them as much as I believe the Kremlin's version of events.

Yeah. No way to know. All right. Back to our regularly scheduled programming. Man, there is just so much news today. It's amazing. Let's put this up there on the screen. Yesterday, President Biden announcing that 15 million additional barrels from the U.S. emergency reserves and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be released and may consider, quote, significantly more this winter in an effort to ease high gas prices. It is the final tranche of the SPR releases that the White House authorized in the spring for 180 million barrels. Now, the reason that this matters is that it's the end of what was already authorized under executive order. For President Biden to tap the SPR even further, he would actually have to issue a new guidance. Another issue, we're down to almost 400 and something barrel, 400 million barrels that are in the SPR,

and we're verging on the territory of it's not full enough. Now, there's a lot to say about this. Number one, it is an admission by the Biden administration that all their policies so far have really not worked all that well. And from what I've read, Crystal, the SPR is responsible for maybe up to 10 to 15% drop in cents for gas prices over the period. That's actually more than I thought, to be honest with you. But this is why it matters, which is that the full dollar or so drop is actually almost entirely attributable to zero COVID from China. So what it which is that the full dollar or so drop is actually almost entirely attributable to zero COVID from China. So what it means is that Xi Jinping's idiocy as zero COVID lockdowns is almost entirely responsible for any drop in price whatsoever that we see. Well, they're still

off. And they're still going. So, you know, I guess continue doing that, Xi, so that people can drive for a slightly cheaper here. But what it underscores to me is that even now, eight months into the crisis, they have not come up with any real plan to have a meaningful drop in price, except for, and I do want to reiterate this, on top of the announcement for the $15 million, they announced something which is potentially significant. They said that we will refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve specifically at a $72 per barrel price. The reason that that matters is that it assures production at a break-even, above break-even, for the oil companies. So this is something that, if you'll remember, Skanda Amarnath came on our

show. This is a slight version of that plan where they're giving forward certainty to the oil and gas industry saying, no guys, like if you do verge onto the level where it's no longer profitable, you should not shut down production because we will buy that oil. It actually gives some stability to the market. And that may seem ridiculous when you're staring at oil prices that right now are quite elevated. But we actually, for the first time in a while, have had a tiny downtick in gas prices. And the reason is because people are afraid of a global recession and because demand is reducing as that recession starts to take hold both here and around the world. So they're looking at that and they're like, I don't know if we should produce more. We

could end up getting screwed the way we did during COVID. So that's why putting that sort of floor underneath the prices could make a difference. The other thing they're considering here, which I don't know why they haven't done it already, and I don't know why they're still dragging their feet around it, but they say they're weighing limits on exports of fuel to keep more gasoline and diesel inside the U.S. That's according to sources. No timeline has been set yet for a decision on that potentially more dramatic step. Likely won't happen before the midterm. So, anyway,

they clearly see, you know, they had a couple of irons in the fire, you might say. Biden made his little trip over to Saudi. Failed.

Yeah, that clearly failed. That one didn't work out. The Iran deal. Iran deal doesn't seem to be coming to fruition as Iran is shipping drones to Russia. Also violently cracking down on their princesses. On their own, yeah. So that has complicated the situation with regards to the Iran deal.

The one thing that they still have sort of like a live potential international deal is with Venezuela. We covered here, of course, how there was an actual prisoner exchange, which was quite remarkable, involving some U.S. oil executives and some of Maduro's relatives. Quite interesting. And there seemed there's also been a deal struck that could help to begin to ease sanctions if they agree to talks, legitimate talks with the opposition. So they're clearly trying to make some moves with Venezuela. Now, would that make a difference? It's so hard to say. You know, the oil markets, as I've tried to explain before, so much of it is really not based just on pure like supply and demand and where does the curve meet? So much of it, like all of our commodities markets and all of our markets are based around financialization.

So it's speculators guessing what other speculators are going to think is going to be the results of these different actions. Venezuela, their oil industry capacity has been severely degraded. There are issues that you know more about that have to do with processing that particular kind of oil that also complicate the situation. But you could see if there was some sort of a more comprehensive Venezuela deal that there could be an effect effect in the market that would, you know, lower the price. We'll see if that ultimately comes to bear. But, you know, a lot of their plans, the big move was to try to suck up to Saudi Arabia. And that clearly did not. Massive backfire. That's what I just look at this. I'm like, what a failure. You had six, you had eight months to get something done. And guess what? Not one of them has worked out. Even

Venezuela. Look, if this is the crisis that we believe it is, I believe it, and that President Biden is, diplomacy should take, that prisoner swap should have happened months ago, and then we should have had oil flowing almost immediately. But the truth is, is that we have basically the exact same level of production as we did when this war started. That's a catastrophe. Either here at home, the refinery choke points. You know, I was looking at what you said, because I'm a huge proponent of locking down our oil and infrastructure and limiting exports. Here's the issue, Crystal. If we do that, we don't have enough refinery capacity at home. And so that means that we

would effectively be cutting off export of our oil and the people abroad would be like, okay, well, then we won't give you any of our refined oil. Guess what? We don't have enough refinery capacity to refine even our own oil, which means the price would only go up to $6 a gallon. We are screwed in almost every way because we have no infrastructure. We have no proper plan. And right now, everyone should get on their hands and knees and pray that the Chinese continue to remain the idiots that they are by locking down hundreds of millions of their own people. Like I said, I mean, the really sad thing is the most likely scenario under which gas prices fall is we fall into a severe recession.

