Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/24/22: Ukraine War, China's Congress, Midterm Voting, Student Debt, Market Fundamentalism, & More!

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

Krystal and Saagar cover the Ukraine war, China's party congress, midterm voting, student debt battle, inflation coverage, China's mastermind, GOP economic calamity, & Rishi Sunak!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.

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BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of big news breaking this morning from overseas. In particular, Russia is warning that Ukraine may use a dirty bomb on their own territory.

Of course, no one thinks that makes sense, but it is ominous nonetheless. We will break all of that down. Also, some pretty interesting mysteries from Xi Jinping's new ascension, his re-acclimation, some weird things going on there. We will also break down that and what that might mean. New polling in terms of the midterms. We have increasingly clear picture of the midterms shifting back towards the GOP. Mainstream media finally taking notice. We also have extraordinarily high interest in the midterms. Voters turning out already in record numbers in the early voting period. What does that mean? Anybody's guess at this point. We also are taking a look at some, a mixed bag in terms of student debt relief and it's how it's faring in the courts. Some wins for

the Biden administration, one big loss or challenge. There has been an injunction put in place so that people cannot get relief until these matters are resolved. So we will tell you all about that. And also the Biden White House continuing to be in sort of denial about how the economy is actually going for people. Yes, indeed. Sagar is taking a deep look at China. I am taking a look at the GOP's potentially catastrophic economic plans. But we did want to start with the news out of Ukraine. That's right. OK, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. There's a lot of developments in the last 24 hours. So first and foremost is the Russian defense minister held calls with several NATO heads of defense. And here's what he said, Sergei Shogu. He said that there was an, quote, unproven claim in his phone conversations with several defense secretaries that Ukraine was

going to use a dirty bomb on its own territory, the claim being that Ukrainians are manufacturing some sort of event in order to precipitate NATO involvement. Now, as many pointed out, that also would precipitate possible Russian escalation. So they certainly have an interest in doing so. The point being that tensions are probably higher today than they have been in quite a long time. One of the things that a lot of us took notice here in Washington, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, is that there were actually two separate phone calls between the head of the Russian military and Lloyd Austin, our own defense secretary. That was the second of two phone calls in just a matter of days. And Crystal,

that is the first time that the two had spoken since the outbreak of the war itself. Here's a readout from the Russian side. They say, quote, heads of defense departments discussed the situation in Ukraine. Shogun spoke with counterpoints from France, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Notably, all of those are NATO allies, and all of them have had a pretty big role in trying to have any of the nascent negotiations in the early days they were involved. This morning, there was also a joint statement that was put out by all of the NATO heads of secretaries of state. Now, what they said there, Crystal, is that they were pushing back against the so-called claim around the dirty bombs. It was a joint statement between the US, Britain,

and France, notably Turkey, was left off of that. And here's exactly what they say. They say that the defense ministers had all spoken and confirmed those calls. They say that the world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation. So that is why it all matters. Our own State Department put it out and says, we, the foreign ministers of France, the United Kingdom, the United States, reiterate our steadfast support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia's ongoing aggression. We remain committed to continue supporting

Ukraine's efforts to defend its territory. Earlier today, they confirmed that. Our countries made clear, we all reject Russia's transparently false allegations that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory. The world would see through any of the attempts. We further reject any pretext for escalation by Russia. The foreign ministers also discussed

their shared determination to continue supporting Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. So why does that matter? Obviously, this seems to be in a very, very tense event. It would not be outside of the Russian playbook to facilitate some sort of, quote unquote, false flag operation. And, you know, according to them, they may not even need any so-called false flag crystal. They could just claim that they have intelligence showing that, which is the pretext for a further type of strike, a further invasion. Obviously, all eyes right now on Belarus

and the Russian massing of troops that are there on the northern border of Ukraine. We have no idea how many troops there are. Some leaks, some intelligence analysts say it could be as small as 10,000. It could also be tens of thousands. We have very, very little insight into what's happening. All we know is that the situation is tense enough where I think it's incredibly noteworthy that the Russian defense minister in his very first call is basically pushing this

on all of the NATO defense ministers, you know, in effect kind of giving them almost a little bit of a warning. We don't exactly know what was said, but like we said, to watch this situation very closely comes on the heels of Nord Stream and also on the heels of the Crimean Bridge attack. Yeah. And on the heels of them threatening use of nuclear weapons. So, I mean, that's the backdrop for all of this is, oh, is this the pretext that they're going to use with their own population to justify the use of a quote-unquote tactical nuclear weapon or at least quote-unquote some kind of nuclear test? I mean, that's the really terrifying scenario. And I think that has to be what US, UK, and France are all thinking when they're putting out this joint communication saying, we see through your lies. None of us is going to fall for this

whatsoever and see, you know, we see through what you're doing here. I think the most that we can say at this point is that something is going on. And the way that we know that for sure is we haven't had communication at this level of our government and Russia's government for a long time. I really don't know the last time that the defense ministers spoke. I think it was before the war. They spoke twice in a matter of days. And it was explicitly at the request of Shogu, the Russian defense minister. And it was obviously explicitly to convey this sort of ominous warning slash threat.

What does it mean? Where does it lead? No one knows. I think all we can say at this point, it is extremely unnerving and a very ominous situation. Yeah. One quote I wanted to highlight is that Shogu in his readout from his speech, from his talk with the French defense minister, here's what he said. They discussed the nations in months, and to have the circumstances of this be confirmed by all of the NATO defense ministers who spoke with them and all united in saying, hey, we would reject any pretext of this as, quote unquote, further escalation, we should be worried. We do not know what that, quote unquote, escalation could look like. It could be a redux of the drone attacks, which we'll talk about in a little bit on their critical infrastructure, which has wreaked havoc on Ukraine's energy. It could be more

missile strikes that we've seen previously. It could involve Belarus. And then the nightmare scenario is that it involves tactical nuclear weapons. You know, the first one that we had called the defense minister of the UK in his initial call, put out the statement, put it up there on the screen, because he makes it clear what you said. At the request of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Secretary of State for Defense spoke with his Russian counterpart this afternoon. So this was a call precipitated by the Russians. Now, with Shogun too, there's been a lot of Kremlinology in analyzing what's going on with this guy. He was inside Putin's circle, and yet, Crystal, he has not been seen publicly in a while. Now, he was at the so-called annexation, but he was not at the latest speech where Putin was talking about escalation post-annexation.

Kremlinologists were looking at that and were like, hmm, maybe Shogu is out of favor. Maybe he's the fall guy. The point being that Shogu has his back against the wall. He clearly is going to have some blame for this, both from Putin and from the Russian public. They need a fall guy just like everybody does. Right. And so he really is in a tight spot.

And Putin really has him in a situation where he's going to say, you have to be my front man for anything that I'm going to be doing. Our fates are intertwined. And if you don't do a good job, I'll either have you killed or, you know, you're going to get fired and eventually fall out of a window or something like that. But my point is that Shogun himself is not all, is also in a precarious situation when he's going through these phone calls. There's a couple other things to say here. I mean, first of all, just to explain what a dirty bomb actually is. It's a device that uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste, doesn't have the impact of a nuclear weapon, but could still expose large areas to radioactive contamination, which again is why there's a lot of skepticism that Ukraine would be looking to

launch one of these on their own soil, which could potentially impact their own people. We also should consider the broader context here of, of course, how is Russia faring in the war right now? And we're going to get into a little bit more of this in a moment. But as we reported to you last week, it looks like they are preparing to lose Kherson, which is, you know, one of the first major cities that they were able to claim in this war. That would be yet another stunning defeat. You see desperate moves like the official imposition of martial law in the four illegally annexed territories and a sort of like, maybe sort of kind of martial law in other parts of Russia. Of course, we had the mass mobilization of several hundred thousand Russians, as best we

can tell. And of course, that resulted in a lot of domestic upheaval and many military-age men either fleeing the country or basically going into hiding. So they're in a very difficult situation. We also should keep in mind that they have a new, much harder line general in charge of this effort. And since then, that's when we've seen, you know, the strikes on Kiev again, the strikes on infrastructure, these more sort of, you know, all in and brutal tactics to terrorize the population, even as it has not actually changed their ability to win on the battlefield. So that's the context in which this call comes in and part of why it is such a frightening situation. Yeah. And that's just what I think this call comes in and part of why it is such a frightening situation.

Yeah. And that's just what I think we shall underscore in this segment, which is that it's a tense, tense situation as to how exactly these things go. Could be weeks, could be days. We really have no idea. This is exactly the type of stuff they were doing right before the invasion of Ukraine. Right. You know, not lost that false flags precipitated the Nazi invasion of Russia, you know, many other Russian invasions and or escalations in the past. False flags have precipitated escalations here in the United States. The point being that this is a time-honored, unfortunate tradition. And even if everybody knows it's BS, that doesn't always stop the belligerent from just sticking with it and selling their own populace. So lots of scrutiny that should be paid to this.

But I do take it very seriously in the context of Nord Stream and especially the Crimean escalation, the Crimean Bridge, and then the missile attack. Things are all trending in a scarier direction. Now, let's turn the tables and look over at the Ukrainian side. Now, Zelensky giving an interview, which, sorry, there's two separate things that we want to show you. First is CBS News, which is doing a new report from the front line near the Ukrainian border

where they actually embed with the 101st Airborne Division, which is a practicing for war with Russia and not just doing that, but granting full access to these journalists to do essentially what is a shaping operation in terms of propaganda as to why exactly this is all so important. Let's take a listen to that. At a forward operating site, we watched as U.S. soldiers and Romanian troops pounded targets in a joint ground and air assault. The tank rounds and artillery fire are real.

