Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/5/23: Republican Speaker Civil War, Ukraine Aid Loses Steam, Pelosi Booted From Office, Terrible Jobs Numbers, Third Party Skyrockets, Michael Lewis Insane SBF Defense, Payday Lenders Wrecked, Big Three Losing Billions On EV, UAW Worker Demands

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Republicans throwing in their bids to replace McCarthy for speaker, Democrats worry speaker fight will halt Ukraine aid, interim speaker kicks Pelosi out of her office, job gains slow in September, third party support skyrockets, Michael Lewis downplays SBF fraud, Scotus wrecks payday lenders in key CFPB case, Rivian losses show warning sign for EV's, and updates on the UAW strike.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, guys. Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.

What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of things happening here in this town this week. We've got a little meet the candidates segment for you. All of the individuals who are vying to be the next speaker of the house. Not that I know why you would want that job in particular, but some people do. So we'll tell you about that. We also have an interesting situation where a number of Republicans are very mad at Democrats for failing to bail out Kevin McCarthy. And there was also some retribution

enacted on Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. They're kicked out of their little special offices in the Capitol. Can't say I'm not. So all of the fallout here, we'll get into that. We've also got a really bad jobs report that just came out. There's another one that's coming out on Friday. We'll see if that confirms the bad news. So we'll get into that as well. New numbers with regard to how much Americans would like to see a party other than the Democrats and Republicans succeed. And it's actually surprising who is most interested in moving in third party direction, which could have some implications for the RFK Jr. impending independent run. So we'll get into that. And Michael Lewis, once again, under fire this time for what appears to be a very sympathetic portrait of Sam

Bankman Freed as he faces trial this week. We're also going to be joined by a United Auto worker who is on strike currently to give us an update from the ground about what is going on and what they are hoping to achieve through their strike. So a lot to get into. That's right. And I just want to say once again, thank you to all the premium subscribers. You've got the upcoming focus group in Atlanta. You guys will be interested in that specifically about what we're going to be talking about with third parties. We're going to talk to Democratic voter this time about how they feel about Biden. And also thank you to all the premium subs helping us support Jordan Sheridan, other on the ground reporting efforts as we bring more of an effort in all of these cases. We're having a UAW worker

on. It's better to not hear from us. It's better to hear from them. And so that is what you are helping support. Breakingpoints.com if you are able. Let's get to the speaker's race. Just some shocking turn of the, I feel like Crystal, I have lived several lifetimes in the last couple of weeks. Just from Dianne Feinstein's death onwards, it just feels like things keep on rolling. And now we've lost the speaker. CounterPoints did a great job yesterday summarizing Kevin McCarthy and how he's decided to go right off into the sunset. I actually support that. I support people losing a vote and then having the dignity to be like, you know what? I'm out.

Now, though, absolute chaos. The calls are everywhere here in Washington. We now have two official bids for Speaker, both of which are actually quite formidable. I could see both succeeding. Let's start with Congressman Steve Scalise. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. He announced yesterday in a letter to his colleagues, quote, it is with that sense of responsibility and purpose I am seeking the conference's nomination for Speaker of the House. You know my leadership style. I have displayed this as your majority leader and whip. I have a proven track record

of bringing together diverse array of viewpoints within our conference to build consensus where others thought it impossible. The other one is also a very different style of speaker bid. Congressman Jim Jordan, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. He announces, quote, we agreed at the beginning of the Congress there are three fundamental things the House must do. Pass the bills that need to be passed, do the oversight, and rein in the spending. Working with Chairman Greene and our leadership, I helped to deliver the most significant legislative accomplishment. This Congress, the strongest immigration and border enforcement bill ever, with other committee chairs and members of the Judiciary Committee. I am doing the oversight and holding this administration accountable. I have been amongst the leaders pushing for fiscal

discipline with my career. And then at the end, he says, we must do it together as a conference. I respectfully ask for your support as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Both of these are critical actual bids and really have two diverging viewpoints. But I would be remiss if I did not mention the dark horse candidate who has been now nominated by Marjorie Taylor Greene and by Congressman Troy Nails, President Donald Trump, former President of the United States. As you remember, you do not have to be an actual sitting member of Congress to be the speaker, even though it has never happened. The rules don't say that. Trump himself actually weighed

in on that bid. Here's what he had to say. A lot of people have been calling me a bad speaker. All I can say is we'll do whatever's best for the country and for the Republican Party. Would you take the job? We have some great, great people. Would you take the job? A lot of people have asked me about it. I'm focused. You know, we're leading. I don't know if you know me too much.

But we're leading by like 50 points for president. My focus is totally on that. If I can help them during the process, I would do it. But we have some great people in the Republican Party that could do a great job. Trump also posted this on Truth Social yesterday. Let's put this up there on the screen. What do we see? Oh, it's Trump in the Photoshopped into the speaker's galley, wearing with the gavel, wearing his Make America Great Again hat. Crystal, I was telling you before the show,

I should note that would actually be against the dress code rules, of which I support, by the way. I do not believe that hats should be worn on the floor, and especially not by the Speaker of the House. But there we have it. I mean, I think one of the ways that we can summarize it and look at it for everyone

is that Steve Scalise is probably the more establishment type of Republican. This is the former leader. He has been now in the position for almost a decade, 2014. He was the whip. He has good relationships with others. He has a very different style, actually, than Kevin McCarthy, and behind the scenes there were tensions between the two. But he would by all estimations would be the quote-unquote establishment choice. The thing is, and I mean, look, I'm shocked that Scalise is running. I didn't even think he would be a viable candidate just because as we raised, I mean, this is a man who's been put through the ringer. He survived that horrible mass shooting in 2017 against congressmen. Then, you know,

he currently has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of blood cancer and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. I believe he was just diagnosed. Like we just learned about it last month. Exactly. So, I mean, who knows how long it's been going on, but at the very least, like he has to wear like a KN95 mask because like infection is that much of a threat. Not to mention when you were speaker, it's not just the job here. You got to fly your ass all over this country, raising money for people. Raising money, that's a big part of the job. One thing, Jim Jordan also, actually, you know, if you'll recall, I always said, I thought he was a dark horse candidate just because this is a man with incredible amount of, uh, he has an incredible amount of credibility with the freedom caucus. He has made multiple stands against speaker Boehner and against speaker Ryan, but he voted

for Kevin McCarthy this time around critically, you know, Matt Gates and that wing, all of them have said, Oh yeah, I would like speaker Jordan. I would like Speaker Scalise. So we'll see where they line up. People like Thomas Massey, who also voted for Kevin McCarthy, but still, you know, more of a hard liner Republican. He came out and he supported Jordan. So I'm curious what you think. You know, these are probably our top two candidates. The speaker could be one of those two. But, you know, we should also remember that chaos, who the hell knows? Yeah of these guys could fall and three weeks from now we could have a totally different speaker whose name I didn't even just mention. I mean, you could end up very easily with a situation where since you have these two individuals in the race and they're splitting the votes and

you can't come to that majority consensus that some other dark horse emerges as sort of like a consensus pick who's able to get across the finish line. There's just no way of saying, you know, in terms of their ideological differences, I'm not sure it matters that much, because as we saw with McCarthy and as we've seen with previous Republican speakers, it's less about what they really want to do and more about what their caucus is going to permit them to do. Good point. And so, you know, even we're going to talk about Ukraine aid. I think part of why McCarthy basically had to step down, there were no real moves left for him on the chessboard. Yes. Because if he made some deal with Democrats to stay in office, and I think if he had offered them much of anything, certainly if he had offered them like, OK, I'll bring up the Ukraine

aid, they would have backed him. They would have kept him in office. Then he screwed with regard to fundraising. He screwed with regard to the like his never ending nightmare with the caucus and with the Matt Gaetz wing of the caucus would just be beginning. So that was like not a good and viable option. And then on the other side, it didn't look like there was really anything he could do to placate this group of holdouts because he'd already given the store away to like what much left was there for him to give them. So it was a completely untenable situation. And whoever is able to succeed and end up as the next speaker, which could take some time to resolve, by the way, is going to be subject to the exact same identical set of pressures. So, again, I mean, I guess my biggest analysis is I'm perplexed why anyone would want

this job. You know, there's a lot of self-delusion here in Washington that like, oh, well, I'm the guy and I'll be different and they'll respect me and I'll be able to put probably the only one who actually would be able to pull it off and pull them together is Donald Trump. But I don't think anyone's really even he doesn't seem like he's really taking any of that particularly seriously. I told you this privately. I believe I think Trump would be the best speaker. You know why? You can't cross him. It's like, what are you going to do? Are you going to vote against Trump? And then Trump is going to primary you? He's the alpha. You can't go against him. You can't speak out against this man. I mean, he could negotiate with confidence. He could

basically do whatever he wanted. You want evidence for that? Look at whenever he was president. All the people who, even the people who voted against him, they did it very quietly and they never made it into a thing. They certainly never would have pulled any of the shenanigans that they did against Kevin McCarthy. And that's the other one. If you want to keep Matt Gaetz in line, who does Matt Gaetz answer to? Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and everybody else who is in the party. You would just have to hold your nose and you would have to make do. So I actually think Trump would be a very strong candidate. Now, I do not believe he actually would be the person who, I don't believe he ultimately will end up in that position

because there's a whole, logistically and all kinds of things, but it's out there. Let's also though talk about the race for number two, Steve Scalise, if he were to get the job, what that would look like. Let's put this up there on the screen. There's actually a lot of jockeying going on behind the scenes right now. So in terms of who would be the Republican majority leader, remember, the leader is actually the number two position because the number one is the Speaker whenever you have the majority. Steve Scalise vying for the Speaker, which means that Tom Emmer, who is currently the number three, the majority whip, is currently leading for majority leader and also has been racking up a

decent amount of endorsements. However, Elise Stefanik appears to be making a big move for the number two slot in the party. Remember, she got a lot of credibility during the impeachment fight, especially the second impeachment, where she stood up and I believe spoke on behalf of Trump. Trump has always admired her. He spoke on behalf of her. He said, this is a potential vice president here. I mean, she has a lot of credibility, I think, with Trump at the very least, which of course would matter. Representative Jim Banks, who's one of those MAGA-ish type Republicans, came out and endorsed her just yesterday. So that also would be a very big fight. But all of this depends on Scalise not getting the speakership. We don't know what the whip count is right now.

