Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/4/21: Manchin's Deal, Dem Corruption, Fauci Madness, Pandora Papers, Donziger Jailed, Sinema Tongue Bath, Ozy Media's Collapse, and More!

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

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watch and listen to the entire show ad free and uncut an hour early before everyone else. You get to hear our reactions to each other's monologues. You get to participate in weekly ask me anythings, and you don't need to hear our annoying voices pitching you like I am right now. So what are you waiting for? Go to breakingpoints.com, become a premium member today, which is available in the show notes. Enjoy the show, guys. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots to get to this morning. Of course, we're going to bring you up to speed on what is going on with infrastructure and reconciliation and this battle between the progressives and the corporatists. All of that we're going to get to. Also, an amazing and incredibly revealing moment on CNN. Wild. Faz Shakir, who was Bernie's campaign manager, calls out Heidi Heitkamp.

The CNN anchor rushes in to defend Heitkamp's honor. You just got to watch it. Dr. Fauci saying some interesting things about our holiday and what to expect. Massive trove of documents. Largest leak ever called the Pandora Papers, exposing the way that the super wealthy hide all of their funds. This implicates world leaders. Also very interesting what it says about our own super rich here in the U.S. They don't even have to try to go overseas to hide their wealth because the tax rates are so low here. They can just like, they've already

rigged the system so much that they don't even have to hide what they're doing. So good for them. Great job, guys. Big bombshell news in the Stephen Donziger case. He is being sent to federal prison for six months for daring to try to hold Chevron to account. We will get to that. I also sat down with Andrew Yang. His book is being released tomorrow and talked to him about his plans, pressed him on the third party thing and what he wants, what his tactics are. I actually felt like I came out of the interview with a lot better understanding of his mindset and what he was actually up to. And it made a lot more sense to me after I talked to him. But we do want to start with where we are in reconciliation and infrastructure and all of that. So last week, of course, there was a big showdown. Gottheimer and the corporatists, they wanted a vote on the infrastructure package. They wanted

that to pass. Pelosi had originally said, okay, we'll give you what you want. You'll get a vote next week. This came down to the wire. Ultimately, they pulled that vote because progressives, for once, actually held strong and used the leverage that they had and said, listen, we are not going to vote for this thing until we have a vote on the reconciliation package. And ultimately, that is what happened. The vote was pulled. The infrastructure bill did not get voted on. And now we're kind of back to square one in terms of negotiations over that reconciliation package. The other thing that was interesting, and we can throw this first element up here on

the screen, is that Biden seemed to side more with the progressives in that he backed the idea of keeping these two things linked, which was the proximate battle that they were fighting last week. He exited the Capitol here on Friday after visiting and said, we're going to get it done. But on the other hand, he's also signaling, hey, this $3.5 trillion mark is going to have to come down. And he said, this was his quote, I wrote the damn bill. Even a smaller bill can make historic investments, historic investments in childcare, daycare, clean energy. You get a whole hell of a lot of things done. So progressives did win this one battle. It shows you that when you do work as a block, when you do threaten and actually play a little hardball and use your leverage, you can actually

impact the direction that things are going in. But we're a long way from finished here. And ultimately, it looks like there's going to be probably a giant haircut taken on this reconciliation package if anything actually gets through at all. That is the biggest question here. And so our friend Jeff Stein kind of been at the forefront of the reporting on this. Let's put this up there on the screen. So one source is currently guesstimating here about what Joe Manchin wants to cut from the bill at $1.5 trillion. I'll put a strange addendum on this. I'm not sure if everybody saw, but Friday the Manchin team leaked a document that they had signed with both him and Chuck Schumer. Now, this was a laying out of demands. Basically, Joe Manchin was trying to prove,

he's like, no, I've been playing, you know, ball with the Senate majority leader this entire time. It's just that my demands are such that a lot of other people in the Democratic caucus wouldn't necessarily align with them. So he wants to show, no, he actually has real policy demands. He could get to yes,

as opposed to one Kyrsten Sinema, who doesn't seem to have any demands at all. Now, his $1.5 trillion there, as Jeff rightly points to, it was include paid leave, child care, child tax credit, some of the climate provisions, but Manchin has already said he's not necessarily there on those. But this crystal is where I do think that, again, I see the potential for this entire thing to fall apart. And the reason why is that even amongst those provisions that he's talking about, paid leave, child care, child tax credit, and more, Manchin wants means testing on every single one of those programs. He doesn't actually want to fully fund all of them, both on philosophical

reasons, but also on spending, not opposed to all the stuff that's already been left out. And we've already had several senators themselves, people like Tammy Duckworth from Illinois, so not by any means like a Bernie Sanders, be like, no, that's not acceptable to me whatsoever. So even within the so-called 1.5 trillion top line number put forth by Joe Manchin, there are irreconcilable differences within the Democratic caucus itself. And on top of that, Kyrsten Sinema has not said whatsoever that she's even cool with this $1.5 trillion. I do think it would be harder for her to stonewall necessarily against this. So I still see a lot of roadblocks, even if they do try to come to this sort of consensus decision. I mean, my question with Kyrsten Sinema is, bottom line, does she care about anything other than selling herself to corporate donors

for her post-Senate career? And certainly, I'll have more on that in my monologue, but certainly her actions don't seem to indicate that she cares about anything other than that. How much do those corporate actors care about getting the bipartisan infrastructure deal passed? I don't really know. I don't know how important that is to them ultimately. So that's the other question mark in my mind. But Jeff has, of course, a great piece.

I mean, he's such a good reporter, really stands out from the pack in terms of just actually doing his job and doing it extraordinarily well. He talks about there are effectively, if you're starting to talk about, all right, so it's not gonna be three and a half trillion, we gotta cut it back.

There are two directions you can go in. One is you can say, all right, we're going to drop a bunch of these programs, and we're not going to means test. We're not going to put an expiration date on these things, and we're just really going to shrink down our focus to what are our top three, four priorities. We're going to fund those, and's it and everything else gets left out. So, you know, do you do the Medicare dental, vision, and hearing aids? Do you do the child tax credit? Like major things, if you go in that direction, major things are going to get left out, which I think makes it harder to get everybody on board ultimately, because I can tell you the progressives are going to be very upset if certainly climate is left out, if any of the Medicare expansion is left out. There are a lot of key pieces here. So that's one direction is we're going to fully fund, but we're only going to pick like maybe three of these programs. The other direction is to bet on

the idea that, hey, if we pass these things to start with, but they have an expiration date, that people are going to like these programs. And it's going to be hard then to roll them back when they come up and have to be renewed. There is precedent for that. I mean, you do see with the Affordable Care Act, for example, even though it wasn't that popular and even though Republicans ran election after election on repealing it, ultimately, once people had these protections in place, it was hard for Republicans to roll back. So that's another example where, OK, so we don't fully fund these things indefinitely. We just give them a two, four, five year time frame that cuts down on the cost. But we can get a lot more of these

programs in. The other thing that you would put into that bucket is things like means testing, which I am dramatically opposed to because I think it just undercuts both the efficacy and the political favorability of all of these programs. So option one, you do only a few of these things, but you fully fund them. Option two, you use some of these, I don't want to call them gimmicks, but you useives hard line going to be on? How much are they willing to cut back? Because Bernie has been saying all along with justification, three and a half was already the compromise position. Biden ran on six trillion. Bernie ran on more like 10 trillion.