Yeah, right. I mean, then you have gas prices come down. Yeah, that'll work. What a horrific price to pay. So that's kind of the state of affairs. Obviously not lost on anybody that this latest move with the SBR is coming very shortly before midterms that we're going to get into in a minute, but where Democratic chances are looking increasingly dicey. They were getting asked midterms. Look, it makes sense. I've been doing this for how long now? It's not politically motivated at all. It's motivated to make sure that I continue to push on what I've been pushing on,

and that is making sure there's enough oil that's being pumped by the companies so that we have the ability to be able to produce enough gas that we need here at home, oil we need here at home. Yeah, sure. It has nothing to do with that. I mean, listen. Just come on. Listen, I mean, here's my thing.

This critique sort of annoys me because I'm like, actually, it's a good thing when politicians try to do things that are good and popular for people. There's this whole narrative around like, oh, he's trying to buy votes. It's like, I wish more politicians would try to buy our votes more often. And I wish Biden would try harder to buy more people's votes at this point. We'll get into that more in the midterms. But yeah, I mean, clearly they see the writing on the wall. Gas prices are in real, you know, effect in terms of working class. Well, it's really devastating, really important. People have to commute to work, makes a huge difference. And there's also a massive psychological toll when you see them going up and up and up. And I really do think in terms of economic indicators, it's almost the most important one in terms of political fortunes. The Saudis know that. I mean, they don't like Biden.

They want Trump and the Republicans back. And they have decided that's certainly a part, if not a large part, of their calculation saying like, good luck, good luck in November, Biden. Let's put the gas price map up on the screen there. So you can see exactly where it's still, you know, at 383 a gallon. So a little bit less, but not continuing to go down. And it's hovering right around that psychological four mark. In California, it's still $5.80. West Coast continues to get hammered with above $5 gas. I think the only place in the West with below $5 is like Utah and Arizona. Illinois, also where we recently were, we made a joke about this in our Chicago live show. I was like, what a disaster. There's some really high gas prices, especially in the city of Chicago. The point is, is that

as we get closer and closer to the midterms, and we'll talk about this in a little bit, it's just clear that a lot of the fundamentals are coming to, are really just coming to the very forefront. And some of the Democrats peak too early. You know, I saw an article in the New York Times, it's like Dems brace for a red October. All the betting markets are moving in the direction of the red wave. There's even talk about like Colorado being up for grab. Now look, maybe all of that is just as much cope as 17 points for Trump in, uh, in Wisconsin ahead, or sorry, 17 points for Biden in Wisconsin ahead of the election. But point is almost every indicator there is, has always predicted a very large Republican victory. Some of these idiot candidates and others not necessarily doing anything to help, but they are being bolstered by one of the most favorable environments in modern political history. And gas is just a fundamental part of that. So Biden doing himself no favors by did not just be like, yeah, look, I'm trying to help people and show that this Democratic administration is doing everything they possibly can and remind them before they mention it. Just say it. Just say it. I don't think there would be any real consequence. People would be like, okay, as long as I pay less, I don't care. The point being, though, that they know it's a problem.

And highlights to me that after eight months, it's still $3.80. That's really high. Well, I will say one thing I noticed. Apparently the lowest gas prices in the country, you know what state? What is it? Georgia. Yeah, I think they have a gas tax. Holiday or something. They repeal their gas tax holiday. They're near refineries. I remember reading a whole piece about

why exactly Georgia has some of the lowest gas. I think Texas also is quite low. Same thing, refinery distance. There's a lot that goes into it. Yeah. All right, let's move to the midterms and stick with the state of Georgia. Let's go and put this up on the screen. I don't, who knows what this means, but it's interesting. Georgia breaks first day early voting record. They nearly doubled their figure from the last midterms. Now I have some updated numbers as of this morning because we're now, today is the fourth day of early in-person voting. So we have all the numbers through the first three days. And they've actually gotten even more stunning because it wasn't just the first day where you had this overwhelming flood of voters. They are now outpacing the number of votes from the 2020

presidential election. So they're not only outpacing 2018, which of course is pre-pandemic and the pandemic has really shifted everybody's sort of like voting patterns and the way they vote and all of that stuff. But they even now are surpassing by quite a bit the 2020 presidential election. Here are the numbers. As of the end of Wednesday, over 291,700 people had voted. This is from ABC News. 268,050 of those were in person. About 24,000 of them were absentee. Back in 2020, the early vote numbers at that time were 266,000. So they're outpacing them by roughly 30,000 votes. I mean, that's really quite astonishing. Now, what does it mean? Who the hell knows? Who knows, right? You know, if you're inclined to be, you know, a Democratic, hopefully you look at

this and go, see, the young people are excited. They're turning out. Our base is showing up. I will say I looked at the demographic numbers. Black voters were accounting for a disproportionate number of Georgia's early voters. You actually had black voters accounted for about 39% of the early voters. That's higher than their 29% of the overall registration. That's one thing you could look at. Again, who knows what this ultimately means, except for the fact that people are clearly extremely engaged in this race and showing up in massive numbers. Yeah, I think that that is what my takeaway is. And look, having looked at the enthusiasm numbers and all that,

