Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/1/21: VA Gov Update, Polling Disaster, Biden Bill, Cuomo Charges, Fox News, Kamala vs Pete, Let's Go Brandon, and More!

Episode Date: November 1, 2021

Krystal and Saagar talk about the VA Gov election happening tomorrow, more terrible polling for Biden, what's left in the reconciliation bill, Andrew Cuomo charges, Fox News getting exposed, Pete vs Kamala, Let's Go Brandon, and More! The guest interview with Jodi Kantor will be sent out later due to technical difficulties.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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But look, that's enough of this business. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Hope everybody had a happy Halloween, first and foremost. So new indications that the Virginia governor's race is already a disaster for Democrats.

We'll talk about that. Some dire polling for the country and certainly for the administration that is running this country. Very latest on where that reconciliation bill is. This is kind of make or break week. If anything is going to pass, it is going to take shape this week. Progressives seem to have already caved, even though what is being offered is now utterly pathetic. We'll get into the details of all of that. Former Governor Cuomo hit with charges over alleged forcible touching is actually the charge that was leveled against

him. There's some weirdness in terms of how this was actually put into place and what's going on there. So we'll break down those details. A very revealing moment on Fox News where Andrew Sullivan basically told them to their face that they kind of suck. So we'll play that for you. We've got Jodi Kantor on. She's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist from the New York Times who did a phenomenal story, got some internal documents from Amazon about their HR practices and the way they're screwing over not just blue collar workers, but also their white collar workforce. First of all, we have a couple of breaking news items this morning. The first one has to do with us at the studio, most importantly. Do we look a little crisper there on the phone? Big announcement, thanks to all of

your support. The Lifetime members, the premium subscribers, has been in work for big months. We have fully upgraded the studio here for breaking points all the way to 4k. I'm told it's one of the highest, most technological studios in the entire city of Washington, D.C. now. Beating the mainstream media, guys, thanks to you. It's not just a pitch, people. That's what we are spending your hard-earned money on, so thank you all very much. This is just part of a slew of upgrades that we are making to break the show to all of you, to as many people as possible, so thank you all so much for your

support. Still working out a few kinks, but it should look a hell of a lot better for all you professional studio people. Don't worry, I've passed on many of your complaints about white balances and all of that. So it all should look better and we're going to continue to dial it in over the next couple of days.

We really can't thank you guys enough for your support. Yes, thank you guys. You all are amazing. And definitely, Sagar reads, I don't really read the comments because I'm too fragile, but Sagar does. Some comments. So if you do see things that are off or you have suggestions, you should send them in because we do pay attention sometimes to what you guys are thinking. I mean, our bottom graphic is because of a great breaker. That is exactly right, who gave us the idea of doing it along the bottom instead of along the side like we initially were. Okay, so that's the biggest, most important news this

morning. Another piece of breaking news this morning, we can throw this tweet up on the screen. Jen Psaki, the president's press secretary, has tested positive for COVID-19. This came out yesterday evening in a statement. She says she was last around the president on Tuesday. She says when they were together, they were outside. They were more than six feet apart and they were wearing masks. Last close contact with others in the White House was Wednesday. I'll read you a little bit more of her statement here. Obviously, this is incredibly significant as Biden is traveling overseas this morning. He is also elderly. We know even vaccinated elderly people continue to be at the highest risk. So she was supposed to travel originally on this trip with the president.

She decided not to because people in her household had tested positive for COVID-19. Since then, she quarantined. She tested negative via PCR. That's the highest standard test on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. But then on Sunday, she tested positive for COVID. Again, she says she hasn't had close contact in person with the president or senior members of the White House staff since Wednesday. She tested negative for four days after the last contact with the president. So she's just disclosing this out of, you know, interest of full transparency. You know, there's not a lot of commentary around this. Mostly, we just wanted to let you know what

was going on, because obviously this is someone who has regular close contact with the president, doesn't seem to have been in a, you know, in a situation where it was likely that COVID would transmit over the past week, but still an incredibly significant development. She says she's had, of course, they're all vaccinated. And she says she's experiencing just mild symptoms thanks to the fact that she is in fact vaccinated. There were definitely a lot of eyebrows raised here in Washington. I heard some rumors because she announced that she wasn't going on a family trip

because of a family emergency. And it turns out the family emergency was COVID. Now she had contact with the president about five days ago. So at this point, it's just a wait and see period. But of course, Biden himself, I mean, meeting with the Pope, all sorts of world leaders. If he got COVID abroad, I don't even know. If you thought the Trump thing was a show, imagine him having to get on Air Force One in a bubble. That would be an entire thing. So we're going to keep an eye on that. He's an old man. Look, I really hope he doesn't get COVID.

He has had a booster shot, as far as I remember. Yes, I think that's right. Famous set shot or whatever of all that. So just keeping you guys updated. It could become one of the biggest stories in the world, obviously, but we'll keep an eye on it. Yeah, most likely it will all go fine. Jen Psaki will recover. We certainly wish her a speedy recovery. The president, because he's had minimal contact, likely to be fine as well.

But significant development we wanted to bring to you this morning to keep our eye on. That's right. So that's that. First up, the Virginia governor's race pitting Terry McAuliffe versus Glenn Youngkin is going on tomorrow. And there are a lot of developments here. Effectively, I just want to say from the top, even if Terry McAuliffe pulls this thing off in a squeaker, this is already complete, utter disaster for Democrats. This is a state Joe Biden won by 10 points and Ralph Northam won by nine points and that Republicans have not won a statewide race in since 2009.