So is the enemy, meant to recreate the fight against Russian forces in Ukraine. A message to Russia and NATO allies alike, we're here. The real meaning for me to have the American troops here is, like, if you were to have allies in Normandy before any enemy was there. In all, roughly 4,700 soldiers of the 101st Screaming Eagles from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, have been deployed to reinforce NATO's eastern flank. You've had an opportunity to watch, observe, and possibly study the Russians. What do you think of them so far?

So we're closely watching them. So we're building objectives to practice against that replicate exactly what's going on in Ukraine. We're the closest American unit to the fighting in Ukraine. And what does that feel like? What does that mean? It keeps us on our toes, right? Ready to fight tonight is a message that we've heard repeatedly. It's not just about defending NATO territory, but if the fight escalates and NATO partners are under threat, they're fully prepared to cross over into Ukrainian territory if ordered to do so. Back to you in the studio. A couple of things to take notice on that. Number one,

that wasn't just on, that wasn't on evening TV, that was morning TV. So that was like the feel good segment of that. But look, I think it's incredibly noteworthy that the 101st Airborne not only is doing this, but is also granting interviews and making it very clear. They're like, hey, we're right here. We're doing all this stuff. They see it very much in terms of the World War II Normandy analogy, kind of ready to jump in at any moment. And look, I mean, regardless of whether you even support that or not, it is happening. It would not necessarily that we even have a say. And it's happening at the same time that Ukraine's president, Zelensky, is urging even more Western intervention. So we'll remember after the missile strikes, they went to Israel and they

say, hey, we need Iron Dome. They came to the U.S. and said, we need even more missile defense systems. They want Patriot missile defense systems, which we can't even sell them because we can't make them enough. They got the Germans to give them some anti-missile defense systems. They're asking for Iron Dome from Israel. Exactly. Well, the Israelis were like, no. Which, again, I find it fascinating. They are not under any scrutiny here in the Western press. We've got some just incredible allies that we've accumulated here over the years.

They can do what they want, but I'm just saying, you know, they get almost no criticism, apparently, in the West for doing so. When India is apparently like the worst nation on Earth just because they continue to buy their oil. Anyway, put that aside. Zelensky himself, after the critical attacks on Ukrainian energy, which has decimated the grid, almost 40% of the grid, which is down, we've got rolling blackouts across the country, very unreliable power generation. And of course, we're going into winter. He is now coming out and saying that the presidential office in Kiev, if it ever gets hit,

that the U.S. should precipitate a strike against Russia. Let's go ahead and put this interview up there. We've got subtitles, so we cut the audio. It says, if you strike the street where the presidential palace is located, then there will be a strike where you are. This is what he is saying. The one who gives out orders to kill people, well, he continues, he says, if you do that, you must know that in one second, what will happen is that no matter what the result of your strike is, there will be a strike on your decision-making center. The point being on two things. Number one, which is that he's opening the door for if the Russians try and do some sort of decapitation operation against presidential office, that perhaps either the U.S. will strike on his behalf or some sort of NATO country or Ukraine will strike on Russian territory using American supplied arms. Both are,

let's just say, in escalation. Now, look, you know, the Russians don't have to hit the presidential office. They could make sure that none of this happens. But that doesn't mean that this couldn't further draw us into a conflict. Zelensky from the beginning has been trying to figure out a way to get us more into this thing. And I mean, I don't blame him for that. Right. Right. And so obviously he doesn't directly name the U.S. or NATO in this.

But the reality is they are able to strike with the weapons that we give them. So we have so far resisted giving the longest range missiles that would be able to accomplish the sort of attack that he's talking about. And so if you read sort of between the lines here, that's how we get drawn in and how we get implicated in what he is urging here. If in fact there is a strike on, you know, the presidential offices basically where he would be. And, you know, I don a strike on, you know, the presidential offices basically where he would be. And, you know, I don't know if this is based on some sort of intelligence of what he expects to happen. Certainly there have been calls from the more hawkish figures in Russia to, you know, attack government buildings and government information centers that could include the presidential offices there that he is talking about. So,

you know, these are just ominous continued signs. And going back to the piece from CBS, it's interesting on two levels. It's interesting that it's happening and that they're there preparing very close to the border that, you know, hey, if we get pulled in, we're ready to go. We're ready to go into Ukrainian territory. I mean, them just saying that on television is extraordinary. And then the other piece of it that is interesting is that they are, you know, this is a piece of propaganda for the U.S. military. Like, this is the administration's line. This is what they want to tell the public to try to, I guess, prepare us for the idea that that is a possible eventuality. That's why that piece is so important, not only because it's happening,

but because this is a message they want to go out to the U.S. public ultimately. Let me explain to you, as a former Pentagon correspondent, you do not get access to these units, period, without approval at the very, very highest level. So somebody in the European command may have made this call, but honestly, it probably came from the White House, given how sensitive it is. And something that you and I covered actually seven months ago

before the invasion was that our troops that were being sent to the east, reporters were not being allowed as embeds. We were not allowing Western media outlets to embed with those forward deployed troops from NATO all the way on the eastern flank, meaning that access to these troops is very, very, very tightly controlled, just as it was with Syria. This was a granted interview. They wanted us to see this. More importantly, I think they want the Kremlin to see this. And it comes on the heels of some other shaping operations in our media. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This was actually an interview with David Petraeus and a French outlet. Now,

the headline, for those who don't read French, thanks to Google Translate, here's what the headline says, quote, David Petraeus, ex-CIA, colon, a force led by the United States could intervene in Ukraine. Now, what former General Petraeus and former CIA Director Petraeus, and also noteworthy, the very first former U.S. official to appear on television and say that if Russia does use a tactical nuclear weapon, that the United States would strike the Black Sea fleet in a conventional military operation, effectively drawing us into a full-blown war with Russia in World War III. He is that first person now continuing these operations. He is saying that the U.S. could lead a, quote, multinational but not NATO force in the event of some precipitating escalation where we would have to intervene in Ukraine.

Once again, this is a point. This is like the forward most point of propaganda. And this really does show you how media and former officials are used. There is no such thing as former CIA, in my opinion, and especially like former generals, given how tapped in all these guys are into the blob, into the establishment. They are sent out there in kind of a proxy for how the U.S. public is thinking about these debates. Petraeus himself is no stranger to this. He was one of the people who effectively forced Obama's hand with several other allies by leaking to the media that we needed to have a surge in Afghanistan back when he was there.

Of course, he was involved in the surge in Iraq. He, you know, really was a very well-respected public figure before his own cheating scandal and all of the FBI giving classified material to his mistress. It's a whole other thing. But the point is, is that he is using his reputation, his connections to be on the most bleeding edge of pushing conventional war with Russia and more so how exactly it would go down. Now, you know, personally, anytime I hear multinational coalition of the willing, there are some scars for the younger Gen Z people. That's what we call the invasion force in Iraq. The fact that it would be non-NATO actually doesn't make a lot of sense to me because then, you know, isn't this entire effort because we're supposedly is to be supporting the NATO red line.

We're like, oh, this is so close to NATO that we have to get involved and give so that he doesn't strike NATO. But then it wouldn't be NATO if there were a defense. So which multinational countries? Why are there discussions that are going on right now? I would take this as some sort of confirmation that the discussion at the least is happening. Why is this so specific? That's the piece. And the question here from the interviewer translated into English is, what is the red line beyond which NATO must become more involved in the conflict? And he says, I think the red line for NATO is directly related to the collective self-defense commitment of Article 5, that is to say,

an attack against a NATO member country. Having said that, and this is the most interesting part, troubling part, I think it is possible that Russia could take an action in Ukraine that would be so shocking and so horrific that the U.S. and other countries might react in one way or another, but as a force multinational led by the U.S. and not as a NATO force. So what he's laying out here is that, of course, one red line for NATO is an

attack directly on a NATO country. Okay, we all kind of already know that. We may not like it, but we already know that. But what he's saying here is theoretically Russia could do something so atrocious on Ukrainian soil that that in and of itself would draw us in. That's different. That's different from what certainly the Biden administration is saying. That's different from what the American people's expectation is. and, you know, coming in the context of Russia's weird warnings about a dirty bomb and threats of tactical nuclear weapon use, this is, you know, this is something to take note of. Of course, Petraeus is not in the Biden administration, but as Sagar was pointing out, extremely well-connected member of the blob. And so anytime one of those people speaks out and sort of pushes the edge of

where, you know, where we're leading, where we're going, and what these scenarios might be as they unfold. That's something to really, really take note of. And then you add on top of that the piece of, you know, basically military propaganda from CBS. I don't blame CBS, right? You get that, you know, exclusive look. It's real news. But this is also serving a purpose to sort of either, you know, message to the Kremlin, message to our own population. There's an effort here from the administration to shape the narrative of how people are thinking about this conflict and how the Kremlin is potentially thinking about this conflict. That's right. And so then you layer up on top of all of this and now Iran is involved in some sort of Axis situation.

Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Lots being made of this in the last couple of days that the U.S. is claiming that intelligence shows that the Russians are shopping for Iranian military drones ahead of a state visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Tehran. Apparently, it's scheduled this week where he will be meeting with Iran. And also, this is very noteworthy, with the Turkish president, who, of course, is a NATO ally. Now, the reason why all of this matters is because these unmanned UAVs, which have been provided by the Iranians, are allegedly operating, Crystal, out of Crimea, actually, and are being used in order to target Ukrainian critical infrastructure. Counterpoints did a great segment, I believe, while we were gone, of Iranian drones in the sky,

basically doing like suicide missions against Kiev in the middle of the night. But really where they've been most devastating is on critical energy infrastructure. The grid there is just getting wiped out. And if given Russian control of the nuclear power plant, Ukraine is in a very precarious situation right now going into winter. The reason that this matters is because with Tehran actively siding with the Russians, not only siding, but selling them weapons, giving them some of the technology, also having at least some operators in Crimea that are helping them, this is all alleged. Obviously, there's no confirmation on any of this. this conflict while they're also doing the Iran deal negotiations with Washington shows that that deal is almost certainly but dead, which actually gets us into even more of a precarious situation. Because if you zoom out and you look at our show, what are we talking about next? China. So we have

a slow moving crisis with China and Taiwan in the east. Then we've got a full blown war in Eastern Europe with Russia and Ukraine. And now we've got the Iranians actively siding with the Russians, possibly also precipitating some sort of conflagration in the Middle East. It really is like World War I all over again. And everybody has their own interests as to why exactly they would be posturing and doing this. And not only that, how badly did the Biden administration screw this thing up by not getting back into the Iran nuclear deal to start with? I mean, they had their chance. You know, we had Dr. Parsi on how many times saying the time to act is right away.

Why? Because Iran was about to have elections. And guess what? It all unfolded exactly as he predicted and as he feared, which is that you have a new hardliner in charge. And so that has made negotiations more difficult. They continue to drag their feet. Now it looks like those negotiations have to be on the brink of collapse, given not only what's happening here, but also what's happening domestically in Iran. So we managed to continue our very adversarial relationship with Iran. We also, so the whole idea of our foreign policy in the Middle East is like, we're going to side with Saudi in this conflict with Iran. Well, now the Saudis are on the other side.

They're all helping Russia. They're all on the other side of the equation. So just a total, total disastrous, preventable catastrophe in terms of what is ultimately happening here. And, yeah, I mean, I think the idea at this point of the Iranian nuclear deal coming back together, it's just impossible to imagine how that could ultimately happen. So, you know, it's a really it's a very ugly situation that and it really is. Listen, the Trump administration, they're the ones that backed down the Iranian nuclear deal to start with. So let's lay the blame where that belongs. But ultimately, the Biden administration could have and should have gotten right back in at the beginning and they failed to do it. And now they have probably lost their chance.

Oh, almost certainly they lost their chance. I don't see any possible way that it could happen. And then, you know, no matter who gets elected president, I just, the geopolitical situation is so, look, look at the Saudis. It took the Saudis quote unquote siding with the Russians for the Washington establishment to turn against the Saudis. So once you side with them, you know, in the eyes of the blob, you are done forever. And just to reiterate, put this up there, over 1.4 million Ukrainian households have lost electricity as of the morning of those air raids. The grid is absolutely devastated. There continue to be the drone attacks. There are emergency alerts all across the country. They are warning of full-blown blackouts.

It's cold in Kyiv. It is cold all across Ukraine. And it's generally regarded, what did I say last year? It was like between November 16th and March, the average high is 30 degrees, which is crazy. So when you consider all of that, A, it's probably going to precipitate more of a refugee situation. If there are blackouts, that's going to be really sad. And look, let's also be honest. A lot of old people die in the middle of these blackouts as well, especially in the winter. That was a problem in many of the past wars that were in this area.

So there's a lot of human tragedy that's happening as a result of this, and things are really escalating in a dangerous direction. But wanted to make sure we keep everybody up to date. Okay, let's go ahead and move on to China. There have been so many eyes and takes on what we're about to show you. It is one of the most stunning displays that we've seen in a while. People's Congress, really, where he anointed himself the third term leader for life, proclaiming himself in much more of an autocratic direction in modern Chinese history since we have seen since Mao Zedong, pulled off one of the most crazy stunts that we have seen in the highly

choreographed dance of Chinese politics in a long time. And in many ways, whatever the exact circumstances are, they don't matter because the imagery itself was so profound. So let's go ahead and put this up there and I'll talk over it. You can see here, this is the People's Congress, Xi Jinping sitting there with Hu Jintao, the former president who he preceded, who is sitting right next to him. He's a 79-year-old man. Well, in the middle of the Congress, two handlers for Hu Jintao, allegedly his own personal aides, come over and effectively lift him up by his armpits. So you can actually see one of his handlers. Of course, they both have masks on because of zero COVID ADAC in China and are unwillingly kind of dragging him out of the Congress. Noteworthy to me, look at Xi Jinping's face for those who are just watching.

He is staring straight ahead or he's looking to his left. Also, look at all the people in the front crystal. They're either stealing like furtive glances over what's happening or they are solidly just looking forward, pretending as if nothing is going on. What you can also see is that Hu Jintao sitting right there is very slowly starting to make his way. And then he does two things. Right here, what you can see, he puts his hands on Xi's shoulder and says something, to which Xi go ahead and nods. And then he also says something to two of those officials to Xi's right. Those two officials are actually Hu allies, who Xi retired for not being loyal to his regime, even though they were in their mid-60s. Xi

himself is only 67 years old. So for him to retire them at such an early age was a very interesting moment. What this really showed us is that Xi, again, no matter what happened here, and we should note, let's go ahead and put this foreign policy piece up. There are basically three explanations. One, and actually this would make a lot of sense, is China's zero COVID idiocy, as in who possibly popped positive on a test. Now, the reason why, though, that wouldn't make a lot of sense is because why would they put him out there on the stage for them to test positive in the middle of a live television proceeding? I don't think they would ever let that happen. Two, who is 79 years old? He could have been having some sort of like mental health,

dementia episode. There's not a lot known about his health. That's the first time he's been seen in public in a really long time. So maybe he himself was like, I need to get out of here, and then his own age, but then why would he be resisting? I mean, look, you never know when people are this old. The third is exactly what a lot of people took away, which is that this is Xi humiliating his predecessor in front of one billion people. And you can guarantee that this was shown with no edits, nothing. It was shown to the entire Chinese public.

And the crazy part is they're not allowed to discuss it. So if you search on Chinese TikTok, Hu Jintao is a banned search right now. So that clip is really only going viral here in the West. The takeaway, I think, is obvious. Hu, for all of his authoritarianism, he was a capitalist to his heart. GDP increased many times over. He was the pioneer of the Chinese boom times. Him and as many of his allies were oligarchs, and they became multi-billionaires under his presidency. He forged a lot of the ties with Wall Street,

great friend of the Bush administration, which is sad, presided over a lot of the economic boom and fulfilling the legacy of Deng Xiaoping. Xi very much sees himself as oppositional to Hu Jintao, reinventing the Chinese economy and the Chinese society. He took a couple of swipes at Hu, actually, in his speech in the translated version that I looked at. And this is just humiliating. I mean, taking your predecessor and dragging him out as an elderly man. Right. Being marched across that entire thing in that zoom out shot of watching this all happen. I mean, it's just stunning.

So, again, whatever the exact circumstances are, it almost doesn't matter because the takeaway is Xi is in charge. This is some Stalin stuff. I mean, it really is. The other thing that's interesting is it is pure. If it was intended to humiliate and crush and all of those things, it's also like wildly unnecessary because whose faction has already been crushed? Like any sort of power that he held or power base that he held, they've already been purged. That purge was basically completed at this Congress with Xi bringing in, you know, some of his hardline allies and getting rid of anyone who was at all, even remotely, potentially adversarial. The other thing to note about it, just to bolster the idea that it was

like intentional theater of humiliation, is this all unfolded right after reporters had been let back in. And it was just before the final votes of that session were about to be taken. So you let the media back in, and then this almost immediately is what ultimately unfolds. Again, these things are not typically accidental. Everything about how this unfolded here, this was all choreographed in advance. All of the real politics of this was settled and locked in months ago. So that also bolsters the idea that this was an intentional bit of theater. I think it was planned.

We don't know. I mean, let's go ahead and we can also say what their side of it is. They say that he was ill, that his aides took him to rest and recuperate, and that he's feeling much better now. That's what they're saying about this whole incident. That's their official line. And also, as you said, noteworthy that any sort of discussion of this on Chinese social media, completely censored, completely banned. I will say there's a story, a funny story, which kind of highlights to me why I don't think that anything spontaneous happens in China. When Hu visited Washington while George W. Bush was president here in the South Lawn, there was actually a protester that had somehow made its way into the event that interrupted Hu when he was speaking.

