Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/3/22: Nuclear Threats, Ukraine Offensive, Nordstream Attack, 2008 Retrospective, UK Collapse, Brazil Elections, & More!

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss nuclear threats by Putin, Ukraine's offensive, Nordstream pipeline attack, stock ban sabotage, late night TV, 2008 financial crisis, UK financial crisis, & Brazil elections with Glenn Greenwald!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/Chicago Tickets: https://www.axs.com/events/449151/breaking-points-live-tickets Glenn Greenwald: https://greenwald.substack.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. worthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points premium member today at BreakingPoints.com. Your hard-earned money is going to help us build for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Some very, very ominous warning signs coming from Russia about the potential threat of them using tactical nuclear weapons. Frankly, it's kind of terrifying. And I think the media has not taken it seriously, this risk whatsoever. Finally, Washington seems to be like, oh, maybe this is something we should think about. So we have a deep dive into that, into the Ukrainian response, into this administration's response, the very latest on that sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline. We're going to go into all of that.

We've also got a couple of political updates for you. That congressional stock ban that they were looking at last week, I know you're going to be shocked to learn it just didn't come together, Sagar. I know they really wanted to get it done, but they just couldn't get it done. We'll dig into those details. Also, a big move at The Daily Show, Trevor Noah moving on. So we'll break all of that down for you. We've also got Glenn Greenwald on this morning. Hopefully, fingers crossed, we'll be able to get him in to talk about the results of the first round of voting down in Brazil. Before we get to any of that, though, our normal announcements, live show.

Live show. Chicago. Let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen. We've been planning something extra special for everybody in Chicago. It's going to be a lot of fun. Go ahead and buy tickets there. And we're going to make sure that it's going to be a great time for everybody. No matter where you're seated, we've got a lot of participation and stuff

that you really are going to be able to see live. So I think it will be very special. There's a link down there in the description if you want to go ahead and nab your tickets. We've got hundreds of you already have signed up, so we're really, really excited. Number two. Let me just say, we're trying things that are a little bit different at this show. Yes, very different. A lot more audience participation.

It's going to be very interactive, so we're super excited. So guys, if you can, grab those tickets before they sell out. We're psyched about that show. It's going to be an experience. Yes. A live experience. Breaking news experience. Not just a show, an experience.

Okay, all right. Number two, we got the discount going on right now. Let's go ahead and put that up there on the screen. CounterPoints. CounterPoints Friday. Man, they had a fantastic show on Friday. It was legit. I loved listening to it.

I'm like a legit fan of that show. Yeah, it is so, so good. So they've just been doing such a great job, Ryan and Emily, over there breaking some interesting news about our former employer. That was interesting to watch on our new channel. So anyway, I think they're doing a great job. If you want to support them and really just our expansion and maybe support the mission of why we started this show, you got a little bit of a taste on why exactly things like that might have been happening with our old one

in terms of what happened with Katie Halper, please, we got a link down in the description. We got the discount going on right now for annual members. 10% and I think this will be the last week that we offer it. So thank you all so much to those who have taken advantage. It means a lot to us. And putting us aside, I think what happened with Katie Halper being silenced and censored over her critique of Israel just shows you why it's so important to support independent media. Because, you know, even if you've got an outlet that sort of postures like, oh, we're anti-establishment, we're anti-censorship, et cetera, eventually you're going to find a line that you're not allowed to cross.

And, you know, that's why it's so important to not be beholden to corporate donors or any sort of corporate overlords. So thank you guys for supporting us and making it possible to do what we do here. Yeah, that's right. There are no unofficial policies of censorship here. I can guarantee you that. Yes, indeed. All right, let's start with the nuclear issue. Now, I think we've been trying to do a job of

remain measured, but also cover the seriousness. And I think what you said is correct. I think it's very important when discussing this not to fearmonger. And so let's just very start with the very basic facts. Let's put this up there on the screen. Putin giving that speech on Friday with the official annexation of those four regions in eastern Ukraine after the Sham referendum. Now, beyond the speech itself and the actual referendum, the points that we wanted to zero in on were specifically what Putin was saying, both about the West and about opening and continuing the nuclear sable rattling that we have not seen in this world really since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And what he says there specifically is that the last 15 minutes, Crystal, of the speech, the word Ukraine was not mentioned one time. It was all about posturing this as a united Russian struggle against the West. Obviously, that is to his domestic benefit because, you know, of the dramatically unpopular mobilization happening right now. The direct quote was, the West has said for centuries it is bringing freedom and democracy to the world. Everything is exactly the opposite. This is a longtime kind of Putinism. I remember in 2006, Bush was lecturing him about democracy and he was like, we do not want the type of democracy that you have given to Iraq. That was really, which, you know. Fair point. Fair point. Really what I've seen from Putin is that 2003 onward, really the invasion of Iraq, and really like becoming himself. It was in 2007, there was this grand speech in the Munich

Security Conference where he's basically like, all of you are hypocrites. I want nothing to do with you. It was like the official Russian break with the West. And this is kind of the culmination of that, almost like a 15-year effort of at one point being a semi-friend of the West and really now posing himself as the enemy. And the reason why I think that this speech was so important was not only for the referendum, but for making it clear in Putin's eyes that he views himself at war with the United States and with NATO, even if we may not be in exchange. Now, the reason why that also matters is that whenever you posture yourself as at war with the West, and then you begin your nuclear saber rattling, you're making it clear that

Ukraine is not the audience here. The Washington, Berlin, Paris, these are the audiences, the lawmakers and the policymakers in these regions. And so he brings up the use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, allied bombings of German cities, the Korean and the Vietnam War, kind of saying, look, you guys are the ones who created this scenario. Now we are way well fulfill that and the breaking of the nuclear taboo. Yes. And so, I mean, basically he's saying, pointing accurately to messed up things that the U.S. has done throughout history and then saying, effectively, that gives us justification to do the same messed up things. Two wrongs in this

instance, he's trying to argue, make a right. I mean, and this is effectively what he's been, the case that he's been making since they ultimately decided to invade Ukraine. And listen, we've covered here extensively, you know, the way that the U.S. in particular, the West in general, and NATO antagonized him, made him feel like even if it was not true, made him feel like we were sort of at war with him, like we were out to get Russia. And so that all leads to this place. Of course, none of that takes his culpability away with this illegal invasion. But, you know, what a lot of observers were saying is that this was the, you know, he's used some of this rhetoric of, hey, y'all drop the bombs first and we're going to use everything that we need in order to defend our territorial integrity, which now seems to include these four regions that they've just said, oh, we had these votes,

it was free and fair democracy, of course, during a time of war when we don't even know. I mean, this is how insane these referendums were. They can't even say exactly where the borders are. And we'll get to a little bit more of that when we talk about the most recent Ukrainian advances. But now they're saying, okay, this is part of Russia as well. So that creates a very terrifying situation where it's like, okay, well, if you're saying this is part of Russia, obviously there's an act of war there. Are attacks in that area, is that considered an attack on Russia? That's where this gets extraordinarily dicey with regards to nuclear weapons, because ultimately, you know, the last speech we covered last week, he says, okay, this is not a bluff. Well, if you then go and strike inside of those areas that you're saying

this is my country and you don't respond, then it kind of takes away your threat and your power, which is what nuclear, you know, what nuclear threats are all about is scaring people and trying to deter them. I'm glad you said that because I was going to bring that up, which is that as much as I think it is very important for the West to have clear red lines and policies directed specifically to remove ambiguity from the situation, the same is said of Russia. You can't annex a country, then lose it the next day. Right. Or like territory and then say, yeah, no, but that part's not Russia anymore. But this part is like, well, you can't look what. So Russia is wherever the front line is. I mean, sure,

you know, in effect. But where does the nuclear threat come from now? Of course, hit that ambiguity is probably good for him. But that also leaves a hell of a lot of room up to us. We're like, well, how do we know when to start pushing? And that's exactly kind of the fear, the uncertainty that he wants to instill within us. That doesn't diminish, though, the seriousness of the situation. Let's put this up there on the screen. You know, I think that take away whatever anybody in the West is talking about. Let's take it from the Ukrainians themselves. Just a couple of days ago, they said the deputy head of Ukrainian intelligence says, quote, the probability of Russia striking Ukraine with a tactical nuclear weapon is very high.

He says, quote, they will target places along the front line with lots of personnel and equipment. Now look, there's a lot of different ways to read that. Number one, maybe he's telling the truth. Number two, maybe you should keep reading because here's what he says. To stop them, we need more anti-aircraft systems and anti-rocket systems. So he's like, they're going to nuke us. And that's why you guys need to give us everything under the sun in order to stop that. So you got to take all of this with a grain of salt. Putin

has got his ambiguity. He got his agenda. He wants us to stop all aid for Ukraine. Ukraine, well, this is my problem with Ukraine is they can't make up their minds. First, Zelensky says Putin will never nuke us. Now his deputy head is like, no, no, no, they're going to nuke us. And that's why you've got to give us weapons. And I'm like, well, wake up your goddamn mind here, folks, because I'm getting confused over here. Well, because initially it was, don't worry, they're not going to nuke us, so you guys should be all in with us. Yes, that's right. You should send us all these weapons. Now it's like, they are going to nuke us, so it guys should be all in with us. Yes, that's right. You should send us all these weapons.

Now it's like, they are going to nuke us, so it's too late to stop them, so you've got to send us all these weapons. Like, you know, that's their approach here in this situation. All that being said, let's go ahead and put this next piece up, because this was very significant as well. Ramza Kadyrov, who is the, you know, he's the, like, strongman leader of Chechnya, and a close ally of Putin and has been, you know, this guy is very pro sort of this war and very, very hawkish. He's actually saying that they should use tactical nuclear weapons.