So three and a half was already a gigantic haircut from what probably needed to be done. Pramila Jayapal is out saying with regards regards to Manchin's $1.5 trillion, I think we have a tear sheet up here, and she's been, you know, she's the chair of the Progressive Caucus, so she's been a formidable player in all of this. She says about the $1.5 trillion price tag, that is not going to happen.

So it's going to have to be north of $1.5 trillion. We also heard from Senator Sanders yesterday on the Sunday shows about what an acceptable price tag might look like. He is backing off of, he had been very firm, it's $3.5 trillion. That's it. That's the number. So he's backing off of that. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. About where the president is on this. As I understand it, he has now floated a $2 trillion top line number on this broader bill. You are at 3.5. I remember you initially wanted closer to $6 trillion. Are you comfortable

with the idea of cutting this down to about $2 trillion? No. Well, first of all, I'm not sure that that's accurate. As you know, there's a lot of gossip that goes on. What the president has said is that there's going to have to be some give and take. And I think that that's right. I think if anything, Jonathan, when we especially talk about the crisis of climate change and the need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, the $6 trillion that I originally proposed was probably too little. $3.5 trillion should be a minimum. But I accept that there's going to have to be give and take. But at the end of the day, the real issue now. Okay, so give and take, but not $2 trillion. That's not enough. Because the president also said that a smaller investment

could create historic achievements. But $2 trillion is not enough. What the president is saying is that what we are trying to do is for the working families of this country, for the children, for the elderly, we're trying to pass the most consequential piece of legislation since the Great Depression. And he's right. You know, so the bottom line is we have got to pass it. We've got to pass the infrastructure bill. And the American people are going to have to stand up. You know what bothers me about this whole thing? Poll after poll shows what we are doing is exactly what the American people want. It's not what the big money interest wants, not what the lobbyist wants. It's what the American people want. And we've got to do it.

So this sets up the next big fight. One and a half trillion per millijoule, Paul, and I think you can kind of read between the lines where with Bernie Sanders, too low, you're not going to be able to get enough packed into that to make it worthwhile. And I think progressives might actually hold strong and vote against that. You start getting up to two trillion and it starts to really depend on the details. What are they doing in terms of means testing? What gets left in? What gets left out? What does the timeframe look like? All of that. So I think in terms of negotiations, and this is what Biden said, he kind of floated this $2 trillion number. I think that's the ballpark that you're ultimately going to be in. And now all of

the ticking clock of the infrastructure vote that was supposed to happen last week, all of that is gone. One other side note, it looks like with the debt ceiling, the parliamentarian rule that they can lift the debt ceiling without having to attach it to the other budget piece that they that they've already passed through. They can do it on a separate track. That will probably be ultimately what they do, even though they don't want to do that because then they have to put a specific number on it. But that's probably the direction that they're going to go in, even though they should just mint the coin, as I've said.. There we go. First of all, obviously mint the coin. I do think increasingly this continues to trend in Obamacare direction. And while yes, something is going to get passed, even the way

that they talk about it to 1.5, I mean, Sanders is the only one of the politicians I've even spoken to, I've even seen speak to, here's what's actually in this thing. Yes. Talking about it consequentially. It all just seems like funny money. And it's like most people, it's not even that the people are opposed to spending money. They just want to know what you're spending money on. Right.

And signaling on this has been a disaster from the White House. They're just like, oh, 2.1 trillion, 1.5 trillion. Nobody knows what's in the goddamn bill.

That's such a great point. It's such a great point. And it really, by talking about the dollar amount, you really play into the hands of the mansions and cinemas of the world. Because we keep coming back to this. When that was an Exxon lobbyist who was talking about, listen, we're not going to go after the individual programs because they're popular.

We're going to talk about, oh, the pay-f big, well, then you're playing into the hands of these fake deficit hawks who are really just carrying the water of corporate America. Rather than when you talk about these programs, when you talk about, hey, maybe every kid should be able to go to pre-K. Right. And that's a debate. Hey, maybe we should have free community college. These things are really, really – paid leave? I mean, all of these provisions are extremely popular. Negotiating Medicare prescription drug prices, 80 percent support.

So they don't want to have that conversation. And you're right. Senator Sanders is the most effective at continuing to turn back to, OK, well, what are we actually talking about here? What is this actually going to do for people? What are the programs involved? Rather than getting fixated on, oh, is it three and a half? Is it two and a half? Is it two? The actual details and what they're going to do for people's lives, that's the real ballgame. And that's where the conversation should actually be. Biden, though, I don't think he really cares that much

about these details. I think he cares about having a win. I think he cares about a legacy. I think Pelosi, it's the same deal. This is kind of her last final big act as Speaker, most likely. And so she wants to have a W in the column,

but they don't actually give a shit about what it really does for people. They don't care what's in it. That's the problem. That was Obama. Obama just wanted a bill and it ended up being a morass

and then it hung around and it drove our politics for 10 years. And unfortunately, I see a very, very similar future. Yeah, those failures on Obamacare. I mean, obviously we still like working class people still live with the consequences of what that should have been and what it ultimately ended up being. That's right. Another incredibly revealing moment related to this. So, of course, we've been trying to cover and the folks at The Daily Poster, The Intercept, American Prospect have been trying to cover the way that money is driving this entire conversation.

One of the worst actors in all of this has been former Senator Heidi Heitkamp. She was senator from North Dakota, right? And she's now being paid by a bunch of lobbyists to make sure that rich people don't pay more taxes specifically. And I did a whole monologue on the it sounds complicated. It's really not the step up basis that allows rich people to essentially avoid ever paying taxes on their capital gains. They avoid it while they're alive. They pass it on to their heirs. Their heirs are able to change the sort of base taxation basis. So whatever those assets gain during the life of the person never gets taxed.

So she is a lobbyist to protect rich people. That is her job. That's what she's paid to do. It's public record, too. Yeah, this is not like a secret. This is in the public record. And she's been very influential. That provision is now gone.

They're not going to tax these vast fortunes. They're not even trying really to go after that and to do that. So she's won in a sense. So she was brought on to CNN along with Faz Shakira, who we just mentioned a moment ago, who is Bernie's former campaign manager. And Faz actually calls her out for being paid to make this entire process worse and to protect rich people, just watch how the CNN host rushes in to protect Heidi Heitkamp from any besmirching of her pristine record. Let's take a listen. And this is the problem, right? You are having a backroom closed deal conversation that isn't transparent, that isn't public. So I'm all for, hey, senators have different positions.