I personally think a lot of that is GOP, but I could be totally wrong. Maybe there is the Dem, Roe versus Wade bump. They're Roe-Roe-Roe-ing their vote. What do you have, Roe-Roe their vote, Rovember? Man, I hate myself for even doing any of these things. Anyway, our new team member, Mac, put together a fantastic little mashup of some focus group where they had, what was it, six Republicans, six Democrats, and one Independent. So these were all people who were Trump voters in 2016 and then flipped to Biden in 2020. So the idea is these are swing voters because in those two presidential elections, they went Trump and then Biden. Right. I think it's important to just listen to what they have to say about the midterms, about Dr. Oz, about John Fetterman and what we can learn from it.

Let's take a listen. OK, so for the six of you, what words do you associate with them? Oprah and pharmaceuticals. Oprah and pharmaceuticals. Neither of which I'm a fan of. Okay, Stephanie? Celebrity. Celebrity, okay.

Joshua? Like scam and lies. I always saw him pushing stuff. Okay, Casey? He doesn't live quite in the state of Pennsylvania. What words do you associate with him? Fraud.

Raised taxes. Okay. What else? Tax evasion. Tax evasion. Okay. Cannabis. Got it.

Yolanda, what word comes to mind? I was going to say the same. Cannabis. Got it. Yolanda, what word comes to mind? I was going to say the same. Cannabis and weed. Stephanie? Not a specific word, but a phrase helping. It wants to help people get out of jail. I just am not aware of Fetterman's stances on Roe v. Wade, so I don't feel like I can speak to it. So Stephanie, do you know where F's stances on Roe v. Wade, so I don't feel like I can speak to it. So, Stephanie, do you know where Fetterman stands on Roe v. Wade and abortion? Not clearly, no. No? John, do you know where Fetterman stands on abortion? I do not.

Ilan, do you know where Fetterman stands on abortion? I do not. How many of you would say that your decision to vote for either Fetterman or Oz will be driven, at least in part, by a concern for which party controls the U.S. Senate in 2023. By show of fingers. So John, Brandon, Bob, all of you except for Amy. So six of you. See, I thought one of the most noteworthy was that right there, which is that they're like, yeah, I think Oz is a fraud, but I care enough about the collection or the, you know, the importance of having a Senate majority that I'm willing to vote. I have no idea if that's representative, right? Yeah, we don't know. I mean, focus groups, you have no idea.

It's just always interesting to hear directly from voters how they're processing the information. Ultimately, when they ask these people, who, again, were Trump-Biden voters, who they would pick to vote for today, nine said they'd vote for Fetterman, two said they'd vote for Oz, and two said neither one.

But, you know, there's a couple things to me that are interesting about it, and just, again, a reminder of like we are in up to our eyeballs and details about these candidates and their policies and what's at stake and all of these things. You know, the issue that Democrats have been leaning into almost to the exclusion of everything else is abortion. Yeah. And they ask them, like, do you know his position on abortion? None of them. None of them knew. They were like, who knows? And apparently the issue that Fetterman was most known for was weed. Right.

Which is also, you know, really interesting, especially since so many of them are now saying, you know, they're going to vote for him, apparently. At least according to what they told this pollster here. The other thing you can see is, like, what is landing with them is more of the negative attacks from both sides. So, clearly, they've ingested the Fetterman messaging about Oz, scam, fraud, out-of-state, all that stuff. And they also have clearly taken in some of the negative messaging from the Oz side about Fetterman. I was actually surprised the, like, tax fraud thing was what apparently, like, stuck with them, which isn't even something we've really been—I don't even know the details of that, to be honest with you, and what that's all about. I followed it closely. I agree.

Again, we didn't even necessarily surface it. It is interesting. I think it's just the feeling that people have when somebody appears a hypocrite is just digs so deep. That's one of those that drives people absolutely crazy. So, yeah, look. I mean, I thought it was a good representation. They are not even motivated by the signature issue from what we saw in terms of why they even like Fetterman. They're like, yeah, he wants to help.

What I think is important is, like, look, that's how most people think about politics. I like that guy. I think he wants to help. It's a lot of vibes. It's a lot of, you know, yeah, that's why I thought Fetterman's attacks on Oz were so effective. Because this idea that he's like rich, out of touch, asshole, scam artist, you know, it lands with, like, it seems believable and it really landed with people. And I think that's the only reason why he's had a shot in this race really at all, given the overall numbers. And also interesting, I think maybe one of them ultimately brought up his health and those concerns, but that clearly was not a major focus of their conversation either.