And so, you know, this is a significant escalation. In the long run, clearly not written by the semi-literate in Russia, not sure in Chechen Kadyrov. So they're saying he used like a speech writer, like this was a carefully crafted thing. He accuses the chief of staff of ignoring his warnings that the commanding officer of Lyman is useless and calls for use of low power nuclear weapons. That would be those tactical nuclear weapons. At the end, he closes by saying the whole situation would be great if it weren't so terrible. So the two things that are noteworthy there is, I mean, he is scathing in his assessment of how the military operation is going, and then also is pushing for this, you know, incredible and terrifying escalation of potentially using

nuclear weapons. And I think it's important to remember the context here, which is that the hawks have gotten their way thus far. I mean, they have been pushing Putin to do more and more and more. And this most recent mobilization and, you know, the annexation and all of that, those are things that the hawkish wing, the most hawkish wing people like Kadyrov, have been pushing for. This is clearly where Putin feels the most pressure. Absolutely. And I can't help but feel, Crystal, that this is all controlled opposition. I know I've said it before, but if the Kremlin criminalizes and jails Alexei Navalny and all the other peaceniks and drafts them, and then you leave the only opposition left and you're like,

okay, well, and they shape the debate such that the only person you can ever give into is the criticism of the guy who has been known for over a decade as, quote, Putin's pit bull. I can't help but feel that this is all kind of controlled at the top. I'm not saying it's genuine. I think Kadyrov rightfully would feel this way. But the fact that he's allowed to say it and suffer no consequences, I think that in and of itself speaks volumes. So look, Kadyrov, he's always been this way. He's always advocated for much stronger use of weapons, the brutal tactics that they use in Chechnya, in Ukraine. He's going after that commanding officer in Lyman, I think also setting up the tail for when that officer either dies or gets sent to prison or fired and eventually then sent to prison and died. He said he should be sent to the front lines barefoot. I don't think he's going to live much longer. But of course what we have to focus in on there is the use of, quote, low-power nuclear weapons. And again, I just think we need to explain this to everybody, which is that to me there is no such thing as a, quote, tactical nuke.

And the reason why is it's a lot like gas, like one using gas. You know, a low-grade, quote, unquote, tactical nuke is something that you could conceivably put into an artillery shell. It would only kill, like, 50 people. Something like, I'm saying only 50 people, of course. That's a tragedy. Like more of like a city block versus leveling the entire city. Exactly. However, the taboo that it would break would just be so grand strategic. And I got to use these terms carefully because this is what they mean. There's, like, different levels of warfare. So there's like tactical, operational, strategic, and then depending on who you talk to, like grand strategic.

Grand strategic is like the conference at Yalta with Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin. Be like, this is all what we're going to do. Operational would be like Eisenhower planning the invasion. And then tactical would literally be like the commander of D-Day and the guys who were on the ground. So like that just at a very basic level. So tactical would mean a tactical quote-unquote nuke would accomplish a tactical goal, wiping out this position on the front line. But the reason that I don't think that that even exists is the same debate we had in the 1950s, is anything that goes nuclear is just inherently strategic given the stakes, the escalation ladder, and the unleashing, which is that the road between

the artillery shell, which is a nuke, and the ICBM, which can kill 30 million, those are effectively like a day away from each other. And that's why this strategic, you know, the strategic use of nuclear weapons, even in a quote-unquote tactical sense, would just break everything. And that's why we do, even if they are bluffing, even if these guys are idiots, morons, you know, I've said this before, they could be bluffing a thousand times. But if they aren't bluffing on the first, the tail risk of the thousand and one, the tail risk is so high, they have no choice but to take every single time that they utter it seriously and analyze it, the consequences, the risks, and everything else. And I do think that there has never been a time in this conflict when the use of nuclear weapons was more likely, simply because Putin is under a lot of domestic political

pressure. He is doing very poorly in terms of this war. He is increasingly desperate, and he's already doing a bunch of like fairly crazy stuff. I mean, the mobilization was crazy. The referendums were kind of crazy. This is the sort of, you know, these are the sort of grasping desperate measures that people take when they're left with no other good options. So that's why this ultimately is so frightening. To the question of tactical nuclear weapons, I mean, there is a real ongoing debate within the community of scholars and researchers who study and analyze this stuff, whether or not such a thing is real, whether you can sort of use this tactical nuclear weapon and avoid that chain of escalation that ultimately leads to the giant ICBM.

The very fact that there's a debate tells me there's no such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. Can anyone guarantee that you don't end up on that escalation chain? No, they can't. That tells you that you have to treat this as the nuclear red line that it ultimately is. And so, I mean, as we're, you know, getting more clarity on exactly how NATO would respond, how the West would respond, potentially, if there's a tactical use of a tactical nuclear weapon or some sort of a demonstration, which I think is probably less likely for reasons that we could get into. But I think the most likely use is this sort of like on-the-battlefield tactical nuclear weapon use. So they're saying effectively, okay, we probably respond with conventional military,

so we wouldn't respond in kind. but that could include strikes inside of Russia. Okay, well, then what does Russia do back? Okay, then what do we do back? I mean, that's how you can end up very easily with this conflagration that goes from like what we're in now, which is sort of like low-key World War III into full-blown World War III. Yeah, I think that's right. And I'll just end this particular discussion with a great quote from John F. Kennedy, quote, above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to the choice of either a humiliating retreat or nuclear war. The last of our great presidents to actually have to deal with a crisis like this and who learned a lot from the Cuban Missile Crisis. So let's then go

and move on to how would we respond if such a thing, the unthinkable, were to, quote, happen. And I think this is where we need to start parsing language and look at things very, very, very carefully. First of all, President Biden directly responding to Putin's speech and the nuclear threat. Let's take a listen. I want to say one more thing. I want to also speak to Mr. Putin's remarks this morning. You know, America and its allies are not going, let me emphasize, are not going to be intimidated, are not going to be intimidated by Putin and his reckless words and threats. He's not going to scare us and he doesn't or intimidate us. Putin's actions are a sign he's struggling. The sham referenda he carried out and this routine he put on, don't worry, it's not on there if

you're looking, okay? The sham routine that he put on this morning that's showing the unity and, you know, as people holding hands together. Well, the United States is never going to recognize this. And quite frankly, the world's not going to recognize it either. He can't seize his neighbor's territory and get away with it. It's as simple as that. Inspiring words from our fearless leader there, President Biden, his response specifically to the nuclear threat. Now, I went really deep on this one because there's a lot of rhetoric. Now, we spoke previously Sunday, last Sunday, almost exactly eight days ago. Jake Sullivan says on CBS News, quote, there will be catastrophic

consequences for Russia if it does use any sort of nuclear weapon inside of Ukraine. That could mean anything. I mean, it could mean more sanctions. It could mean literally a military strike, as you allude to. I have been reading with a lot of great interest. Let's put this one up there on the screen. The reason to take this particular article I'm showing you guys all seriously, this is from the New York Times. It says, quote, in Washington, Putin's nuclear threats stir, grow, alarm. And the reason why is that you kind of, this is a little bit of inside baseball, but the lead byline on that story is a guy named David Sanger. Now, Sanger is probably the preeminent, quote unquote,

foreign policy reporter in Washington. Generals have literally been convicted for leaking the world's most secret weapons to him. He's the guy who broke stories on Iran and Mossad. And anyway, the point is, is that if I read something of his, what I'm taking very seriously are the background quotes, because I know that the people at the very, very, very highest level are speaking to him to kind of shape the conversation. So here's what he says, quote, in background conversations, a range of officials suggested if Russia detonated a tactical nuclear weapon on Ukrainian soil, the options include unplugging Russia from the world economy, some kind of military response, quote, though one that would most likely be delivered by the Ukrainians with Western provided conventional

weapons. The reason to take that line very, very seriously is that NATO right now is very split. This appears to me to be a leak by the Biden administration saying we are not like some of our NATO allies who would commit to a full-blown conventional response by the United States against Russia. We would provide Ukraine basically, I mean, this actually, in my opinion, kind of makes sense, which is that you would basically say, all right, Ukraine, you basically get whatever you want. You get everything that you want. If they're going to nuke you, then this is a full-blown conflict, but we are not going to ourselves get into a war with Russia. Now, this is the view from Washington.

If I had to guess, I bet you Jake Sullivan is one of those. Again, I'm speculating, but I'm just using kind of what I know about how these things get shaped in order to bring it to you. The second part, though, and this is also to be taken very seriously because it shows you the split in NATO. Let's put the next one up there on the screen. This is from Poland. Poland and the Baltics, of course, are the most hawkish members of the NATO alliance. They say that if Putin were to use any sort of nuclear weapon, that there would be a conventional military strike by NATO, again, not provided by NATO to Ukraine, by NATO against the Russians. They say they do not rule out the deployment of

NATO forces on Ukrainian soil and say that Russia can be struck without NATO entering Ukraine. The Polish foreign minister, and by the way, these comments were made in Washington after a meeting with Jake Sullivan said that they have drawn a red line on the need for a conventional military response to a Russian tactical nuclear strike on Ukraine. That's the split. Who gets their way? Nobody knows. And the reason why also that this matters is that, listen, I mean, Poland and the Baltics are NATO countries. We could have a response and they could also have a response. But how Russia responds, still basically whoever the most hawkish member of the NATO alliance is, whatever they do, we're all in it together

because of Article 5. So if, let's say, Poland were to strike inside of Russia in response to Ukraine, I mean, I don't necessarily think they would, but it's within the realm of possibility. Well, then Washington is now at war with Russia. And do you think the reason Poland is so hawkish, and really has been from the beginning, is just because of their proximity and they feel themselves different? They were a Russian slave state for hundreds of years.

I mean, I've been to Poland. I went to their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I mean, it's literally like soldiers after soldier after soldier. Like, this one was killed by the Russians in the 1850s. This one was killed by the Russians in 1910. This guy was shot in a square. I mean, they bear the scars. If anybody's ever been to Poland knows exactly what I'm talking about.

But in the Baltic states too, I mean, you know, having been there, like the hate for Russia runs real deep there. And also look at proximity, right? Which is that they're right there. They're former Soviet slave states. Like, I get it in terms of how I would think. They feel this is a more direct existential threat. It is an existential threat to them in a way.