So in terms of the vote, the vote is supposed to be next Wednesday. Tuesday, the House will come back in session. Everybody will fly. They'll have a caucus meeting on Tuesday where they cast the initial round of ballots. Wednesday is supposed to be the actual vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. Nobody expects, at least as of right now, that there will be a prevailing vote for Speaker on that ballot. Although I think one scenario where that might be possible is that the Republicans say, we're not leaving this room on Tuesday night till we figure this out. And then we go and you vote 218 on the day of the election on Wednesday.

They could just say, we're going to figure this out in here. Whoever ends up winning and we can all agree for the entire caucus, not a single person can vote no. Or if they do, you know, maybe they'll just not show up that day. Sometimes, you know, some sort of absence thing in order to rig the vote, just they can't stomach it. I could see that playing out just because they're like, we're sick of the headlines and we're sick of the chaos. Wednesday, we're coming together and we're going to vote for a speaker. But as of today, not a single informed person, including the congressmen themselves, believe that anything like that is going to happen. Yeah. And remember, nothing can be done in the House until this is taken care of.

Yeah. And they just passed that 45-day continuing resolution. So you have that clock ticking in terms of when that expires, you're facing another government shutdown situation. So, you know, it's not like there aren't things that they need to do, but you cannot move forward on anything until you have a speaker of the house. You know, I don't think that this situation really gets resolved until the next election because, and I'm not saying there won't be a speaker, there will be some speaker of the House, they'll figure something out, someone will end up

in the position. But in terms of the level of chaos and the dissidence and the way that this is all going down, I really don't think that there is any resolution until either Republicans have a good showing and they increase their margin. Because all of this political leverage in the hands of the Matt Gates wing of the party comes from the fact that they have a three-vote majority. That's where that comes from. And you now have some members of the Republican caucus, Mike Lawler in particular, very vocal that they want to have a vote to expel Matt Gates. That would then further decrease your margin. You also have George Santos, who's under multiple federal indictment. So the margin is as narrow as it could possibly be.

So you either have a result where they expand their margin and whoever is the next speaker of the House has a little bit more wiggle room to work with, or they lose their majority, which is very possible. And, you know, you end up with a Democratic House and you end up going in that direction. So I think we're going to continue to see this type of brinksmanship and, you know, unsettled nature of the Republican caucus, just given the nature of their narrow margin, given the fact that you have a handful of people who are willing to do, you know, willing to cause chaos, willing to, you know, go against whoever their leaders are, unafraid of any of that. So you're

going to continue to have that dynamic until you end up with a different situation, a different either caucus leading the House or a larger margin for the Republicans. You are exactly right. And that fits very much with the topic of the day, which is Ukraine. Ukraine money is very much in doubt right now. Jim Jordan will bring you a little bit of what he had to say on the subject. But the White House is absolutely freaking out and losing their mind. President Biden making that clear in a press conference yesterday. Here's what he had to say. The disarray on Capitol Hill after your conversation with allies yesterday

worry you that you won't be able to deliver the aid that the U.S. has promised to Ukraine? It does worry me. But I know there are a majority of members of the House and Senate in both parties who have said that they support funding Ukraine. I'm going to be announcing very shortly a major speech I'm going to make on this issue and why it's critically important for the United States and our allies that we keep our commitment. Mr. President, are you also concerned about the rest of your domestic and foreign policy initiatives being in peril because of what we saw happen yesterday, the dysfunction in Congress, the chaos that we saw on the House side? Does that concern you in any way? The dysfunction always concerns me. The programs that

we have argued over, we passed bipartisanly. I'm not concerned that they're going to all of a sudden come in and try to undo them. Although there will be some. There will be some, I'm sure. There's half a dozen or more extreme agri-republicans who would like to eliminate just about everything I've done. So Biden saying he's going to give a big speech on Ukraine. If I was a Ukraine person, by the way, I would not want that. I wouldn't want Biden, one of the most popular presidents, to be the main cheerleader. But hey, you know, go for it, I guess. I'm sure you'll convince us. The big thing whenever it comes to the speaker race is that Scalise and Jordan, none of them have made Ukraine a priority. In fact, Kevin McCarthy is the best friend that Ukraine had whenever it came to somebody who had any even semblance of credibility with both sides. Just to give you an idea, this is Jim Jordan straight from his mouth on what he would do whenever it comes to Ukraine. Let's take a listen. What about Ukraine? Are you, are you willing to move forward with an aid package for Ukraine if you're a speaker? I'm against that. What I understand is at some point we're going to have to

deal with this appropriation process in the right way. And we're going to try to do that in the next whatever, down to 41 days. The most pressing issue on Americans' mind is not Ukraine. It is the border situation and it is crime on the streets. The most pressing issue on Americans' mind is not Ukraine. It is the border situation and it is crime on the streets. The most pressing situation on Americans' mind is not Ukraine, Crystal. On that, he's 100% correct. The big question, though, is about where Stilif Scalise has this. We actually polled some scores. There's a group here in Washington called Republicans for Ukraine.

They're not really Republicans. They're like Bill Crystal, Biden voters. But they've created a very useful score, at least for me, about where to judge where people are in terms of the votes on Ukraine. And this is according to their score sheet, what Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan have. Let's put it up there on the screen. So they have given Steve Scalise a, quote, B grade overall. That's based on his voting record. The voting record is that he voted aye on the Ukraine Lend Lease Act, the original one, the Ukraine Supplemental Appropriation, the extra $50

billion back in 2022. But he voted no on three critical amendments, which have extended more aid to Ukraine. He did ultimately support that $300 million to Ukraine with no statements currently on the record. They call him a B. Jordan, though, is a no. He voted aye only on the initial $50 billion that was granted to Ukraine and no on basically every single vote since they give him an F. Obviously, Trump, I don't have to tell you where he stands on Ukraine. But I think that one of the important reasons why this matters for the entire Ukraine debate is it is more in peril today than it ever has been politically. Republicans, the vast majority of Republicans polling shows do not support more aid to Ukraine.

Now, that hasn't necessarily mattered whenever it comes to the votes. And McCarthy was stuck very much between a rock and a hard place. It was interesting in his speech after he was defeated as speaker, he actually likened Putin to Hitler and was talking about bringing some stuff up in the past. So I think his personal loyalties absolutely lied with Ukraine. And Zelensky and others had made comments in the past that he had said privately, yeah, look, I support you. I'll figure out the votes. Well, that's not what Steve Scalise actually believes at all, at least in terms of the public record. Scalise himself, given his voting record, he did not vote aye on those three

critical amendments in the past. While he may have supported the 300 million, is he going to support the 100 billion more that the Republicans in the Senate and the Democrats and Biden want to push through? With Jordan, it's actually a completely not, it's a known quantity. He's like, no, I'm totally against it. So, I mean, the idea that 100 billion more is going to Ukraine, I just simply, I can't believe a scenario where that would happen. I'll give the other side chaos. As I have said, chaos is a ladder in the words of the great Littlefinger. They could extract some, you know, margin which would weaken the speakership akin to the motion to vacate and remove some of the barriers to what a discharge petition might look like. And so that would make it so that it would

be possible to maybe get some Ukraine aid on the floor. But with both of these candidates, and it's not just me saying this, it's most congressional analysts that can look at it right now, even another dollar to Ukraine or even a transfer vote does not look likely anytime soon going through the House of Representatives. That will not, however, crystal stop the Senate from trying to get more money for Ukraine. Sure. Yeah. Listen, I think honestly, like I said before, I don't think their ideology really matters here. I don't think whether it was Kevin McCarthy or whether it is Steve Scalise or Jim Jordan, I don't think they were they were going to have the political strength and ability to bring a vote for Ukraine aid to the floor, at least if they want to keep their job as Speaker. I just don't think that you can, at this point, given where the Republican

caucus is and given how hardline, especially the dissident faction is on this particular issue, I mean, this was part of what led to the downfall of McCarthy, these allegations from Matt Gaetz that there was some sort of a secret deal with Democrats that he denied, but, you know, Gaetz was pushing forward, but that's part of what led to McCarthy's downfall. I do not think whoever it is who ends up as Speaker of the House next can bring this vote to the floor. The only way it gets done, as far as I can see, is through some sort of legislative, parliamentary maneuver, a discharge petition, or some other thing, arcane maneuver that I'm unaware of. That's the only way I think that they are able to move it forward. You do still have, Biden is right, you do still have, if you had a vote in the House,

it would still pass. Well, I don't know how much, how much though, because that's the question. Well, because you would have, I mean, they only, Republicans only have a three vote margin. So if all of the Democrats are voting for it, you only need three Republicans to get it across the finish line. So I think it's very clear there's a pretty large majority in the House, honestly. You're right. I meant in terms of what he said, the majority of both parties. I guess, you know what, you're right, because rhetorically what he said is that a majority of each chamber in the Congress does support it. You're absolutely correct.