They were more concerned about some other personal characteristics that had been raised by Oz. So that was interesting. They also asked about the governor's race in Pennsylvania, the same group of voters. And the numbers were fairly similar. They had eight going for Shapiro, one for Mastriano, and four who were like, nah, we're out. And one of them in particular, who I think was more sort of Republican-leaning, said Mastriano was just too out there and he just couldn't do it. Another trend that I think is

potentially noteworthy in terms of how we've seen these polls converge and Republicans really gaining a lot of ground as we come closer to election day. Let's go and put this up on the screen from Sean Trendy. This is going back to the Georgia race. He shared RealClearPolitics polling average over the course of the Warnock-Walker race. And what you see is when the Walker scandals really started to hit, his numbers really dropped. But Warnock's numbers did not really rise. They sort of stayed more or less where they've been. Now, what a lot of people are reading into with that, and by the way, Walker's numbers have recovered somewhat, although he still remains behind by about two and a half points in the average of all the polls. What a lot of people are saying is this is a dynamic of like, you know, people are not happy with these candidates, whether it's Oz or Walker or Blake Masters or whoever, like they're not in love with them.

But they're basically not really willing to vote for Democrats. Yeah. with them, but they're basically not really willing to vote for Democrats. So as the election day comes closer, they're more and more reconciling them to the fact of like, well, I'm not really a big Hershel Walker fan, but I guess I'm just going to pull the lever for him. And there were a lot of comparisons to Trump after the like grab her by the P word moment where, yeah, his numbers dropped, but Hillary's didn't rise. And eventually people did find their way back to him. That's my takeaway. I just think the things are so partisan right now.

I think that the fundamentals are so strong in the GOP favor that people are just going to come home. I could be completely wrong. I really could. But I just cannot get over, like, you got high inflation, you got high gas, there's a war going on in Europe. It just feels like there's chaos. Plus the historical

trend that the first, the party in power always almost gets clobbered after their first midterms. Yeah. But on the other hand, like, I don't want to let the Democrats off the hook because you have 80% of voters saying that the economy, inflation, the economy, jobs, like you put the basket together. They're like, this is what we care about. Listen to us. This is the thing we care about. And by default, if you don't have any message about that, anything to offer them whatsoever, yeah, you're the party in power. You're going to get blamed for that situation. They have not focused at all on the economy. I can't tell you what they would do if they take power. Biden gave a big speech saying, OK, if we got, you know, 52 senators, then we'd codify Roe versus Wade. What are you going to do with 52

senators to help people's bottom line? And so I just find it so incredibly frustrating that they've decided to go all in on abortion and completely cede the ground of the economy to Republicans. I am not the only one that is frustrated by that. Senator Bernie Sanders is also very frustrated by that. Let's put this up on the screen. He's decided to jump in and do a couple weekends of barnstorming here across the country. This is from the New York Times. Their headline is, Bernie Sanders fearing weak Democratic turnout plans midterms blitz.

Mr. Sanders said he thought the Democratic Party was, quote, doing rather poorly at selling itself to working class voters. You are not wrong, sir. He's planning an eight state blitz with at least 19 events over the final two weekends before the midterm elections, looking to rally young voters and progressives as Democrats confront daunting national headwinds. He's going to Oregon, California, Nevada, Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. And he also has been out, you know, speaking out and a week covered before he had written an op-ed basically making the point of you guys have to have something to say about the economy since it's the number one issue. Let's take a listen to what he said to Jake Tapper. Well, Jake, first of all, I happen to

believe that the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe versus Wade is an absolute outrage. I think Democrats have got to fight to make sure that it is women who control their own bodies, not the government. So I think this is a very important issue. But I don't believe it can be the only issue. At a time when we have an economy in which the wealthiest people, the billionaire class, are getting much, much richer while working people are struggling to put food on the table, it goes without saying that we have got to focus on the economy and demand that we have a government that works for all of us and not just wealthy campaign contributors.

And the irony here is Republicans say, you know, they talk about the economy. Really, not one of them is going to vote to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. Not one of them is going to vote for legislation that makes it easier for workers to join unions. Not one of them is going to vote to do what every other major country on earth does and guarantee health care for all people, nor will they vote to raise taxes on billionaires at a time when the richest people in this country, in some cases, pay nothing in federal income tax. So I happen to think the Republican line is phony and Democrats have got to respond. There's a reason why Bernie Sanders continues to be the most popular prominent Democrat. And there were just new approval ratings that came out that proved that. And it's because he's like literally the only one saying anything about, you know, the issue that people care about the most. I'm covering my

monologue today. 50% of inflation during the pandemic was because of corporate profiteering. Like where are Democrats on that issue? There was Stan Greenberg, who's like sort of storied working class pollster on the Democratic side, tested a bunch of messages. His number one message that moved the most voters was, we're going to have the child tax credit, hardworking families are going to get $600 a month into their bank accounts, and we're going to pay for it by taxing the rich. How hard is that? Where is that messaging? Where is at least, they won in Georgia by saying really clearly, you're going to get checks, you're going to get checks, you're going to get checks. Remember

Warnock? All that I remember. All that stuff. That worked and they just completely memory hold it because they're incompetent because they're ideologically stupid and because they also don't want to make promises that they ultimately

don't really want to follow through on. Well, they're not going to do it. I think that's really what comes through to me. I'm like, at the end of the day we've seen the whole mansion cinema game enough times that people just don't believe it.