Great, let's have it out. But what I'm concerned about is the influence of corporate lobbyists. I'm concerned about the influence of Senator Heitkamp and her group. If the problem here is that we're talking about popular policies that people want and they are good with taxation of the wealthy to make them pay their fair share, and we are talking about issues that if you go to West Virginia, you go to Montana, you go to North Dakota, you talk about these issues. People are on our side. So we're not fighting over, oh, hey, we're asking you to

take a tough vote. We're asking you to deliver for the American public on the pledges that you made. And it is the influence of corporate lobbyists that are cutting this proposal down, that are cutting the president down. Let, let's make clear, let's make clear, no one is questioning Senator Heitkamp's transparency here. I mean, we are just being transparent going forward. So her intent is not what's on the line here. I'm questioning the substance of what she is arguing about. I have no problem.

You know, I'm taking it in good faith that she believes in what she is saying. And obviously, she's being funded to say it however the results of what she's trying to do is advocate for cutting down on corporate taxation we have a problem dynastic wealth in this country we've got to wrap this up but i will say that let's not forget that the senator absolutely not and let's not let's let's not forget this corporate taxation this isn York in corporate taxation? This isn't about corporate taxation. This is about individuals being taxed based on the transition or the transaction that their assets would go through.

And I want to mention something. Billionaires, Senator Hyken. Billionaires is what we're talking about. I don't want to get inside baseball, guys, here, because we are running out of time and we have to move on to the next topic. Obviously, things are coming down to the wire in Washington right now. I can just say that let's also remind our viewers that Senator Heitkamp lost her seat in the Senate for voting her conscience, too. So I don't want to forget history as well. So just to set the record, she voted her conscience and she lost her job for it.

What little side note here, that anchor is married to the Democratic establishment, Peter Orszag, who was the budget director under Obama and is now like a big finance Wall Street dude. I mean. So pretty interesting to watch. But I mean, there's a lot of layers here because, first of all, the idea that you can have Heidi Heitkamp on and not make the entire subject of the conversation about her nefarious influence on this bill. They should disclose that she is effectively lobbying for the uber wealthy. I mean, that is, again, a matter of public record.

She is on their payroll. And I love how she tries to disguise that taxes because we actually have a tear sheet of this. Let's put this up there on the screen from New York Magazine. Heidi Heitkamp is working specifically on behalf of the wealthiest families in America in order to protect something, what you were talking about, the stepped up basis. And what that is, is it allows capital gains to escape any tax at all as long as owners pass an asset onto their heirs before they sell it. Now, look, I know it's kind of complicated in terms of capital gains and all of that, and maybe you're philosophically opposed, but put it in perspective. The way that Heidi Heitkamp has told this story before on TV,

she says, the truck driver, let's say a truck driver, Sam, who makes $100,000 a year, all of a sudden now he has a tax that he owes on inheriting property, talking about how a family-owned cabin would be passed on. Oh, yeah, except in the law, it says that there's an exemption up to a million dollars and allows heirs— And then they change it to $5 million. Exactly. So his family-owned cabin would have to be worth like $10 million,

in which case I think Sam's going to be okay. Yeah, right, right, right. So if Sam has a $10 million cabin and then has to pay a 15% capital gains tax on that, yeah, well, you know, I think Sam's doing all right. That's probably his ninth cabin in Maine. Look, good on you. Good on you, Sam, the truck driver.

Congratulations, Sam, and your family. God bless. It's America. But really what it is is that it shows the nakedness through which her lobbying efforts are both co-opting like regular working class language and, B, that she is allowed on their network in order to propagandize against them. And then the discomfort. And this is something we talked to Sarota about last week, too. Like, if you aren't telling the story of how money is driving and shaping this thing, you are missing the entire thing. And when Faz, in a really, honestly, pretty gentle way. That was pretty.

I would have just been like, you're on the payroll. Yeah, tries to go there. Oh, she gets so uncomfortable and flustered. I got to jump in. I got to set the record straight. I got to make sure that Heidi got to set the record straight. I got to make sure that Heidi Heitkamp's reputation isn't besmirched. Pretty incredible how even the mention of the interests that are spending lots of money to shape this thing and make sure that rich people don't pay any more in taxes.

This is going to relate, by the way, to the Pandora paper segment we're going to do. We can't talk about that at all to do so. It's uncomfortable. It's icky. It's mean. It's nasty. All of that. But it's fine to actually do that.

It's fine to carry water for them. It's fine to strip this bill down so that people don't get ultimately what they need. That's all fine to do. No problem there. That's not icky or uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to say anything about the fact that there is money behind the scenes driving all of this and these networks happy to bring those paid lobbyists who have an agenda, who as Faz points out, is being paid to say these things, happy to bring them on and pretend like they're somehow neutral arbiters, that they're just speaking for moderates in America, when the truth could not be further from what they are presenting

as, you know, as what's popular here. Right. And one of the best things is that the prospect has actually pointed out that Heidi Heitkamp, when she was a senator, actually advanced this exact type of tax that she's now lobbying against. And now she is the person who heads a 501c4 nonprofit called Save America's Family Enterprises, which is a dark money operation, which does not have to disclose its donors, which has now committed over a six-figure ad buy in order to oppose the exact inheritance capital gains step-up basis tax that we are talking about here. So, what's going on? She was for it when she was in the Senate.

Then she left. Now she's getting paid money. Now she's part of the Save America Family Enterprises organization. And now she's against it and leveraging her power as a former United States senator in order to go out there in the media and lobby. Then when Fass actually calls her out on the network, something that CNN itself should be doing as a journalist, CNN protects the lobbyist, the lobbyist, the former senator. They're supposed to be doing

stories like this, saying, Senator, why are you advocating for a policy which, or against a policy which you pushed while you were in the United States Senate? Does it have anything to do with your connection to this organization and the money that you're making from it? Oh, crazy question. Imagine if she was asked that. Instead, this woman, let's not forget. Who are you, her press secretary? Right.

Yeah, no, apparently. She took a vote of conscience and she lost her seat for it. And here's the other thing. It's like, I don't actually really vote of conscience and she lost her seat for it. And here's the other thing. It's like, I don't actually really care what Heidi Heitkamp's intentions are. Maybe she really genuinely ideologically believes that Sam the truck driver when he inherits a $10 million cabin, like maybe she genuinely has an ideological commitment to protecting rich people and making sure that they don't pay a penny more in taxes. I don't care. What I care about is that money is funding her to shape this bill in a way that makes it worse for absolutely everyone.

And I also care a lot that CNN, your point is so well taken that it shouldn't fall to Fez to have to gently suggest. He's a guest, yeah. That maybe because you're being paid to say these things, that's relevant to this conversation. Like, good on him for doing it. It led to a very revealing exchange. It should be the job of the CNN quote-unquote journalist to expose the money that is funding and shaping these things behind the scenes, but that is left out of the conversation entirely. You can't even bring it up. It's icky, it's yucky, it breaches decorum, And that's ultimately like they have this obsession with decorum and bipartisanship in a way that only ever protects the status quo, only ever protects the elite class, which you can see this anchor herself is clearly a part of.