OK, this is really bad. The situation for Democrats right now. So they got caught. Some of their allies in the Lincoln Project got caught pulling the one of the most disgraceful boneheaded stunts I have ever seen in all of politics. Let's start with those details. Throw this tweet up on the screen. Okay, so there were some dudes and one lady in those khaki and white button-down shirt get-ups

carrying tiki torches, a la Charlottesville Very Fine People, that showed up at a Glenn Youngkin event and apparently were chanting, all in for Glenn. A couple reporters picked it up and suddenly all sorts of Democratic operatives, including Tarim Kov, social media manager manager and MSNBC personalities and everything, were

tweeting this like they were all aghast that, oh my goodness, these people and Glenn Young, they're so terrible. Well, it turns out that was all a stunt perpetrated, eventually admitted to, by the Lincoln Project. Only after, though, they got caught. I mean, I think that's a really key piece, is because they're trying to spin this, the Lincoln Project people. Like, oh, this was just a planned demonstration to illustrate how strongly we feel about how terrible Glenn Youngkin is. The reality is they wanted people to believe

that these were genuine Youngkin supporters. And it was only after the fact when it was revealed, I think the woman that was involved in particular got sort of caught as they figured out who she was and her affiliation with a bunch of Democratic Party political candidates and the Democratic Party writ large. That was how eventually it all came out. So that was a less than impressive moment. The Washington Post wrote it up here as well. We can throw that tear sheet up on the screen. Lincoln Project organized a group to carry torches at Youngkin event in Charlottesville. And so after the fact, Lincoln Project put out a statement. They said, today's demonstration was our way of reminding

Virginians what happened in Charlottesville four years ago. The Republican Party's embrace of those values and Glenn Youngkin's failure to condemn it. We will continue to hold Youngkin accountable. If he will denounce Trump's assertion that the Charlottesville rioters possessed very fine qualities, we'll withdraw the tiki torches until then. We'll be back. So again, what really happened here is they thought they could get away with this and that people would think they would be all aghast that, oh, this is the sort of people that Youngkin brings out. And they still are proud of those horrific moments in Charlottesville. And it was only after they got caught that they pretended it was their intent all along to be out and out about what they were doing.

There's a lot to be said here, obviously, over the Lincoln Project and how much of a clownish organization that it is. But in reality, it is very reminiscent of the entire McAuliffe strategy. McAuliffe's strategy has just been Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. He was pressed in a recent interview about whether he regrets making it all about Trump. He says, of course not. But at every single turn, when the president went to Virginia, what did he say? He goes, Glenn Youngkin is just Trump in a, what did he say, like in a nice affect and a vest or something. Something like that. Something to that. Yeah. I was probably more articulate in what I said than what Biden was.

But, okay, that was his pitch. Obama essentially said the same thing. He's like, Trumpism comes in many forms. McAuliffe, every single ad, and we have been bombarded here in Washington with the radio ads around this. It's just all about Trump. Glenn Youngkin wants to bring Trump. And how is all of that working out for them? Well, Lincoln Project and McAuliffe efforts aside, and we are going to be talking a lot about this in the show, the level of discontent with Biden and the national mood of the country cannot be overstated. Go ahead and put this Fox News poll up on the screen. Now, look, it is a Fox News poll and it is an outlier, but it shows there that Youngkin pulls ahead of McAuliffe among Virginia likely voters. Now,

the likely voter screen there is very important because what they say is that Terry McAuliffe is at 45% and Glenn Youngkin at 53%. Once again, that is an outlier in terms of where they are. But it just shows you that among registered voters, Terry McAuliffe was leading there among 51% and 46% to Glenn Youngkin. So the reason why that there's a lot of hay made out of this poll is that the likely voter screen, which is something that not all polls do, could show you that the depressed turnout amongst registered voters and the lack of enthusiasm amongst

McAuliffe voters themselves would account for what such a large swing is going to look like. Look, it's not going to be an eight-point rate. I mean, I would venture to say if it is, then, oh, my God, you know, if you're Joe Biden, well, it ain't going to be there. It's already bad, though. Ain't going to be pretty there, my friend. But look, it's also not without precedent, and I think we should describe that, which is that Bob McDonnell had some 25-point swing from Obama's 5% to the 17% win that he had back in 2009. The Virginia governor's race very rarely actually sticks with the party in power in terms of the governorship. But, you know, both of us really were of the opinion that Trump and the culture war did kind of harden and change anything.

And if Glenn Youngkin does win, it does mean that there is a real return to at least some cross-partisan voting. And that's a really bad sign for Democrats because, Crystal, what did you point to throughout the entire election? If you make it all about these white suburbanites, number one, they're fickle. And number two, their policy priorities not exactly jiving with the rest of the entire Democratic base. Yes, very true. Building a coalition around white suburban liberals is a recipe for having really crappy politics ultimately. And, you know, that's what Virginia has had. I mean, under Ralph Northam with Democrats in full control of everything continues to be the worst state in the country for workers.

And I just think you have some, I think you do have some pool of voters that voted for Biden and maybe even voted for Hillary Clinton and are going to turn around and vote for Glenn Youngkin. That's also very sort of suburban liberal thing to do. They love to, you know, signal that, oh, they're really open, they're bipartisan, et cetera. But I think the bigger story is the fact that Democrats haven't given people any reason to bother to go vote for them. I mean, Trump is not on the ballot here, okay? Glenn Youngkin is on the ballot. So if you want to make a case against someone, you got to make the case against Glenn Youngkin. And even better, maybe make the case for what you would do if you got elected. The fact of the matter is, you've got at the state level, Democrats are

running a, you know, 90s retread from the Clinton era, who's already been governor once, who was like people didn't hate him when he was governor, but it also wasn't, you know, some spectacular situation either. So hard to get excitement about that. Hard to get excitement about an agenda that if he has one, he never talks about, which has just been all about, you know, how do I tie Glenn Youngkin to Trump in every single ad in every single way? And then you layer on top of that, you look at what the Democrats in Washington are doing. And, you know, we quoted that dude last week who was like, I've been a Democrat my whole life, and I don't know why I keep bothering voting for these people. When you promise voters basic reforms that are popular and that are obvious over and

over and over again, and then when you have the power to deliver, you don't do it. Yeah, your voters are going to say, I don't really care about voting for you anymore. It's not worth my time and my emotional investment because that's what it really is. I mean, the time part is significant, especially if you're a working person, you've got to take time off and figure it out and the kids and all that stuff. That is no small obstacle. But even putting that aside, there's an emotional investment involved in believing that, have told their voters that, you know what, we're going to promise you a bunch of stuff that we actually have no intention of ultimately delivering. So don't be shocked when you go to tell them to vote for it and they're like, no, I got other things on my