And maybe they shouldn't. I mean, why would you? Like, do you really have confidence if you have 51 votes that some sort of new reconciliation bill is going to come through? Well, what they're saying is if they have two more senators,

they can get rid of the filibuster, at least for Roe versus Wade. And again, are they going to actually do that? Or is some new, you know, the rotating villain theory, whatever, someone new going to pop up and say, actually, I decided I love the filibuster too. Very, very possible.

But they're literally, I say, actually, I decided I love the filibuster, too. Very, very possible. But they're literally I mean, even OK, even if you just wanted to lean into abortion, they're not even doing that well. Like they never put these Republicans on the right, pressured them, made it difficult for them, made them take hard votes. Nancy Pelosi was pressed by Andrea Mitchell of like, well, what's going to be different when you have 52 senators versus you already have power? Why not try to codify it now? Just nothing but excuse making. So even on the issue that they've decided to be all in on, even on that, they're not fighting. So what makes anyone think they're going to fight if they retain power? Yeah. I mean, I remember we said this here. We're like, hey, look, you know, Republicans all say that they support a 15 week ban. Republicans,

I believe, have all voted. Most of the people in the chamber have voted for a 22-week. So I'm like, all right, put it on the floor then. Put it. Do it. Say if you actually believe this, like, fine. But they won't even do that. And I think that is, you know, that's a whole other conversation about the abortion groups and all these other people. But they have really squandered what could have been a good moment for them. And I think you're right, which is you can't let them off the hook whatsoever. So look, I mean, you have fundamentals plus bad politics. It doesn't take a genius to get around. Let me say one more thing because I really am on a tear with it. I cannot. Republicans have said they want to cut Social Security and Medicare. How does not every American in the country know

that fact? And want to put the debt ceiling on the table to do so. They are out saying they want to trigger a government crisis when they come into office that is their own stated plan why does everyone not know that it is complete political malpractice and you know what yes the landscape is still difficult party in power all these things but you're not even trying you're not even trying and so yeah piece, predictably, instead of actually trying to win, instead, they're just trying to figure out who to throw under the bus. And I can tell you who will get thrown under the bus. It's the left, even though Bernie Sanders is the only one who's saying anything that makes any damn sense politically or otherwise. Let's go ahead and

put this up on the screen from our old friends at the Hill. Democrats ready for midterm blame game. Alexander Bolton, three weeks out, beginning to look more and more like a victory for Republicans. the screen from our old friends at the Hill. Democrats ready for midterm blame game. Alexander Bolton, three weeks out, beginning to look more and more like a victory for Republicans. Democrats are playing the blame game. You had Obama preemptively come out. You know, I actually thought some of his comments, I didn't listen to the whole thing, but he talked about, you know, sort of the like over woke language. He said Democrats and progressives can be a buzzkill by constantly scolding people for being politically incorrect. You've got Alyssa Slotkin and some other younger House Democrats who are in tough spots,

are arguing the party leadership has fallen out of touch and have called for a, quote, new generation, new blood in charge of the party. Now, these are the people who are like, you know, they make like the Pete Buttigieg argument of generational change where it's like, let's keep the same terrible politics, but let's just stick some new people in charge ultimately. But I just think it's very telling that already you have people trying to angle to be able to shape the narrative of exactly why they lost. Well, I actually am not sure that the left will get the blame. I mean, I think the woke stuff is, I mean, look, it's not like the center leftists aren't all woke on their own. They're worse because they're only woke and then they don't even do anything for anyone. That's my point. So I'm like, I actually think Biden is going to get a ton of the heat.

I think he deserves it. He's the leader of the party. He's the person who squandered this moment. He's the person who's going to preside over a loss of some sort and who majority of his people. So I don't think old Biden can wriggle his way out of this one. There's just no way. If you lose an election, it's on you. Obama suffered this in 2010, Bush in 2006, Clinton in 94. Every single one of them effectively had to make a statement where they're like, I take responsibility and I'm either going to adjust course and try and win my reelection or like this is on me. Ultimately, everyone you just named did

win their reelection. Yeah, I know. But they had higher approval ratings than Biden does. And Biden, as we've been covering, consistently a majority of the Democratic Party says we want someone else. Now, that's before suffering what could potentially be a significant midterm defeat. And the whole reason this guy is here is because he's supposedly a winner. You know, I mean, we talk about that with Trump, like his whole like we are going to get tired of winning, whatever. The only reason Democrats back this guy when they preferred other policies, especially on economics, than what Biden was offering was because they thought he was the guy who could win. He was the guy that could take out Trump. And they're going to be very concerned about that again, because obviously Trump is

waiting in the wings to make his comeback. So what is it going to look like for Democratic voters if now not only do you not really like what he has to offer in terms of economics, but you also don't really think that this is the guy who's up to the task of beating Trump. And yeah, his age and his, you know, inability to like really coherently speak and his brain meltdowns and all those things like that plays a very significant role into that calculation as well. So I do think you're right. I think if Democrats suffer a real significant defeat in the midterms, if Republicans take the House and they take the Senate, I do think Biden is going to be in a very vulnerable position to a potential inter-primary or party

primary challenge that could very much take him out. Because what is the rationale for keeping him if you're not doing a good job and we don't believe you can win? Yeah, no, look, I think you're right. Also, not for nothing, his 80th birthday is a month away. So just so everybody knows that. Actually, I'm gonna be curious if they even acknowledge that he turns 80 years old, like his own birthday.