Yeah, that is literally correct. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to breakingpoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. Okay, let's get to this next one. I don't have a fun transition for everybody today. I tried to think of one, as many as I possibly could. Dr. Fauci, making news, making headlines with some very eyebrow-raising comments. First of all, strange question, speaking of the media. Media saying, Dr. Fauci, can people gather for Christmas?

Well, hold on a second. It's October. Also, we have this vaccine. You might have heard of it. Why are we even asking this question? So she asked the question. Tease it up for the good doctor. Here's what he had to say.

We can gather for Christmas or it's just too soon to tell. You know, Margaret, it's just too soon to tell. We've just got to concentrating on continuing to get those numbers down and not try to jump ahead by weeks or months and say what we're going to do at a particular time. Let's focus like a laser on continuing to get those cases down. And we can do it by people getting vaccinated and also in the situation where boosters are appropriate to get people boosted because we know that they can help greatly in diminishing infection and diminishing advanced disease, the kinds of data that are now accumulating in real time. Too soon to tell. Last time I checked, it's not December 2020, it's December 2021.

And you might actually ask, what was the point of getting the vaccine? And as you point to, as actually even alludes to, even if so, let's say you're worried about the elderly, well, they can get a booster shot if they want to. And then they have, you know, whatever, 90-something percent protection, especially already 100% protection against hospitalization and death. Sorry, 99.99. And then whenever it comes to protection from actually getting it, the booster at least, you know, seems to be working in some cases for the elderly. And that's if you're elderly. For everybody else, if you're vaccinated, you pretty much don't have to worry. I just think

that if you look at this level of hysteria and this level of control here where Fauci is pushing for, you get to a point where COVID zero is the de facto policy of the U.S. And that is not possible, people. It is an endemic disease at this point. You know, Fauci himself, actually, in an interview a day before, said something similar. They said, well, Dr. Fauci, what about the idea that COVID is endemic? And he said, I simply will not accept this idea

that just getting COVID for some people is the norm. Now, okay, his job is to be public health, disease, or whatever. But his job is to advise the president. He's not actually supposed to be running the policy of the government. The problem, I think, the biggest problem, in my opinion, for the Biden administration has been that these public health people have made COVID zero now the de facto policy of the government. You can't have that possible.

We don't have a flu zero policy. And yes, I know that that sounds like Trumpian or whatever, but here is the truth. With vaccines, they are much more analogous now. It is not, you know, nuking our elderly people and people who are obese. You have a protection. If you don't want it, okay, that's on you. And now there are public health measures in place in order to try and incentivize that

to as much as possible. But at a certain point, we just have to say, we have the policies in place. We've pushed it as far as we possibly can. Everybody's got the protection if they want to have the protection. And if you get COVID, okay, they don't happen to me. Breakthrough case, sick for a couple of days. I'm not going to lie. It definitely did suck. But it's over now. And that's just simply going to be the reality for a lot of people in our society. I just think that this type of December of 2021 saying that you may not be able to gather for Christmas is total insanity.

I mean, there's a couple things here. First of all, I was surprised by the question. Yeah, exactly. Like that. Why even ask? I would not even think to even ask that. And then there's a really simple answer. The answer is if your adults are vaccinated, then yeah, you're good. You're good. And if you're really worried, go get a booster shot. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's it. Like that. We already know that. We know how the

vaccines work. We know they're effective. I mean, sure. Anything crazy could happen. There could be a new variant that jumps the vaccine. No, as far as we know right now, the vaccines work. We know they're effective. I mean, sure, anything crazy could happen. There could be a new variant that, oh, it jumps the vaccine. No, as far as we know right now, the vaccines work. And if you're vaccinated, don't worry about it. You're good to go, right? I mean, there's minor risk in so many things that we undertake. But if gathering as a family at the holidays is important to you and you're vaccinated, do it. You're good to go. So it's a really simple, straightforward answer. And the other thing that I think this exposes is who's going to listen? I mean, no one's going to listen to this guy. That's the worst problem. This is so disconnected from the reality of how people living outside of a, you know, a small handful who are really

into their pandemic era restrictions and have really embraced this and have the Fauci signs in their lawn and whatever. That's a pretty small percentage of the population ultimately. Most of the population is not living in a way where they were even questioning, should we get together at Christmas time? Should we gather for Thanksgiving if we're all vaccinated? And so it's just, you know, the more disconnected they get from how people are actually living their lives and thinking about this disease at this point, the less credibility they're ultimately going to have. And then I do think that there, as you were pointing to, there's a connection here with the Biden administration hasn't made really clear what their goal is. Yeah, what is the policy? So that allows Fauci and other public health officials to sort of freelance and assert

for themselves what they think the goal should be. And I think you're right that the way that Fauci's been talking, it's like a zero COVID type of ambition. But even New Zealand, that they were famously trying to do, have a zero COVID policy. And, you know, they have a lot more going for them in terms of being able to achieve that than we do with a much smaller population, they've said this is not workable. This is not possible. So because Biden hasn't been clear about here's what we're aiming for and here's our idea of what would be acceptable, it allows Fauci and others to kind of freelance and assert a more sort of aggressive, more frankly radical

notion of what we should be shooting for here. And, you know, again, you always have to look at what are people's incentives in these situations. And for Fauci to be at the center of the national conversation, I mean, I'm sure that's been very elevating for him. He's now one of the most famous people in the country. So if the pandemic ends, well, then he's less interesting of a guy. He's not at the center.

He's not getting asked on the Sunday shows all the time. And that's not to say that he's, like, thinking about that or just, you know, nefariously crafting this towards his own ambition. But people are influenced by what's in their interest, whether or not they realize it. So that's always a good thing to keep in mind as you're evaluating public figure statements. 100%. And look, show me one news channel where you're going to hear this. COVID cases have fallen 35% since September 1st. It's great news. 35%. That is fantastic news. Does it justify asking Dr. Fauci, can we gather for Christmas? Maybe some questions on gain of function research, but hey, whatever. You know, I just happen to be somebody who cares about these things. You don't seem,

we do not seem to see any of this in our coverage. 35% drop in overall cases, hospitalizations too. And the two month cycle that we continue to see continues to happen. Every two months we see like an ebb and with the flow. It's unclear exactly what that is ascribed to. We don't know if that shows that Delta alone. We don't know if that's going to continue two months from now. So I'm not going to say like, hey, make sure that we're good to go or in two months that things could be bad. All it is to say is that there does seem at least in Britain and elsewhere that post-Delta, when you get several months into it, and remember, we have a much larger population than Britain, so it was

going to burn a little bit hotter. Same thing whenever it comes to our unvaccinated population. That cases have rather consistently fallen, even with the ebb and the flow. So even with the cold weather, and yeah, I'm beginning to feel that brisk fall air and more, even with all of that, it is entirely possible that we are on the tail end. And at the least of it, the news media does have a responsibility to tell people what I'm saying. 35% drop since September 1st. That is a different fact pattern, which requires a different response, which requires a different public consciousness, not the same level of hysteria. I mean, look, even in early days of Delta, people were freaking out. I mean, I got COVID, right, kind of at the height. People were really

realizing that breakthrough cases are way higher than what was being publicly reported. Vaccine efficacy was being called into question, all of that, especially in terms of preventing infection. But now, if you think about the levels of natural immunity that we have, along with vaccine immunity, we are really getting up there in terms of our adult populations. And the drop in cases reflects that. So then public posture should reflect that from the government. And that is not what we see right now. It's, again, a media story, too, about what their incentives are in terms of covering this story. Like, hey, guys, things are actually maybe getting a little better. Like, look, we want to be cautious and things can happen and maybe there's a spike.