agenda. Thank you very much. It's not that Glenn Youngkin has run some incredible campaign, but, you know, the thing that we were asking ourselves after the California results is, in California, you had a figure who was himself very divisive, very extreme, very out of step with the California public. And so he was easy to tag with the Trump label. He was easy to paint as an extremist. Glenn Youngkin really, you know, wears that sort of like, he comes across as not scary. He comes across as this just sort of like boring dude. And it was very difficult for Democrats ultimately to be able to scare people about him. And he has pulled that off. Now, look, that's not to say Youngkin is going to win. We have the Fox News

poll, as you said, is an outlier. Let's throw the Harry Enten piece up from CNN here. Overall, the average of polls is basically tied. You can see that the Fox News poll had some things that, you know, made it understandable why it was an outlier. The margin of error was fairly high. The Trump-Biden split in the voters seemed to be tilted and not representative fully of the Virginia electorate. So overall, this race seems to be very, very, very tight. But as I said at the jump, this is a major, already, even if Terry McAuliffe wins by a tiny bit, this is already a total disaster for Democrats and an utter indictment of their strategy of making everything about Trump and effectively promising and little and delivering even less. Yeah, that's right. And you know, you found this. Let's go ahead and put the last tweet that we have

for this segment. Please put that up there on the screen. I find it really fascinating, the Ben Pershing tweet, which is that those who have had at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, a significant majority of likely voters support McAuliffe by 14 points. Okay, that's interesting. But those who have not received even one vaccine dose back Youngkin by 77 points. So this is really interesting. And it goes to a Nassim Taleb point, which we've talked about here on the show, and a tyranny of the minority in that whenever you have a group of people who are deeply ideologically committed on a single front, and they only care about that one issue, but then you have a set, say, a vast

majority of the public, something like 70 something percent or so, which have been vaccinated and are relatively apathetic either way, 14 points, you know, notwithstanding. Well, then the small group, if they vote in numbers and the most enthusiastic can have an outsized impact on the rest of the politics. And that is really what we are saying here. I mean, that disparity in an off-year election, especially, and we're going to get to this in a lot of the polling, it's going to make a lot more sense. But Virginia, very much right now, reminiscent of the entire country in the way that they are feeling about Biden, Democrats, and the national mood generally. Yeah, there's no excitement among the Democratic base. I just saw a new piece this

morning about how black voters are sort of like, eh, about Terry McAuliffe as well, which in the state of Virginia is in, you know, most places where Democrats are competitive, you need to have significant turnout among the black population if you're ultimately going to win. Doesn't seem to be a lot of enthusiasm there. And then you have people on the other side who were super fired up. And these numbers have been consistent the whole time. We sort of wondered, because this is what you saw in California, Democratic enthusiasm in California really lagged. And then when it came down to like the week before, suddenly people got fired up, they got engaged, they showed up to vote. And in that instance, Gavin Newsom actually dramatically outperformed even the best polls for him.

That same shift doesn't seem to be happening here. I can tell you someone who lives in Virginia, just anecdotally, not a lot of Terry McAuliffe signs around. Tons of Glenn Youngkin signs around. Again, operatives always tell you signs don't vote, don't read too much into that. But there is not a lot of groundswell of enthusiasm for Terry McAuliffe. He's showing up at his events as well. Youngkin all weekend was going to rallies with 1,000-plus people, even in places in northern Virginia that are pretty blue. He's got people who are excited for him.

And McAuliffe was going to a bunch of different small, sparsely attended events. So look, I'm not predicting this is going to go either way. I genuinely think it is extremely tight and extremely close and will come right down to the wire. It should not be that way in the state of Virginia today. This is a 10-point Biden state. It's a 9-point Ralph Northam state. It's a state that Democrats dominate at every level and certainly statewide at this point. The fact that Youngkin is right in there with a real shot at pulling this thing off is, if you're a Democrat, that's a disgrace. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Let's go to the next block here because this is important and fits very much with it. I love these particular segments because every time that the news is

forced to do something even slightly critical of Joe Biden or, you know, just like tell the truth about what's happening in the country, their audience freaks out. So the segment you're about to see sparked a little bit of a backlash. But for once, in terms of the way that they presented that the way the country is feeling, NBC News and Chuck Todd did, you know, they're reflecting their own poll results. And it was a very interesting segment to see how they present it. Let's take a listen. Just 22 percent of adults say we're headed in the right direction. A shocking 71 percent say we're on the wrong track. And that includes a near majority of Democrats who are saying that. President Biden's approval rating stands at a dismal 42 percent

versus 54 percent who disapprove. Believe it or not, just two months ago, Mr. Biden was in positive territory, 49 percent approving, 48 percent disapproving. So what's pulling down the president's numbers? Well, look at this set of numbers. Just 37 percent say he has the ability right now to handle a crisis versus nearly a majority who say he does not. 37 percent also say he's competent and effective as president. 50% disagree with that description. What's more, Republicans, believe it or not, have double-digit leads in dealing with border security, inflation, crime, national security, the economy, and shockingly, on getting things done. Democrats hold generally smaller double-digit leads on dealing with climate

change, the coronavirus, education, and abortion. And that's really it right now. That is pretty stunning there, Crystal, in terms of the actual breakdown. We'll delve into it a little bit more. But the most important part was actually pulled by Josh Kroschauer. Let's put his tweet up there on the screen. Another telling nugget from the NBC poll, just 18% of voters strongly approve of Biden's job, while a near majority, 46%, strongly disapprove. So his strong disapproves are actually higher than his overall approval rating. That's generally not a place that you want to be. And I would again point to the fact that he only has 18 points whenever he has a strong approval rating. And the reason why is that the 18 was never a place where Trump was. His strong approval rating was