Because to them, it's, well, also you have to think about nuclear fallout. And I'm trying to preside all sides because as people here know, I'm not exactly a huge fan of the Baltic states. I think that they're far too hawkish. I think they could easily drag us into a war. But if trying to put myself into them, I get it, which is that you're a smaller country, you know, you're next to this great power who historically has ruled you, enslaved you. You probably have a relative who was either imprisoned or like shot by the communists or the fascists. So you have like a deep memory of war. You have this geographical proximity, a nuclear war. I mean, imagine how would you feel if there was a nuke going off in Mexico, right? I mean, or Canada, you know, given where we are here,

I would freak out too. So I understand like why and what response they would give. Of course, though, we then have to decide what response are we going to give? So I think it's very important here for us to present that there is clearly a split strategically in NATO. I think if I had to guess, Washington, Berlin, and Paris are probably on the side of, no, we're not going to war. We got way too much to risk. Already, our economies are a mess. And that's why they're floating, quote unquote, unplugging Russia from the world economy. But honestly, I don't know how much more you could do. What else can they do? At the same time, something I've been reading a lot is that the Chinese and the Indians may be

a great check here, which is that if Russia nukes Ukraine in any way, even tactically, there's no way, I mean, it's possible, but I just see very unlikely. I think at that point, China and India would face actual economic sanctions by the West if they were to continue buying Russian oil and floating the economy, which would turn Russia essentially into like a hermit kingdom like North Korea. By the way, though, nuclear, from a nuclear perspective, that may not actually be a good thing. And that's why this whole thing is such a nightmare. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, there's no good response at this point. That is a real open question of what China and India would do in that circumstance

because obviously they've been key economic lifelines for Russia at this point. And, you know, at the beginning when oil prices were extremely high, Russia was like, honestly doing fine. Now the price has fallen. It's a little more difficult for them in order to finance a war machine. If you cut them off from, if China and India cut them off as well, then they would be in pretty dire straits in terms of the economics of this thing. The one other thing I wanted to point out that was in that New York Times article, it's just an interesting look at some of the Russian domestic politics and the debates that are playing out there. Dmitry Medvedev, they say, a former Russian president, the hawkish vice chairman of Mr. Putin's Security Council,

he laid out a thesis this past week in a post on Telegram. He says if Russia were forced to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, it was unlikely NATO would intervene militarily because of the risk that a direct attack on Russia could lead to all-out nuclear war. Quote, overseas and European demagogues are not going to perish in a nuclear apocalypse. I hope he's right about that. Therefore, they will swallow the use of any weapon

in the current conflict. Now, I actually hope that that is correct. However, clearly the goal of that sort of messaging is to say, it'll be fine. Like, go ahead and do it. It's not going to be a problem. You're not really going to face any sort of significant retaliation because they're going to be too, you know, too frightened to like escalate to the next level. And they're not really going to change their strategy here. I don't know, Chris, to be honest, I do think if they nuke Ukraine, I think we'll probably be in a war with Russia. And it gives me no pleasure to say that. I just,

looking at the escalation chain, looking at NATO, I don't see a way out. I just think that even if we did not want to, given our entangled alliances, given the real red line that it would cross for a lot of these Baltic states, we are bound to them in blood through Article 5. I do not see a world where it's possible to avoid a war. I mean, the place where Putin is actually accurate, and much more so than I think the Western media is in saying this is a proxy war. It's already a proxy war, given the fact that, look, the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave. I mean, they're courageous, savvy. Don't worry. All of that. Yeah. And we are about to get into their latest advances. But I mean, no one series would say this was at all possible without overwhelming U.S. in particular support, weapons, training, and crucially intelligence. So, you know, this is

already a war in all but name between us and Russia. So it's not at all hard to imagine moving to that next step of actually being outright at war with Russia and acknowledging the Western press. And I just have to go back to the total failure of the media from the beginning to present any of the potential consequences of our strategy and our short-circuiting of diplomacy and our total lack of desire to engage or try to push for peace talks. None of the potential fallout and consequences, which were predictable. I mean, we're not rocket scientists here, but ending up in this place where we are right now, which is a terrifying, terrifying spot to be, this was entirely foreseeable from the beginning based on the US and UK policy. Those downside risks were never presented in the press. Never. And so I just feel like there's this massive hole in the conversation of anyone who's, you know, not saying like, oh, Russia's great and actually this is justified, et cetera, et cetera. Like, that's in the best interest of humanity and in continuing to have this world and for the U.S.

and maybe just continuing to escalate and escalate and escalate and short-circuit diplomacy, maybe there's some cost and consequences to that. And, you know, there's polling that says that pushing for diplomacy, that is the mainstream position of the American public. That is what the U.S. public wants to see because people aren't stupid. That's the only way this thing ends, ultimately. And yet that view, which is the mainstream view, totally absent. I mean, there are so few outlets out there that are really trying to make that case whatsoever. And you're really shunned if you even suggest it at all.

Well, it's hard to say, right? Because people will say, oh, you're pro-capitulation. I'm like, listen, first of all, I'm not Ukrainian. So, like, what happens there doesn't really have any effect on me. So, that's number one. So, I'm not pro, I'm not Ukrainian. So like what happens there doesn't really have any effect on me. So that's number one. So I can, I'm not pro, I'm not capitulating anything. Like this isn't my territory. It's not even a NATO ally, frankly.

You know, we have no obligation. We have no obligation to do anything to them at all. It's kind of out of the goodness of our hearts that we're even doing so. But number two, which is that, look, they're like, what are you saying? That Eastern Ukraine, like Ukraine should stop fighting? I'm like, listen, I mean, if I was Ukrainian, I wouldn't stop fighting. But guess what? I'm not Ukrainian. We're the people who are giving Ukraine their weapons. And so I get to decide what weapons I give you and what I don't. We've already done that, no? The Biden administration,

we have a strategic goal that is higher level than Ukraine. So we get to decide what weapons systems to not. Well, then it gets to the point of, well, maybe you get certain weapons systems based on what diplomacy that you take with regards to our greater strategic interests. Like, here's the deal. Well, you know, Yegor actually sent me this. The head of the Ukrainian military or somebody did an interview where he basically admitted, he's like, before the U.S. came in, we would have run out of ammo in three days. So it's like, look, I mean, they don't exist without us. They literally do not exist as a country without the United States. Then I think that we should take a heavy handed role as we did during the Six-Day War with the Israelis. And, you know, even the

Israelis, the Israelis were actually a great power military in their own right who beat the Arabs by themselves, not just with the U.S. Ukrainians are not like that at all. They are literally only exist because of the United States. And here's the thing. It's a it's a posture. It's fake when Biden and co. pretend like, oh, we're hands off. Right. No. Yeah. You say they should take a heavy hand. They already are taking a heavy hand. It's just they want the appearance of, oh, it's just all the Ukrainians. No, this is going exactly the way that the U.S. wants it to go. I mean, that's why this really is, in effect, a proxy war. And if we had pressed for, you got to sit down and negotiate,

sorry, I know you don't want to, you know, give up Crimea or make these territorial concessions, but we're not going to World War III, so, and we're not giving you any more weapons if you don't sit down at a negotiating table. Let me tell you, they would be there in a heartbeat. Now, listen, is Putin a good actor? Is there any guarantee? Of course not. But you don't know unless you freaking try.

And the other thing that is driving me crazy is you mentioned the idea of like, oh, this would be appeasement. Okay. You can't have it both ways where you say on the one hand, oh, if this came to a negotiated settlement, that would embolden Putin. You might just roll throughout Europe. And then on the other hand, be like, this is pathetic and they're getting routed. Like those two things don't exist. This can't coexist. This has clearly not gone well for Russia. The idea that they would be eager to do something like this again, somewhere else on the continent, I think is ridiculous. This has

been a total disaster. His whole regime is threatened at this point. And, you know, there's mass dissent. I don't know what the numbers are, but there's clearly hundreds of thousands of Russians that are literally fleeing the country right now. The economic situation is not good. Like, this has not gone well for Russia. So the idea that this would be appeasement and, oh, they'd just be emboldened to go run over whatever country next, I think that's silly. And I think it does not match up with the other rhetoric coming out of the press that, you know, they're military-spathetic.

They've gotten routed everywhere they've been. They're incompetent. They're, you know, not a great power military whatsoever. So you can't have both narratives at the same time. Well, I agree. I mean, and look, I get very frustrated by this type of rhetoric. They're like. Well, if you let Ukraine go, then they're going to move into Poland. No, they're not. We have a nuclear obligation to Poland. We'll literally nuke Moscow on behalf of Warsaw. We don't have the same red line. We don't have a Senate ratified treaty obligation

to go to war for Ukraine. We do for all the Baltic states and for Poland. The reason that you have alliances is to actually have some level of clarity on like what you're going to defend and what you're not. And by definition, what you're not going to defend is, quote unquote, up for grabs or at the very least in a gray area of what matters and what doesn't. So, look, obviously, this is a very long winded, you know, kind of criticism. Why we want to go deep on all of this. I think it matters. I think this stuff matters. I think the debate is missing.

There is nothing that matters more than this right now. I mean, literally nothing. And that's why I'm so frustrated. It's like nowhere in the mainstream press has that view and that alarm been sounding. You know, in a lot of ways, after sort of the initial days, there was a lull in any sort of coverage. And certainly any of the downside risks, these military aid packages have just sailed through one after another after another. Zero debate. Zero oversight. Zero debate. And now, oh, lo and behold, you end up in this place where you're facing down a really serious threat of potentially crossing that nuclear red line.

And suddenly they're like, oh my God, this is scary. Yeah, no kidding. This was scary from the beginning. And ending up in this place was entirely predictable. Yeah, that's right. All right. At the same time, there have been more Ukrainian advances on the battlefield. Let's go ahead and put this map up on the screen. You can see it's like a little animation here. You can see Ukraine's success in regaining territory since September 1st. They continue to push further east. They retook a crucial transport hub of Lyman yesterday.

I don't really know how to say that. I think it's Lyman, but we'll just go with that. And so this is, I mean, part of why this is so humiliating for Russia is Lyman was part of the territory that they supposedly just annexed. And then, like, literally a day later, they've lost it, which is again, why these referendums, even if you thought like, oh, they did everything to make it free and fair, which is absurd and preposterous. But let's just say that you really think that the idea that you can set a boundary line right now in the middle of a war and invasion and occupied territory is ridiculous. Like,

oh, these people were Russians yesterday and now they're Ukrainians again. And where does your referendum stand now? And what are the recriminations? You just issued a nuclear threat that was supposed to cover all of the territory of Russia that Lyman two days ago, you know, supposedly was part of and now it's lost. It just, that's why this is so ultimately humiliating. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So this is from The Guardian. They say, humiliation for Vladimir Putin as Ukrainians liberate key city of Lyman. Military defeat in Donetsk comes hours after Moscow declared the region was Russian territory forever. Earlier on Saturday, Ukraine's armed forces said they'd entirely surrounded the city, trapping thousands of Russian soldiers inside. The Russians, they said, could either

surrender, try to escape, or die altogether. And they, you know, there's reports of Russians basically fleeing, leaving behind equipment, all of those sorts of things. So, yeah, that's the very latest in terms of Ukrainian battlefield advances. So, even, I think on, and we'll play a little bit of what Russian state TV is saying, but they've kind of had this idea of like, oh, we've got these territories and now these are just ours. Well, the Ukrainians have a say in how that goes as well. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is a humiliating defeat for the Russians there to happen right at the time of the referendum. Also, if you're Ukrainian, can you think of a better obligation or a better reason to fight than to humiliate Putin literally on the day of signing those agreements? You know, let's just underscore what you said previously, which is that this ain't going so well for Russia.