They've been trying to downplay it for sure. Yeah, they're not doing the big Obama birthday bash for sure. Yeah, all right. Let's get to a very interesting story of which there are scant details, but are troubling in whatever we do know so far. Let's put this up there on the screen. So the FBI has actually raided a star ABC News producer's home. That's the Emmy award winning producer, James Gordon Meek. Now, what his colleagues say is they have not seen him since that raid. Nobody actually knows what happened. Now, he fired off a tweet on April 27th saying, quote, quote, FACTS in all caps.

That has basically been it from him so far. There have been a lot of acronyms and others that he claims to have had access to, Crystal. And I think what is really weird is that Meeks is apparently portrayed by his colleagues as a, quote, military fanboy. Now, there is no actual confirmation that this raid happened as a result of classified information. If it did, it would be an outrageous breach of precedent for the Biden administration to raid the home of a journalist doing his job, getting classified info. If that's the case, you should raid the guy who gave it to him, not the person who has it in their possession. So if it is in relation to classified information, that is an insane precedent.

It could be in relation to a series of other crimes. We don't know that. To date, he has not been charged. And actually, this is what they say. This is the first raid carried out by the Biden administration and the Biden FBI on an actual journalist. reporter known to have deep connections within the U.S. military, has reported on tons of information that the U.S. military has had and done in Afghanistan. And apparently that was some of the sketchy stuff that he might have even had his hands on. But there's a lot of questions that are swirling around this, Crystal, as to what exactly is going on here. There's a lot of

details in the piece itself, if you guys want to go and read. Well, and the details just make it more perplexing. Yeah, they make it weird., part of what is so stunning here is this wasn't any old, like, run-of-the-mill FBI raid. Like, they came in with some really heavy equipment. They apparently used an olive green, I didn't know what this is, you might know what it was, Lenco Bearcat G2. Yeah, I know what the Bearcat is. quick time. It can return fire if they're being fired upon. It's like, if you're just going in for some classified documents, do you really bring out the old bearcat? Then again, law enforcement often uses like over the top military style equipment. So who knows? But that was a weird detail. A couple other things that they mentioned here is some of the work that he's done, which,

you know, they're sort of insinuating maybe it has something to do with this. So he was involved in documentary that we covered about what the hell happened to those Green Berets who were killed in Africa. He sort of blew up the, no pun intended, the official government line about, oh, they were on this rogue mission and they were just doing their own thing. It's really not our fault to say, no, no, no, they were sent on this mission and it was unconscionable that they were. That's one piece. The other piece is he was publishing or had published or was about to publish a book. He was about to publish a book. Yeah. So the details are really weird. It's called Operation Pineapple Express, the incredible story of a group of Americans who undertook

one last mission in honor to promise in Afghanistan. That's why I alluded to earlier. It's supposed to come out, but on April 27th, but after April 27th, the book jacket and photo disappeared from his bio. Simon and Schuster scrubbed his name from all the press materials. And the first sentence of the jacket previously read quote in April, ABC news correspondent, James Gordon meet, got an urgent call from a special forces operator, a senior thing overseas. Now it says in April, an urgent correspondent James Gordon-Meek got an urgent call from a special forces operator overseeing overseas. Now it says, in April, an urgent call was placed from a special operations operator. So they took him out. They took his name out.

I mean, look, nobody knows. It could involve highly, highly classified information. That's possible. Even if so, he is an American journalist, Emmy award-winning. Put his credentials aside. If you have classified information as a journalist, you're just doing your job. To get raided by the FBI is outrageous. And we will call it out if so.

Again, the other option is that, you know, sometimes it could be like espionage related stuff and possible as to why they would raid his apartment. It also could have nothing to do with anything. It could have nothing to do with his work. It could be a personal crime. Yeah, it could be. But, I mean. Or it could be a combination where like he sort of came under scrutiny by the deep state because they didn't like some of his reporting and then they uncover something else that they can. Yeah, that's, you know, not really related directly to his work.

Pure speculation. No one has any idea at this point. But anytime the FBI comes in with this kind of force and raids a journalist, this is something we need to pay attention to. Not only raid, he resigned from his job abruptly months ago. Nobody knows where the hell he is. Even now we don't know where he is. So look, I hope he's safe, you know, at the very least. And clearly he was on to something because they don't just bust your door down for nothing. Indeed.