always almost in the 30s. And the reason why, as we have talked ad nauseum, the base of the Republican Party loved Trump in a way that they have not loved a figure since probably like Ronald Reagan. And people would crawl through glass in order to vote for him. And you saw that in the way the enthusiasm numbers and more. Biden does not have that. That's what I'm going to be talking a lot about in my radar. And when you have that now combined with Biden becoming a cultural opposition figure in his own right, really reviled by a lot of the American people, you are in for a recipe for total political disaster. And I am very, very, very reluctant to reach for the Jimmy Carter metaphors and all of that. the territory what it simply looks like in terms of the national mood, the lack of the enthusiasm, the ability for Republicans to just simply have massively high approval ratings on oppositional politics whatsoever. That takes a very bad politician in order to produce those types

of conditions. Yeah. I mean, it was okay for Biden when everyone sort of felt like, eh, about him. Yes, that's right. You know, that as a politician, you can kind of work with, right? You don't have people who are strongly motivated against you. You also don't have people who are strongly excited about you. Everybody just kind of got a, like, general, eh, he's fine kind of a feeling. That was what he was able to use to win the presidency, to win the Democratic primary to start with, and use to win the presidency, to win the Democratic primary to start with, and then ultimately win the presidency, is that people didn't really have strong oppositional

feelings. So now you have him becoming an actually divisive, hated figure on the right. And among the Democratic base, people are really not impressed. They're not feeling great about how things are going. And that is very much reflected in the fact that you have 71% of people saying the country is on the wrong track. I just feel like Democrats learned absolutely nothing from the Obama years. Absolutely nothing from the Obama years, because it is a very similar setup in a lot of ways. You had a huge crisis, right? You have a Democrat coming into office who has control of Everett, the White House, the Senate, and the House. You have this need to really do something dramatic to bring the country back, to make people feel like, okay, we're moving forward and things are headed in the right direction. We need a vision

that we can hold on to. Like, we need something that's going to make us feel like this country is on the up and up again. And instead, all you've seen in these past several months is floundering around incompetence. He's very, you know, he's not in front of the cameras a lot. When he is in front of the cameras, it's a lot less than inspiring. And the agenda itself has completely collapsed. I mean, I personally, as you guys know, think that progressives should vote down this piece of crap bill that we're about to talk about in just a moment. But even if they do, there's so little left in it that even if it ultimately does pass, there's so little left in it. What are people going to hang their hat on here? I mean, this is not going to—people are barely going to notice a difference, even if this supposedly large, significant bill that constitutes his agenda is ultimately passed.

So it's pretty pathetic. Look, some of it is out of his control. You know, there's only so much control you have over the pandemic, ultimately. There's only so much control you have over the economy, ultimately There's only so much control you have over the economy ultimately, even though we tend to put it all on the president. But some of these things are in his control. And he's just failed to deliver. I mean, that's ultimately the bottom line.

And anytime you have one party that has control of all the levers of power in Washington, the other party is going to get fired up. Like, that's just, that's the normal ebb and flow of politics. They're pissed off because they're out of power and they want to see their values represented and they don't feel like it's being right now. That's going to happen. So you've got to give your side something to feel excited about, too. Something to feel like it's worth getting out of bed and fighting for these people and

giving them a little bit of your heart and cash, giving them your vote, showing up to organize for you, all of that. There was a line in, I think, one of the articles about Virginia that was effectively like, Democrats really thought that Trump opposition equaled support for them. That's right. That's exactly right. And it led them to overstate and indulge in sort of fantasy about how large and significant their base of support was. With Trump gone, now you see the bare bones of what people actually really think about this party writ large. And take a look at this. Let's go and put Ryan Strzok's tweet up there on the screen. New NBC News poll on which party is better on.

So climate change, coronavirus, education, abortion, voting rights, and election security are all places where Democrats are above water. Now, immigration, the economy, national security, crime, inflation, and border security all have major Republican leads. But where my really eyes go to are the two of the economy and inflation crystal, because we know that the economy was already relatively tied with coronavirus amongst what is the most important thing for the national party in order to reckon with, and that inflation then became the second most and equally tied with all three of these things in terms of what is on Americans' minds. So if you have Republicans leading at 24 points on the subject of inflation and 18 points on the subject of the economy, that is just going to simply drown out a 12-point lead that Democrats have on coronavirus.

And it really does go to show where, you know, you really are just, this is why our politics is so annoying, right? Which is that it swings between coronavirus on the one hand, economy on the other, inflation here, and that people seem to have to pick and choose kind of between the two parties. And nobody is kind of trying to offer what the other side wants, and it becomes a real gridlock in terms of the way that it actually manifests. But overall, the story is that the – and as even Chuck Todd said, getting things done is a place where Republicans are currently leading Democrats, which is a shocking thing if you've ever been here in Washington. And you can see also why many people were upset. But I was describing Mitch McConnell's tactics, and I said, I think it makes perfect sense. People blame the president.

They blame the party in power whenever they're there. Why should they have to worry about arcane Senate procedure or whatever? They're like, you guys are supposed to be the people running the country. You're not doing anything. All of it is just creating a complete political morass for the president and for the party in power. Yeah. And like, let's not get it twisted. It's not that Republicans deserve support. It's not like they're doing anything or offering anything that would deal with any of these problems that people have. But right now they're not in power. So when people feel like their lives aren't going well and they're frustrated with the people who,

at least in theory, have control of the country and the government, they're going to look for an alternative. And that's what we're seeing right now. That's right. So leading to the next issue that's causing problems for the Biden administration here is his own agenda. It's a mess. You know, I'm going to go through in more detail in just a moment exactly what is left remaining in the reconciliation bill. It ain't a whole lot. But one of the significant pieces that got stripped out was paid leave. And again, it's another thing Democrats have been promising

for years. And I'm not just talking about the squad. Every single Democrat runs on paid leave. Why do they do it? Because it's really popular. It's extremely popular. It's one of these issues where Republicans, because they carry water for big business, are dramatically out of step with where the American people are. It's like an 80-some percent support kind of an issue. And yet, they've ultimately failed and dropped it from the bill. So this led to a little bit of an uncomfortable moment for our dear Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, who you will recall just took a lengthy paid leave for his new babies that he's home taking care of.