I thought he was talking about the majority of Republicans because I'd flagged previously that the majority of each chamber in the Congress to support it. You're absolutely correct. Yes. I thought he was talking about the majority of Republicans because I'd flagged previously that the majority of Republicans, it's actually completely. I think Republicans are pretty split at this point in terms of pretty split down the middle in terms of the caucus, although it's not 100 percent clear. But yeah, if you had a straight up and down vote in the House, it would pass. But it's a question of getting to that vote. And like I said, I don't think there's any way in hell anybody who wants to remain speaker of the House can bring that vote. I will say I differ from you a little bit on the Biden speech in that, listen, he owes it at this point to the American people to explain what the hell he's thinking about. I agree with you. I meant in terms of like, if you want aid to continue to

have somewhat of a bipartisan majority, I'm like, yeah, good luck. Give it to the unpopular president on a Democratic level. I mean, I don't think I don't think he's going to persuade or dissuade a single person with whatever he says. But I do think he really owes it to everyone, the world, the American people at this point to explain what the hell the plan is. And because, you know, the plan had previously been we're going to be all in through the counteroffensive. They're going to take back territory and then they'll be in a stronger position. And then maybe we can think about how to end this conflict. Well, that did not work out. So what now? That's what I want to hear from the president of the United States. And that's what I think he owes people. Chris, they don't have a plan. He can try and gaslight us all he wants. Biden gave us the

plan already. It's called regime change in Moscow. Presidential words matter. Well, that's the thing. Like presidential words matter. So if he says something like that, that's important. You know, whatever sort of line he tries to pull, like it's important to hear at least how he is explaining what his view of the conflict is. So I welcome this address. I hope it's fulsome. I'm certainly going to, you know, listen very carefully to the words coming out of his mouth versus what the actions are that they're taking. I have no disagreement. I welcome the speech as well. I think it should have been given us speeches probably on a quarterly basis as to why we're massively funding this, as to what the goals are, as to what all of that is. That said, I mean, he's basically told us nothing for Ukraine without

Ukraine, which means this government, which is wholly reliant upon us for basically everything, gets to set the terms. That's not a plan, actually. The second plan is in terms of the red lines, first F-16s was going to start World War III. There's actually a good side-by-side analysis. Every single thing that he has said that he eventually reversed on. He reversed himself on F-16s. He reversed himself on Abrams tanks.

He reversed himself on—even he pledged at one point no NATO troops would be sent to the country. Now the UK is talking about sending actual boots on the ground to Ukraine. I mean, at every step of what he has said that he wouldn't do and what were alleged red lines, he eventually flipped. The only thing he hasn't flipped on yet is a no-fly zone, which I wouldn't put off the table given what this administration is and how obsessed they are with Ukraine. So I agree with you. From a democratic perspective, I agree completely. From a global perspective and from an interest of the peace of the world, I agree. That said, I don't expect to hear anything new. I think his plan is very simple. He's just back Ukraine for as long, quote unquote, as long as it takes. And it's funny

too. I've seen a bunch of people say things like, oh, Biden gave his word to Ukraine. So how can the US Congress go back on his word? I'm like, hey, you know what? In our system, the president is not a king. That's right. The president does not decide. And if we really want to think that statements of presidents are official declarations of American policy, as by the way, the Russians and the Chinese do, there are a whole lot of statements in the past that clash very much with even allowing or trying to get Ukraine into NATO. The reason why you can disregard those is in our system, the Senate of the United States ratifies all treaties, and that is what our word actually looks like. The House of Representatives, per our constitution,

is the one that actually appropriates these bills. So he shouldn't be talking out of his ass and promising stuff that he can't necessarily, not even he can't deliver, that the United States through our democratic system actually can. So look, on a personal level, obviously, I support this. I don't think Ukraine should get a single dollar more from the United States. And I think that we should be pursuing all avenues towards peace. I think that us giving them this blank check has been a disaster for American foreign policy interests, has been a complete distraction, has depleted all of our weapons stockpiles. We've given them over $100 billion in aid, more than we gave to the Afghan National Security Forces through all of 20 years.

We've done plenty. If the euros want to pick up the tab, go for it. But you know what? They don't actually have the capacity, even if they wanted to. So the plant, this is going to happen now or it can happen five years from now. And there's no reason to waste a couple hundred billion in the meantime, keep our eye off the ball of where our actual threats are. And frankly, just make our own country less safe. But obviously my view is very standard at this point for people who watch this show.

I mean, listen, in my opinion, all of this Matt Gaetz chaos situation has worked out beautifully. Me too. Yeah. We avoided a government shutdown. You know, there was no, none of the like no social spending cuts to social spending that he was advocating for. And that, you know, that initial appropriations bill that McCarthy tried to pass that they rejected, even though it had like draconian cuts to every social safety net program. So that didn't happen. So I'm happy with that. I'm happy that, you know, Ukraine aid is being stymied here and that at least there's going to be a big debate over whether we move forward on that. I'm happy with that.

And I'm personally happy to see the Republican Party torn to shreds and look like chaotic morons that can't do anything. Let's get to that. For me, this is all going great. All right, so let's let's talk about this next piece. So just as a little bit of background, when you have a position of power, whether you're in the majority or in the minority, there are these like special perks that you get. And some of those perks are, this is all by tradition, there are these little offices tucked away in various corners in the Capitol. And so if you're in a leadership position in your caucus, you traditionally get one of these,

they call them hideaways in the Capitol rather than having to go all the way back to the office buildings, which are, you know, attached to the Capitol, but are not in that same building. Okay. So Pelosi obviously had one of these, I don't know what it looked like, but it was probably one of the more grand ones because of her level of prestige. Put this up on the screen. Mere hours after taking over as Speaker Pro Tem with the ouster of Kevin McCarthy, this dude, Representative Patrick McHenry, who's kind of like the placeholder running the votes for the next speaker, et cetera, ordered former Speaker Nancy Pelosi to vacate her office by Wednesday. He said, please vacate the space tomorrow. The room will be rekeyed. They go on to say Pelosi's currently using a hideaway office, which only a handful of members receive, given that she is Speaker Emerita.

McCarthy allowed Pelosi to occupy that space. McHenry, who is a McCarthy ally, is clearly less keen on it. There was additional reporting that also Steny Hoyer, who also benefited from one of these hideaway offices, has also been informed that he needs to get out of there. It's unclear whether Pelosi will actually be able to comply with this in time because she is in California for the funeral of Dianne Feinstein. But again, in terms of how this is all working out for me, am I sad to see Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer kicked out of those special offices? No, no, I am not.

I loved Crystal, the amount of proclivity. Oh my God, she's kicked out of her office. I'm like, okay, well, why does she even have an office, you know, in the first place? All this stupid courtesy nonsense is ridiculous. By the way, these hideaway offices, if you ever get the chance, they are really nice. I do absolutely think that if anybody has the chance, they should be able to see them. I've taken a couple of meetings in them in the past, and they're pretty cool because they're all in the basement and all of that. And as you said, the main reason that people want them is the actual offices, as we all learned during the Jamal Bowman thing, are across the street from the Capitol. And it is kind of a pain in the ass.

Well, especially. It's a the ass. Well, especially. It's a little far. Well, especially if you're in Rayburn. So for those who don't know, the Rayburn House Office Building is, I think it might be a more than a half mile walk, actually, from the Capitol, which is a pain whenever you're running for votes.

So there's actually a little subway that people take in the House of Representatives. It's kind of fun if you're ever here and you're a tourist. You should go do it. And you can come from the Rayburn House Office Building to the floor. That's where senators also have one from the Hart Senate office building, which is similarly far from it.

But that's why they all want a Capitol office because then they could just be in the U.S. Capitol already. So it's much more a matter of like pain in the ass factor and all that. That said, I'm not really sure why the former Speaker of the House deserves an office, and especially the former Democratic whip. Pelosi was like, well, I let Speaker Hastert, whose name we probably shouldn't talk about anymore, actually have an office whenever he was out of power. But the thing is, Crystal, is Pelosi is not just a former Speaker. She's not even the former current leader of the party. Hakeem Jeffries is the only one who should have office space in the Capitol. Traditionally, it's really only leadership. She doesn't, as far as I know, have an official position of leadership in the Democratic Party. You're just another member at this point, unless you're the secret leader of the Democratic Party, which in which, oh,

right, then it actually would make sense. Now I'm starting to understand where things come from. Well, also, people may think differently from the outside but and all of the office space in the separate office buildings are also allocated by like seniority seniority so if you're a freshman member of the house your office is actually really shitty it's usually in rayburn or in longworth and it's very small you would think you know it's members of the oh you're in the senate you're a member of congress whatever you would think, you know, members of the House, you're in the Senate, you're a member of Congress, whatever. You would think there might be some grant. No, they're just like very standard and actually quite small office spaces where you walk into one room. There's like a secretary sitting right there.

And then usually there's like one small office over here, one small office over there, and that's it. So it's that's why they really covet these like special perks of the hideaway office and whatever. So all of this, though, speaks to the fact that and I think this is personally hilarious, that the Republicans are furious that Democrats did not rescue Kevin McCarthy's lame ass, which it's like to me, why would they like I see no reason why they would rescue him. And also, it doesn't even seem to me like he wanted to be rescued because he did not offer them a single thing in terms of trying to make a deal. And there was 100 percent a deal to be made. You don't think if he offered them Ukraine aid that a significant number of them wouldn't have come over and held their nose or

whatever and voted McCarthy back? Absolutely not.. So yeah, they absolutely would have taken that deal. So it's not even clear to me that he really wanted to be rescued because as I laid down before, he was in an impossible bind. There were really no decent moves back on the chessboard. So anyway, I find it hilarious that out of this whole thing, which is all total intra-Republican Party stuff, that there are a bunch of people on the right and in the mainstream press who've decided that the real culprits here are the Democrats. Here's Fox and Friends taking exactly this line of argument. Take a listen. So the Democrats under the leadership of Hakeem Jeffries wrestled with whether or not to support and save the speakership of Kevin McCarthy. Ultimately, they decided not to.