And Hu was shocked and outraged. And the Chinese delegation effectively told Washington, they were like, we know that you planted that protester. And they were like, we don't do that here. They're like, that's not, they're like, the guy just slipped in. Like, what are we supposed to do? And it was a real culture clash moment because in China, you can guarantee if there was a protester, they would have been planted and nobody is slipping through the cracks. So I thought it was, you know, to highlight to me, which is who being outraged whenever he was faced with a spontaneous kind of live thing, he saw it as a great humiliation

by the Bush administration and by the United States. They took it as a real snub. I mean, I just don't think spontaneous things happen in the people's, you know, the people's Congress like this. It is choreographed to the last detail. All of us remember the Beijing Olympics and anytime these people put anything on, they weed out any of the possible events. If he had COVID, there's no way he would have let him out there on the stage. If he was so unwell, why also would they seat him next to it and then drag his ass out while Agence France-Presse has a live TV camera trained on him? I think Xi knew exactly what he was doing and this was a real message to the Chinese people and especially to the Chinese elite. Because people forget this, I'm really doing my own monologue. China has many competing centers of power. You got the

business elite, you got the tech oligarchs, you got the CCP, even the CCP, there's a lot of wider rays. He was showing all those people. He said, I'm in charge. I'm in charge. I will drag you out on TV. You're not just going to be like Jack Ma and thrown in a basement for a couple of months. I will humiliate you in the eyes of the public, even when you were once almost a living god as president of the Chinese Communist Party. So anyway, just a tremendously important event, I think, in what the future looks like. Xi is a young man. He's only 67 years old. I believe Mao died when he was 83.

A lot of the analysis that I've read. He's only 67 years old. I believe Mao died when he was 83. You know, a lot of the analysis that I've read is he's really just getting started. Like, this is really the beginning of Xi Jinping's China. Yeah. It's kind of scary stuff. And the rest of the official moves that happen at the People's Congress really back up that direction to the choices of who was retired off of the Politburo standing committee, the choices of who was put on. One thing that I saw analysts noting is the likely next premier is this guy who was the party's top official in Shanghai. His name is Li Kang. He was the one who presided over like the worst COVID outbreak, the most insane COVID

lockdown procedures. So the idea is we don't really care that he is not popular. What we care about is he's loyal to you. He did what I wanted him to do. And that's what matters most, loyalty over everything. And so that was what was really clear, whatever you make of this incident, coming out of this People's Congress.

So total consolidation of power, total thwarting of any sort of even People's Congress. So total consolidation of power, total, you know, thwarting of any sort of even potential adversaries. And I think this incident is just really perfectly emblematic of that. I think we will look back on it one day in the decades and be like, yep, that's when it all changed. Let's talk about our own domestic politics here.

Kind of, you know, election season is upon us, in case you haven't noticed. And it has been really kind of a roller coaster. So, of course, at first it was like red wave city, no doubt about it, totally clear what was going to happen. Then you had the overturning of Roe versus Wade, the Dobbs decision. Things really shifted. Also, at the same time, gas prices were going down. Also, at the same time, you know, the Biden administration was accomplishing a few different legislative initiatives and priorities. And you had those

couple of open seat special elections where the Democrats actually overperformed. So then you were seeing these polls coming out of, you know, Fetterman up 12 points and even Tim Ryan having a shot in Ohio and maybe Mandela Barnes going to have a shot in Wisconsin. That picture has really shifted now as the economy has continued to turn for the worse. That Dobbs decision sort of fades into memory. And also, you know, we always predicted that after Labor Day, when you start looking at likely voters just versus registered voters, the GOP almost always picks up ground then. So here's from The Washington Post. Mainstream press really starting to take notice that things are starting to slip away from the Democrats. The headline here is from Michael Scherer.

Democrats fear the midterm map is slipping away. A couple of the data points that they have here, they start with the liberal navigator public tracking poll flashing a major warning sign for Democrats in mid-October, reporting a 20 percentage point jump since September in the share of independent voters concerned about the economy and about gas prices. That is terrain that the Democrats have basically completely ceded to the Republicans in what I think is one of the most foolish moves you could have possibly made as, you know, voters the whole time, even right after Dobbs, we're still telling you the economy is our number one issue. And they're like, no, we're not going to talk about that. Yeah. They say that was not the only data showing a turning of the tide in the battle for Congress. Regional challenges are showing up in internal Democratic polls.

You even have some places like Rhode Island is one place that they are worried about now. Rhode Island has not sent a Republican member to Congress in like decades. So those are the sorts of seats that are in danger. Katie Porter also in a relatively blue district, apparently under pressure as well. Sean Patrick Maloney, who's actually, first of all, he jumped into a seat that he thought would be safe, like big footing some other more progressive Democratic candidates. And now it looks like he might be under pressure as well, even in that supposedly safe district that he jumped into. And this is the dude who is supposed to be leading Democratic efforts to hold the House, and he's not even able to shore up his own seat here. Let's go ahead and put 538 up on the screen. This is the race for the Senate. So previously,

Democratic chances had gotten as high as 71%. Now they have dropped down to basically a coin flip. This model says, you know, Democrats in 55 out of 100 times, they win the Senate, Republicans win in 45 out of 100 times. So a really dramatic reversal and shift towards Republicans at this point. And, you know, I think if you just look at history and you look at the top line numbers, you think about how the president's party, you know, when you're in power, how they normally do in the midterms, you think about how people feel about the economy. You think about the reality of inflation. You think about gas prices going back up. You think about how many people are saying the country's on the wrong track. No one should be surprised by these results.

No, it's not surprising. It is really funny to watch. It's like something, the vibe shift happened in the media. And they're like, oh, yeah, inflation's bad. There's high crime and all the fundamentals are moving against Democrats. And also there might actually be problems with polling as there have been for the last six years. Yeah, so this picture as like not good as it is for Democrats is probably still overly rosy. Yeah, oh, absolutely. Yeah.

I don't think there's any possible way. I mean, and to me, really, Crystal, what the takeaway is those enthusiasm numbers that we continue to see, like some of the early vote and everything that we look at. Go and put the next one up there on the screen, guys, because this is what really matters in terms of his worst performing message. They're really leaning into this, which is that the worst performing message per Stan Greenberg, who's really been doing some really excellent work. He was on the Bill Clinton campaign. I actually recommend, there's a documentary that followed the 92 Bill Clinton campaign of which Greenberg very prominently is in. I think it's on HBO. People should go and check it out. They were following

him when he was like a third tier candidate all the way up until he won the presidency. Oh, interesting. So it's kind of the first like gonzo doc, which was back anyway, it was in the nineties. It was interesting for the fashion alone. But the point is, is that what Greenberg intuited at that time with James Carville was the, it's the economy, stupid message that ultimately won the 92 election. And he is pointing out that in all of his private polling, that the democratic party needs to quote, shut up about any of the work that it's done. Because Biden, on all these stump speeches, is like, look what I've done for you with the Inflation Reduction Act. Look what I've done for you with the CARES Act, you know,

two years ago. And voters are really like, what have you done for me lately? Because right now, my gas prices are high, inflation is very high. And in the absence of any message about what you're going to do to solve the problems, instead of here's everything that I've done for you, the GOP message of, well, we're going to attack Biden's policies. Really, it's a vacuum of only one side is saying something that they're going to do. Now, it may be the wrong thing. Personally, I think that it is. Well, I don't even think the Republicans. It doesn't matter.

They're really not even saying anything economically, you're going to be like, and you're not providing people with like a here's specifically what we will do and how we will do it and some sort of counter messaging. Then just by default, Republicans are going to gain the upper hand because they're not in power. I mean, that's just the way that this thing works. So Greenberg has been out with, you know, he did a more perfect union video. There's a joint memo with him and some others at the prospect. He is doing everything he can to sound the alarm here and say, you all are screwing this up royally. And he, you know, doesn't mince words here either. He says, I am stunned about how much of the Democratic commentariat is winging it.

Republicans are hitting us on crime and border and inflation that has huge power. And we have the self-satisfied message of how much we've accomplished rather than being focused on what is happening to people. He was asked if Biden himself perhaps had the message right. He said, nope. I saw their visuals when they were campaigning with the West in which they were talking about helping families with high costs. So they've made a turn with addressing it, but they're also combining it with a message of how great a job they are doing. They're elites. They

live in a world of college educated voters who didn't have child tax credit as a lifeline. Greenberg thinks that child tax credit, re-upping the child tax credit and paying for it by taxing the rich in his testing, that is by far the best tax credit, and paying for it by taxing the rich. In his testing, that is by far the best message the Democrats could be running on. He says they didn't have that as a lifeline. They think our own base responds to identity politics rather than economics. If your goal is to win an economic argument, go on Morning Joe. If the goal is to win an election, look at the fucking data. That's what he had to say so i mean and this is a guy i mean he's not like an anti-establishment dude like us this is a pure democratic operative wants

democrats to win and is losing his mind over how dumb they are in terms of their lack of any sort of message on the economy and you can see how you, just sitting back and look at all we've done for you, even like naming the Inflation Reduction Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, was a stupid move. That's right. Because when inflation then continues to go up, yeah, you can say, okay, it has this provision, it has that provision that's going to help people eventually. But people just look at it and are like, you said this was your plan. That shit didn't work. So what now? And they have nothing to say about it. It didn't have anything to do

with inflation. Like, let's be honest. Really what it was is it was a climate bill. And I think that's fine. I mean, if you mess climate infrastructure bill, they could have run on it as like the electric vehicle bill. They're like, hey, look, like gas is really high right now. We're going to try and make it cheaper for everybody. These are some of the subsidies that we're doing. We finally put technology neutral in on nuclear. There's a defense of the bill, but it doesn't have anything to do with inflation unless your name is Joe Manchin and you happen to have spent $300 billion on paying down debt, even though our interest rates are sky high right now and it's not going to make a single difference. But that's a discussion for

another day. They boxed themselves into this problem and now they can't get out of it. And really, it's their own making. That's why I don't have a lot of sympathy. Greenberg is completely correct about how exactly they should be running. And yet, Crystal, you got a mailer at your house the other day. And what is it? Abigail Spanberger. Let me pull this bad boy up.