Okay, that's fine. Congrats to him. Congrats to him. But Dan Abash, to your credit, pushes him on like, how can you still support this bill when you've been so vocal about the need for paid leave? Which, by the way, not only him, but most white-collar workers are able to benefit from. This would really be about blue-collar and service workers having the similar benefits in that regard as the white-collar workforce.

How do you still say you love this bill when something that you claimed was so central to you and your politics and your ethos has been stripped down? Let's take a listen to what he says. So you talked about a lot of big changes that are currently still in this framework compromise. There is something that isn't, and that is paid family leave. You returned from paternity leave after welcoming your newborn twins, Penelope and Joseph. And I want our viewers to hear what you said on this show just two weeks ago about the importance of paid family leave. I campaigned on that. So did the president. The Build Back Better agenda includes provisions for paid family leave.

It is long past time to make it possible for every American mother and father to take care of their children when a new child arrives in the family. So what do you say to the more than 100 million Americans who don't have access to the kind of paid family leave that you just benefited from and who don't understand why the administration didn't fight access to the kind of paid family leave that you just benefited from and who don't understand why the administration didn't fight harder to keep it in the bill? Well, look, it's something that we believe in. I believe in it. Obviously, it's personal for me. The same is true for the president. And it's something that we'll continue pushing for. This is not half a loaf. This is a feast of good policies,

some of which my party has been talking about, or even politicians on both sides of the aisle have been talking about for literally as long as I have been alive. And the chance to deliver it is now within our grasp. It is an extraordinary package that is going to make concrete improvements in the lives of every American. And I can't wait to see it done. Obviously, you know, when you put together something this big and this complex, nobody gets everything that they want. The president has been clear about that. I don't think anybody crafting their perfect package in their mind would see it reflected here because this reflects the input of so many different people. So, man, that was rough to watch.

Yeah. I wish you'd go back on paternity leave. Feast of good policies. Oh, this guy. I mean, two minutes ago, he was talking about how important paid leave is and how significant it is and how everybody should have this. And then now, oh, sure, we didn't get everything, but it's a feast of good policies. This isn't half a loaf, et cetera, et cetera. Progressives, of course, they did win one more minor and, frankly, at this point, irrelevant battle last week. Biden and Pelosi sort of wanted to get this bipartisan infrastructure bill passed

on Thursday. Progressives said, no, no, no, we got to vote for the two things together. But they overwhelmingly backed this stripped down, like nothing burger of a bill that is left. They're not using the levers that they have whatsoever to make it better, even a little bit, to my knowledge, at least. That's where things stand at this point. I think we have their statement that we can put up there on the screen, the Progressive C infrastructure vote this week. So they are thinking that this is all going to get voted on at this point sometime this week. And let's put the CNBC tariff sheet up on the screen because I do think it's really important. Most people don't even know what's in this plan. That's partly Democrats' fault. That's partly the

media fault. That's partly because people just don't expect it to really deliver much for their lives. What has been offered in terms of the Biden framework is $1.75 trillion. That is dramatically less than the $6 trillion, which was originally said, or the $4 trillion that Manchin originally said he could be on board with, or the $3.5 trillion that then it, you know, the pared back version of it, the compromise version. Manchin said he wanted $1.5 trillion. So he basically gets his way on that. What's left when you strip it down to that top line dollar figure is expansion of the child tax credit for one year, universal pre-K for six years. That's the best part of it, too, by the way. That's like I've already led with the best pieces of it. $550 billion in what is effectively like totally toothless climate provisions. It does expand Medicaid and will reduce premiums for ACA coverage for about 9 million people.

Remember, Bernie was originally saying, I'm not voting for this thing unless it expands Medicare to include hearing, vision, and dental. Right. Well, now it just includes hearing, vision, and dental. I'm still trying to figure that one out, actually. Vision and dental, somehow, not important. Is the hearing lobby very powerful in Washington? What's happening? It must be the least expensive part or something like that,

even though hearing aids are very expensive. I mean, listen, it's great that grandma and grandpa can get hearing aids, but their eyeballs and their teeth are also part of their body that should be able to receive care as well. The dental thing really bothers me, actually, because people can have really significant, like life-threatening health issues when they have a problem with their teeth, if their tooth gets infected. And the fact that you don't have seniors with dental coverage is disgusting and shameful. Anyway, hearing coverage, that's in there. On the tax front, we covered this extensively last week, but the big obvious things that you could do to tax the

wealthy, no, no, no, we can't do any of that. We can't change the step-up basis. We certainly can't change, close the carried interest loophole. So instead, they've got some surtaxes of 5% on personal income above $10 million, 3% on income above $25 million. Again, most of the really rich, they aren't taking in their money via income. So this is fairly irrelevant. 15% minimum tax on corporate profits of large corporations with over a billion dollars in profits. Very hard to enforce, but we'll see how that ultimately works out. 1% tax, 1% on stock buybacks. Okay, whatever. And a 50% minimum tax on foreign profits of U.S. corporations. Again, another thing that's very difficult to enforce. They're also including the increased IRS enforcement. Some of the details of that still being worked out. So overall, you know, any of the efforts to really get at the fortunes of the wealthiest of among us,

the people who got super extra ultra insanely rich during the pandemic, nah, not doing much of that. What's left out of the bill, of course, paid leave, as we just discussed, which originally was going to be 12 weeks. And they were like, maybe we'll do four. And then they're like, no, we're not going to do it at all. Community college, free community college. We were told that was a major priority of Biden. That's out altogether. Killed by the college industry. I'll never let that one go.

Killed by the college industry. Thank you for reminding us of that. Medicare, negotiating prescription drug prices, something Democrats have promised since 2006. Killed by big pharma. Billionaire tax out that had briefly been floated as like, maybe we'll do this thing that would be marginally good and tax a thousand people who are billionaires. No, that's out. Medicare, vision, and dental, as I already said, and the child tax credit only for one year after that. Good luck, everybody.