Of course. We don't know. Maybe there will be. Not ruling that out. But a 35% drop is a good sign and that should be reported. And I don't want to say that no one's talking about it or no one's reporting it. I think I saw the New York Times this morning put out in their newsletter about that there's been a decline in COVID cases. But it's not going to get these, like, you know, breaking news, headline alerts on cable news because it's not as salacious.

It's not as agitating. It doesn't bring in the views to say, hey, this thing is actually getting a little better. The same way that, you know, going and ginning up a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety around it, that's much more effective in terms of their business model. So it's their incentive, again, to emphasize the worst possible case scenario, the worst news that's coming out. And so you end up, if you're a person who's consuming a lot of that content, you can end up with a distorted view of where we actually are in this pandemic. And again, look, I'm not trying to downplay it. 700,000, I think, Americans have died. A massive, massive number. This has been horrific. It's been

the most deadly pandemic in American history. And it's not like the risk is over. But if you're vaccinated, you're in pretty good shape. We know what the numbers are. We know that they've been effective. Yes, there are breakthrough infections, but you are very, very unlikely to end up hospitalized or end up dead. That's tremendous news. The drop in cases is tremendous news, but it's not in their financial interest to really emphasize that part of the conversation versus the risks that still ultimately exist. That's right. Okay, let's get to this next story. It's tremendously important. It's called the Pandora Papers. It is a large group of financial papers from 14 different financial

institutions, advisory groups, and more from across the world that were then leaked to a consortium of the Washington Post, the International Consortium of Journalists, The Guardian, and more. So we're getting our very first view into the actual Pandora Papers. Let's put this up there on the screen. It says, Billions Hidden Beyond Reach. And what's absolutely fascinating here is about the number of foreign leaders who have entered into these complex financial arrangements of trusts, tax havens, and more in order to purchase massive amounts of property, funnel money to elicit gains, and really, it just gives you a perfect view into the international financial elite and how they move their money

all across the world. So the two headlines that are really being drawn from this right now are about number one is a Russian woman who, after reportedly having a child with Russian President Vladimir Putin, now lives on waterfront property in Monte Carlo. And she has become tremendously wealthy, it seems, Crystal. I'm surprised by that. She's the owner of an apartment. There's an offshore company, which was created just weeks after she gave birth to a baby girl. The child was born right around the same time that there was a report that she was having a secret,

now years-long relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. For anybody who's been to Monte Carlo, it's a beautiful place. It overlooks the Riviera and the ocean. It's got great weather. Really, really nice place. It's a perfect place to park millions of illicit Russian dollars if you happen to have an affair with the Russian President. The second one that's making headlines is much more just as disgusting of a story is King Abdullah of Jordan, who has used

about $100 million while his own people are starving or not doing so well to purchase homes in Malibu, here in Washington, D.C., and in Miami. So you can see that the king of Jordan is spending $100 million on illicit homes here in the United States for him and his wife to go and party, his kids also. When I was at Georgetown, it was an open secret that his daughter was in the program and that she was like a queen or whatever and had to be hands off. And also the building that we were all in was founded by the Saudi royal government. So it was all, there was a lot of shady stuff that was going on there. Sorry, Georgetown. And one of the funny things that you can see is that this is exactly how they funnel money into all of this.

And I would be remiss if I didn't point out what you said at the top of our show, which is that the reason that there are no American billionaires listed in here is that financial crime experts say that tax rates are so low in the United States for the ultra wealthy because they pay an effective tax rate of between like one and 9% on their assets that they have no interest in trying to play illicit games. They're like, Hey, I can actually flaunt my wealth right out in the open in the American financial system because the tax rates are so incredibly low, and it's legal to have tax avoidance given that capital gain step-up basis that we were talking about earlier. That is enshrined into law. Same thing for these private equity guys. Whenever it comes to the carried interest loophole and stuff, they don't need Panama Papers and more. I guess at least in Russia, they have a fake tax rate, and then all

the oligarchs keep it in Panama, and then normal Russians are the ones who actually have to pay it. But yeah, it's a pretty amazing story about they have 130 billionaires, 300 public officials, the presidents of Kenya, presidential candidates in a Czech billionaire who's running for president there, Ecuador, you know, it's the entire world. I encourage everybody to go and read it. It's very important journalism. 14 cases involving current country leaders. There you go. In revealed in these papers, which is the largest trove of financial documents. And

part of what's so important here is previous leaks have centered on like just one law firm that does these sorts of offshore accounts. Yeah, that was the Panama Papers. Right. So that was the Panama Papers. This is across a number of law firms. So you get a more complete global picture of the way that the very top of the global elite operate. And yeah, so we can thank Senator Heidi Heitkamp and other people like her for making it so that our top billionaires don't have to use offshore accounts. They can just avoid taxes out in the open because that's the official system that we have set up here. So great job, again, Senator Heitkamp, really earning her money and making sure that that continues to be the

case. Thank you, ma'am. But the other thing here, one other funny note is in South Dakota, the state next to North Dakota that Senator Heitkamp represented, South Dakota has apparently now become like a tax haven. Yeah, for foreign billionaires. Very strange. Yeah, the level of like Cayman Islands and other famous, you know, tax havens. South Dakota is now, Sioux City, is now apparently rivaling those as top like global tax haven destinations, which I did not realize and is very interesting. I didn't know that either. Yeah. I'm like, it really does remind me of, this seems to, should it be like a Fargo episode or something in terms of like, why South Dakota? What exactly is going on? Very, yeah, very weird.

That one requires a little more insight. And by the way, all of these news organizations that just released their first investigations into these papers, I mean, again, this is a massive trove. I think it's 12 million different documents. So there's going to be a lot of follow-on articles digging into how they operate and what the implications are. The other piece that's worth mentioning is when you talk about 14 cases just in this leak involving current country leaders. Well, if you want to reform this system, forget about it because these guys are all using it, right? I mean, they're the ones who are benefiting from this system of global shady dealings and being able to hide their oft-times ill-begotten wealth. And the King of Jordan, I mean, this has important domestic implications because we give Jordan a lot of aid dollars. We give them a lot of aid dollars, number one,

because they host a lot of refugees from the region, both Palestinians and in recent years, a lot of Syrians. And so we give them $8 for that. We also give them $8 because they have been a moderate influence in the region. So and they've sort of backed us on whatever our Middle East policy is, whether it's good or bad, they kind of have our back in all of that. So the big question here is how did King Abdullah get this money? Like where did this money actually come from? Because Jordan isn't like the Gulf states where they have massive natural resources, these giant oil reserves. They don't have that.