Yeah, this is hilarious. I live in a swing district at this point. It's been redistricted. It used to be just hard conservative. Rob Whitman, the Republican incumbent, he's now been districted into a different area. And so this is like, I don't know, it's like Biden plus six, something like that. This should be a seat the Democrats, if they're going to hold onto the House, they have to hold onto the seat. You have Abigail

Spanberger, who's a former CIA op, who is the Democrat. She's an incumbent. And then you have Yesli Vega, who's actually a cop. So we have a lot of law enforcement going on. And this is the mailer that they were actually door knocking that they've been handing out. So a vote for Abigail Spanberger is a vote for abortion rights, voting rights, and accountability, whatever that means. What does that mean? Nothing about economics. You want to know something even better? Not a word.

Not even, you know, she's actually, Spanberger, has actually been great on the stock trading game. She's one of the only people, I've got all sorts of other issues, but she's one of the only people that seems to actually care about this thing and been trying to work across parts and lines to get it done. Doesn't even say anything about that. Like, that's actually a good issue, too. You could talk about that. You could talk about, you know, economics, child tax credit. But she's one of these, like, corporate centrist types. And so

she doesn't actually believe in doing anything for people. So she's leaning into abortion and voting rights instead. Good luck. You're right. She would be better on sock ban. Yeah. Here in northern Virginia, we have somebody who, Kara Lipsman, who's a Republican, actually. All her sign says is Kara Lipsman for Congress. And at the top, it says stand with Ukraine. And to be clear, she is not going to have anything to do with Ukraine. Should she actually win her seat? And she's a Republican. Yeah. There's a blue sign. But this is like a very liberal area. Of course. So, yeah, what I'm pointing out is that this is what politics have gotten to now.

Voting rights, abortion, and stand with Ukraine. Nothing having to do with gas and inflation. Listen, I'm not saying those issues aren't important, that they don't have a place. Right. But as Stan Greenberg says, look at the fucking data. For months, people have been saying, I care about the economy. I care about inflation. I care about jobs.

You have nothing to say to those people, nothing. And in fact, it's worse than that because when, and we'll cover this in a little bit, but when people even express like, hey, maybe you should have a message on the economy because people seem concerned about that, you get scorn and contempt, scorn and contempt for voicing that people have legitimate concerns in their day-to-day life in like making ends meet. And maybe you should be responsive to that as the supposedly party of the working class. That's like, you know, not something you're supposed to say. Yeah, actually, there was a reporter, Hannah Trudeau, who we used to have over on Rising. Yeah.

She put out a tweet which said, abortion as a closing pitch was always going to be a really risky proposition, but up against the economy, it just makes it look fringe. Of course, many people will disagree, but the cost of gas is extremely important to nearly everyone. Abortion is simply not.

Absolute ratio to hell. Total pile on. Basically by the, you know, quote unquote feminist press who were like, how dare you say that? Abortion is not fringe. that to so and so that we're not saying that we're not saying it's are affected by abortion. I just thought it was remarkable that somebody was offering a very, frankly, basic political insight. Right. It took courage for her to even say that. And she was piled. I mean, I really am not exaggerating. Like the national political press made her out as like a villain for saying this. And look, you know, they'll all find out the truth

come November 8th. They can wish it were otherwise. You know, they can wish that everybody in the country is going to row, row, row their vote. But yeah, when gas prices are going up and people are struggling with inflation and effectively getting a pay cut, you know, every week, every month, and you're the party in power, it's, I just can't even begin to wrap my head around the political failures that we are witnessing. And, you know, so the second part of this is we early voting has started in a lot of states now. I have already voted myself and people have really changed their habits in terms of how they vote. You know, post pandemic. This is another like major cultural shift postemic where huge numbers of people are now voting early. And so far, from what we can tell, the turnout in this election is truly insane.

Let's go ahead and put this. New York Times did an analysis here. They say voters stick to pandemic-era habits and early turnout surges. More than 5.5 million people have already cast ballots in person or by mail. Experts predict high turnout in the midterm elections. Let me give you a few of the numbers that they pulled here just to underscore. And we covered the Georgia early voting numbers, which continue to be astonishing. In-person turnout is up 70 percent compared with the 2018 midterm elections. And that was a very high enthusiasm election cycle as well. In North Carolina, absentee ballot requests are up 114 percent compared to 2018.

In Florida, total early vote is up 50 percent compared with 2018. So you have in just state after state a really large enthusiasm for people are coming out and voting in droves. That's the bottom line. Now, if you read into this of like, okay, well, which party does this benefit? I think it's really anyone's guess at this point. So especially because, you know, 2018 was different. That was before the pandemic. So how do you, you can't really compare to that. And then of course the comparison with 2020 is imperfect because that was the presidential election year. So that's a different story as well. So it's hard to know exactly what to make of this. But they say nationally, five and, in the Trump era, Republicans were likely to vote on Election Day because of all the fear mongering about, you know, fake ballots and ballot harvesting and election fraud and all that stuff. He noted that was a slight dip from Democrats' advantage at this point in 2020. Presidential election year always starts a higher turnout. At that point,

17.3 million votes had been cast and the partisan split was 55% and 26% Dem and 26% Republican. So this time it's 51% Dem, 30% Republican, then it was 55% Dem, 26% Republican. Of course, you have the complicating factor of Trump actively telling people don't vote by mail. In that election, you don't have quite as direct and specific a message. So what do we make of it? I really don't know. I can just say that it looks like people are very enthusiastic about voting. Yeah, I think that's the only takeaway. And actually, I remember this in 2020, remember?

And everyone was like, see, this shows a Dem wave. And we were like, hey, just so you know, you don't know who these people are. They could be voting anyway. And as we found out, we had record high turnout in early vote, some of which was mostly kind of split towards the Dems. But it also presaged record turnout on Election Day itself.

Yeah. Many Republicans saying that they only wanted to vote in person. So that also could be what we're watching in November 8th. What we found out in 2020 was, yeah, Democrats were super psyched about voting. They did show up early. They voted in droves. They cast their ballots, you know, early in person, absentee ballots, all of that. But it turned out Republicans were also very enthusiastic. And so Trump ended up winning more votes the second time around. It's just,

you know, Democrats were and independents were sort of disgusted with it. It was enough to barely be able to overtake him last time around. But, you know, I do think we're seeing a similar dynamic here where and let's go and put this next piece up on the screen. NBC News has some new data here that underscores this point. Election interest is at an all-time high for a midterm election. 70% of registered voters are expressing high interest. Back in 2018, which again was another like very enthusiastic electorate, it was 65%. So you have five points higher than back in 2018. But he notes, Republicans have regained the enthusiasm edge. 78% of Republicans have high interest. The number for Democrats is 69%. So 78% high interest for GOP, 69% for Democrats.

And, you know, on some of their other metrics, they have Republicans with a very narrow lead in terms of the quote unquote generic ballot for congressional preference. If it's, if you're just looking at registered voters, and this is one of the things that's always interesting to note, Dems have a one point lead, 47, 46. But when you look at likely voters, the Republicans take the lead 48, 47. President Biden's approval rating is basically stuck at 45%. That's where Trump's was and where Obama's were when they suffered their own midterm shellackings, essentially. So, you know, it looks like people are very enthusiastic to vote, but the fervor that came in the immediate wake of Dobbs and Roe being overturned seems to have abated

somewhat. I think high turnout, I think the electioned seems to have abated somewhat. I think high turn, I think the election is going to have extremely high turnout. And I guess if you're a Democrat trying to, you know, say, okay, it's going to be different, you know, look at how Democrats outperformed in these special elections. Look at how, you know, they've been doing well and continue to hold on in a place like Ohio. I guess you could look at these numbers and maybe tell yourself like, oh, this is Democrats and young people searching to the polls that aren't even being captured in the polling. But history tells us I would be pretty skeptical of that notion. Yeah, I agree. And also, I think there's a great lesson from 2020. What did we learn?

You can win 10 million more votes as Donald J. Trump and still lose the election because tens of millions more will come out for the other side. So it's very possible that there is a big bump for Democrats from Roe versus Wade. And it's also possible that that bump is still further eclipsed by a massive bump and realignment for Republicans with basically unactivated or hyperactivated voters who come out even more so. So they're not mutually exclusive, I think, in a way that a lot of analysts would like to point out. Well, you know, I kept saying a while back, like, the more I look at the macro picture, the more I feel like Republicans are going to run. Right. And the more you would look at the micro picture, like Herschel Walker and what the hell's going on, Dr. Oz, the crew of days, whatever, the more you're like, this is not looking so good.

But what looks like is happening is Republican voters are coming home. Economic concerns and crime concerns are continuing to mount. The issues that were better for Democrats are starting to recede. And, you know, we still have a few a couple of weeks to go here. Joe Biden is out being like, I think we're going to see another turn in this election. But this cake is pretty close to baked. I mean, we are really close to election day and people are already casting their ballots based on how they feel right now. So I think really Democrats have, this was going to be a tough landscape for them, no doubt about it, no matter what they did, but they really screwed up their best chance to

capitalize on where we are right now, which is leveling with the American people about the reality of the economy and having something really clear that they were selling to the American people of what they would do if they were able to hold on to power, just like how Warnock and what's-his-face down there in Georgia won. What's his name? The other...