So not much to really get excited about here. Not much to really hang your hat on here. And it's pretty pathetic that this is ultimately what it comes down to. This bill is a total dog. Nobody knows what's in it. There was an ABC News poll just came out. 71% of people said they only knew some or nothing of what is actually within the bill. So messaging is a disaster. Like I said, Obamacare is arguably a better messaging bill than this because at least people knew it had something to do with health care and it had that one preconditions thing. On this, nobody cares. No one. And if it had like one major program, but instead, as you point to, it's like subsidy on this, subsidy on that.

Nothing is particularly permanent. There's no actual expansion. There is a very little attempt at really just making it big and coalitional as in little pieces for a bunch of different types instead of one big program that Americans at least might be able to understand. Think back to the stimulus checks versus this. Why do you think that those were overwhelmingly popular? And this one is not for the simple reason that it's easy to understand checks. And, you know, it's just one of these things where people in D.C. have what I call, like, program brain.

They're like, we need to create a new program that targets this, this, and this. Listen, by the time you started saying program, people are completely tuning out. When you make it easy to understand, this is really just a big failure on Biden's part whenever this is all you have. And I didn't even get to comment on the Buttigieg part. I mean, it's just amazing, right? In terms of, oh, well, you know, it's not a half-loaf thing. It's just so classic Pete. By the way, here he has an Amazon documentary coming out. So that's great. I got more to say about Pete in my monologue today. Donor Class apparently wants to set up a Pete versus Kamala showdown. God help us all. But yeah, I mean, listen, this is just sad. It's just sad. The most popular parts of the bill, because, you know, they like to paint

this like, oh, we're making concessions to political reality and politics. I've seen some stories that are like, oh, the politics on the ground have changed. That's why the bill has shifted. But you're taking out the most popular parts. So that doesn't add up at all. I mean, prescription drug pricing, paid leave, those are the two most popular parts of this provision. The next most popular part of this bill was taxing the rich. So all of the most popular pieces you're pulling from the bill. So how can you say this is about, you know, political realities and trying to do what's popular with American people? That's complete farce. The other thing that I can't get over is, like, does no one in this town actually believe in anything?

Yeah. Does no one actually have the willingness to fight for something that they've like staked their careers on this whole time? I mean, you have politicians, you have people like Kirsten Gillibrand, who claimed that paid leave was like their end all be all. And, you know, they, of course, when it's stripped down, you don't hear a peep from them. But even more to the point, there are interest groups in D.C. where paid leave is really central to what they've been advocating for. And it gets pulled out. And it gets pulled out. And again, you barely hear a peep from them. Apparently, the reporting is that Biden has told progressives and others in closed door meetings or his administration has that they're going to

keep fighting on paid leave. So don't worry. We're going to get to it later. Just like the $15 minimum wage. Don't worry. We're going to keep fighting for it. How stupid are you people? Also, nothing else is going to pass during your presidency. Do you really believe that? How? Give me an actual logical path

to passage for paid leave or the $15 minimum wage or anything else for this entire administration. And that's part of in another segment, part of that segment with Dana Bash, what Pete said is like good policy is good politics. So we're going to come in even stronger than before, and that's how we're going to get paid leave done.

Like that's gibberish. That doesn't mean anything. That's just you like using your, I mean, just like word salad-ing your way to something that is never, ever going to happen. So it's just pretty pathetic at this point where we are. So, look, I think this thing probably will pass. Yeah, I think so too. In essentially its current state. Look, I think it's great that everybody will be able to go to pre-K, three and four-year-olds.

I think that is, you know, a genuinely good thing. Overall, I think this is a complete mess, over-promising, dramatically under-delivering, and Democrats should not be remotely surprised when their base, let alone anyone else, has zero enthusiasm for them or any of their promises in the future. Yeah, that's right. Okay, let's move on to this story. We need to cover it very responsibly around Andrew Cuomo because it's a little bit confusing. So we have that up on the screen. The case against Andrew Cuomo is, quote, very solid. The sheriff says of a move to file a complaint. This is important. A district attorney has not yet committed to prosecuting former Governor Andrew Cuomo in terms of a sexual harassment case.

However, a sheriff, an Albany County sheriff, who has scrutinized cell phone, flight records, testimony, and hundreds of pages of documents, has gone ahead to move with the criminal complaint charging Andrew Cuomo with the misdemeanor of sex crime. And it was filed by that sheriff investigator in Albany City Court on Thursday. Now, this is a little odd, like we said, because the court, of course, takes a little bit of time to process the paperwork.

But the sheriff has moved with the complaint against Andrew Cuomo, despite the fact that the district attorney has not yet committed to filing the criminal complaint and going after Andrew Cuomo, aka prosecuting him. So that's where we are right now. What it does reveal is that for the last two months, there has been an actual effort by the district attorney's office and by the sheriff's investigators in order to gather criminal evidence against Andrew Cuomo in an alleged sex crime prosecution. Now, the details and the exact victim there, given that there possibly were many, is not exactly known.

But there was a lot of hay around the fact that this was even released. And there's some question, Crystal, whether this is tied to political motivations and more. So it's a little strange in the way that it's all happening. It's weird how it all went down. And so basically what happened is the sheriff filed charges. And ordinarily in that situation, especially in a high-profile, really touchy situation like this, you'd be coordinating with the district attorney every step of the way. That's right. Now, what the sheriff is saying is, I filed these charges expecting that normally it takes some time

for the court to process them. And so I thought I would have time then to go and talk to the prosecutor and get all my ducks in a row. But it's already unusual that they weren't coordinating to start with. Then the court right away processes it, like within minutes. And so they were caught off guard. The potential, what Cuomo is saying is that these charges were filed on the same day that Letitia James, Attorney General of New York, announced she is running for governor in the Democratic primary.