And I read somewhere that apparently in the morning, as you can see right there, every one of the Democrats voted against McCarthy. That's what you get for trusting a Democrat. I know. They tell you one thing, and then they pull back and do something else. Instead of winning over your caucus, instead of getting the 12 appropriations bill,

instead of getting term limits, which you promised, you trusted the Democrats to save your tail. You trusted the Democrats to save you with the CR bill. I mean, it's no wonder why he's not speaker. And very much in the same- I kind of agree with Lawrence there at the end. I mean, but again, there was nothing really that McCarthy

could do at this point because he put this insane appropriations bill on the floor that, by the way, a bunch of moderate Republicans ended up voting for like, you know, 40 percent cuts to Social Security office or whatever, which still ends up failing because it wasn't foreign. So it just doesn't seem to me like there was really any move left for him to make. And in the same line of argumentation, Matt Lewis over at the Daily Beast put this out, put this up on the screen. You can't blame Democrats for the blow that right wing bomb throwers landed on Kevin McCarthy. But what you can say is they failed to do the right thing on behalf of the American people. And I just think this completely ignores the fact that, number one, this is all intra-Republican Party stuff. And number two, whether it's McCarthy, whether it's Scalise, whether it's Jim Jordan, whether it's anyone except for Donald Trump, honestly, the dynamics are going to be the same. Kevin

McCarthy was not going to be able to bring a Ukraine aid vote to the floor. That ship had sailed. So I don't know what is the like the loss that we're suffering here. I don't know what the grand stakes are that, you know, we failed the American. I don't know what the grand stakes are that we failed the American people on and Nancy Pelosi failed the American people on. It just all seems incredibly silly to me. Well, McCarthy in particular seemed very bitter. He said that Pelosi had told him privately that they would back him if there was ever a motion to vacate. I once again return to why is he having this conversation with Pelosi and not with Hakeem Jeffries, who is the actual leader of the Democratic Party? But hey, you know,

apparently that's where the deal is. Get me. Then you also, why would you assume that that would be the case? But the reason why, Crystal, that he couldn't bargain with them is what kind of speaker does he look like to the GOP when you had to rely on the Democrats to save you? If you bargain Ukraine aid like that up on the table, you're dead amongst the base. The other thing is, and this is why he made the correct call, in my opinion, by offering them nothing. And they also made the correct call. Well, it depends, actually. I'm curious what you think. Do you think they made the correct call? Because they effectively at this point have guaranteed that Ukraine aid is 10 times harder to get past. Again, they also guarantee. I still don't think it was going to. I don't. It wasn't.

Yes, I think they made the right call because they get to enjoy watching the chaos and Republicans rip each other to shreds. And, you know, I mean, Matt Gaetz is getting accused of all kinds of wild things on cable news. I mean, it's a total shit show over there. So, of course, they love that. Ukraine aid was not happening. I think that's just so clear at this point, right? There was no—Matt Gaetz ousted McCarthy over the rumor that there was perhaps in the future some secret deal over Ukraine. Yes. McCarthy was not going to be able to bring this to the floor.

So, yeah, there was nothing—they're not losing anything in this deal, effectively, as far as I can tell. Yeah, you're probably right. I do think that they effectively guaranteed a shutdown in November. I could be wrong. They're not losing anything in this deal effectively, as far as I can tell. Yeah, you're probably right. I do think that they effectively guaranteed a shutdown in November. I could be wrong. We could have a similar last minute thing. But you think Jim Jordan is not willing to shut down the government? That guy literally would be willing to crash the entire debt ceiling.

He doesn't care if he wins. Scalise, too. Scalise is much more of a actual conservative on those issues than McCarthy really. McCarthy didn't really believe in anything. That was like kind of honestly kind of to his benefit because he was like, look, I don't care. What does the caucus want? They're like, okay, we'll go with that. McConnell was frankly a much more ideological actor than Kevin McCarthy ever was. Kevin McCarthy cared about his majority. He cared about his name. He cared about that little thing that says Speaker McCarthy above his door. He cared about the portrait, and he also cared about raising a ton of money. These other guys are a lot more ideological. So I think you're probably right

in terms of shutdown, in terms of Ukraine, especially on an effective measure. And honestly, if the Republicans and the Republicans were going to quote unquote save Pelosi or even Jeffries, I would tell them the same thing. I'd be like, no, screw them. Let them flail and, let them flail and twist in the wind. That's politically, it's a good thing. That's what you want the country to be focused on at the very least. So, you know, from that perspective, and even also what you think the Dems are going to let you get something, you know, through the, no, it's not going to happen. Especially if you're, especially if we're talking vice versa, in terms of Republican priorities, like border security or something. It's like, yeah, if they control the house, they're totally going to trade that for you. They never would.

I mean, imagine an alternate universe where the progressives actually had some balls and actually challenged Pelosi and, you know, had some real demands that they were going to make and whatever. You think the Republicans would bail Nancy Pelosi? Like, it's a preposterous idea. Good point. So I don't know why anyone would think that, you know, and it's something a lot of this is personal, too. I mean, McCarthy right after this, he avoids the shutdown and, you know, effectively does a deal with Democrats to just continue with the spending levels as they are and to say, OK, we're not doing Ukraine aid for now. He goes on the Sunday shows and blames the

Democrats for the situation. Like you think that engenders a lot of goodwill where they feel any compunction to save your ass when it's on the line? Absolutely not. So, yeah, I think it's I think it's sort of preposterous, this idea that, you know, it's really the Democrats fault that they should have saved him and that it really makes that much of a difference in terms of how the future scenarios in terms of Ukraine aid, in terms of government shutdown are going to play out, because it's, I think one thing that's very clear, the speaker is not in control of this caucus. So whoever it is, they're going to be subject to the same whims and pressures. There's one more piece of this that I think is amazing and hilarious, which is the problem solvers caucus, which are some of the worst, annoyingest, most annoying corporate shills, bipartisan in Congress, who are mostly solving problems for rich people.

They're apparently in chaos over the fact that Democrats did not rescue Kevin McCarthy. Put this up on the screen. This is per Axios. House Bipartisan Caucus risk collapse after McCarthy ouster. Republicans in the Problem Solvers Caucus are weighing quitting the bipartisan group after Democrats opted against helping former Speaker Kevin McCarthy keep his leadership position on Tuesday. Why it matters. GOP members in the group are furious. The Republicans say he was punished for doing the right thing after advancing a stopgap funding bill on a bipartisan basis. So we could also have the beneficial outcome of the annoying, terrible

problem solvers caucus falling apart. So that would be positive as well. There's always a silver lining. There's always a silver lining. All right. Let's turn to some truly bad news here. Not the mixed bag that the House situation is. Go ahead and put this up on the report. We just had a new jobs report from ADP. And by the way, we're expecting another different jobs report on Friday. So we'll see how that one comes out. Private payrolls rose by only 89,000 in September. That was way below what economists were expecting to see in this report. They were thinking that we'd add more like 160,000 jobs. So, I mean, we're almost half of what the expectation here was. Let me read you a little bit of the details here. They say the report provides some sign that a historically tight labor market could be loosening and giving the Federal Reserve some incentive to

stop raising interest rates. Well, that part would be good. They also said, though, that not only has the job market slowed, according again to this report, annual wage growth has also slowed. This is the 12th consecutive monthly decline in terms of wages. So not only are you adding fewer jobs, but the jobs that we do have are seeing very low wage increases. And we continue to struggle, of course, with inflation, which means many workers are taking a pay cut every month, month to month. Now, they go on to say this ADP report can be significantly different from the government's official count. That's the one that comes out on Friday. So we'll see how that one goes. But, you know, this is a very troubling warning sign of where the economy is at a time when, you know, we've been tracking a number of storm clouds on the horizon,

including the commercial real estate market, I think is the most flashing red light that has the potential to ripple throughout our entire economy. Yeah, the mortgage demand is the one that really troubles me. The CNBC, we can put this up there on the screen. They've dropped to the lowest level since 1996 in interest rates heading towards 8%. Obviously, that's a disaster of 8% interest rate. But the low level demand since 96, that, I mean, you may think it's good. We need housing prices to come down. We'll talk about that in a little bit.

But I just think, Crystal, that the squeeze on the rental market right now is going to be something that none of us, I mean, literally, I think I was four years old in 1996. We have not seen that level of squeeze on our current housing supply since then. If when mortgage rates are going to be this high and people aren't pulling out well, then they're either not moving and they're locked up to where they are, which dramatically reduces inventory. The existing rental inventory, unfortunately, the rental boom for that is just incredibly contributing to inflation. So I've seen some reports that rent is beginning to stabilize in places like New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, the highest demand rent areas in the country. But critically, that's like 20-something percent above what the baseline was in 2019.

There are some new rental inventories that are coming online. The other issue with these very, very high interest rates, a lot of people aren't building anything right now. In fact, I saw a report that when you're browsing Zillow, the number of projects which are half completed has never been higher in terms of the share. And it makes sense because people are like, look, I cannot sell this at what would be a profit. I need to just get the hell out of this now. If you're a private seller and you have a brother-in-law or whatever who's a contractor, now is the time to buy. It's a good – you could clean up right now.

And especially because in a couple of years, it's not like our housing shortage is going away. I am curious for your take on this from the Wall Street Journal where Wall Street is betting on American home value. Let's go and put this up there. They think America's home values are overvalued. Quote, as prices paid for the average single family property have still hit record highs, big investors are taking a pass. The single family home right now, in terms of the overall US residential property value index, is at the highest level that it's ever been. It actually dipped slightly in February of 2023, came right back to baseline and even above of June of 2022 from where things were.

And I don't really agree with Wall Street, actually, on this one. Maybe I could be totally wrong. I wonder what you think. But to me, it's just, look, structural. We have way too little housing supply, and we have a ton of demand. More and more people are quote unquote coming online. Every year the people get older, they get to the place where they want to house. The pandemic massively changed the actual living preferences for the vast majority of Americans. They want more space. We want more space that costs money and then more space, especially with the inventory that we have right now, which is large. It's big.