This is a relatively poor country and that's part of why he actually faced a coup attempt. Yes, very recent. His half-brother is in prison now because he was apparently plotting to overthrow him because there's massive concern about corruption in that government and also just the fact that you have a population that is relatively poor, that has really been struggling in recent years, high unemployment rate, high levels of hunger, all of that going on. So you have a large level of domestic instability and a deep concern about corruption. And then you're going, where'd you get these $100 million from? And what they say in this, and I take this with a grain of salt, because in my experience, government aid dollars haven't always been particularly well accounted for.

But they say government officials assure them it's probably not coming from the U.S. aid dollars because those are very well accounted for, which, again, grain of salt. But they also get a lot of money from those Gulf states. And that money is apparently less well accounted for and sometimes even comes with not the Kingdom of Jordan's name on it, but the king's actual name on it. So basically the implication here is the king is very likely he denies it and his lawyers deny it. But he looks very possible that he is skimming money off the top that is intended for the people of his state that are struggling and really need those $8. And instead, he's building and buying multi-multi-million dollar lavish mansions in California, here in DC, other places around the world. So it's really disgusting. And it would not be surprising to see this lead to further instability in Jordan, given the fact that he has already been under fire

for corruption in his government. Right. I'm already sad, Crystal, because now this means we can't go to Jordan, which is actually a very beautiful country. I've spent a lot of time in Jordan. Yeah, I weirdly both have spent like a month in Jordan. Great, it's a beautiful place.

Wadi Rum, all of that. Some great stuff. Rainbow Street, you know, shout out to all those people. But this is the deal. I remember being there and people were like, do not talk about the king, man. Like, you cannot say anything. When I lived in Qatar, it was the exact same way. Don't say a word about the shady Al Thani family that runs that country or the network of the tribals and exactly how they do business with one another.

And billions of dollars just seem to go missing. I would dispute that the king is skimming it off the top and he's probably just being straight up paid by the Saudis. They're like, oh yeah, you take this. Take this and do this for us. Everybody else gets this. It's all good. That's business. And yeah, I mean, the king apparently has got a $10 million luxury ocean, riverside condo here in DC. I don't even know where a $10 million condo would be. I'm literally trying to think. There's not that much luxury real estate like that around here. So probably the Watergate is what I'm thinking right now. Pretty amazing though, in order to see how the king has all his hundreds of millions of dollars. There's no way that people in Jordan will ever even hear

about a lot of this, but it's going to seep into their political system because they've had problems for a long time of people calling out the royal family and saying, hey, everybody here, we've got all these refugees, Palestinians, we've got these Syrians and more. And look at the king, he's living large. You know, he's got these ranches, which are legend, you know, in Jordan. And now they learn about these homes and pictures of that and stuff with the internet. It's going to seep into the political conscious there. Absolutely. And to kind of tie a bow on this, and we're definitely going to continue to follow the journalism around this because honestly, of everything we're covering this morning, this is

one of the most significant stories, just exposing the way that this tiny, tiny group of global elites, the way that they operate, the way a different set of rules applies to them, the way they lie, the way they hide, the way they obfuscate. The Guardian had a great quote here from Gerald Ryle, who's the director of the independent consortium of journalists. They're the ones who got this leak to start with. And he said, leading politicians who organize their finances and tax havens had a stake in the status quo and were likely to be an obstacle to reform of the offshore economy.

Here's the quote. When you have world leaders, when you have politicians, when you have public officials all using the secrecy and all using this world, then I don't think we're going to see an end of it. So the Panama Papers, that exposure, that revelation, that didn't change anything. They just changed law firms. They changed tactics. And that's what we'll see again, right, in order to make sure that they are able to keep their secrets truly secret. If they need to about country leaders here, state leaders here. When they benefit from this system, you've got to be fooled if you think that they're going to be interested in changing it. That's just the facts.

That's right. Okay. Another extraordinarily significant and wildly underreported story here from the media. Steven Donziger, you guys know we interviewed him last week about the way that Chevron has persecuted him. For those of you who don't know the context of the story, he's a human rights lawyer. He won an unprecedented settlement against Chevron for their crimes against indigenous people in Ecuador. Chevron has not paid a single penny of the billion-dollar fine that was levied against them for poisoning and destroying this whole area. I mean, people got cancer, people died. It was a total, total crime and atrocity. They haven't paid a single penny. Instead, their strategy has been to make an example out of Steven Donziger, the successful lawyer who actually had a chance of holding them to account.

And sad to say, they have been entirely successful in doing that. Steven has been locked in his house for more than two years on home confinement, wearing an ankle bracelet like he's some great global criminal, for the crime, allegedly, of being held in contempt of court for not turning over his laptop that he did not want to turn over during discovery to protect his attorney-client privileged. So they got a corrupt judge who totally railroaded him. He's found guilty on this charge, a charge that he reminded us when we interviewed him last week, the day before his sentencing, no lawyer has ever spent a single day in prison for,

okay? No one has ever spent a single day in prison. In U.S. history. In U.S. history. So this man's been locked in his home for two years. Sentencing happened last week on October 1st, and they sentenced him to six months in prison. Now, when I saw that news, I thought, okay, well, surely, when it first broke, I thought, well, surely they must have credited him for time served for these two years that he's been locked in his home. Nope. Nope. They did not credit him whatsoever. The judge went on some insane rant about him. The whole thing has been a total corporate prosecution. The Southern District of New York, they refused to prosecute him. The UN has come out and ruled that this is an illegal prosecution, that not only should he be

released immediately, but that we should be paying him reparations for what we have done to this man. And instead, now he's spending six months in federal prison. For all the media people who pretended during the Trump years that they were so worried about creeping authoritarianism, about the end of our democracy, you don't care about this total corporate takeover of our judicial system? Tell me when you see a single cable news segment about this absolutely outrageous, atrocious crime that has been committed against this man and that is meant to send a message to all whistleblowers, to anyone who would hold the powerful to account.

And it is outrageous and shocking and saddening that Chevron has gotten their way here. And they have made that example out of Steven Donziger that they wanted to. Well, what's crazy too about the case to people understand is the people who prosecuted him was actually a private law firm that the judge brought in in order to prosecute him. That law firm also has Chevron as a client. And so effectively, they're being paid to privately prosecute by the very people that have a judgment. At the very least, it's a conflict of interest. I also asked him, I was like, wait, I was like, how do you go to prison without facing a jury? And it's contempt charges, which are less than six months in time, that is at the sole discretion at the judge.

Now look, on appeal and all this, is this all going to hold up? I have no idea. But by that time, he'll probably be out of prison. And at this point, the man's been in his house in downtown Manhattan for like two years and now is going to be in federal lockup for six months, which is pretty crazy. And again, even if he was guilty of sin, which he disputes, whatever, I don't actually know the general facts on the contempt charge itself, even if he was guilty of sin, which he disputes, whatever, I don't actually know the general facts on the contempt charge itself. Even if he was guilty, probably shouldn't still go to prison. This is a misdemeanor. Yeah, facts of the case.