Of course, Letitia James is the one who really exposed a lot of what was going on here very effectively in a report that, you know, with lots of mountains of evidence and also exposed how much his brother over at CNN was coordinating with him. So there was a lot there. So he's effectively insinuating that, oh, maybe Tisha James and this sheriff were sort of coordinating so that the charges and her announcement dropped on the same day. I have no idea whether there is anything to that whatsoever. But what we do know is that the charge here is forcible touching. It carries a penalty of up to one year in jail. The woman who is the alleged victim here has actually come forward and said, you know, this is about my allegations against Cuomo.

And I don't know if you guys remember the details. This was one of the more egregious instances we learned about from the former governor, where he invited a woman to the governor's mansion, reportedly for a work reason, and then he reaches under her blouse and grabs her breast, according to her. We also know that from the story, the evidence from the sheriff's office hasn't been made public, but the complaint said that the materials offered as evidence here include a text message from Mr. Cuomo's cell phone, messages from the BlackBerry devices of state police troopers, and swipe card entry records from the state capitol. His line had always been, couldn't have happened the day that she,

you know, the day that she says this may have happened, this, you know, I never saw her. Yes. And so it seems that they may have some records, some evidence to indicate that he was mistaken or lying about his whereabouts and her whereabouts on when this may have happened. There's speculation on my part. Absolutely. The other part of this, of course, we have to mention is that

his brother, Chris Cuomo, over on CNN, hosting a lowly rated, but still their highest rated primetime show, failed somehow to mention any of these stunning developments. Let's put this New York Post

tear sheet up. Chris Cuomo avoided covering brother's sex crime charge on his CNN show. Hmm. So surprised. They had time to cover Alec Baldwin, though. Don't worry. They had time to cover Alec Baldwin, but they didn't have time to cover this.

I'm not saying the Baldwin thing isn't interesting. We've covered several aspects of it. I support covering Alec Baldwin's story. I also support covering a significant political figure who previously was talked about as a presidential candidate being charged with a sex crime. Completely ignored. Yeah. The fact is that the details here absolutely do matter. And how much longer is CNN going to try and get away with covering for the fact that the brother of this man was not only intimately involved in the cover up of, you know, retaliating against many of these victims or at least people who had spoken out against Governor Cuomo, but then avoided covering it on his show. The endless, like,

morass here is just so difficult to even describe. But they continue to beclown themselves. And every single time, I mean, what was it Brian Stelter said? What was his defense? It's just such an extraordinary situation. Right. They're like, something like this has never happened before. It's like, no, no, no, it's actually happened a lot. Conflicts of interest are really common, actually. Conflicts of interest are incredibly common in the media industry. Some people make at least a pretense of trying to overcome it, and they are just not doing that whatsoever.

They did have time to laugh and joke around while they were all in Rome, covering the President's Summit, but this major news that broke literally right before the show, no, that doesn't get any of it. So this is a total boxing situation. I think we should have gone to Rome to cover the president's summit. I think we should have gone to Rome as well. Yeah, breaking points on the road. Let us know if you would have support that. There we go. Okay, let's move on. Another media story here. Fox News media story. This is, you know, our fun segment always, and we try to look out for these types of things, which is that Andrew Sullivan, somebody who I respect and has a long time, been one of the most interesting writers that there always has because usually the way it goes is they want you to come on to bash the other side, but they don't want to

talk about their own failings. And then no holistic critique can be delivered without mentioning the complicity of all three in destroying the state of the country. And to Andrew Sullivan's credit, he actually said that on their air. It's kind of a crazy moment, right, whenever you see the guy's face and the way that he reacts. Let's take a listen. Let's go broader because you say, and you've been writing about polarization making things work. Quoting you, on the left, moderation is portrayed as a surrender to white nationalism, and on the right, white identity politics has overwhelmed moderate conservatism. So are we screwed, to use the technical term? And how much are the media fueling this polarization?

Well, I think they, like Facebook, are fueling it to some extent. I think the fact that you can be, and forgive me, on Fox News and never really hear a solid counter opinion. And the same goes for MSNBC and increasingly CNN, which I can't watch, it's basically the same as MSNBC now, means that you don't have a range of views of people to judge. And inevitably, when you all agree around roughly the same stuff, there's no ratchet back. You know, it's funny because he was basically speechless in the way that he confronted him there. But I thought it's just we want to highlight any good instance in where this type of thing happens.

Yeah. Which is that any time that you go on these things and that you're only talking about one side or the other, which, look, that's the format. That's what they want you to do. The entire segment and all of that is constructed such that you come on and you bash CNN and MSNBC when you're on Fox. Same thing on MSNBC whenever you're bashing Fox. Same thing whenever you go on CNN. But none of them want to talk about their own complicity within that system. And that really is one of the only countervailing arguments that you'll probably hear whenever it comes to Fox. So major credit to him for even saying it. Absolutely. I just saw David Sirota, of course, his daily poster,

our partners here, Breaking Points, was on with Brian Stelter on CNN. And it was a similar dynamic where he was like, y'all talk about the reconciliation bill, but you don't say anything about the way that big oil and big pharma and the college industry and all these people, all this money. I added the college one. I don't think he actually mentioned that. But anyway. That is an important one though. Yeah. The way that money has completely controlled this entire process. You leave that out of the story. And so if you leave that out of the story, you are actually not telling the story of what's happening here. So for him to go on CNN and say that to their face, you love to see it. And I don't think it's an accident that both Sirota and Andrew Sullivan are independent.

Yes, it has to be. Because the backlash here is just intense if you do that. And so their careers aren't dependent. Their ability to provide for themselves and their families aren't dependent. Their ability to provide for themselves and their families aren't dependent on having to be in the mainstream media, the cable news whirlwind. They have their own base of support. And so they can go on these networks

and not care even a little bit if they never, ever, ever get invited back. And so, look, I think Sirota, and I don't know Andrew Sullivan, but I suspect him too, based on his writings, are get invited back. And so, look, you know, I think Sirota, and I don't know Andrew Sullivan, but I suspect him too, based on his writings, are people of principle. I think they would probably do it, even if, you know, their paycheck was somewhat dependent on it. But the fact is that when you have more independent journalists who don't have to give a single F about what these people say or think about them or whether they get invited on these shows ever again, that's a really good thing. And it makes our whole ecosystem so much better.