Things right now over there domestically are a bit of a disaster. And I think underscoring that consistently on the military front is very important. You also found this, which I think is amazing and just highlights the consternation at home in Russia. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is a clip that we're showing those who are watching. We have subtitles there. We didn't want to play it because we know that many people are listening. But what you essentially watch is you see a Russian pundit reveal that they are not supposed to mention the loss that has just happened in Lyman. But then he has to say in broader terms, we know that everyone knows things are not going well right now for Russian troops. And then some

idiot chimes in and goes, well, you know, Kiev might start bombing Moscow immediately. That is the level of, this reminds me of like Soviet times. It's like when you have something when everybody in the population knew was true, but you just weren't allowed to say it. He just slipped and he was like, yeah, but you know, also everybody knows. And then some idiot immediately just shifts to the propaganda of, yeah, but Kiev might start bombing Moscow anytime soon. I mean, they don't have the capability to do that. The point is, is that this loss on the battlefield in Lyman, which arguably may even be a bigger strategic victory for the Ukrainians than that previous breakthrough that they've had. You know, if they had done this one first, we would be describing it as like, just in astronomical terms as the first one. It is a concerted battlefield victories by the Ukrainians in the East and in the South. And to watch that, I think the first one. It is a concerted battlefield victories by the Ukrainians

in the East and in the South. And to watch that, I think the next one there, let's put that up there just to give people again and underscore that idea, like look at how much territory is moving there in the East and the South, Crystal. And all of this is happening at the exact same time that the Russians are holding these referendums, which it's like a split screen of which reality exactly do you want to believe. And that's what you see with the state TV discussion there, where the one dude is like, y'all are living in like a fairytale land. You're imagining that these terrorists,

like how do we even debate when you're pretending these lines are here and they're said? We don't even really know where the lines are. Right. And you're not even allowed to say that part of this territory that we were pretending was ours has now been taken back by the Ukrainians. So, you know, it's always interesting when a little bit of reality slips there into Russian state TV. I think you're absolutely correct. At the same time, a bold move from Zelensky and

the Ukrainians. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. They now say they're applying for NATO membership, Sager. We are de facto allies already, Zelensky says. De facto, we have already proven compatibility with alliance standards. Ukraine is applying to confirm it de jure by an expedited procedure. Now, if you've been following this, you'll recall the fact that Ukraine, that NATO membership was held out to Ukraine was one of the sort of things that antagonized Putin and led to help to create the conditions for this conflict to start with. So and then obviously the other piece of this that is crazy is if they are NATO allies, then we are obligated to go in full force on their behalf, which I don't think is anything that any of us ultimately want to see. But, you know, that's basically what he's sort of angling for is we should be direct allies. You should be

all in with us. It shouldn't be this just like supplying us from behind. You should be here defending us because we've already proven that we're good allies here. And I know I'm not supposed to shred Churchill the next Zelensky. His arrogance actually drives me crazy because what he says is we are already a de facto member of NATO. No, you're not. You don't just get to choose whether you're NATO or not. NATO gets to decide whether you're in NATO. And luckily, there are some people with some brains who remain in the White House. Jake Sullivan and Biden very clearly just pushing this aside whenever they're asked about it. Let's take a listen. Yeah. Ukraine is seeking accelerated membership in NATO. Is that something that's possible or

something you would seriously consider? The United States has been clear for decades that we support an open door policy for NATO. Any decision on NATO membership is between the 30 allies and the countries aspiring to join. Right now, our view is that the best way for us to support Ukraine is through practical on the ground support in Ukraine, and that the process in Brussels should be taken up at a different time. That's a very nice way of saying no, not right now. At a different time. I love that. That's honestly diplomacy pro for being like, we support Ukraine. Absolutely. There's an open door policy for any nation, not just policy. He's like, but that decision will

be taken up at Brussels. Right now, we're just going to focus on this, which is like kind of like a head pat and be like, that's nice, Zelensky, but it's not going to happen. I really don't know what to make of Zelensky's move because he seems to have misread this almost completely. Like, just because everybody in the West is upset about Putin's nuclear saber rattling, everyone is happy about your battlefield victories, does not mean you're getting a nuclear guarantee from the United States. Like, what are you thinking? It reminds me when he went before the Israeli Nesset, and he started invoking the Holocaust. And even they were like, hey, dude, like just so they're like, you don't do that here. That's not the same as whether Israel is going to provide military support for Ukraine. You know what it reminded me of is at the beginning

of this conflict when there were some like moronic U.S. hawks that were like, we should we should institute a no fly zone. Oh, yeah. And Zelensky was really pushing hard for No-Fly Zone. And, you know, thank God, like, thank God at least they didn't do that. But it seems to me like he has a habit of making these sort of like maximalist requests. And then maybe the idea is you sort of like set the Overton window way out here. And then when you ask for something that still is an escalation, but isn't NATO membership, then people are like, okay, I guess so, because it doesn't seem as outlandish as like NATO membership or the no-fly zone ultimately was. I don't know. That's kind of my reading of him throwing this out here. He also said, let's put this up because this was noteworthy about his

desire to enter into peace talks. He says Ukraine is ready to hold negotiations with Russia, but only with a new Russian precedent. So basically saying, no way are we going to sit down at the negotiating table as long as Vladimir Putin is in power. Can't blame him for having that position whatsoever. But as we said a lot before on, ultimately, they do not get to this place in the war without U.S. arms, without U.S. training, without U.S. intelligence. And so the fact that, you know, the Ukrainian war has gone on so long without any sort of like diplomatic negotiations in months and months and months, this is in part because of the U.S. and the U.K. posture that we wanted this war to ultimately continue. So it's nice that that's his position, but we should have

a say in this as well. Yeah. I mean, I just, you know, with this, be careful what you wish for, you know, you know, in the, uh, in world war one, everybody's like, oh, we'll never negotiate, you know, and all that. And then Lenin came into power and everyone was like, oh my God. So, I mean, I don't mean necessarily about the allies, I mean, sorry about his adversaries, but like their allies are like, we're united front, all of this. And then Lenin comes into power and he's like, actually, screw all. The point is, is that you have no idea. I mean, what have we learned from Russian revolutions in the middle of a war?

Who knows how the hell it all turns out. You don't know who's coming next. Yeah, you genuinely have no idea. Like everybody was like, oh, it's great. Democracy is coming to Moscow. Eight months later, we're living in a Bolshevik revolution, a massive civil war, and actually, arguably, a major strategic disaster for the Allies. You never know.

And, you know, Kadir, the point that we were making about, let's really game this out. If Putin is to go, who comes next? Medvedev? Whenever he was in power, everybody was like, oh, this guy, he's very Western. He's much better spoken. He's the one threatening to nuke us right now on Telegram. No, we could nuke them. They wouldn't do anything. Don't worry about it.

He's like, yeah, we'll nuke them. Whatever. They're not going to do shit. And you're like, oh, my God. And he's the nice guy. Right. He's the one who remains in power. Putin was chosen, basically, by Westerners who thought that he would go along with their,

you know, neoliberalism, shock doctor, whatever. They're like, oh, this is our guy. So, again, be careful what you wish for. I mean, there's just like the amount of chaos and fallout if you actually had a regime change and, you know, Putin losing power and who would come next. There are no guarantees in that situation whatsoever. So, I do want to encourage, for those of you who are just watching the clips of this, I hope you'll go and watch the whole thing because all of these pieces do kind of fit together. This is where the premium show really is the best show.

Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, there were a lot of pieces that we talked about in the A Block with regards to nuclear threat that also fit in here as well. But yeah, I mean, ultimately, the idea of Ukraine asking for NATO membership is just fanciful. And I do, listen, we've been very critical here of the Biden administration's approach to Ukraine. We've been very critical today of the Biden administration's approach to Ukraine. But there are people who I would be much more terrified of being in there as president of the United States. Like, if Kamala Harris, do you think that she would resist? No, we'd be in a war. We'd be in a war, 100%.

We'd be there already. And so it's like so terrifying that all of these decisions are hinging on like the continued beating of an 80-year-old heart right now because, yeah, as poor of a position as they have gotten us into, which they have, and, you know, massive, massive failures there all around, it actually could be a lot worse and even more terrifying of a place that we could be in right now. One redeeming quality of having an 80-year-old in charge is he's at least old enough to actually have lived through, as a sentient adult, the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I think that's right. Really. I think that's probably worth something, because people who are Gen X and above either didn't live through it or they just don't remember it at all. It's not real to them. It's just not real. They haven't lived with this threat. I mean, we haven't lived with this threat.

This is all very new to us. But, yeah, I think that is one of the, you know, this is why I'm opposed to the age limits that people float here. Because there are advantages of people who have been around the block. Because the other thing with Biden is I think he's not as easily, like, coerced and snowed by the generals as certainly as Obama was or as Trump was. That's true. And again, this is all, you know, in the context of the overwhelming overall criticism of this administration, but better than some other people who could be in there. Hillary Clinton at the helm right now, God save us.

Yeah. Miss No-Fly Zone herself. Let's go ahead and talk about Nord Stream. So obviously, that was also the major news that happened last week. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. In the middle of the speech that Jake Sullivan was giving there about NATO membership and more, he also touched on specifically U.S. allegations around the Nord Stream pipeline. Let's take a listen. Thanks, Jake. In his speech this morning, the president called the Nord Stream Pipeline attacks,

quote, a deliberate act of sabotage. And he said, now the Russians are pumping out misinformation and lies about it. Should we take that to mean that the U.S. now believes that Russia was likely responsible for this act of sabotage? Well, first, Russia has done what it frequently does when it is responsible for something, which is make accusations that it was really someone else who did it. We've seen this repeatedly over time. But the president was also clear today that there is more work to do on the investigation before the United States government is prepared to make an attribution in this case. One of the practical reasons for that is that because gas is emanating from these pipelines, the Danish authorities and other authorities in the Baltic Sea can't actually

get down to the source of the leak to do forensics on what appears to be an explosion. So we will have to wait until a combination of physical inspection, intelligence gathering, and consultation with our allies to make a definitive determination. But what we can say unequivocally is the suggestions Russia has made about the United States and other countries are flat out false. So Jake Sullivan, they're saying a couple of things. Number one, we're not responsible for this. For number two, no NATO ally is responsible for this. And then, of course, even basically de facto blames the Russians saying it's on Russia, but we don't have the actual evidence in here. Right. I mean, according to him. And then Biden also alluding to that whenever he was speaking about Nord Stream in the middle of a

hurricane. Let's talk about that. I thank you all very much. You also asked me earlier about the pipeline. And let me say this. It was a deliberate act of sabotage. And now the Russians are pumping out disinformation and lies. We're going to work with our allies to get to the bottom of exactly what precisely what happened. And as my direction, I've already begun to help our allies enhance the protection of this critical infrastructure. And at the appropriate moment, when things calm down, we're going to be sending divers down to find out exactly what happened. We don't know that yet exactly. So two denials there, both at the presidential level and by the National Security Advisor. No surprise, Putin, unprompted actually, brought this up during his annexation speech. Let's put that up there on the screen.