Ossoff. Ossoff, that's his name. Just like they ran on $2,000 checks and were able to succeed with this just like super concrete material politics, but they're not offering anything like that this time around. At the same time, there's a little bit of a wrench thrown in, in terms of Biden's biggest, most direct economic program, which is the student debt relief. So let's go and put this first part

up on the screen. Court temporarily blocks Biden's student loan forgiveness. Now, there were a few different court decisions over the weekend. I'll break all of them down for you. So there was a federal district court judge in Missouri that initially ruled against this lawsuit, which was brought by six Republican-led states challenging Biden's student debt relief program. A lot of people thought this was the one that was most likely to succeed. So the first thing that happened is a Missouri district court said, no, you don't have standing. Well, they went ahead and appealed. And at the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, they're the ones that said, you know what, we're going to issue an injunction

blocking any student debt relief from going forward until we figure this thing out. So this is not like they're not saying the GOP states are right. They're not saying they're going to side with them. They're just saying, hey, Biden administration, you can't relieve anyone's debt until we figure this stuff out. So that's one piece. The other piece that a lot of people took note of is because there are multiple cases that are going through the court system right now having to do with the student loan debt relief program. So Amy Coney Barrett, go ahead and put this up on the screen, actually rejected a different request to block a Biden student loan debt forgiveness program. She did this effectively on her own because she's responsible for these types of applications from cases in the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that includes Wisconsin. This particular suit was filed by a Wisconsin taxpayers group on Wednesday.

There was no language here. There was no like long written whatever about why she blocked this from going forward. Could have just been based on lack of standing. That's probably the most likely thing, maybe not necessarily on the merits, but noteworthy anyway that one of Trump's justices stepped in here on her own and was like, no to this particular student attempt to block the program. The context of this is that, you know, so far the app or the website in order to apply for student loan debt forgiveness has been flooded with applications. President Biden put this next piece up on the screen, said on Friday, 22 million people have already registered, already signed up for student loan relief. I have to give them credit, Sagar. It's like remarkably different

from the experience of Obamacare, where in the first day of the Obamacare website launching, do you know how many people were able to actually get Obamacare? I remember it was a disaster. I can't remember. Six. Okay. Six people on the first day. Not 6,000, not 6 million, six people. There's actually a New York Times op-ed about this I'm pulling these numbers from, but they did make this process really simple. All you need is your, it's like your name, your address, your social security number, and it's like one other thing. And you can apply on your phone.

You can do it on your phone. So people have really been flooding this website with requests. 22 million people have applied, and now the courts are stepping in and saying, you can't move forward with giving these people relief. The White House is asking, go ahead and put KJP's statement here, statement by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. They're saying, today's temporary order does not prevent borrowers from applying for student debt relief at studentaid.gov. We encourage eligible borrowers to go ahead and join the 22 million Americans who have already gone about this. It's also important to note the order does not reverse the trial court's dismissal of the case. That's what I was referencing before the

Missouri District Court, which dismissed the case. So, you know, this is going to continue to work its way through the courts, but that's where things stand today. Interestingly too, Sagar, neither party is running on this at all. Yeah, that's right. And it could end up being, I mean, in my opinion, especially for young voters who are, like, benefiting from this and are hard to turn out, this is a massive missed opportunity for Democrats to actually show, like, see, we actually did something for you that we said that we would do. Right. Well, I mean, it's a couple of things. So it could blunt turnout if people think that it's not real or if they think it's because one of the worst things you can do is promise somebody and then not end up and then

not come through. That should be a big problem. And that's part of the why when we talked about this, we're like they chose that. What was it they chose like COVID? Yeah. So just to explain the legal justification was they use like a pandemic emergency power in the Heroes Act from like 2001 in order for the pretext for this, when they actually had a separate way legally that they could have pursued this. At the court level, it's interesting because a lot of predictions said that the justices would reject the student debt case if a borrower or a servicer were to bring it. Amy Coney Barrett dismissing that, kind of putting that one to bed.

But this injunction at least gives some path forward in the federal court system that could ultimately lead to a reversal. And so if they didn't make sure, this is part of the reason why happened to the Trump people too on DACA, on the census, on a bunch of these things. When you don't actually, and you kind of haphazardly do something without any real legal pretext or justification, you leave yourself vulnerable to this. And it also is just why like doing these things outside of legislation is just always so dicey because it's like, unless you really have 100% clear authority, there is always some judge somewhere who will disagree and throw the process into chaos. I disagree with that though, because I think it's better. I mean, this is clarifying, right? Because the Democrats, Biden, they're doing the

thing. They're providing people relief. And then it's very clear who's trying to take it away. So I am very much in favor of, you know, using the executive powers that are at your disposal. I mean, presidents for a lot of years have done targeted student loan debt relief. They've just never done a program that is quite this size, which is why the legal rationale that they used was so perplexing because there's this other Higher Education Act. I can't remember, 19 something,

something, 60, I don't remember. It's in the education. Yeah. It's under the Department of Education. And that's what previous presidents have always used. And obviously that's gone through with no problem.

So it seems like it would have been harder for the courts to strike it down if they had used that justification rather than this it seems like it would have been harder for the courts to strike it down if they had used that justification rather than this weird, like, it's a pandemic one. I have yet to see a legal analysis that makes sense to me of why they chose to go this route instead of the other one. So I have no idea why they ultimately made that choice. There must have been some rationale, but I really have yet to see what the rationale was. And listen, ultimately, my view is that the courts are ideological partisan actors, that they decide what they want the outcome to be. And then they like rig the judicial logic to try to get there.

But at the very least, you can make it a little harder for ultimately. Yeah, I mostly agree. I mean, I think the same is true with the left. Right. I've yet to see a Hawaii judge that doesn't love striking down any restriction on immigration. The point being that whenever you throw it to the courts in these systems, why I've always been an opponent of it in this way is because then it gets all held up. And then at the end of the day, like there's some legal wrangling. And what if the justification on this comes out and nukes it for future generations, and then you make it impossible to even pursue in a different manner. So I'm more looking at it that way, which future generations, and then you make it impossible to even pursue in a different manner.

So I'm more looking at it that way, which is that—and also politically, I mean, I just think it's bad whenever— and actually destroys even more trust in an institution when you promise people something and you don't actually do it competently. It really does lead people to think that nothing is possible, when maybe it was if they just used a different legal procedure. I looked and asked, too, by the way. Nobody knows. Yeah, right? It's a mystery. I was like, I don't know. Don't know why they did it this way. Good job, people.

Okay, so last piece I wanted to get you here, which connects very much to the midterm conversation. So White House, you know, sometimes they'll talk in plain terms about the realities of the economy, but they mostly want to sell their accomplishments. And there's a lot of actual, like, criticism of the media for being too hard on them in terms of the economy, which like it either. But people are taking note of an interesting Ron Klain retweet. This man speaks often by his likes and his retweets. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. He's retweeting here, economist Dean Baker, who said, it really takes some gall for the media to tell us that an economy with 3.5 percent unemployment is a disaster. And that was retweeted by White House Chief of Staff Ron Clayton. Now,

I will grant you, it is a strange economy. It is a weird situation when you have unemployment that is so low. There are a plethora, there are a lot of jobs. It just happens to be that a lot of those jobs won't allow you to pay rent and buy food. So that's why so many people are telling pollsters that, and anybody who will listen, basically, that the economy sucks, that they're struggling, that they're like blowing through their savings, that they can't get a break, that their wages are effectively going down. And, you know, I think it's very revealing when probably the most influential person in the White House is basically continuing to be in denial about the economic hardship that people

are facing right now. Right. And all of this, actually, this entire exchange is really revealing. Put this up there because it actually came from a CNN reporter, Andrew Kaczynski. He tweeted, it's a midterm year and the party in power typically loses seats and people are more concerned right now about crime, inflation, and the economy. Dismissing people's real concerns isn't a way in order to win them over. Dean Baker replied and said, don't jobs count as part of the economy? It really takes gall for the media to tell us an economy is a disaster. But now we have always known, always, that the unemployment rate is not a perfect reflection of the state of the U.S. economy, hence why the inflation numbers even

exist, just by the way. And the point is, is that if the vast majority of people are having trouble making ends meet, the savings rate is an all-time low and credit card rate is an all-time high. Yeah, I would classify that as a disaster. I mean, yeah, it's probably better to have a job than no job in this economy,

but that doesn't mean that you're flourishing whenever you do have that job. And by the way, you know, the Fed, which encouraged by Biden and by the Republicans, by the way, is doing everything they can to make sure that that unemployment number goes up so that you not only have inflation, but also don't have a job.

I mean, you have basically every analyst out there saying, a recession is a certainty at this point. Like, there's almost no avoiding it. And the Fed continues to go in this direction saying like wages are too high, even though wages are not keeping up with inflation and the unemployment rate is too low. That is their view of things. Like they are actively trying to make this already bad situation even worse. Something I'm going to be covering in my monologue is the disastrous Republican plans, which go even further in that direction, have a lot of echoes with the catastrophe that unfolded in the UK. But I just, I get so frustrated, too, with the idea that, you know, these numbers on the economy of people saying, feeling badly about it and feeling negative about it and feeling like their own situation is deteriorating. Like this is just purely a media creation as if people don't have experience in

their own lives of what it's like for them going to the grocery store, going to the gas pump, trying to make rent, trying to, you know, one day at some point in their life, afford a house when housing affordability has never been more out of reach. These are real issues. And, you know, that's why you are fading in the polls is because you don't really understand that. And you don't have any plan, at least not one that you've told the American people about, to help them deal with their very concrete problems. And so what is the White House doing? How exactly did they embrace this Twitter game? Well, our producer James Eagle Eye spotted this.