Crystal, what are you taking a look at? So we are about six months into an extraordinary period of interest rate hiking by the Fed. And as you know, if you watch this show, the Fed has been trying to get inflation under control by crushing wages, tanking the housing market and spiking unemployment. In addition to the inherent cruelty of this approach, there's another big problem with it. Doesn't really seem to be working. Now, I see some economists saying inflation is just about to ease up, but well, so far, these are the numbers. The so-called Core Consumer Price Index rose 6.6% year-over-year in September. That is the highest increase that we've had since August of 1982. And there are some very good reasons why the Fed's actions alone might not be enough to get inflation under control, which is the Fed really has no control over the primary drivers of inflation, namely energy prices, which are being buffeted

by all sorts of events from the Ukraine war, our sanctions, Saudi's manipulations. And notably, the Fed also has no control over the corporate profiteering, which has been rampant as CEOs have bragged about their ability to use the excuse of inflation to jack up their prices. Congresswoman Katie Porter made this point flawlessly in a recent congressional hearing. Take a look. According to this chart, what is the biggest driver of inflation during the pandemic? The blue, the dark blue, is the recent period. It would be corporate profits.

And what is that percentage? It is 54 percent, and that number does stay that level of high if you update that number to more recent numbers as well. So over half of the increased prices people are paying are coming from increases in corporate profits. Yes. The unit price index is reflected in corporate profits as opposed to other costs. And how does that compare to historically to other periods of inflation or over other periods of economic time? As reflected there in another analysis, it is significantly higher in this recovery. 11. five percent. And what is it today? Fifty three percent. Fifty three percent. Now, I want to dig into this point today about corporate profiteering driving inflation with a very specific example that comes from the housing market.

Now, at this point, one of the major drivers of inflation is shelter costs. That's rent and that's housing. And as it turns out, ProPublica has just exposed what essentially amounts to a nationwide landlord cartel that is colluding to raise rent prices across the country. Now, this story reveals the untold truth of why the rent is so damn high. And it really has little to do with the workings of the Fed. Fed Chair Jerome Powell might have immense power, but he cannot himself break up an exploitative landlord cartel. Now, it turns out one company has come to dominate the market for setting rent prices nationwide. And that company happens to have been architected by a dude who was caught in an airline price fixing scandal back in the 80s. So here is that story from ProPublica. Quote, rent going up, one company's

algorithm could be why. Texas-based RealPage's Yieldstar software helps landlords set prices for apartments across the U.S. With rent soaring, critics are concerned that the company's proprietary algorithm is hurting competition. Now, the article details how RealPage executives brag about being responsible for the insane increases in rent prices nationwide, exclaiming, quote, never before have we seen these numbers. Another executive explained how using the software made it easier for landlords to overcome their humanity in order to raise rents by eye-watering amounts. Quote, as a property manager, very few of us would be willing to actually raise rents double digits within a

single month by doing it manually. Again, they're saying this like it's a good thing, a selling point of Yieldstar's algorithm technology. In a testimonial, the director of revenue management for JVM Realty gushed, the beauty of Yieldstar is that it pushes you to go to places you wouldn't have gone if you weren't using it. And if that wasn't blunt enough, one of the developers behind the algorithm informed ProPublica that, quote, leasing agents had too much empathy compared to computer-generated pricing. Isn't that lovely that landlords are saved the emotional burden of having to actually contemplate the impact of these massive price hikes?

They can remain numb to the human toll that their actions are taking. The brutality of it, disintermediated through a machine, as, of course, the devastation for the renter class remains. Now, it's not hard to figure out why taking the cruelty out of pushing people out of their apartments is a necessary part of what Yieldstar is doing here. ProPublica documents how Yieldstar pushes a strategy of raising rents even beyond what the market can really bear, calculating in all of its cold robotic efficiency that higher vacancy rates are more than made up for by the extra profits from higher rents. So Yieldstar is raising rents not only directly with their pricing, but by effectively lowering the rental

stock that is available, putting pressure on all parts of the rental market. They would rather have apartments sit empty than to rent them out at more reasonable rates. What's more, in areas where Yieldstar has been heavily adopted, the algorithm creates a sort of a feedback loop that can lead to ever-escalating prices. So basically, Yieldstar and their algorithm, they take into account local market conditions, but they are also creating those local market conditions by setting prices for so many landlords. You can see how this gets into being a feedback loop. Now, this is really apparent in the city of Seattle. Rents there have skyrocketed more than 30% over the past several years. ProPublica found a neighborhood where 70%

of all the units in that neighborhood were priced by Yieldstar and their algorithm. And they went and they interviewed some local renters. The results were incredibly predictable. One company told ProPublica their rent increased by a third in a single year. They were forced to move out of the city entirely. A nearby building that was one of the few that was not priced by Yieldstar, they had increased rent but only moderately during the same period. One tenant there said he had seen his rent go up by 50 bucks. That's a 3.9% increase. Now, this model is not just morally bankrupt, it also might be illegal. After all, Yieldstar has basically become a monopoly

after a controversial Trump-era merger between Yieldstar's owner, RealPage, and their largest competitor, Lease Rent Options. What's more, Yieldstar algorithmically coordinates prices across markets. Just because it's technology that's doing the colluding rather than human beings directly, that doesn't change the fact it's still collusion. But even beyond that, Yieldstar users are encouraged to directly meet and share information,