He says it was the West that blew up the pipeline. As Europe steps up its vigilance, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the U.S. and its allies blew up the Nord Stream pipeline and saying that he was, quote, raising the temperature about Europe and its energy security. He says, quote, the sanctions were not enough for the Anglo-Saxons. They moved on to sabotage. It is hard to believe, but it is a fact that they organized the blasts on the Nord Stream international gas pipeline. So you've got fingers getting pointed at everybody. Look, we have no idea. Obviously, they're probably, frankly, we'll probably never know, given the, you know, accusations and nobody will ever accept each other's evidence. I mean, if the U.S. intelligence comes out and is like, it was Russia, we're not really going to be too confident about that.

And who knows? Yeah, exactly. Like, who knows? I will say the oddest part of this whole thing, I cannot get over it. Let's put this up there on the screen, is Radek Sikorsky. I pointed him out in my monologue on this. That member of the EU Parliament, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs for the European Union, and the wife of Anne Applebaum, one of the biggest warmongers here in the U.S. press, he originally thanked the United States for blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline, but then he went ahead and deleted that tweet. So, look, extremely odd.

He left it up for a couple of days, then took it down. Who knows what exactly he was alluding to. I know there's probably a lot of currency right now and be like, oh, absolutely was America. I mean, really all they can point to is that. And then they point to that one comment by Joe Biden in a press conference when he's like, we're going to end the Nord Stream pipeline.

He's like, well, what about? He's like, what are you? He's like, don't worry. Like, we're going to end it. Listen, I mean, you've got that. Then you also have the Russians who like- Are doing all kinds of stuff right now. They're the ones who invaded Ukraine, okay?

So, like, they're capable of doing crazy stuff. Also, that pipeline wasn't even flowing. There was no gas in it. Like, it would have been shut down since August. The Russians didn't really have a lot to lose from doing that. And, I mean, it just makes it—look, I could see both sides of it. On the Russian side, it makes a hell of a lot of sense in order to do something really crazy to warn the Europeans like, hey, we got you. That pipeline run into Norway, we could blow that up tomorrow and you'd be in serious trouble. The case that the Russians did it is basically like,

okay, the European population hasn't turned against this war in the way that they hoped. This would be a way to send a message of like, y'all are going to be in some really bad shape this winter. And to freak the population out, to like sort of send a warning that we can target this sort of infrastructure and make things even that much worse for you. And then on the domestic political front from Russia,

obviously he's blaming the West. So it strengthens his argument of like, the West is out to get us and they're doing all this crazy stuff to try to bolster his case for this war that he is making domestically. So that's sort of like, you know, if you are inclined to believe that Russia did it, that would be the case. And I think if that was the case, you also would have kind of an interest from the U.S. and the West in not directly saying that it was Russia. Because then if you don't convince your own populations that this was Russia, he doesn't get the benefit of this message sending and freaking everybody out

about them targeting the infrastructure. I mean, the argument against this is like, you know, it seems like insane for them to blow up their own infrastructure. But they weren't using it, right? So that's why I get it. Look, I see both sides. I genuinely, I have no idea. As we said, in terms of the quote-unquote evidence, let's put this up there.

Denmark and Sweden submitted a joint report to the United Nations. They say that there were hundreds of pounds of TNT which were used to damage the Nord Stream pipeline. They have some Richter evidence in terms of the explosion. The magnitudes that they were used, that they have in sort of undersea detection. And intel sources say that they believe 500 kilograms of TNT were used in four separate places containing the same force as a heavy aircraft bomb. So that's what they claim. Look, we generally have no idea. The head of Gazprom, you know, the Russian state energy giant, they say, you know, this is absolutely ridiculous. Like we would never do this. Maybe they didn't even know about it if it was done. That'sprom, you know, the Russian state energy giant, they say, you know, this is absolutely ridiculous.

Like, we would never do this. Maybe they didn't even know about it if it was done. That's what, you know, we can't rule out anything. So I think that's just where we have to put it. Personally, I think we'll never know. And I think that no side will ever submit evidence that either will conclusively draw. I think whatever happened, the consequences of it remain clear to me, which is that at the end of the day, these were explosions that were 12 nautical miles away from

a NATO ally's shores. That's crazy. It has a proven ability to hurt European energy infrastructure right as we're heading into winter, a very critical time. And the consequences of it is that you should combine it with all of the news that we have talked about. The advances on the Ukrainian front, the nuclear threats, the referenda, the ongoing massive political strife, domestic strife at home for Putin. And at the end of the day, the results of it probably matter more than actually what happened because we're just never going to know. Yeah. And I would not trust any media figure who is telling you that they feel certain that it was one group or another group because truly there is not enough evidence to say.

Oh, absolutely. Right. Okay. Let's go and put the next one up there. You pointed this out, very interesting. In the context of all of this, from a diplomatic point of view, the Venezuelans are swapping seven Americans for some of Maduro's relatives. And all of this from a diplomatic point of view, the Venezuelans are swapping seven Americans for some of Maduro's relatives. And all of this came, these are actually five oil executives who've been held there for over five years, are all in the context about taking off some adjoining sanctions crystal and freeing up the ability, the ability to exchange and to buy oil from Venezuela, which is a very, very important development. Something that frankly, the ability to exchange and to buy oil from Venezuela, which is a very, very important development, something that, frankly, the Biden administration should have done from day one.

We know that they had ongoing negotiations with Caracas, but they were, you know, in that search for global oil, you know, some U.S. officials were dispatched to the Venezuela, to the Maduro regime. And, you know, it doesn't, it probably hurts that we don't recognize the Maduro regime. And it probably hurts that we don't recognize the Maduro regime whenever we're negotiating, but clearly have gotten to a point where we can have the prisoner swap and at least get some oil flowing, which definitely would help.

Caution, as I've said, Venezuelan oil, as I understand it, requires more refining capacity because it's extra heavy crude. The chemical makeup of it is not the same as oil that we get from other places, which makes it harder to refine. But that could still open up the ability for it to ship to the U.S. and alleviate the price of oil all across the globe. This also represents just like a dramatic shift from the Trump administration's approach to Venezuela. You may recall that we tried to do a coup there a couple of years ago, and people like Margot Rubio still in favor of that sort of approach, not to mention, you know,

massive sanctions levied on that country, which exacerbated an already dire economic situation there that had come about because, I mean, this is, you know, basically a petro state. Now gas prices are high, but there had been a huge dip previously during the pandemic. And so that already sort of like took the wheels off their economy. Then we hit them with these massive sanctions. And so they really have been in a dire situation. But this is part of why you have so many Venezuelan immigrants showing up on our at our border, which, you know, has become quite a political topic of conversation as well. But so this is a dramatic shift from the Trump administration's very hard, very hawkish, very adversarial approach to Venezuela. And, you know, obviously the Biden administration is

looking at like, what are our options for making sure that we have the sort of energy resources that the country needs? Now, there are a lot of caveats here. Number one, this is just step one. Yeah, this is literally step one. Long way from any sort of more sweeping deal. Number two, the oil infrastructure in Venezuela has apparently been really like sort of decayed and degraded. So, in their like capacity is not nearly what it used to be. And then number three is like the chemical composition thing that you were talking about that I don't really know anything about. Well, gas is going up. That's all I know. $3.80 a gallon, it's on the way up. I think it bottomed out around $3.60. California, back over $6 a gallon, $6.30 right there in terms of the state

average. So things are still hitting people really, really hard at the pump. And domestically, I think that this will continue to cause consequences, especially if we get more hurricanes. If we get a couple more hurricanes, and if one hits Texas in particular, where all the refineries are, or that area, we are in some serious trouble, folks. The price of oil will significantly, or gas will significantly go up for people. Plus, in terms of winter production, OPEC, all eyes, ships are not yet crossing. OPEC is planning to cut production significantly. They're planning to cut their production. So the supply problems that we've had are going to exacerbate and you should not rule out $4 a gallon or more in the near future and possibly $5,

like I said, if we have another natural disaster. Just a warning there to everybody. Okay, let's turn to domestic politics because this is something we have been tracking really closely. Let's go ahead and put this piece up on the screen. So that congressional stock trading ban that supposedly Nancy Pelosi was trying to get through last week fell apart. And The Intercept has some great reporting here arguing that House Democratic leadership designed that stock trading ban to fail. That is according to some of the negotiators who were involved. You know, we have been covering this extensively from the beginning. We covered it extensively last week. Basically, what happened is you had a bipartisan effort. There were a bunch of different versions of this bill, but there was

the most serious effort happening with Abigail Spanberger was the Democrat in the House. I think that Elizabeth Warren was involved in the Senate. There was a lot of negotiating with the Republicans. You had a sort of consensus around some of the key provisions. They were pretty close to the finish line in ironing out these details. And then House leadership comes in over the top with this totally different bill at the last minute. And there were a couple of provisions in there that negotiating negotiators are saying, basically, they put these in to make it fail. Some of these actually made the bill stronger. Like, for example, it was expansive. It applied not just to the legislative branch, but also to the executive branch and also to the

judicial branch. That apparently was like a poison pill for Republicans in the Senate. Now, that sort of sucks because you should have it applied to all those groups. But that was one way that they altered the bill to try to design it to fail. The other way was to make it much weaker. And we talked a lot about that last week, which with these like qualified blind trusts, that they basically created this gigantic loophole where that those qualified blind trusts could basically mean anything created this gigantic loophole where those qualified blind trusts could basically mean anything. And it was just a way of totally undercutting this entire bill. So you both made it weaker and you made it more expansive

with a predictable result that ultimately, with this being ushered through at the last minute, it falls apart. Abigail Spanberger, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen, who was, as I mentioned, very involved in this and who I have all sorts of other issues with. But on this issue, she has been pretty good. She was scathing in her analysis and directly pointed the finger at Pelosi and House leadership. She says this moment marks a failure of House leadership. This moment is yet another example of why I believe the Democratic Party needs new leaders in the halls of Capitol Hill, as I have long made known. She goes on to say, rather than bring members of Congress together who are passionate about this issue, House leadership chose to ignore these

voices, push them aside, look for new ways they could string the media and the public along and evade public criticism. So what she's saying there is basically like they wanted the appearance like they were trying on this, but making sure that ultimately it didn't pass. Then she goes on to lay that out more directly. She says, as part of their diversionary tactics, the House Administration Committee was tasked with creating a new bill and ultimately introduced a kitchen sink package that they knew would fail with only days until the end of the legislative session and no time to fix it. The package released earlier this week was designed to fail. It was written to create confusion surrounding reform efforts and complicate a straightforward reform priority while creating the appearance that leadership wanted to act. And she concludes by saying in the months ahead, I will be dogged in my efforts to ban members of Congress from using the privilege of their position to profit.