It's a, what is it? It's a first misdemeanor? I think they call it a classy misdemeanor. It's the lowest possible criminal charge you Right. Lowest possible criminal charge, six months in prison, not facing a jury, being sentenced by a judge who had brought in actually the private prosecutors. All of this, I would say, is just complete nonsense. And it's like you said, if people are really worried about the appearance of corruption within our judicial system, which, oh, by the way, we brought you recently that story about 131 judges who forgot to recuse themselves from cases

where they had a direct financial interest. A direct Wall Street Journal investigation found that where sometimes judges had hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets in the very companies that they were delivering rulings on. Oh, and those rulings actually almost always broke in the favor of those companies and therefore the judges' assets. I think it was two-thirds of the time, Sagar, let's be fair. Sorry, and those rulings actually almost always broke in the favor of those companies, and therefore the judges' assets- I think it was two-thirds of the time, Sagar. Let's be fair. Sorry, yeah. One-third. It's overwhelming. I'm just saying, coin flip, and you would have

seen a little bit of a different thing. Random probability would tell you that it probably should be 50-50 whenever it comes to a real review. So look, I would put this all together, and they say this is absolutely outrageous. And yeah, I don't think it's a surprise that we're the only ones really covering it. A few people, the media. I just saw a tweet, actually, from David Sirota. Punchbowl News, which we actually use some of their reporting sometimes because they have good congressional reporting. Inside the Beltway, yeah. Yeah, well, their newsletter this morning was presented by Chevron.

Their news this morning presented by Chevron. Am I saying that it's a cover-up? No. But, like, look, when people want to cover stuff or tweet something, you've got to think about it. It's going to screw me whenever it comes to advertisers. There's a reason we fund our business the way that we do. So we don't have to have any sort of implication whatsoever. But Chevron and the people who they hire as ad people, those people control a whole lot of money whenever it comes to media buys and advertising.

Is that part of the factor? I don't think – I think we'd be lying if we said it wasn't. Of course. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean Politico Playbook, which is like the insider journal newsletter, last week brought to you by Pharma. Brought to you by Pharma. During the whole negotiation.

Medicare negotiation prices and other relevant relevant health care policies are being debated. And the D.C. newsletter insider newsletter is being brought to you by Pharma. Yeah, it is atrocious. And by the way, the Biden administration, they haven't said a word. You know, all their concern about, you know, democracy and judicial system. Just imagine if it was Trump going after this guy. Oh, yeah. Just imagine the wall-to-wall coverage. Yes.

But I think that's it. It's because you don't have, I mean, first of all, they don't really care about corruption, number one. Second of all, you don't have this blue-red horse race dynamic that they can sink their teeth into. And so, you know, they don't, when it comes down to it, they don't really give a shit. All they're concerned about about the press fairness, Julian Assange, we see what, you know, what

nonsense that is. All their concerns about authoritarianism and the future sanctity of our democracy. They don't really care. This is a crime. It's an absolute outrage. Stephen Donziger should be freed immediately. He never should have been confined in the first place. And the fact that this is getting so little attention and that the media doesn't care about it is a crime in and of itself. Yeah, that's right. Wow, you guys must really like listening to our voices.

While I know this is annoying, instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done, check out the other podcasts I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society. You always need more Crystal and Saga in your daily lives. Take care, guys.

Crystal, what are you taking a look at today? Well, guys, Kirsten Sinema is the literal worst. This, in my mind, is a nonpartisan statement of fact. She's the worst because she blatantly does the bidding of the donor class. She is the worst because she shamelessly postures for her post-Senate career of cashing in. She's the worst because she ran on a slate of popular issues, things like prescription drug

reform that she just casually abandoned once Big Pharma asked her to. Do you need more proof? Well, here she is suddenly dropping her support for Medicare negotiating prescription drug pricing in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in positive ads from Big Pharma. Great work, Daily Poster there. Here she is meeting with the very corporate interests that could profit off of killing the reconciliation bill as she blatantly goes out and does their bidding. Here she is leaving D.C. in the middle of critical negotiations so that she can go meet with her big dollar donors at a high-end resort and spa in Phoenix. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all just within the past two weeks. When you look at the long trajectory of her career,

you can see an even grosser transformation from principled anti-war activist to brazen corporate sellout. It's all so blatant as to be one of the most shameless displays of corruption I have seen in DC, and that is a really high bar. But somehow, many in the press refuse to see it that way. Where anyone with two working brain cells could see a bought-off politician

playing the donor class, somehow they see a brave trailblazer setting an independent course. Somehow it never occurs to them that while that course might be independent of what voters want, it is in lockstep with what her donor class wants. But perhaps the most grotesque part of all of their recent glowing portraits of Kyrsten Sinema is their insistence that all of her personal attributes and quirky character traits are somehow more important than the fact that she is casually denying people affordable prescription drugs and a livable wage. Here is just a sampling of some of the worst of that coverage over just the past few days. So Axios, they want you to know, Kyrsten Sinema's allies

have some free advice for anyone trying to bully the wine-drinking triathlete into supporting Biden's $3.5 trillion budget bill. She doesn't play by Washington's rules, and she's prepared to walk away. She doesn't play by Washington's rules and she's prepared to walk away. She doesn't play by Washington's rules? Since when do Washington's rules not include doing whatever your corporate handlers tell you to do? That is literally the rule of Washington. The accompanying article goes out of its way to mention Sinema's eccentric dress or sexual orientation and has quite a lot of detail about her exercise habits as well. Listen to this line and try not to puke. She's unconventional.

C, recent internship at a Sonoma winery, and a force to be reckoned with. She's known to rise between 4 and 5 a.m. to train for her next race, and she was forced to take up aqua jogging after breaking her foot this summer in something called the Light at the End of the Tunnel Marathon. Friends, I do not give a single fart about what time Kyrsten Sinema wakes up in the morning.

I care that the sum total of her waking hours seem to be spent taking bags of cash in exchange for making the country worse. Here's another line from that same piece. Progressives could be forgiven for presuming that Sinema, 45, the first openly bisexual member of Congress who's easy to spot in her trademark sleeveless dresses, wry wigs, and acrylic glasses would share their woke politics. Guys, wanting old people to be able to afford their drugs and go to the dentist is not woke politics. But I don't want to pick on just Axios here, even though there's a lot to get into. There's so much more. CNN's Michael Smirconish wants you to know Washington needs more Kyrsten Sinemas to stand in the way of the most obvious and popular reforms.