I think the average American wants like a 2,200-square-foot house or something like that. Well, those are expensive. And they don't exist very much, and we're building less of it. So, yeah, we could talk housing prices, six months and all that. You shouldn't even be betting on that in the first place unless you're literally like a hedge funder. But I don't know. It just seems like prices have nowhere to go but up when the supply is down and the demand is only continuing to be high and high in the future. Even if you're a residential landlord or something, you could still get a probably pretty good rent from where

you could have not that long ago. Yeah. I mean, I really don't know, but it does. There is a logic to the prices, which is just what you said. There's no supply. You know, there is we have dramatically underbuilt, especially at the sort of like starter home level of house. Now, with mortgage rates inching up to almost 8 percent on average now, people who are in a home, they don't want to sell. So then you don't have that churn adding to the supply on the market. So yeah, if you don't have sufficient supply, just thinking of like the basic laws of supply and demand, the prices make some sense to me. You know, if the report is accurate, it's kind of a double-edged sword because on the one hand, you're like, okay, good. Private equity is not like buying up whole neighborhoods like they were. They're

taking a step back. That's probably a good thing. They're not buying up the American dream as they were aggressively doing before. On the other hand, if you're like paying too much for a house to get ripped off, that's a bad side of things. So I don't know. I'm not sure whether it's accurate or not, but it's interesting to see the way that Wall Street is looking at all of this. In terms of the overall economic numbers, I think there's just a lot to be very nervous about because not only do you have a housing market that is wildly unaffordable and basically it's sort of frozen. Right. Mortgage demand way down. People can't buy homes. People can't sell homes. Everybody's just sort of stuck in place. right? So housing market, that is totally stuck. You've got commercial real estate market,

which is like actively in a free fall and with a huge debt reckoning coming imminently over the next one to two years. You have student loan debt payments, which are restarting, just restarted this month and a lot of question marks about what that's gonna do to consumer spending. And you continue to have, you know, a lot of worries overseas. You know, we've been covering what's going on in China. We're not insulated from if there are huge shocks

to a giant economy like that, and there's massive fallout, like that's going to hit us as well. So there's a lot to be very wary of. And when you add on top of that, this latest really bad jobs report, because the one thing that you could say about this economy was, okay, well, wages might be low and inflation might be high and there might be these other problems, but at least there's a lot of jobs, right? And that tight labor market has also really contributed to the labor energy that we've seen in all these strikes and all these new workers forming unions, which is incredibly positive, incredibly hopeful. The tight labor market has been a key part of that story. So that part is going away and easing up. It's just it's a very troubling picture overall that

we should be keeping our eyes on. Yeah, because that was always the Biden defense. They're like, yeah, but look at the unemployment rate. And it didn't matter how much we talked about inflation, underemployment, wage growth, you know, all the structural factors which make it so it's like, yeah, it's great to be employed, I guess. But it's better than being unemployed. But what's worse is high unemployment, which is frankly what they want. They want the Federal Reserve and very high inflation, which is caused structurally by a whole bunch of supply issues. The price of gas, shelter remain the two driving forces behind all of inflation. Those basically have nothing to do

with the government spending. They have a lot more to do with real policy implications. And so when you look at that, it's a very, very tough situation for the average American right now. The only thing worse is unemployment, which appears to now be going up. So I actually, we talked a lot about this.

The Biden people were betting on a quote unquote economic recovery coming in 2024. Looking at this, I actually would probably take the other side of that bet. Yeah, it's not looking good. It's definitely not looking good. Let's go ahead and move on to some interesting new numbers from Gallup, which ties into how Americans are feeling about. I mean, this ties into the whole show, right, how Americans are feeling about a totally dysfunctional political system and about the inability to deliver for regular people. Put this up on the screen. You now have support for third parties up to 63 percent. 63% of U.S. adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed. That represents a seven percentage point increase from just a year ago, and it is the highest since Gallup first asked the question back in 2003. And Sagar, part of what was really interesting and

surprising to me was that the largest numbers of support for a third party are with independents. That part makes sense. But you now have a majority of Republicans, 58 percent, who endorse a third U.S. political party. That's up significantly. It was just 45 percent a year ago. The only other time more Republicans than now expressed support for a third party was in a late January, early February 2021 poll conducted after the January 6th riots, the second impeachment of Donald Trump and the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden. There has also been an uptick in support for third party among Democrats this year from 40 to 46 percent, though still less than majority, back the idea. So a lot of the movement in this

poll towards support for a third party is actually. So a lot of the movement in this poll towards support for a third party is actually on the Republican side of the ledger. I think that's fantastic. The more that the individual parties become less legitimate in the eyes of the public, I think that's fantastic. In terms of the Republican side, we can explain it a couple of different ways. A lot of it is that Trump said dissatisfaction. The majority of Republicans do support Trump, of course, but many people who are Republicans don't. And that's actually very evidence in the data. The last time that third party support was this high in the Gallup tracker was January

of 2021. Anyone want to remember what happened around then? It was January 6th. So a lot of people were upset with the direction of the party and a lot of Republican voters in particular. Here's the other thing and why you can reconcile this. You could be a Trump Republican and not actually be a Republican at all. You're more just a Trump. You're a Trumplican, I guess, or something like that. You just support Trump. You don't support the overall party apparatus. You don't believe in the RNC. You don't care about the Reagan rule, about insulting. You're like, no,

I love Trump. Trump is my politics, not the Republican Party, not Vivek Ramaswamy or Mike Pence or any of these other people. I got nothing in common with those people. So of course they would be actually supportive of a third party, because if Trump were to run as a third party, I think he would win a lot of those voters. So the more that Trump turned the Republican Party into a cult of personality by an by, you know, an extension, he actually dramatically reduced the overall credibility of said party. Now I'm fascinated by the Democratic number because 46% for a bunch of people who are hardcore institutionalists and love the media and all that stuff, that's very high. I don't know where that comes from. I think it could be

Biden age. I could, it could, I mean, there's a lot of things. I wonder what you think, how it can be nearly a near a near majority. I have to think that the numbers would be very clearly skewed by age demographic. So I think, you know, the younger part of the Democratic coalition is extremely dissatisfied with this party feels like their priorities and their like ideological inclinations are completely sneered at. They feel dismissed by this party. They feel like this party does not care about what they want, is not responsive to them, takes them completely for granted. And they just don't have that same level of just, you know, Democratic Party loyalty that perhaps previous generations did and still do. So that's my guess, is young voters. And that's where we see the largest amount of dissatisfaction within the Democratic coalition with Joe Biden himself. So that's my

expectation of what is going on there. And I mean, the overall numbers just reflect the fact that people are unhappy. They feel like the country is in decline and decay. They feel like there's a rot at the core. They feel like, you know, they have no hope for the future. They feel like they're never going to be able to buy a house. They feel like they're not going to be able to send their kids to college. They feel like they're never going to be able to pay off their college student loan debt. They feel like none of these, neither of these parties is really delivering for them on these, you know, material realities that are making their lives very stressful, very difficult for young people. Also, the climate crisis looms

really large and they see, you know, they see a little bit of action, but then they see like two steps backward with a bunch of new oil leases, et cetera, from the Biden administration. So that level of dissatisfaction as reflected in third party support makes a lot of sense to me. Now, I think it's always important with these third party polls to put in a note of caution, which is that our electoral system, the way it's set up, is set up to crush third parties and make them not viable. So the mere fact that you have a large number of people who are like, yeah, there should be some other choices, doesn't mean those people are going to vote for the other choices. And the fact that you have this large group saying, yeah, we want other choices,

they also don't mean the same things by that in terms of what they would want to see with those other choices. So we've had high numbers like this before, and it hasn't translated into a large third party vote, even when you've had some choices on the ballot that are third party candidates. Absolutely. There was also a fascinating RFK Jr. kind of tie into this. If he does end up running as an independent, which we expect him to do, let's put this up there on the screen. Nate Silver ran the numbers over at the Free Press, which is run by Barry Weiss. And he argues, again, pretty persuasively what we said about how he probably doesn't hurt Biden and most respects will almost certainly help. Oh, sorry. Will almost certainly

hurt Trump. Now, I also understand that it is annoying to people to support third party candidates all about hurt the idea that they should be viewed on their face. I don't even necessarily disagree with you. But again, Crystal, you and I are trapped in what? The reality of the American political system. Yeah. It's a duopoly. I don't wish it wasn't necessarily that way. But when we're talking about places where you can only get anywhere between 1% to 5% of the ballot historically, generally, you're going to be a quote unquote spoiler. I don't think of it that way, but that's how most people process it. What he writes in here is basically that because of the overall amount of favorability that RFK Jr. does have with a lot of Republican voters and or independents who are sick of the Democratic Party for reasons that don't necessarily align with the mainstream Democratic Party, then those people would predominantly gravitate towards either Trump or Trump-ish like candidate

on those issue sets, things like Ukraine, the vaccine, and more. So with those and those voters who may not identify as Republicans, but who predominantly have sympathies with some parts of Republican voters who may disagree on several other issues, but that's not the priority. It's not what's drawing them away from the party. Largely, it is going to hurt in a duopoly system. So I think that when you look at that and you also see the Republican figure be so high to be such an app, an attitude and an appetite, if you will, for like something different, RFK Jr., especially with the Kennedy last name, with a specific issue set that he is most passionate about, I would view that very much as an avenue for him to be able to gain

a lot of Republican votes. I'm not arguing he shouldn't run, by the way. But actually, funnily enough, I've started to see big MAGA Twitter accounts shift their focus. I actually saw one, this guy DC Drino, if anybody knows, there's over a million followers on Twitter. And he was like, hey, I'm guilty of this. He's like, I propped up. He is actually very open. He was like, I elevated RFK Jr. because he was a cudgel against Democrats. He's like, now I'm going to start highlighting all the bad things about him because I think he's going to hurt Trump. And I was like, wow, that's a very- That's so naked. By the way, I love that. I love doing my propaganda before. And here's how I'll do my

propaganda in the future because I hate the Democrats and I want them to lose. Now, uh, there he goes independent. I actually think he's going to hurt us. So now I'm going to start attacking him. And I was like, okay, I thank you for telling us. I hope all people are that straight. Anyway, my point is, is that there is broad recognition amongst, as I said, every MAGA influencer of any consequence that I've been able to see. People who have legit, massive followings amongst the overall GOP base. And I think the fact that they overwhelmingly believe that RFK Jr. would hurt Trump if it came down to it does tell you a lot about what they see the problem is. And Trump himself has remained silent. This amount of

data on third parties is also just another indication in that direction. You know who I could see voting for RFK is people who are frustrated with Trump because they think he was too pro-vax. Yeah, absolutely. Anthony Fauci and whatever. Yeah. Like a Ron DeSantis, a superstand or something. That's like kind of the, you know, Trump is going to be the nominee. And so that seems to me like the most clear cut avenue of people who are like, that's their issue. And they're like die hard about it and really super anti-vaccine. And there is a constituency for that.