I look forward to working with my Democratic and Republican colleagues to get these reforms done. So that from a Democratic member pointing the finger at Pelosi Hoyer has been another one who has been a longtime opponent of any of these sorts of reforms to say, y'all wanted the media to be convinced that you cared about this, but in reality, you did everything to make sure this did not come to pass yeah and uh it's odd about mr horror because he's actually not personally that wealthy which is what makes me even more skeptical about why he would fight for all of this like he it's not like he has all that much money you know apparently his net worth is like 300th in the house he's got like a net worth of like 76 000 dollars so he's got to better himself that's what i'm saying so it's these

guys who are the ones who are like, oh, hold on a second. We're not going to take some strategic advantage away. I haven't cast in yet. I mean, he's like 80 years old, but I guess he's protecting it. He's probably protecting his kids and his family, if I had to guess. True. So that's always the issue and why we need to remove any even, like we need to remove any appearance of corruption, whether it's corrupt or not. As I said, my personal position is that you're guilty and proven innocent.

Whenever you're actively trading securities as a member of Congress, you need to remove that. Abigail Spanberger's words should be taken very, very seriously, torpedoed by House leadership, poison pills from the very beginning, wait out the clock game. And Ukraine's happening. What did we do? We led our show with Ukraine. We have no choice but to. But these things are still important. And they killed it for this whole Congress. The idea this is going to get a vote in lame duck, I think, is a total joke. I don't think that we're going to see it again. And if the Republicans take charge, let's see.

I mean, they talk a big game. Are you going to pass it? Right. Are you going to pass it or not, Kevin? And if you do pass it, what's it going to look like? Because there's a million ways to write this bill where it's effectively meaningless. I mean, the Democrats honestly previewed one of those ways with this qualified blind trust bullshit. They could pick right up on that. But there are a bunch of ways you could do this.

Or leave the judiciary. They shouldn't leave the judiciary. Why should the judges be allowed to trade stocks? It may even be more significant, the judiciary, than it is even for members of Congress. It is grotesque. We covered here the way that these judges had financial interests in the case that they were overseeing. And then lo and behold, they tended to rule in favor of their own personal financial interests. Yeah. They were like, oh, I forgot. I didn't know I had it. I'm like, really, dude? You forgot you

own stock in this particular company? Right. It just so happened that all of your rulings went in that direction. Wow. Isn't that convenient? So, yeah, I mean, it absolutely should apply to the judicial branch as well. And, you know, there was this member, Stephanie Murphy, last week who was arguing, like, oh, passing this would be so hard on frontline members. It's like, frontline means people who are in these, like, swing districts who are facing a tough re-elect, which, by the way, Abigail Spanberger is one of those members. I actually live in her. The district has been drawn so that I live in that district now.

It's basically a toss-up, I think, in terms of whether Spanberger is going to be able to hold on or the Republican is going to take her out. But the idea that this would be a tough vote for members, it is quite the opposite. This is one of the most popular bipartisan things that you could possibly do. And now, and they point this out in that Intercept article, Pelosi has basically denied her members in tough seats, like something else that they could point to and run on. Like she's denied them that opportunity to have something really popular and significant corruption reform that they could run on and point to. So it actually hurts Democrats. I mean, I'm not going to say it's like a game changer,

but on the margin, it definitely hurts Democrats in these districts trying to hold on. No, of course. I mean, if I was Fetterman, I would love this, you know, to be able to run on this to highlight with Oz. But, you know, congrats to Nancy Pelosi protecting her family, her interests. And not just, you know, look, it's much bigger than Pelosi. It's all of them. There's hundreds of them.

72 who violated the Stock Act just in the last year. So it's much bigger than Pelosi. It's all of them. There's hundreds of them. 72 who violated the Stock Act just in the last year. So this is a totally bipartisan problem. She's just kind of the symbol of it. Yes. All right. Let's go ahead and get to Trevor Noah. So Trevor Noah, I think, took over for Jon Stewart at The Daily Show seven years ago. The show has never been the same since. It's been basically culturally irrelevant. It has not been funny. You know, he just, like, the thing that made Stewart so great is that, obviously, he's, like, on the left and more or less a progressive, but he would have biting criticism of the hypocrisy of Democrats, the media across the board. I mean, he loved to rake CNN across the coast, and that's what made the show funny, subversive, interesting,

relevant, et cetera. Trevor Noah just didn't really bring any of that to the table. And now, after hosting the show for seven years, he has just announced that he is moving on. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. And I realized that after the seven years, my time is up. Yeah, but in the most beautiful way, honestly. I've loved hosting this show. It's been one of my greatest challenges. It's been one of my greatest joys. I've loved trying to figure out how to make people laugh, even when the stories are particularly shitty on the worst days. You know, we've laughed together.

We've cried together. But after seven years, I feel like it's time. Yeah, I mean, I agree it's time. It's long past time. Because we are grateful to Trevor for our amazing partnership over the past seven years. With no timetable for his departure, we're working together on next steps. As we look ahead, we're excited for the next chapter in the 25-plus year history of The Daily Show as it continues to redefine culture through sharp and hilarious social commentary, helping audiences make sense of the world around them.

It seems like they were a little bit—like, it doesn't seem like he was forced out. It seems like this was his affirmative decision to move on and do something else. Nobody knows. I mean, I think we should just take it in the context of late night TV just doesn't matter anymore. I mean, who is actually watching? First of all, I'm asleep for hours by 11 p.m. But like, how many people are sitting at their television who are like, I got to tune in

to watch Trevor Noah's take? I mean, I don't even know when it airs. How many people didn't have cable? I mean, we've seen a 10% reduction over just the last year. This is the same case for Seth Meyers, for Jimmy Kimmel, and who's that other guy who's leaving?

The fat one? I forget his name. James Corden. Yeah, that guy. But, you know, even him. Let's take him. Was his show popular or were his clips

on YouTube popular? What made him famous in America? I would say, I think that his singing bits. He's the one that did the car thing.

Yeah, the car karaoke or whatever. To me, the reason he's famous is not because of the show. It's because he has a show which happens to get posted on YouTube. So what's the point? I mean, even Noah, Saturday Night Live is another good one. How many people are tuning into Saturday Night Live and then watching whichever sketches that they happen to put out

on YouTube, on Twitter, on Instagram, or elsewhere? So the issue is that you can't monetize the part where you actually get famous nearly at the same rate that you can't monetize the part where you actually get famous nearly at the same rate that you can monetize like ads directly on the platform that you own. And you and I do this show. We have a decent amount of people who work on it, like 10 total, right? They have like 30 people who are working on this one thing and they do less content than you and I do. They do one show a day and they have like 30-something people and then less people watch it. It's like,

this is craziness. Like, something has to give on the balance sheet. That's all true. The business model has changed so it no longer makes as much sense.

And then the other piece, I think, is that like, there was all this speculation at the beginning of the Trump era that this would be great for comedians

because it's so absurd and such a buffoon and all that stuff. And it was totally the opposite. Like all these people who are more like liberal on the liberal side, which is, you know, all of these late night hosts. And they all became the same. There was such like moral sanctimony that creeped into the comedy that it just wasn't funny.

I mean, the perfect example of this is like on SNL, them singing Hallelujah when Trump wins, right? I mean, this is, and so it became, first of all, reality became so absurd that they struggled to like, you know, be even more absurd with their comedy. And then there was this total unwillingness to poke fun at, you know, not the Republicans. And it just made it really predictable and felt like moral preening and felt kind of cringe. And Samantha Bee, you know, she just, her show just ended as well. Like it all just, it didn't, it didn't make comedy good. It sort of broke liberal comedy in particular. The genius of Stewart was that in the media environment of 06, whenever it was not only encouraged,

but good, as Keith Olbermann showed us, to eviscerate the Bush administration, is he had to also go after the opponents of Bush, the mainstream media, and more. And by keeping that in the Obama administration, going after the Obama administration, and always having dual victims, he made it known that he was at least,

beyond his personal politics, would always make fun of absurdity wherever it fell. Comedy is funny when it says the things that you're not supposed to say. It's got to be a little rebellious. Yes. And during the Bush era, like it's easy to forget, like society and all mainstream, like they were all pushing for this war. They were all backing up Bush. And so when you had these few voices that were willing to point out the absurdity of it, whether it was a Keith Olbermann with like

the screams he would do, or whether it was a Jon Stewart where he would lampoon them. Colbert. Colbert. Oh, phenomenal in that era. Phenomenal. And so it was funny because it was rebellious, because it was saying something that was edgy and that you weren't really supposed to say. And so when they went in like this, you know, hard like resistance liberal direction, well, that wasn't rebellious. That was like the general consensus of the mainstream media. I'm not even saying like, you know, that all of that was like incorrect or anything, but it just wasn't edgy. It didn't have that sort of subversive, edgy element

that makes comedy funny and interesting at its best. I agree. But, you know, the good news is that comedy is blowing up. You know, comedy I pay attention to because I think it's like a leading indicator of where all of entertainment is going. So outside of Rogan, I mean, we're seeing like a comedy renaissance. You could spend your whole day listening to hilarious comedians.

Like, I mean, I could name too many. Just people I'm familiar with who don't, don't exist at the quote unquote mainstream level, but which are doing incredibly well. Like people who've built whole studios, guys like Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer. I mean, these guys are crushing, killing it at a level, like in a way, you know, the inspiration for breaking points and the audience that we speak to and more all comes from the guys like Tim Dillon and Shane Gillis and Andrew Schultz and Bobby Lee and like Santino and Rogan and the whole sphere that he created on YouTube, like made it possible to, that we could know, like the

concept is proven that we can like move into it. So anyway, I pay very close attention, I think, to that because I think the death of late night is the precursor to the eventual death of news, or at least I very, very much hope so. So I'm glad we got in on the ground floor, Crystal. Yes. Of that revolution. Indeed. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, a dark anniversary in America passed over the weekend, one that almost nobody in media really noticed, September 29th, 2008. The largest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market as Lehman Brothers failed,

AIG was being rescued, and as Congress failed to pass the initial bailout bill. To underscore how crazy it was at the time for our audience, who may be too young to remember, here's a small taste. Let's talk about the speed with which we are watching this market deteriorate. We're red everywhere, essentially, down by 4, 5%. We're down over 16%. Dow, at the same time, has fallen about 18%. The stock market is now down 21%. Because we're now down 43%. What in the world is happening on Wall Street?