While the White House chief of staff was doing this, it turns out who the White House recently invited. So you'll see here that one Twitter user, MullerSheWrote, who you may know is one of the most cringe accounts that exists, posted a photo of a bunch of resistance liberal accounts that were present at the White House that got themselves sit downs with president biden doing like a now this interview or whatever is that what it was yeah because now this i didn't know other than the picture what they actually did some of these other anyway the point is is that pictured here are some of the most insufferable people like on all of twitter brooklyn dad defiant brooklyn dad whisper all those natist, Rachel Vindman, whose husband was the whistleblower.

That's one way to put it. The Midas Touch guys, who are some of the people who tried to cancel Joe Rogan. Just some of the worst people online. They should just keep them at the White House so they stop tweeting. Yeah, I personally would love it. Of course, while they were there, everyone was blasting it out. And I have no problem with the White House inviting allies. I just think it's very telling that these are the allies they choose to align with right ahead of the election.

These are exactly, by the way, the accounts which surface these types of attacks against reporters for pointing out the most obvious thing, which is voters say the economy is bad. That's it. The best part is that's descriptive. They're not even like, I agree. They're like, well, many voters say the economy is bad. It takes some gall for the voters to think that. So these are the people who they invited. You could wish reality was otherwise, or you could actually freaking do something about the reality that we exist in since you have power. Very true.

All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, there's been a lot of attention paid to the CCP in the last several months as Xi Jinping carefully choreographed the latest party congress, where he proclaimed leader of China for life. The incident which has gotten the most attention, which he covered here, was the escorting of former President Hu Jintao out of the room. But what I've been paying closer attention to is not Xi, but the people around him, the people who are assuming power and what they believe.

One of the great misconceptions about China is that it's a total dictatorship of one man. It is a total dictatorship, but it is much more like the former Soviet Union, where the government has all-consuming power, but is also divided up into very complex factions, each with their own agendas, ideologies, and worldviews. In the Cold War, we used to call that Kremlinology, intense analysis by the Western press into the individual outlooks of important Politburo members. It wouldn't be uncommon, actually, for average Americans who read the papers in the 50s to know the names of senior Politburo members, and for some reason, though, we don't seem to do the same with China, even though it is many times

more powerful than the Soviet Union ever was, and obviously is a far more competent state. So I thought I would highlight a central figure for all of you, who perhaps more than Xi Jinping himself, embodies how Chinese elites think about us and the danger it will pose in the future to the globe. I was inspired to do this monologue after seeing the news from the South China Morning Post. Chinese ideology czar Wang Huning, an already existing member of the Politburo Standing Committee, is going to be promoted to officially head the National People's Congress. Wang is already number five in the CCP pecking order, but the latest promotion effectively makes him number two or three, with even more control over party affairs. It's a random name to see, unless you know a little bit about him, which I happen to, and I'm personally terrified to see this. Ever since I read a profile of Wang

Huening last year and his musings about China and the United States, I've been very worried that he will assume even more power. Wang is already the architect of the CCP's stated plans from the Chinese Dream, the One Belt, One Road initiative made in China 2025, and Xi Jinping Thought, the fusion of traditional Chinese communism with Xi Jinping's cult of personality. Wang was forged in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and he exited college with the central idea that a society must be controlled at all levels. In his game-changing essay titled The Structure of China's Changing Political Climate,

he wrote that the CCP must, quote, urgently consider how society's software, its cultural values, attitudes, and shapes, their political destiny, as much as its, quote, attitudes, and shapes, their political destiny, as much as its, quote, hardware, like economic systems and institutions. He wrote in 1988, breaking from the prevailing consensus in China. He said that socialism with Chinese characteristics was nothing more than a, quote, materially oriented culture, and he decried a break from collectivist culture to individualism. Wang wrote that in the central that a modern China break from the classic and modern values of the West and must forge its own core values. And it

was in the same year that he decided to set out to create them. He wanted to start in the country which he viewed himself as an opponent of. He traveled to the United States in 1988, and he embarked on a national tour in here inS. of more than 30 cities and more than 20 universities. And he eventually compiled his observations into a book. It's titled America Against America, and it was written in 1991. The observations of the book, especially considering it was written before I was even born, are shocking. Wang writes that, quote, America faces an unstopped undercurrent of crisis produced by its societal contradictions between rich and poor, white and black, democratic and oligarchic power.

He says that Americans are not blind and can see their social and cultural problems, but their issue is they tend to think of them as scientific or technological problems that can be solved. He says, ultimately, America will fail because all of our problems stem from the same rot, quote, a radical nihilistic individualism at the heart of American individualism. He writes, quote, in the American system, everything has a dual nature. The glamour of high commodification abounds. Human flesh, sex, knowledge, politics, power, the law can all become the target of commodification. This commodification in many ways corrupts society and leads to a number of serious social problems.

He adds, Wang eventually concludes two things. America cannot solve its own problems, and China must do everything in its power to resist and supplant the West. Wang's book hit right after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, when the CCP fully embraced its role as the keeper of the party for eternity, not of the people. And from there, his career took off. He became the consigliere to three successive Chinese presidents,

and in his nearly 30 years in power, Wang has consistently rallied against westernization of China, from banning socially undesirable trends on their version of TikTok to heavily censoring their internet, promoting values on their tech platforms that comply only with the CCP. Wang was mostly in the minority of his view until when Xi Jinping came into power in 2012, and since then they have fit hand in glove. China's moves to ban gaming at night, censor its people heavily, embrace zero COVID despite its economic costs, it all stems from the same obsession, control of the population, expunging westernized notions of individuality, capitalism, any rival center of power outside

of the government. It is this central view which guides Wang, by extension, Xi, as they enter this unprecedented situation. Two rival superpowers with the capability to destroy the world many times over, with completely different visions of the world and their own societies and how they should even look. To me, his ascension to near total power shows us that at the very least, the old dream is dead. Any notion of economic ties doing anything to turn China away from authoritarianism is fantasy. The longer we pretend that ties between our two countries economically are mutually beneficial in any way, the more we fulfill the old prophetic quote of Vladimir Lenin, that capitalists will sell the communists the rope which with the way will hang us.

They have a very clear idea of who they are, of who they want to be, and a world which allows them to do whatever they want. We, by contrast, only have fulfilled Wang's prophecy, a radically individualistic society incapable of solving or even paying attention to its worst pathologies as we eat each other alive. Perhaps we have enough time to turn it around. We certainly have in the past. But it's a hell of a gamble when you face adversaries as powerful and as prescient as Wang Huning. I just think what he wrote in 91 is crazy. Fascinating. Yeah, it's amazing.

And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, last week we covered the stunning breaking news that UK Prime Minister Liz Truss was out after just six weeks in office. That makes her the shortest serving prime minister in all of UK history. It wasn't really even close. Why was she forced out? Well, simply put, she went whole hog on that market fundamentalism we were just talking about right out of the gates. And her much revered markets promptly revolted in catastrophic fashion.

Truss, who was obsessed with Margaret Thatcher to such a degree she would intentionally, in very cringey fashion, imitate her dress in a cartoonish way, she also imitated Thatcher's economic policies in a sort of cartoonish way, slashing taxes on the rich, halting a planned corporate tax rise, even lifting a cap on banker bonuses. The results were immediate and they were catastrophic. The pound crashed, the cost for the government to borrow spiked. This triggered follow-on effects like for large

pension funds. They started to face margin calls and were faced with the prospect of having to fire sale their assets. The Bank of England had to swoop in with what was essentially a bailout before the trust government was forced to backtrack and scrapped the whole plan. Never has a reckoning on an economic program been so swift and so thorough. Whatever upsides this sort of supply-side ideology might have been able to accrue in the 70s and 80s, those have long since been claimed. Now, this agenda is nothing but a loser, driving wild inequality, financial rigging, and instant or medium-term calamity. But guess who has 100% not learned this lesson at all? That would be the Republican Party. In spite of making some

noises about a new economic approach in the early days of the Trump years, they are still trying to cartoonishly resuscitate Reaganomics in the exact same manner as Truss was trying to bring back zombie Thatcherism, Reagan's counterpart, of course, across the pond. Courting disaster with a catastrophic plan that sounds a lot like the one Truss used to tank the British economy. Don't take my word for it.

Listen to one of the biggest cheerleaders for zombie Reaganism around, the one and only Larry Kudlow. The U.S. midterm elections cavalry arrived early in London. What do I mean by that? Well, the new British Prime Minister Liz Truss has laid out a terrific supply-side economic growth plan, which looks a lot like the basic thrust of Kevin McCarthy's commitment to America plan. Let's start with Truss.