Just listen. But Manchin and Sinema are deserving of our praise, not our criticism. Their refusal to simply fall in line and instead exhibit some independence is both a rarity in Washington and a reflection of their diverse constituencies. Consider that Sinema's Arizona constituents pretty evenly divide between R's and D's and I's. For the one millionth time, Kyrsten Sinema is not responding to the political preferences of her constituents. As Matt Iglesias pointed out recently, Sinema is literally posing the most popular elements of her own party's agenda. She opposes raising taxes on the wealthy

and corporations, as we've demonstrated here. Repeatedly taxing the rich is extremely popular in a bipartisan way. But to make matters even worse, she instead floated a carbon tax, which would be wildly unpopular and also would fall on working class people. And of course, the prescription drug pricing reform that she has decided to oppose after being bought off by pharma has like 80% support. It is literally the top priority of the American people. There's a recent poll that listed all of the priorities of the reconciliation plan, and more Americans said that prescription drug pricing reform was their top priority

than anything else in the entire plan. It is insanely popular. So no, Michael Smirconish, Kyrsten Sinema is not responding to diverse constituencies. She is responding to one constituency, and that would be the donor class. Last but not least, Maureen Dowd penned a real doozy here. The headline reads, Sinema stars in her own film. In it, Dowd writes, the Arizona senator's name is pronounced Sinema, and it is apt because she sweeps and sometimes, when the triathlete has a sports injury, limps through the Senate like a silent film star, the Greta Garbo of Congress, as one top Democrat called her. Let me be perfectly clear. There is nothing enigmatic or mysterious about Kirsten Sinema.

She is a very old and very predictable type in Washington. The corporate sellout, shilling for the donor class. Her only new twist on that old type is to use her identity as a shield for her pernicious and destructive agenda. And apparently, plenty establishment media types have been blinded by this type of terminal, late-stage identity politics. Or more likely, they're happy to weaponize it for a corporate agenda in the same way that Kyrsten Sinema herself does.

Like, now I'm supposed to be persuaded to overlook your terrible politics, not just because you're bisexual, but also because you drink wine? What? Sure, she'll keep you and your kids in unrelenting poverty, but she works out a lot. So that's what really counts here, people.

Slay queen, but like literally, because your policies are killing people. And Sagar, it is unbelievable to watch the way- One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get

the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Some of you might recall that for my last monologue, I delved into the millennial media company, OZI, a company founded by a black and Indian entrepreneurial set who scammed about $90 million away from some of the most sophisticated media investors in the world on the promise that they can reach millennials. They weren't reaching any millennials, but they

sure were good at parting billionaires who wanted to see a black-owned business targeting millennials from their money. My personal favorite highlights from that monologue are that they impersonated a YouTube executive in a pitch meeting with Goldman Sachs that nearly all of their metrics for traffic and views were fake, including ghost YouTube views of a million views

with only 12 comments or likes on a video. And events my friends have moved so speedily, I am now happy to report that when I wrote this, the company was supposed to be dead. They said they were shutting down. And as of this morning, Carlos Watson, the CEO, has been all over the news saying actually it's their Lazarus moment, that he's open for business, and that it is slanderous to point out many of the lies. So let's start chronologically. After my monologue on Thursday, even more has come out about Carlos Watson. He headed something called the Carlos Watson Show, which he claimed was the fastest growing talk show on YouTube. And it turns out one of the ways that he got people to work for him and sold to

advertisers is he claimed he had a deal to have his show go on the A&E network. He made that claim in his pitch to guests as part of the reason that many of them even appeared on his stupid show in the first place. Well, his producers and all went to work, and they noticed they never actually got to talk to anyone at A&E. Then, one of them noticed that the TV show Hoarders was actually in the time slot that Watson told them that they would be in. So after he got caught, he said, oh, actually, I sold the show to YouTube as a YouTube original. And by selling the show to YouTube, he means uploading the show to YouTube. But wait, there was more reporting as it dribbles out about this company.

It turns out that the Carlos Watson show wasn't even doing that well on YouTube. It had a 95%, yes, 95% fake viewership rate. Not only that, people within the company said nearly all of the social media followings for the company were fake, including their email list of 25 million, which it turns out they got because they refused to unsubscribe people at their request. Literally almost everything about this company was a mirage. I am taking you all through this, not just because it's hilarious, but because we need to underscore how much of an obvious fraud this company was.

Its founder, Carlos Watson, was and then makes you realize some of the biggest people in media thought that this guy was the future. NPR had him on the board of directors. CNBC routinely had him on as a guest and partnered with him for his sham media festival, Ozzy Fest. Fun fact, who headlined it that year? You just saw Hillary Clinton herself. Remember, Carlos Watson show, it had a 95% fake viewership. Guess who bought advertising on that show? Some names you might recognize. Chevrolet, Walmart, Facebook, Target, Goldman Sachs. That means the top advertisers in the world all shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to this fraud of a show. And they didn't have any good sense of anybody who spends any time on YouTube who could look at a single one of their videos and be like, oh yeah, this thing is just completely not real. Ozzie, Carlos Watson, they're outgrossed of the same problem for the mainstream media. People who are young are not buying what they are selling. They can read the actuarial tables. They know that their boomer audience will eventually be gone. And I would posit here that

Ozzie media is just the tip of the iceberg. As powerful and as titanic as the mainstream media is right now, remember that without Trump, they are fading slowly into irrelevancy. Now, this is really important. As sadly as I like to dunk on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox for their declining ratings, the truth is, though, that they are almost as fake as Ozzy. The actual viewership does not matter for these companies. Huge portions of their revenue come from the cable companies who pay them to be part of the cable bundle. Under the assumption that, hey, without having CNN, Fox, and MSNBC in the bundle, then people won't subscribe to Comcast or Verizon or whatever. Now, these deals are locked into place for years to come, so it's not going anywhere. But what happens 10 years from now, when the next round of negotiation happens?

Well, the networks know this, and that's why they're all branching into cringe streaming services of their own, trying to get the millennial streaming audience. CNN has CNN+. Fox News has Fox Nation. NBC has Peacock. If you've ever watched any of those, you'll know that they all amount to absolute cringe, and they have zero chance of success. Now, right now, we are in the midst of the revolution, even though the situation is maddening for pretty much everybody involved.

The emperor has no clothes, and we all know it. And yet, they're still the emperor, and will be for some time. But underneath the surface, everything is changing. Shows like ours are succeeding with the very demographic of people that these mainstream media people want to target. And eventually, everything will move toward the new system. You should have a tremendous amount of hope in that. And always remember that as powerful and as pernicious as these people are, they are still the idiots who gave Carlos Watson $90 million. If that does not prove that they deserve to be beat, nothing else does. as these people are. They are still the idiots who gave Carlos Watson 90 million dollars. If that does not prove that they deserve

to be beat, nothing else does. And, I mean, the developments on this crystal are incredible. I mean, Carlos Watson is now...

He's dead. Thanks for listening to the show, guys. We really appreciate it. To help other people find the show, go ahead and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people find the show. As always, a special thank you to Supercast for powering our premium membership.

If you want to find out more, go to crystalandsauger.com. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying

voices, and digging into the culture that has shaped the soundtrack of our lives. Like, that's what's really important, and that's what stands out, is that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. Like that's what's really important. And that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.