Two-year no yields went from 190 to 166 in the blink of an eye. The NASDAQ, everything and more has been completely wiped out. It was the worst day on Wall Street since the crash of 1987. Brings back some real memories. But it's important to start there because that's what put us on the path to where we are today. In a lot of ways, it was the true turning point and the beginning point. But in 100 years, they're going to write as the start of a new economic era. The beginning of the mass bailouts for the banks, the decline of middle-class wealth,

the continuation of business as usual, and so much more. And what's crazy about that, considering 2008, is what precipitated all of that in the first place. Housing. The subprime mortgage crisis, of course, is what caused the crash in the first place. Insane loan products that let people have no business buying houses, buy three or more, eventually default, crashes the entire economy. We all know that story. This point of failure is what Washington focuses in after the crisis, instituting all sorts of regulations to verify that would-be homeowners had to meet basic standards before they could be approved for a mortgage. Of course, that was sensible and I support it, but there was a critical flaw in this plan. We only focused on making sure that

the people who wanted to buy houses could meet basic standards. We didn't focus on doing anything to make sure that people could meet those basic standards. Wages for U.S. workers, especially those in the working class, have stayed effectively flat in real purchasing power since the 1970s. Consider in the context that since 2009, January, the average price of a home in the U.S. has gone up by 100%. When housing prices are so far apart from wages, you are looking at a bad situation, and that's the one that we're in right now. So I know many have cheered on the slowdown so far in the housing market,

but something I want to emphasize for everyone is it's not slowing down enough to make it affordable for you at all. As the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates, even with the slowdown, average Americans are now at the point where they are getting priced out to a historic degree. Our friend Joe Weisenthal over at Bloomberg writes that in the span of just one year, a standard 30-year fixed mortgage would be had for around 3% interest. Today, that number is 7%, leading to, quote, the most severe deterioration in affordability on record in the history of the U.S. housing market. The rate increase has led to the

typical mortgage in the U.S. jumping 1,000% over the last year. When we, sorry, $1,000 over the last year. When we break it down, especially for first-time buyers, it's crazy. Let's say your budget is $2,500 a month for a house. Today, that means you can afford a house that costs $476,000. But last year, that would mean that you could afford a house with a price of $758,000. Now ask yourself, have housing prices really fallen from $750,000 to $470,000 for the same house? Also, those figures I just quoted you, that's if you have 20% down, which of course most people do not. With inflation eating away at savings, they're even less likely to have. Take average out of it. Point to the places where people most want to live in the United States.

It's even more crazy. Bloomberg put together the data for 10 random metro areas across the country, all with the same story. City of Austin, the typical new home buyer, could expect to pay $1,100 mortgage in 2020. Today, it's now $3,000. Boise, Idaho, 2020 it was $1,000. Today, $2,500.

Akron, Ohio, it was $500. Today, it's $1,000. Miami, $1,200. Now, $3,000. New York, it was $1,400. Now, $1,200, now $3,000. New York, it was $1,400, now $3,000. You get the idea. You're talking about a 100% increase with little to no similar drop in sticker price. This is the most likely future of the U.S. housing market. You have a slowdown at the price level, but with very, very high rates doing two pernicious things. Number one, you're making it harder for people to buy a first house, meaning they will rent for much longer. Worse, with more

people renting and the same renting stock, it means rent prices go up because of demand. If rent goes up, you both spike inflation, you push people downward in the quality that they can get for the same price, and it eats away at your ability to even save for a home in the first place. Also, as far as first-time houses go, good luck getting one because they really do not exist anymore. The type of home an average middle-class person could afford, realistically 20% down, does not exist in housing stock existing and new ones today. The most ironic, as the Times points out, is that the original starter homes of the 1970s, purchased in many cases by single-earner households at the time,

are now selling for an average of half a million dollars even in non-metro areas. Nobody has come up yet with a replacement for them. There is no starter home anymore for a variety of reasons. Everyone likes to talk about housing stock, which certainly is a huge problem, but the current housing demand is just as big. Today, only 8% of new single-family homes are less than the 1,400 square feet, while in the 1940s, it was 70% of homes. The houses being built today are being built specifically to cater to the wealthier demographic, namely boomers and upper-middle-class professionals whose stock portfolios over the last two decades have ballooned to a degree that many of us cannot fathom. I've shown this graphic before, but it's really worth internalizing. In 1970, the price of a new house was $25,000. The average income was $10,600 a year. Now look just how incredibly affordable

everything on that chart is and compare it to today. The decoupling of inflation for almost everything that you need in your life to be prosperous and from the average amount of money that you make is the core problem that I keep coming back to. We can talk till we're blue in the face about housing regulations and more. But to me, the answer is actually much more simple. Most people in this country just need to make a lot more money

than they have for decades. And I wish I had a perfect solution. But identifying that problem is sometimes the very best starting point. It's something I just kept coming back to in this. I was like, you know... 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, the budget details of new UK Prime Minister Liz Truss's mini-budget are almost comical in their reverse Robin Hood absurdity. So we're talking about eliminating the top tax bracket for individuals altogether and a huge giveaway to the richest citizens, and even going so far as to ditch the cap on banker bonuses. I can practically hear the pitchfork sharpening from here. It is such a caricature, it would actually almost be funny, a Thatcher-Reagan fever dream, if the results were not instantly so catastrophic.

In fact, the backlash was so instantly so catastrophic. In fact, the backlash was so severe that as of this morning, Truss was forced to backtrack, ditching the centerpiece of that program, those tax cuts for the rich, in order to diffuse a rebellion from within her own party. I think it's important to break this all down, though, because the whole episode is truly the most thorough indictment of trickle-down neoliberal economics that I have ever seen. And so it's really worth spending some time digging into exactly what happened. So the fallout here was immediate. Once that mini-budget with the huge giveaways to the rich was announced, the market for UK government bonds, those are called gilts, immediately freaked out, massively raising the cost of borrowing for the government and for many other corporations and

individuals as well. That's what you can see here in this chart. Yields on 10-year government bonds spiked 130 basis points in four days, 275 basis points over seven weeks. That is an insane jump, and it triggered then a whole series of follow-on events as well. Most notably, pension funds started to collapse. Now, in the UK, so-called defined benefit pension funds, where you're guaranteed a certain payout upon retirement, those are still pretty common there, even though they are not common here anymore. And many of these pension funds had employed an investment strategy,

which was supposedly more conservative and relatively low risk, called liability-driven investment. Now, I'm not going to bore you with the details, but basically, these funds were really dependent on those UK government bonds maintaining some basic level of sanity. When the wheels came off, they were totally screwed, forced into having to sell off other assets in order to make margin calls on that government debt. And once these large funds

have to start fire-selling everything, you can easily imagine a huge contagion that infects basically every sector of the economy. At the same time, this instant massive interest rate hike was a terrifying prospect for homeowners and those who were just about to buy a home. Now, the UK mortgage market is a little bit different from ours. Here, typically, once you lock in a mortgage rate, you got it set for the length of your 30-year fixed rate mortgage. In the UK, about a third of homeowners are set to have their rates reset in just two years' time. According to an analyst cited by Bloomberg, 1.4 million borrowers will have their rates reset within the year. They watched with horror as rates spiked and along with them their future mortgage payments in a nation already struggling mightily with housing affordability.

But it was most immediately brutal for those who were just on the cusp of buying, as the market chaos caused banks to actually pull a bunch of their mortgage products off of the market while they waited for conditions to settle down. The potential for outright collapse? It was actually so pronounced that the Bank of England, that's the UK's central bank, they were forced into action. Now, the UK has also been suffering with high inflation, actually higher than ours, and huge energy price spikes much more severe than what we are dealing with here. So to try to combat it, like our central bank, theirs has been hiking rates in an effort to get that inflation under control. But faced with Liz Truss's economic calamity, they were forced into immediate action in the opposite direction, buying up those government to get that inflation under control. But faced with Liz Truss' economic calamity,

they were forced into immediate action in the opposite direction, buying up those government guilts in order to prevent total collapse. According to an economics professor who was quoted by the New York Times, quote, the bank has had to reverse course on its objectives practically overnight. It looks like the bank is being forced

to clean up the adverse consequences of the UK Treasury's actions. At the same time, that's not all. The British pound also crashed to its lowest level against the dollar. Here's what that looks like. Good news if you're an American, I guess, looking to travel to London since prices just got instantly a lot cheaper for us. Disastrous news if you're living in the UK and already suffering with that high inflation. When the pound is weak, it means that it will cost more to purchase all imported goods, further exacerbating an already bad situation.

Now, in fairness, the dollar is strengthened against basically every currency because of our own central bank's policy. Basically, we are exporting our inflation around the world. But the size of the fall for the pound was triggered by this disastrous budget, giving away the store to the rich. Now, this whole confluence of events also created an immediate political crisis for the brand new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, and the conservative party, Brit Large. Not only has the budget been an utter disaster, but she has been wooden and completely lacking in empathy in her response, offering ridiculous excuses

like this is all somehow Vladimir Putin's fault. Here's how she defended herself in a local BBC radio station interview. I and the chancellor have taken decisive action to deal with that. From this weekend, the energy bill price guarantee comes in, so people will be facing no more than £2,500 for a typical energy bill. We've also taken action to reduce our tax burden and spur infrastructure projects. Yeah, but Prime Minister, with respect, that is the same scripted answer you've given to every BBC local radio station this morning. You've got the Bank of England stepping in now to try and clean up a mess a government has caused. That has never happened.