which they do both online and in formalized annual conferences and quarterly conference calls. Direct collusion, indirect collusion, founded by a dude who was caught price fixing. I rest my case. And here is what Jerome Powell and the Fed can do about it. Not a goddamn thing. Raising interest rates and crushing workers is not going to move the needle on collusion-driven rent hikes, but it won't stop the Fed from trying, of course. Rather than crushing wages and spiking unemployment, we should be crushing monopolies, breaking up cartels, and shaming the companies that are exploiting our people. This thing was astonishing to me. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, one of the most difficult things that we have to grapple with in the job is not make everyone a full-blown cynic who completely loses faith in the ability of democracy to accomplish something. Trust in American institutions are so low at this point that even trying to fix something is actually the wrong way to get elected. It's easier to criticize the existing institutions,

and then when you capture power, just take care of your friends rather than reach across the aisle or do really anything at all. None of that comes down, not all of that, though, comes down to money. But a lot of it does. And that is why restoring faith in our country, one of the most central things that we must accomplish, is destroying the popular and largely true notion that many of the people who are involved in, quote, public service are really just doing it to get personally wealthy. Now, nobody has a problem in calling out members of Congress trading stocks because everyone hates Congress, but it's in the more, quote, respected institutions where corruption still lurks deep and actually must be called out to a similar degree.

Before the Bush years, try and remember the reverence that we felt not only for the U.S. military, but the most higher-ups, people like Norman Schwarzkopf, who were genuine heroes in the United States. That reverence was played on, actually, by the Bush administration to prop up the war in Iraq, and later by the Obama and Trump administrations to hold up our failing policies in Afghanistan. For years, the political leaders actually used the U.S. military's credibility to turn not only commanders into genuine stars, but into the linchpins of their public strategy to build support for the war. The problem was that the military leaders were lying to us. They were political. They showed us during the Afghanistan pullout. The story for me is that every single US commander who said we were, quote, making progress

in the US military, they lied to Congress and to the American people. And just like the other liars in Washington, these generals traded their cachet in elite media and knowledge of the system to then now turn around and sell it to the highest bidder. It has always been a genuine scandal that former four-star generals have walked right over to the largest weapons contractors in the United States. It's corrupt and disgusting. But I mean, compared to what I'm about to show you, I guess at least those were American companies. Now, these generals have taken it to a whole new level. Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post,

who published the legendary Afghanistan papers, reveals in a new investigation, hundreds of former higher-ups in the U.S. military are actively working for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. First and foremost, former Marine General Jim Jones, who literally served as Obama's National Security Advisor and Commandant of the Marine Corps. Whitlock shows Jones has been on the take to Saudi since 2017. Documents show Jones not only went to work for MBS to increase the capability of the Saudi military in its barbarous campaign in Yemen,

but that he personally recruited four other former generals and even former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, who worked in the Bill Clinton administration. What's especially gross about this group, not only do they take Saudi money, they actually increase their work for them after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Now look, say you don't care about Khashoggi. At a basic level, this is a barbarous regime that at best had little to do with 9-11 and at worst share a massive responsibility for 9-11, what I personally believe. At a basic level, the ideology they have perpetuated across the world is responsible for an immense amount of human suffering and death. How dare these generals use the cachet and connections that they built up on the taxpayer dime to become multi-millionaires

with blood money? It gets worse, though. Former four-star general Keith Alexander, the former head of the NSA, cut a massive deal with the kingdom to build a so-called College of Cybersecurity. It was supposedly the first college of its kind to help the Saudi regime conduct cyber warfare. This, too, was actually signed after the Khashoggi murder. More insane is that in exchange, the case of both Jones and Alexander, they were both approved by the U.oggi murder. More insane is that in exchange, the case of both Jones and Alexander, they were both approved by the U.S. government. Even more stunning, not only their approval, but now the ongoing cover-up by the U.S. military of these transactions. Not only did they approve

them, but then they fought the Washington Post in court when they asked for the records of how much these guys were getting paid by the Saudi government, arguing, and this is a direct quote, asserting that the public has no right to that information. In fact, many of the names of the less prominent U.S. military personnel working for Riyadh, they are still being held secret by our government. After Saudi Arabia stabbed the U.S. in the back and hiked oil prices, this is how they responded to the criticism. Take a listen. Anybody that challenges the existence of this country and this kingdom, all of us, we are projects of jihad and martyrdom. That's my message to anybody that thinks

that he can threaten us. Saudis doing what they do best. If you disagree with them, even if you literally guarantee the existence of the regime and sell them $100 billion in weapons and never punish them for 9-11, they will threaten you with war. The Saudis are terrible allies. And yet, because they have a lot of money,

we all just look the other way. The fact that our generals are willing to help them shows that these people, how deep the corruption has gone inside the system. What's even crazier is that Jones and Alexander, despite their work, are accepted as completely unbiased members of the D.C. establishment. Their transgressions here are the accepted kind, like former General John Allen, who literally is under federal investigation right now for being a foreign agent. Remember this the next time that you turn on your TV. You see a former four-star general advocating for war in Ukraine,

which you probably can right now. Who are they working for? Who do they really represent? I think, look, it's easy. It's easy to criticize. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching.

We really appreciate it. We've got a really long show today, so we ended up having a guest that will be airing on the weekend. I think that you all will really enjoy it. We really missed being with all of you, and thank you for bearing with us as we had to— we had a lot of work travel that's been catching up with us, so it was very, very good in order to be back here at the desk.

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