And most of those people, if it wasn't for RFK being there, would probably either not vote or they would vote for Donald Trump. They certainly wouldn't vote for Joe Biden. That seems to me like probably where he gets the bulk of his support from. But, you know, I do think it's complicated. Nate, on the one hand, as you're pointing out, he says guns, abortion, vaccines in Ukraine are quite a quartet of issues to defect from the Democratic Party on, particularly from the suburban college educated base that they rely on increasingly. But he does make the other side like he's not really definitive about it. He's like, I could see it going either either way. I think probably he takes more from Trump than Biden. But he says the most persuasive argument to him is that Trump has a higher floor but lower ceiling on his support than Biden does. In other words, the Trump support

is much more locked in. His supporters are much more committed. So in that case, Trump's diehards might stick with him, even if they also like Kennedy. But people who are kind of like on Biden may may flirt with or consider the Kennedy candidacy. The other thing that I threw in the mix that Nate doesn't mention here that I do think is a really important factor is remember, a lot of people don't pay that close attention. They aren't aware of RFK, all of RFK's positions and exactly where they are vis-a-vis him, et cetera. He's got a Kennedy last name. And there is a lot of just like historical affection for that name in the Democratic Party. I think it's a big part of why he has the support he has in a Democratic primary, in spite of the fact that he still has these, you know, very low approval ratings within the

Democratic Party. So it continues to not be totally clear cut to me. I do think and put this up on the screen. Apparently, there's a Kennedy campaign insider who told Mediaite that that RFK running independent is going to F Trump. So he was pretty clear about it. It's also kind of revealing the way this Kennedy campaign insider talked about RFK and about his assessment here. He says this is going to F Trump. Bobby's values are much more in line with patriots, meaning, I guess, Republicans. He's against big pharma. He's pro-Bitcoin, decentralized, so the government can't control it. So anyway, for what it's worth, RFK and his campaign seem to think this is going to be more of a problem for Trump. Very likely, it doesn't actually make that much of a difference either way.

It's possible. Because especially if you have votes kind of split, some of the people might have gone to Biden, some of the people might have gone to Biden. Some of the people might've gone to Trump, who knows. And historically Americans just don't vote in that large of numbers for third party candidates, especially if you're not going to have a bunch of baguette influencers who are going after him, who aren't giving him the platform and like, you know, the cover and the adulation that they were giving him when he was running against Biden. That could also change his favorability rating and the appetite for him within more Republican aligned independenceigned independents. So I don't know. We'll see. We will certainly see. Let's move on to the SBF trial, which remains ongoing, but honestly, a more meta crisis of

biography. Michael Lewis, who I got to admit, he was one of my favorite authors, but he really is stooping to a very new low here with effectively a defense of Sam Bankman Freed, not only in his book, but in recent interviews. Take a listen to how he defended him in a recent interview with Chris Hayes on MSNBC. I had come down in the Bernie Madoff category when I read the indictment. That's not really the line this book takes. Or your impression of it. Well, so just for starters, I mean, I think this is an important distinction. Everybody shouts at me when I make it. But Bernie Madoff, it was a Ponzi scheme. And it's like a definition

of a Ponzi scheme. There's no real business there. So Sam Bankman Freed had two businesses. He had this hedge fund he called Alameda Research. But he had this crypto exchange. And the exchange was a gold mine. It generated a billion dollars in revenues in 2021, like $400 million in profits. It was real. Without the hedge fund there to screw it up, it'd still be there. It was a casino. It was just like they took little slices of every transaction in crypto. And the other one is still around, right? Coinbase, whatever. Yeah, well, a whole bunch of them are still around. And the other one is still around, right? Coinbase, whatever. Yeah, well, there are a bunch of them that are still around. And the most money in crypto has been made by people who bought Bitcoin when it was zero, or people who created these exchanges. So there was this real thing. And the alleged crime kind of makes no sense. He blew up

a $40 billion business for this kind of hedge fund on the side that really was, it was his legacy business is how he got into crypto in the first place. But they didn't bear a necessary relationship. Oh, what? The alleged crying kind of makes no sense. What are you talking about, dude? The thing is, is that it actually is very analogous to Madoff. He's totally wrong.

The whole SPF thing actually made me go and read the definitive book on Madoff and the parallels are striking. You need money coming in the door one way to prop up an allegedly good business over here, which has fantastic margins and has all this awesome stuff, but is basically backstopped by fraud. I mean, it's the exact same thing. You have money coming in. You use that money for a different purpose and to reputationally kind of launder yourself and make yourself into a, you know, like a vaunted, I think at one point Madoff was even like head of, he was like a representative or something to the, not the SEC, but the Dow Jones, NASDAQ, something like that. My point is that he basically just moved money around

in order to create like a financial engineering scheme. That's exactly what Sam Bankman Fried was doing. Yeah, it is a Ponzi scheme. When you have to get more money in to keep your scheme afloat and pay off the things that you're already obligated, that's like the definition of a Ponzi scheme. What are you talking about?

And the thing is, this is a lot of problems. Remember Michael Lewis's book, let's put this up there. You know, Max Chafkin over at Bloomberg wrote a pretty scathing review, and he noted multiple times here where Lewis, quote, it is impossible to miss the differences in Lewis's treatment of Sam Bankman Freed, a socially awkward young man afforded an ass of empathy by the author, and Michael Orr, the socially awkward young man who Lewis treats as, quote, nearly mute spectator in his 2006 book, The Blind Side. The book is ostensibly about Orr, but he barely

quotes Orr and offers his awkwardness, not as a sign of his genius. Lewis does for Bankman-Fried as evidence that he may be mentally limited. You know, SBF, he says, Lewis treats SBF with endless compassion, treats everyone around him with zero. It seemed nuts, for example, when SBF went trying around to pin the entire collapse on his ex-girlfriend. Lewis somehow goes for it. For example, portrayal of Caroline Ellison, the star witness in the trial, comes off as a say-so affair of a guy accused of large-scale fraud, feels especially unfair. Lewis seems to consider Bankman-Fried a totally reliable narrator. While approaching Ellison as an emotionally unstable temptress, in doing so, he falls back on a tired and sexist trope while arguing, as defenders of Theranos

initially did, that if it weren't for the arguing, as defenders of Theranos initially did, that if it weren't for the haters, everything would have been fine. He attacks Caroline Ellison in the book. And then he also, quote, I was gobsmacked by the way that Lewis was left out damning things about Sam, who he presents as a misunderstood genius. I couldn't help but think about another socially awkward Michael Lewis character who is treated with much less compassion. And again, talking about that. That's pretty devastating. I think it is a devastating review.

I haven't fully read the book, but, you know, multiple people who I trust, CoffeeZilla, who we'll be having on the show sometime next week, is doing a review of the book, a scathing review of the book. A friend of mine, Sri Ram Krishnan, he runs the Good Time show. He's a pro-crypto guy. He's a pro-crypto A16Z investor. And he was like, basically, this book reads as if you got conned by con men. So, I mean, I'm talking about people who are pro crypto in the space. They always hated SBF because he tarnished their reputation a lot around the business and all that. And they're reading this book and just being like, I'm gobsmacked by this. So from every angle that I've been able to see, this appears to really just

be like stenography in terms of the book, which is frankly disappointing, you know, as a fan of Moneyball, as a fan of The Big Short, Liar's Poker. I thought these were great, great books. But honestly, I'm beginning to doubt now even those books now after reading this

because I'm like, dude, if this is your editorial standard, like I got to start doubting what I was reading, you know, 10, 15 years ago. I feel exactly the same way. And there was a piece in The Guardian, put this up on the screen, that I thought was also very good. The Insider, How Michael Lewis Got a Backstage Pass for the Fall of Sam Bankman Freed. And what they point out here is that in all of these books, what Michael Lewis does is he takes a character, whoever his chosen hero is, and really lionizes them and makes them a hero.

So when he started following SBF around before his downfall, he wasn't thinking con man, fraudster, I'm going to expose him because, frankly, that's not really what he does, which is why he's beloved on Wall Street. That should have been a red flag to us, number one. But he was thinking, this is a genius. This is the boy genius. He bought into the hype. And from the excerpt that's been published, from his analysis in this Chris Hayes interview and the way he's trying to cover for him, he really seems to have believed in this view of the quirky genius billionaire doesn't care about money and is just doing all these things for altruistic reasons, et cetera, et cetera. And when the narrative collapsed and all this outright fraud and massive theft was revealed, he couldn't adjust. He couldn't

change the story. He couldn't, you know, see him through any other lens. He couldn't adjust. He couldn't change the story. He couldn't, you know, see him through any other lens. He couldn't actually apply a critical lens because he already was so far in and had bought so much of the hype. You know, he admits in an interview for this Guardian piece that the prosecution is going to get maybe some little pieces out of this book. But actually, that overall, it really works for Sam's defense. He says that. So he clearly understands that this is in some ways like exculpatory to Sam Bankman Freed and is relatively clear about it. He also says to Lewis, I'm reading from that piece now, whether Bankman Freed is innocent or guilty is in a sense moot. What narrative purpose would it have served, Lewis asked me, to be harder on him in the book? What narrative purpose would it have served, Lewis asked me, to be harder on him in the book?