We have a very, very difficult economic global situation because of the war that Vladimir Putin has perpetrated in Ukraine. And countries are under pressure around the world. But this isn't Putin. This isn't just about Putin. I mean, your chancellor on Friday opened up the stable door and spooked the horses so much you can almost see the economy being dragged behind them. Blaming Putin. Pretty incredible there. And sure enough, the economic collapse was matched with a polling collapse. The center left Labour Party surged to its largest lead in 20 years, as voters reckon, with the astonishing mess made by Liz Truss and the Conservatives. A YouGov poll pegged Labour at a 33-point lead

over the Conservatives. Now, that shouldn't be a surprise. The policies in this budget are truly radical, wildly out of step with where the UK public is, especially at this moment. The movement is enough that some analysts are seeing a complete reversal of the political realignment, which had seen more working-class voters move into the Conservative Party, specifically over Brexit. As one professor from the University of Kent put it, quote, we're seeing the complete implosion of the conservative vote. They're losing middle class voters who are alienated by Brexit and working class voters who are alienated by their economic policy. Basically, guys, the moral of this whole story

is that trickle-down economics are bad, really bad, catastrophically bad, so bad that the immediate ramifications of this budget were actually worse than when COVID shut down the entire economy. Just think about that. The economic story that we have been told for generations, it is a bold-faced lie, a fantasy concocted by delusional minds that is meant to wrap fealty to the rich in some sort of cloak of intellectualism. Scarcely do we see such a clear demonstration of how economically and morally

bankrupt the whole neoliberal project of the past half century really has been. The embrace of this economic radicalism was an entire revolution with disastrous results for ordinary people, and we all continue to live with its catastrophic effects. And it was so, I mean, she's a true ideologue on this stuff. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. So let's go ahead and put those results up on the screen here. You can see that Lula was ahead in the first round, but is going to have to face Bolsonaro in that presidential runoff.

I think underperformed where the polls had him to a certain extent. But we have Glenn Greenwald here, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, who of course lives in Brazil, has broken some of the most significant news about Lula and Bolsonaro specifically. And he joins us now.

Great to see you, Glenn. Good to see you, Sarah. Good to be with you guys. I would love for you, for people who haven't followed brazilian politics closely to explain the context here why this election is so significant why lula was in prison how he got out of prison and what this election really means in the brazilian context sure so i mean just to begin with brazil is an inherently important country and always has been throughout the Cold War. It's the second largest country in the hemisphere. It's the largest and therefore most influential country in Latin America.

It has incredibly important resources, including enormous amounts of oil reserves, as well as the Amazon, which has become the most important environmental resource. So Brazil just in and of itself is of great concern now politically to the world. And when you add on top of that, the fact that we have now a very polarized political system where there are real differences between the party, we're not talking about Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama.

We're talking about two extremely different and radical ideologies that have now completely polarized and the entire center has virtually disappeared. There's a lot at stake in terms of the outcome of not just the presidential election, but also the elections beneath that for the House, for the Senate. There's a lot of interesting things that went on there that I think are really worth talking about too. Yeah, absolutely. So Glenn, what happened here in the election? I know that the polls had indicated that Lula might win enough to avoid even a runoff. It appears that he performed, I wouldn't say significantly below that, but below that to a certain degree. Does Brazil have the same polling problems that we do? What were the major issues at stake between the two major candidates? I can't overstate, Sagar, what a humiliating and disastrous night it was for

the polling industry in Brazil. I have not ever seen polling this radically wrong in my life. I mean, on the presidential level, it wasn't that terrible. There were no pollsters affirmatively asserting that Lula would win. Some were predicting he would in the first round. But even there, I don't think there was a single polling company that are sort of in the top tier that had the difference any less than 12 to 16 points between Bolsonaro and Lula. And Lula ended up only five points ahead. But the races that are most important right underneath that, like governorships in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo and senators for those two most important states, I'll just give you a couple of examples. And they were all in favor of the left.

In the Senate race in Sao Paulo, there were two candidates, one on the left and a Bolsonaroista. And the polls had the candidate on the left winning by 15 points. And instead, the Bolsonaroista candidate won by 21 points. That's a swing of 36 points. Oh, my God. Here in Rio de Janeiro, they had the Bolsonaroista candidate, who's's the incumbent somewhat ahead by six or seven points but likely to be in a runoff instead he destroyed the left-wing candidate easily won without a runoff and won by 32 points and you go down the list and over and over you're talking

about extremely radical errors all again in favor of undercounting the support that Bolsonaro has here in Brazil, just like we had two straight elections where there was clear undercounting and under support, under polling of the support for Trump and his voters as well. So something has gone radically wrong in terms of polling analysis in these democracies. Do you have any theory or are there any working theories this morning about what that something is? It's going to take, you know, I think a lot of work. I mean, these firms have no credibility at this point. I mean, one theory is that because there's so much scorn against Bolsonaro and his movement in elite circles, there's kind of an embarrassment factor that perhaps voters are unwilling to express their

support for Bolsonaro to pollsters but then go into the voting booth and vote for him and his movement anyway um there could be changes technologically in terms of how young people only use the internet and cell phones all those sorts of things but when you're talking about errors this dramatic now not just once in 2018, very similar errors took place again in favor of the left and against the Bolsonaro movement. Something has gone fundamentally wrong in polling science, and it needs to be addressed immediately if they want to preserve any credibility for themselves. Yeah, and Glenn, I was actually rereading an essay that you wrote in 2018 about Bolsonaro's original victory, about polling errors at the time, the issues, what exactly, you know, Trump's almost re-election in 2020 really was presaged in what happened in Brazil as well.

So in that context, I mean, what lessons do we have? Yeah, like you said, for all democracies about this level of this type of populism and its appeal at the actual democratic level? Yeah, I mean, you know, first of all, one of the things that has happened in Brazil is something we've seen in many other countries, which is the disappearance of the center-right. For 20 years, Brazil was dominated by an election between PT on the one hand, the center-right party, PSDB on the other. PSDB barely exists anymore. Conservatives and the right is just Bolsonaroismo or kind of right-wing populism.

We've seen that over and over, including in the US increasingly. But I think the real lesson, Sagar, is that everywhere we see neoliberalism thrive and then wreak havoc on countries, right-wing populism emerges. How many times have we seen that? That's obviously the lesson of the Trump victory in 2016.

But even in Brazil, for all the talk about Lula and Workers' Party being this left-wing party, whether it's because they're not really that or because the constraints of the Brazilian system don't let them be, it doesn't really matter. The way they governed was really more neoliberal than traditionally leftist, just like the Democratic Party in the U.S. And in that wreckage arises right-wing populism due to growing anger, hateful anger towards the neoliberal establishment. So now my understanding, and I'm certainly not an expert in Brazilian politics, but my understanding is there was quite significant advances under Lula in terms of

lifting people out of poverty. There were a lot of schools that were built. There were a lot of social programs that were generally, genuinely beneficial, even as you continue to have, the rich doing quite well and large levels of inequality. So, you know, even as obviously Bolsonaro overperformed the polls, he still came in second here. So what was the message from Lula that was appealing in this round? And then what do you expect is going to happen in the next round based on, you know, the other candidates that polled votes and who their voters are likely to go to?

Yeah, I mean, so you're absolutely right. But let's remember that Lula has been president of Brazil for 12 years. He was president from 2002 until 2010 when he was terminated out of office. You're absolutely right that not only were there very impressive social programs that even kind of neoliberal centers praised because they weren't just handouts, they were payments to poor people, but in exchange for proof that their kids are going to school and getting vaccinated and performing other social obligations, the kind of things neoliberals like. It did help a lot of people. Also, during Lula's two terms, Brazil had massive economic growth. It became the sixth largest economy in the world ahead of the UK. But it's a long time ago. Once Lula was out of office and he was succeeded by

Dilma Rousseff, the economy collapsed. There were huge corruption scandals. A lot of anti-PT sentiment arose. But the reality is Lula won. And let's remember, he did win last night in the sense that he got the most votes, primarily because he's just such a gigantic force of personality. There's so much personal affection for Lula in Brazil that does not necessarily translate to other left-wing parties. And you can't really, you know, you have to sometimes in politics realize that a lot of it is about force of personality. So that's a huge factor. I would still rate Lula as the favorite to win in this runoff,

though I don't think it's going to be easy as a lot of other people think. Um, but in some sense, uh, Crystal, you're right. But 2010, when he left was a long time ago and the next decade was filled with a lot of misery and a lot of suffering. Right. So the other thing that was a concern, Glenn, is that Bolsonaro, who made noises in this direction that basically, you know, if he didn't win, then the thing was rigged and you had a resolution that was passed by the Senate here. The U.S. has been very concerned about Bolsonaro basically claiming an illegitimate victory here. And of course, the context for that is, well, we had a sort of like, you know, failed and pathetic coup attempt here in the U.S. with Trump and his supporters. There

was a legit one in Brazil, you know, that did oust the democratically elected president, which you, of course, were integral in ultimately exposing. So were there noises from anyone last night saying this, you know, result was not fair? Are you concerned about that in the next round as well? I'm not. I have, you know, first of all, I have, of course, I think the impact of January 6th, calling it an insurrection or whatever is overstated, I regard it more as a riot than like an actual insurrection. I'm not really referring to January 6th as much as I am, like the fake elector schemes and the efforts in the courts to try to overturn the election.

But we can leave that debate for another day. There were clearly efforts on Trump's side to try to keep himself in office. And he continues to say, I'm rightfully elected and they should just redo the election, et cetera, et cetera. Sure, sure, sure. I was just trying to say that I never saw the kind of post-election instability or violence in the US as a major threat. And I don't really see it as a threat in Brazil. And to the extent that I did, because I mean, just like with Trump, what I would describe Bolsonaro as being more than anything else during his first four years in office was a weak president. I think the world in which Bolsonaro gets everything that he wants is a very dark and alarming world. The reality is Brazilian institutions,

and there was an article in the New York Times just a week ago that examined whether or not the Brazilian Supreme Court has become authoritarian in its efforts to kind of limit and stop the Bolsonaro movement. He's really been checked and limited in lots of ways. I don't think he'd have a lot of institutional support in the military, for example,

for doing this sort of thing that would be necessary to threaten the election. But the real point, Crystal, is even though Bolsonaro came in second last night, the big winner of last night's election was Bolsonaroismo. I mean, his party is now going to be the largest party in both the Senate and the House. His ally won the governorship of Rio de Janeiro and is now the favorite to win the governorship of Sao Paulo, the two largest and most important states in Brazil. So even if Lula ultimately wins in this runoff, Bolsonaro'sismo in Brazil is not going anywhere. It remains very strong. And I think that has definitely lessened the likelihood that people are going to go out

into the streets and create a lot of violence and instability in the event that Bolsonaro loses to Lula. Makes a lot of sense. Glenn, thank you so much for joining us and for breaking it down. It's just so, so helpful and a lot of parallels that we can draw for our own country. So thanks very much. Appreciate it. Great to be with you guys. Glad you're covering this. Thanks. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We've got the live show happening in Chicago. It's coming soon. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're planning some very special audience stuff, so you're going to want to be there in the audience. Tickets are down there in the description.

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