She is slashing tax rates and deregulating energy. I just love it. That's the liberal business media. This is wonderful. The liberal business media, you know who I'm talking about, is now trashing her plan. That tells me Truss has it exactly right. By the way, Liz Truss is basically operating a Ray Thatcher Trump economic policy. I love how much is revealed by Kudlow, who was one of Trump's top economic advisors,

admitting that Trump's economic policy ended up just being the same old, same old Reagan market fundamentalism that the GOP has fully embraced and the Dems have mostly embraced for more than 40 years. Let's do tax cuts for the rich, plus moral outrage, culture war, panic attacks. How original. But the part I really want to focus on today, because it has immediate potential consequences for us, is the fact that the GOP is actively threatening America with the same calamitous fate as Britain if they are able to win in the midterms. After all, they have, in fact, against all better judgment, released their plan for governance. And astonishingly, it might even be worse than what Truss had planned. Because

unlike her, whose ideological fervor accidentally caused a crisis, the Republicans are actively, intentionally planning a crisis. That is literally what they're saying out loud. Just take a look here. Here's the headline from the Washington Post, quote, GOP to use debt limit to force spending cuts, Kevin McCarthy says. McCarthy, of course, would be the speaker if GOP takes control. So you get that? They want to use the debt ceiling in order to tank the entire economy hostage and threaten it if they don't get their way on their own Liz Truss-style agenda. An engineered fiscal crisis at a time of such economic precarity with a full recession nearly certain,

is exactly the type of own goal that could spell complete disaster. After all, the escalating crisis of the trust budget was caused by a massive increase in the cost for the government to borrow. That spike in government borrowing costs caused pension funds to collapse. That pension fund collapse nearly triggered a wholesale British economic debt spiral. The lesson here is that markets are very complex. They are very interconnected in ways that literally no one actually has a complete picture of. What would be the cascading effects of a debt ceiling showdown or an actual debt ceiling default? No one knows, and I don't know about you, but I would really rather not find out. But that's not all, because what the GOP wants is to use that debt ceiling crisis to extract more tax cuts for the rich and for corporations.

Once again, sounds just like their apparent queen here, Liz Truss. For all their crying about deficits and inflation, when it comes to busting the budget on behalf of the rich, Republicans here really are all in. They want to permanently lock in the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations. They even want to add back in some more loopholes for corporations to exploit so they can pay even less in taxes. According to Trump advisor and radical market fundamentalist Stephen Moore, quote, this will be a central driving theme of the

Republican Congress making those tax cuts permanent. Just the corporate tax cuts alone that the Republicans are pushing would cost more than Biden's student loan debt relief that they all had a panic attack over how all that spending would blow up the deficit and fuel inflation. And remember, the largest driver of inflation is actually corporate profiteering. 52% of inflation during the pandemic was because of corporate price gouging. So they're not only spending a bunch on rich people, but they're rewarding the very villains who are responsible for spiking your prices. Not only are they committed to making life easier for the rich, they're committed to making life harder for you. McCarthy has kept cuts to Social Security and Medicare on the table. Other Republicans,

including Senator Ron Johnson, Senator Rick Scott, have already floated cuts to the program or even sunsetting them altogether. Not that any of that should be surprising since Republicans have been looking for ways to undermine or cut these programs basically since their inception. Death ceiling crisis, massive spending on the rich, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, rewarding the price cowders this is all pure economic insanity trust calamity economics on steroids and although they don't talk about it much and democrats foolishly have said basically nothing about it this is exactly the agenda that is on tap if the gop wins control of the house and the senate which at this point seems quite likely just as brexit foreshadowed Trump, Truss's economic disaster could foreshadow our own, an engineered crisis of epic proportions, but this time with politicians so foolish and so lacking in any accountability that they are unlikely to reverse course even if catastrophe

does in fact ensue. Good luck, America. And, you know, this is kind of playing in the background. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. We're going to do a breaking news block now. It seems to always happen for us, Crystal, in the middle of the show. There's some groundbreaking stuff going on over in the UK. Yeah, following up my monologue here. Our guest was sick,, we had to cancel

that, but hopefully we'll move it to the next person. So Rishi Sunak, poised to be Britain's next prime minister. Big moment, I guess, for Indians, our first leader in the West already, you know, you've got the New York Times in front of you. The first person of color who will lead, I tend to think it's probably more important what exactly the man is going to do when he's in office. And look, two couple of things, which is kind of interesting. One, number one, Sunak actually ran against trust, saying that her plan wasn't going to work. He said it was a fairy tale. I was going to say, I believe he's called it, quote, fairy tale in the debate between the two.

That's on his side. On the other, this is a precarious situation. 2024 is the next general election that's going to get called. The amount of chaos that's happening right now, clearly the conservative party is totally split. They really don't seem to agree on what the path forward is on inflation and on energy. They tried the free marketism, but they're also not going to go all the way in terms of price control and seizing the energy grid. They have to deal with Ukraine. They also have the cold that's stepping in right now. The party is split almost 50-50.

Boris Johnson, when he bowed out of the race yesterday, said that he had received over 100 commitments in the Conservative Party behind his candidacy. Nobody knows if that's true or not. That's just what Boris said. Well, then why did he bow out? Listen, I don't know. The point is that he was in contention in a serious way to possibly be the leader. So he doesn't have a full mandate of the party all coming together. And let's back up a little bit for people who haven't been following this super closely.

Because obviously Boris Johnson was prime minister. He was involved in any number of scandals that ultimately brought down, you know, his time in office, forced him out. Because he was doing, you know, they were doing parties like every week during COVID while everybody else was locked down. And then to make matters worse, he lied about it so many times, like over and over again. He actually sort of tried to use his quote unquote leadership. I didn't really like the direction he was taking things in, but, you know, going to Kiev and his posturing on the Ukraine war. A lot of that was an attempt to sort of rescue his own domestic political fallout. And so what triggered his

resignation, ultimately being pushed out of office, was Rishi Sunak, who was a member of his cabinet. He ultimately resigned. And that is what kicks off the process that Lee ends up with Boris Johnson out of office. Then you have this race for Tory leadership and to be the next prime minister. It ends up being basically Sunak versus Truss. Sunak is very critical of Truss's just total all-in ideological Thatcher, Reagan, zombie market fundamentalism stuff. He's like, this is way too far. And there are factions within the conservative party because, you know, Boris Johnson was that sort of like, you know, more economically popular. He did some things that

you wouldn't normally associate with Tory leadership. So when Truss announced her market fundamentalist budget with all these tax cuts for the rich, and I'm not going to raise taxes on corporations, and I'm going to lift the banker bonuses and all of that. There were right wing newspapers that were celebrating. They were like, this is finally we have a true blue Tory budget. So when the bottom fell out of that, ultimately Sunak appears to have been vindicated and in stunning fashion because he, you know, had called this a fairy tale and had been critical from the start. So there's still, I think, you know, the question mark around him was whether the party would get behind him given the fact that he

was seen as kind of a traitor to Boris and they're still a very large Boris-aligned faction, but ultimately, you know, they clearly were able to overcome that and he'll be the next prime minister. Now, the other thing to say here is that like the standing of the conservative party in britain has almost never been lower yeah like there are there's mass clamoring for a general election it is incredibly anti-democratic to just keep swapping in and out these leaders with no general vote, right? Labor in the last polls had like a, you know, 35 point lead over the Tories led by Keir Starmer. They've sort of like crushed the Corbynites and have this more like neoliberal type of dude who's in charge now. So even though they now have a new prime minister he's facing massive economic problems massive worse

than us i mean yeah inflation is higher they don't have the world's reserve currency they have a housing crisis housing affordability i think is even worse it is huge housing issues huge energy issues we've covered the bbc is writing secret scripts in case there's a massive nationwide blackout. That's the sort of thing that he's stepping into, which trust made that much worse with the fallout from her ultimately aborted economic plan. And then there's massive political issues as well because the Tories are in such poor political standing. So it's going to be, you know, it's quite something that he's got on his plate right now. Yeah, that's what I was saying, you know, before all the Indians get so happy. This guy could last just as long as Liz Truss. I mean, the reality is, is that he's got a divided

conservative party. The country is in turmoil. He's got a bunch of crises. It's very possible that, you know, they get a vote of no confidence that gets called on him. What if there's another snap financial crisis? Nobody knows. And then that's it. Boom. Your government is over. You're resigned. He's only 42 years old. He's actually quite young in order to hold the office. So anyway, this is a very precarious political problem. Is he going to outlast the head of lettuce? I think he probably will just because trust was such a disaster. But the previous one, I believe, it lasted three months. That was the previous shortest PM in British history. I saw a bunch of great takes that trivia writers in the UK had to update all of their stuff because they hadn't

had somebody who'd served for such a, like it was a staple. Everybody in the country knew, at least in trivia, like who the shortest serving PM was and they had to update it. Now it'll be Liz Truss. It's a really, it's a complex situation and he's really walking into the buzzsaw. I kind of agree, which is that at this point, I think you need to have a general election. I mean, they're not going to do it because they know they'll lose. Because they will lose. Yeah. But trying to govern the country like this is not good for anybody.

It really isn't. And just this level of turmoil at the top of the government, it's bad for the economy. It's bad for foreign relations. It's bad for the populace. And if they do keep it up, and if especially he has a divided party and kind of hangs on by a thread up until 24, they are going to get creamed in the next general election. And then he's out anyway. So it may honestly be to his own benefit. Who knows how it's all going to go. Yeah.

And obviously, I mean, this is a huge economy, huge trading partner of ours, massive ally of ours. And then as I tried to lay out in my monologue, also a lot of warning signs coming from the UK and, you know, they've foreshadowed political and economic events that lay in our future as well. So it's why it's important to pay close attention to what is happening there across the pond. I agree. All right. We'll see you guys later. We really appreciate you joining us. Thanks so much to the premium members for making our show possible. We've got some good staff changes, which we're going to announce here soon, which literally is only capable because of all the support that you guys have given us.

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