What narrative purpose would it have served? I thought this analysis was also really revealing. While reading the book, I found myself itching for Lewis to abandon his amused ethnographer approach. The drama he was witnessing was so outrageous that he seems to have satisfied himself with relaying it rather than picking its truth and meaning apart. I wondered if he'd spent so much time within the technocratic echelon of American life that when Bankman Freed embodied some of its worst traits, when he thought of people as probability distributions or ran his companies with deliberate opacity or chased an obscene level of wealth, Lewis could only see him as an especially quirky character rather than a product of terrible dysfunction. And that comes across in that excerpt where he's talking to Anna

Wintour on a Zoom and he's at the same time playing this video game storybook brawl that he's apparently obsessed with to the point of, you know, absolute distraction, not engaging at all in what Wintour is saying, promising all sorts of things that he ends up completely crashing out on. And rather than being like, you know, in any normal situation, when you don't make good on your obligations and you're distracted, not paying attention to people, you're a terrible person. You're immature. You can't stay focused on a single subject. You can't, you know, pay attention to the person in front of you. You're just lying about things that you're going to do that you actually have no intention of doing. You're not even listening

to the things that you're agreeing to. Like you're an immature brat, spoiled and not a good person, but that's not the way he's portrayed here whatsoever. Certainly not the way he is portrayed to put it lightly. I honestly, look, I mean, I, the charitable explanation, as you said, is that this is just how he always writes. And sometimes it's a hit, like with Billy Baines, like with Michael Burry in The Big Short and some of the other people who he profiles. But it's a massive miss whenever we're talking about – I mean, for example, I didn't read The Fifth Risk, but apparently it's very like – it basically is just a stenography by Chris Christie about how everything went wrong during the Trump administration. That's not an honest view of what went wrong. And I think that's, let's be real. That's why nobody thinks about the fifth risk. That's the one about pandemics, right? Maybe I'm thinking, I thought there was another book that he wrote about the pandemic.

I forgot exactly what that one was called. This one was about the Trump transition, I believe, about Chris Christie was in charge and he got fired by Jared Kushner. And he just sat down with Chris Christie for like 10 hours and cranked out a book. They're also, look, let's be real here. In terms of Lewis's career, there have been some hints. He wrote what is probably the most hagiographic profile I've ever read of an American president where he hung out with Barack Obama

while he played basketball. He's like, I mean, it's just amazing. Like the guy plays basketball. He doesn't want to lose. And so he invites all these federal employees who are actually good. And he's good, guys. I promise. I played with him.

I remember reading this, like, a decade ago. I'm like, yeah, man, I'm a fan. But, like, this is crossing the line of, like, this is, like, king worship or something like that. So there have been hints there for a while. Yeah, that's true. And then when you get to this juncture, you kind of look look back and you're like oh okay there's been things differently than i was because at the time if you just see that you can sort of okay obama got a lot of people's heads whatever he was starstruck we'll push that one to the side now you're like oh you actually

never critically write really critically about people with wealth and power and you just like fall in love with them. He hasn't at times. So for example, he wrote Flash Boys. It's actually one of my favorite books he's ever written about high frequency of trading. Yeah. And it pissed a lot of people off on Wall Street. And I loved that because he pissed off a lot of Ken Griffin,

a lot of these guys who made fortunes, basically just, you know, building servers and investing in like microwave technology to try and send their trade quicker. It was like arbitrage basically. It's a tax on the entire system. I thought it was a phenomenal book and I actually thought it had a good,

and it did piss off a lot of rich people, but I also do remember him. I went to one of his book events. I know, I'm sorry, I was young. And I remember him saying, he's like, I've never experienced some amount of pushback in my life. So maybe because he's not experienced to it, he took it as a scar.

And he's like, you know what? I'm going to sit here and just write for the billionaire Sam Bankman Freed. And this is one of the most disgraced men in the United States. So I don't even know what the incentive is. It's crazy to me too, because like you had a, this all came, it would be one thing if the book was totally written and like going to press before everything came out, but you had a chance, like you got to know what the truth was. I don't know. And you didn't adjust. It's, it's wild. I we're both, I think probably going to read the book just to be able to see it and judge it for ourselves, et cetera. But especially as this trial is going on and it's so blatant for him to say, Oh, the alleged crime doesn't make

sense. Are you kidding me? Like, do you know nothing about these people? Do you know nothing about how Wall Street works, about the way crypto has worked and been like total Wild West, the amount of rug pulls and all this nonsense that's been going on there? And they're like, oh, it just doesn't make sense for him to steal all this money. Of course, it makes sense. It's completely logical. It makes all the sense in the world. He was trying to keep all of the balls in the air and he decided it was justified to steal people's money in order to try to keep his thing going for whatever deluded reasons that he convinced himself of in his ad. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? It would be difficult to find a more clear example of good versus evil. On one side, you've got a government agency which has actually

delivered for ordinary Americans, returning $17 billion to consumers who've been screwed over and defrauded by banks and big business. On the other side, you have the scumbag vultures of the payday lending industry, whose whole business model is exploitation of desperate people. And for once, maybe just maybe, the good guys are going to win thanks to some very unlikely heroes. All right, so here's the story. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, was established after the fallout of the Great Recession to provide consumers with some degree of protection and to punish financial predators who steal from their customers because they think they can just get away with it. And while, of course, there is always way more that can be done, the agency has actually broadly been a real success. They've taken the lead in cracking down on junk fees that banks charge for no real reason other than

extraction. They just went after Bank of America for misleading their customers and double dipping on insufficient funds fees. Last year, they ordered Wells Fargo to pay $2 billion back to auto loan and mortgage consumers that they had ripped off. And the agency has also served as a resource for consumers who feel like they've been cheated or are struggling to sort through the intentionally misleading financial jargon that banks routinely throw at them. Now, the CFPB was the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren. This was back in her two-income trap era, not her pink pussy hat era. And because the agency tangles with a lot of powerful wealthy interests, it was intentionally designed to be insulated from day-to-day political pressure so it could not just be captured by partisans or industry allies or quietly defunded and zombified.

Specifically, rather than being subject to the yearly appropriations process, the agency is funded through the Federal Reserve, which provides funds up to a set cap of $600 million a year. This funding structure is now being used to try to attack and destroy the agency by its opponents, specifically the aforementioned ghouls in the payday loan industry. Now, the real beef from this industry are new rules which seek to curb their most abusive practices. These rules prevent these vultures from piling on new fees on loans which contribute to ever-escalating loan balances, leading consumers to find themselves rapidly in debt for thousands of dollars on even small loans of $500 or less.

It's truly evil stuff. They could not get the courts to agree with them on going directly after these new rules, but they did get a sympathetic judge to buy an argument that the agency's funding structure is an unconstitutional violation of the Appropriations Clause, which grants Congress the power of the purse. But based on oral arguments yesterday, all of the liberal

justices at the Supreme Court, and critically, two of the conservative justices, were none too impressed with these arguments, eviscerating the core of the payday ghouls case. Justice Kagan ripped the arguments as, quote, flying in the face of 250 years of history. Indeed, Congress has long provided standing non-annual appropriations similar to the mechanism used to fund the CFPB for agencies as diverse as the Federal Reserve to the Postal Service. Justice Katonji Brown Jackson took aim

at the payday lenders imagining of secret language in the appropriations clause, which would constrain the mechanisms Congress can use to fund agencies. She asked, quote, I had understood the point of the Appropriations Clause is to prevent the executive from taking money without consent of the legislature. Is there something about the Appropriations Clause that directs Congress to check the executive? Don't you have to have that? But it was actually the arguments of conservatives Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh that really cut the deepest. Barrett surprisingly backed up the line of questioning of Brown-Jackson, pointedly declaring there is nothing in the appropriations clause that imposes

the limits you are talking about. Brett Kavanaugh chimed in to put the payday lenders in a bit of a logic chokehold, pointing out the absurdity of their claim that CFPB funding was perpetual when, in fact, Congress can literally change the law anytime they choose to change or eliminate funding for this agency altogether. On the other side, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts seem, with their comments and questions, to be on the side of the payday lenders. Gorsuch played his cards close to the vest, gave no real indication which direction he was leaning in. But if ACB and Kavanaugh join the three liberals, the CFPB is going to live to fight another day. I will confess, when I saw this court was taking up a challenge, the Consumer

Financial Protection Bureau, my heart sank. This is hardly a consumer-friendly court. Even the liberals cannot be counted to reliably take the side of ordinary Americans against Wall Street and big business. But there was one factor I did not consider. The funding question for this agency strikes at the heart of all agencies that have these type of standing appropriations, not just this one that does happen to help consumers. And quite a bit of the financial architecture that banks and homebuilders in particular rely on for market stability would be under threat with a finding in favor of these payday lenders. That is why a coalition of mortgage bankers and the Home Builders and Realtors Associations

filed a series of front of the court briefs on behalf of the good guys against the bad guys. So perhaps the fact that in this instance, the needs of consumers happen to line up with the interest of some big Washington power brokers is actually going to end up saving the day. Trump justices and mortgage bankers teaming up with liberals to actually preserve something good did not see it coming, but I will absolutely take it all day long. And Sagar, I actually came to realize- And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. All right, so how are we looking at?

Something has changed on the streets of Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. in recent years. And no, it is not just the crime and the homelessness. It is a new type of vehicle with those distinct headlights, the R Rivian R1S SUV. Now, suddenly, I swear I am seeing these things everywhere as they come out of thin air. It reminds me of seeing Teslas in San Francisco

like a decade ago. Is it the next Tesla? What does it say about the state of electric vehicles everywhere, as they come out of thin air. It reminds me of seeing Teslas in San Francisco like a decade ago. Is it the next Tesla? What does it say about the state of electric vehicles in the US? And how does it fit, now, into the war for manufacturing, production, and price in the global market? Now, personally, I've always been suspect of Rivian after the rumblings of their cost structure.

And that seemed insane to me, especially with a recent expose by the Wall Street Journal. Rivian cars technologically have some awesome specs. They cost, on average, about $80,000. Now that's a high price tag for sure, but in a world where the average new car costs $50,000, it's not that crazy for an electric and a premium SUV product. What really stunned me though is this. For every single car that Rivian sells, on average, it is losing, I repeat, losing $33,000. The company has raised approximately $18 billion in cash in 2021, with a promise to be the Tesla of trucks and SUVs. And it is now, in a matter of just two years, blown through $9 billion in production of

only 65,000 vehicles. I don't say this to bash Rivian. I want them and many new electric car companies to succeed. But the pitfalls the company faces highlight some of the major supply issues that I've tried to bring attention to for EVs on this show. Consider that with the astronomical loss now of nearly $9 billion and 33 grand per vehicle, the company's single U.S. factory is still only producing one-third of its build capacity, and it's on track to produce only about 50,000 more cars this year. The current burn rate is about $4 billion per quarter, even after the sales on cars are factored in. What really stunned me, though, about Rivian was how atypical it

actually is when you look at other non-Tesla electric vehicles in the US. Take Ford, for example, for some of the best big three EVs on the market, And yet Ford is taking a loss of nearly $60,000 per electric vehicle sold per the latest data that the company published. Total losses for the company on electric vehicles just this year total some 4.5 billion with the Ford Model E alone representing 1.8 billion in losses. Now the losses predominantly are located in upfront costs associated basically with the startup within a major company, and they demonstrate really the difficulty of getting electric vehicles to mass market. Stellantis and GM do not publish specific EV losses per vehicle, but there's no indication they've somehow secretly discovered

magic and are not running similar deficits that other car makers are. Others may give us a sense of how common these losses appear to be. Take the luxury EV maker Lucid, which was billed as a major competitor to the Tesla Model S. The company is currently posting half a million dollar losses per vehicle, with second quarter results showing $150 million in revenue for just 1,400 vehicles sold in three months. Back of the napkin math factoring in their net loss of $764 million suggests the half a million dollar loss on car that still only costs between $80,000 to $250,000. Now seriously, there's a big success story missing from this. And of course, that is the path to victory that all these car makers want, the Tesla. Tesla, which has more than a decade head start on the rest.

It wasn't that long ago that Tesla was posted about a $4,000 loss per vehicle, like in 2015, and gearing up for its most ambitious project ever, the Model 3, the affordable and the mass market car that very nearly did not make it to production, and quite literally required Elon to sleep on the factory floor to deliver it well past the promised deadline. It wasn't until 2018, a decade into existence, that the company even began to consistently deliver a profit, and since then has of course gone gangbusters, in some cases outselling massive competitors like Toyota in many states like California. The lesson from Tesla is that diminishing losses per vehicle over time, combined with chasing economies of scale, market share, and infrastructure, can deliver you big-time success in the long run. And they're doing so well

now, they're even slashing prices to gain more market share because they can, and they're still making a lot of money. The big elephant in the room though, is not just for non-Tesla US companies, is chasing market share here and abroad, especially with Tesla and all others versus China, specifically Chinese maker BYD. BYD doesn't just have consumer cars sold. They don't have consumer cars sold here in the US. They probably never will because of US-China relations. But abroad, they are a juggernaut to be reckoned with. I've seen a few in the last year or so in my travels, and it pains me to admit they both look cool and they are selling very well. In fact, for the third quarter, BYD has officially reached Tesla status, selling a comparable 431,000 electric vehicles worldwide. Already, it is the

top EV seller outside of China in key countries like Australia, Sweden, Thailand, and even Israel. The company is the purest distillation of the Chinese model. You steal, with assistance, all of the IP of every major automaker in the world. You use government cash and protectionism to refine the company. Over decades, you vertically integrate it. They produce then a product that actually genuinely rivals most competitors, and in some cases, even better. The point of this monologue is only just to honestly survey the landscape for those who may not know the sheer amount of cost involved and the real business dynamics that could put the US still farther behind China. We have not even touched on the fact that the vast majority of inputs into all these cars do come from China or are controlled by China, and the supply chain itself already shows the same perils of globalization

that bedeviled the internal combustion engine car for the last couple of decades. I am genuinely rooting for electric cars. My main takeaway from this is that if this is to be the future, these piddly tax credits that we have in place, they are not going to set us up for success. It will require a near Manhattan project or Apollo-style program leap forward to secure the supply chain, and then most importantly, deliver a decent, reliable, usable, affordable product to the American consumer that actually fits their needs. All I'm seeing right now is a weird mix between rugged individual capitalism and then half-hearted state policy that ironically may make us weaker in the long run. Reducing combustion engine production and then not setting US state policy that ironically may make us weaker in the long run, reducing combustion engine production, and then not setting U.S. up for actual electric success.

It's time, though, to get real if we want to win. I'm curious what you think, Crystal. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sauger's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Very excited to be joined live now by Jim Rowe. He is a veteran auto worker with UAW Local 12 in Toledo. He's also currently on strike. And he's a 40-year UAW worker who also spent 16 years as a UAW rep. So we're very lucky to have him join us this morning. Great to see you, sir.

Good to see you. Good morning. Thank you. Good morning. So first of all, just give us an update on your spirits. How are you feeling about how things are progressing here? We're doing good. You know, the talks are going good. We haven't heard a whole lot. You know, we demands. I've personally found it frustrating that everybody talks in percentages. Could you just lay out one of the reasons that you guys are on strike,

one of the reasons that I understand you've been walking the picket line yourself, some of the conditions, the raises, what you guys have done in the past, just for our audience who wants to hear it directly from a worker? Well, our demands aren't outrageous. In 2008, 2009, when we filed bankruptcy, we took cuts and we took big cuts. And then in 2013, when they started hiring again here in Toledo, our new hires were making $15.78 an hour. And they're still, when they hire in today, $15.78 an hour. No one can live on that wage. It's not a living wage. You have to have a second job. And for making that kind of money and going into the plant and working hard and hurting your body, they deserve an increase. Jim, I wonder what you've made of some of the political attention.

Obviously, you had current President Biden walking the picket line. You also had former President Trump going to Michigan, saying he was sort of supporting auto workers, but then speaking at a non-union plant. Does this political piece factor into any of this for you all? It doesn't. We try to keep the political side out of it. This is for the working class of America. We need to stand strong and get what we deserve,

and this is going to help out the whole working class of America. Yeah, Jim, I mean, I think one of the things that people really want to understand is about the mood in the country and whether you guys feel as if you're getting the support that you need. Let's put the politics out of this and think about the American people. Do you feel as if the American people are with you? Have you seen the support for unions? We're seeing that reflected in polling. I'm curious how you feel it actually on the ground.

Actually, it's great. The people are for us. Here in Toledo, we have a strong community support, strong leadership from our mayor on down, our senators, our governors, they're all supporting. And across the United States, even up in Michigan, there's a lot of support. We're seeing different unions there. It's amazing how you see Sarah Nelson, she came with President Fain from the AFA and the Teachers Union and the iron workers and the electricians. And they're coming from not just Ohio, but different states. And they're coming and walking with us and supporting us. What do you think of the strategy that President Fain and the UAW leadership have pursued? I know there were some workers who were open. Everybody was going to go out at once. Instead, you've gone

with what's called a stand-up strike, where different plants start striking at different times, depending on how the negotiations are going. What do you think of the strategy? I think it was pretty smart. He knew which ones to hit first, and that's their moneymakers, Toledo Jeep. That's the only place that the Jeep is made for the world is here in Toledo. And you hit them on their pocket when you stop building Jeeps. And the stand-up strike by hitting them strategically through different plants, I think they're starting to understand. So there's all the questions about how this will come to a resolve.

And we just want to ask you, in terms of you, your colleagues, and everyone, are you willing to give an inch here? Are you guys going to stand for the entire time? Because that's what the bosses apparently are hoping. Well, I'm sure it's negotiations. I mean, there's going to be negotiations. Are they going to give an inch? Yes, we already have. I mean, we went from 40 down to 36 or 32. And we are willing to negotiate. They just there's a few things that need to be looked at, the tiers and the starting wage for our new hires. Got it. Jim, I was also curious about your view of the electric vehicle transition, which has ended up being a major topic of conversation, the future of that industry and the future of workers and auto workers within that industry. I'm just curious your view.

Well, I'm not a big fan of the electric vehicle. Is it coming? Yes, it is. Unfortunately, what they say is it's going to take about 30% of our jobs away from us. Hopefully that's not true. Is that part of what this fight is about? No, the fight is about the working class and getting a working wage that we can survive on. And people don't have to go do second jobs and come to the plant, work 10 hours and go work at Dollar General, you know?

They need a working class wage so they can survive and pay their bills. Jim, I want to ask you, you worked in the industry for 40 years now. You've probably seen a lot of change over time. What was it like when you started in terms of the ability to work to support a family? And then what's it like now? And is that why you're fighting today? It was when I started in 1984, it was the best place to work in Toledo. Everybody wanted a job at Jeep. Everyone had good families, they had a good living. You know, if you worked at Jeep in the 80s, you were, you had a good, good living and it took care of your family. And as the years progressed through all the people have bought us from Cerberus to Daimler to Fiat, we always gave up our progression. We never

regressed. We always gave up concessions. And it's time for us to get it back so we can have a good living, a good wage, and support our families. Wonder, Jim, lastly, if you have any message to folks like Jim Cramer over on CNBC, who suggested that the CEOs should just shut down production, move everything to Mexico, and say, screw you, to you guys and all of your demands. Well, Jim Cramer, he flip-flops because a few years ago he was for the auto workers and for the unions. So I really don't have much to say about him. That's probably best for all of us. We appreciate you joining us, sir. We do really appreciate it and we support you 100%. So thank you. Yeah, great to have you. Good luck. We stand in solidarity with you.

Thank you very much. Have a good day. It's our pleasure. We'll see you guys later. 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, 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. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know. Some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right?

And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What up, y'all? This your main man Memphis Bleak right here, host of Rock Solid Podcast. June is Black Music Month, so what better way to celebrate than listening to my exclusive conversation with my bro, Ja Rule. The one thing that can't stop you or take away from you is knowledge. So whatever I went through while I was down in prison for two years, through that process, learn, learn from it. Check out this exclusive episode with Ja Rule on Rock Solid.

Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Rock Solid, and listen now. This is an iHeart Podcast.