I think, you know, I don't think people realize, but people get blacklisted from these networks all the time. And so what would happen is, and I can tell you this from personal experience, is that a place that you might work has an employee that says something that pisses off one of the three networks. And then that network, to be vindictive, says everybody who works at that organization is no longer allowed on our network. You know, very special exemptions, all of that included. And it becomes a whole thing. And by the way, all three of the networks participate in this.

But you know what? Fox is actually the worst. Fox is the most vindictive. Mostly because. That's an open secret. Mostly because they're actually the most organized. That's true. Like, I think MSNBC would want to be that

vindictive, but they just don't really have their shit together in that kind of way. But anyway, Fox is the most aggressive. Yes, but I think people should realize that, and I'm realizing, you know, we should have even talked about it previously, which is that whenever you work at an organization, you're supposed to try and protect the organization. So even if you or one of these people, like Sirota, like Andrew Sullivan, you were working at another org and you were to go on Fox and call out Fox to his face, you think they're going to forget that?

They're going to retaliate against you and your org. The same thing happens for many other networks. I remember for a time Politico had a whole ban on Fox. It was like a whole thing. And again, these are open whispers and secrets. Nobody ever wants to talk about it publicly, though, because that would get you banned, too. Guess what? I don't really care.

It doesn't really bother me. But if you work within these orgs, there is a major pressure and there's a silence that people know if you go after them, either in your reporting or even on their network, they will not forget. And that's very important in terms of how it shapes how everybody thinks about each other and just the lack that just really the doublespeak, which is that everybody knows that this type of stuff is happening. I don't think this is a secret to any of you, but the confirmation of it is just never given. And that's what makes people kind of crazy. It makes them kind of feel conspiracy theorists. So when I see stuff like that, it's just so important to try and highlight it. Although I doubt it'll be invited back on again. Yeah, very true. I mean, there are very, very few people who are big enough that they can actually go on and say whatever and get invited back. That's right. You have to be

someone who is a gigantic name. There's almost no one in politics. I mean, you know, actual politicians who are huge, so like a Bernie Sanders for a game, you have to be that level for them to feel like they have to invite you back. But any level of like pundit, journalist, strategist, whatever, they will casually toss you to the curb if you say something that they don't like even a little bit, or even if you don't really like play ball in their segment in the way that they want. Oh, yeah. And you may not even know you're on that blacklist.

You just won't get invited back. Until you just stop getting booked again. It's a fun little system we have here in D.C., and I am so happy not to be a part of it anymore. Indeed. It's the greatest thing in the world, and we love you guys for it every day. Crystal, what are you taking a look at?

Well, guys, for this post-Halloween monologue, I've got a truly terrifying scenario for you to contemplate. A horror show conjured from the depths of hell so disturbing, I personally shudder to contemplate it. I'm talking, of course, about a 2024 Democratic primary contest giving us the non-choice of Kamala Harris versus Pete Buttigieg. I know what you're thinking, have the gods forsaken us? But brace yourself for McKenzie Pete versus Freedom Kamala, because those are apparently the choices, quote unquote, that the donor class have in mind for us in 2024. So before I dig into these reports, let's establish a couple of things off the top. Number one, Joe Biden is really old and not exactly at his peak. I personally think even if he significantly declines between now and 2024, they will still

prop him up and run him if he is remotely capable of that at all. But even that is a pretty significant if. Second of all, things ain't going so well for his elite-selected-era parent, Kamala Harris. Just take a look at this less-than-robust pitch she offered this weekend campaigning for Terry McAuliffe in Virginia and the less-than-roaring reception that she received. Tell everybody you know to vote tomorrow. Nothing like saying, you want to meet me tomorrow? What you doing tomorrow? You got any plans tomorrow? Tomorrow's a good day. It's going to be a good day. But the point is. So I don't give the donor class a lot of credit, but even they can see Kamala Harris is a disaster for Democrats. So who do they want to tap as the successor to Biden instead of Kamala?

Mayor Pete. Here is Insider with that report. Influential Democratic donors who backed Pete Buttigieg in 2020 are privately chattering about prodding him to run for the White House in 2024 if President Joe Biden does not seek re-election, Insider has learned. Now, one thing that I love about this report is how public interest in either Pete or Kamala or what they might offer as a platform, those trivial matters don't figure into this report at all. I mean, I actually truly appreciate that because it doesn't even try to offer a false pretense that what you or I might want is remotely a factor in these elite machinations.

The article details a series of secret donor meetings in D.C. and Silicon Valley and on Wall Street where various Democratic Party bundlers got together to plot which sociopath they will try to foist on the American people next. Here's a little section I found particularly revealing. The donors at the dinners thought Buttigieg would not want to challenge Harris, the strategist said, while adding, in their estimation, it would take the masses gathering to push him to do it, meaning the donors of the world, the political elites. You catch that? When these people think of the masses gathering, they actually mean Silicon Valley elites, Wall Street ghouls, and Democratic Party apparatchiks. That is incredible. Here's another portion that I particularly enjoyed. Another quote, but the strategist also said there's a

growing sentiment that there's no map in the universe that exists in which Kamala Harris could possibly win a national election. That person said Buttigieg supporters see him as our best hope, but they aren't the only donors already rumbling about organizing behind other Democratic candidates who might challenge Harris in 2024. So the people that forced us to have Kamala as vice president have finally realized that she's a total electoral disaster. Now, you might have figured that out by the utter failure of her presidential campaign, her disastrous management skills, or, I don't know, the fact that she held zero appeal outside of the media and like 100 people on Twitter. But anyway, they've belatedly figured that out. And so who do they see as, quote, our best hope? Pete Buttigieg, the man who couldn't get a single

black person to vote for him in the Democratic primary. All right, I am being slightly unfair. Here were the actual results for Pete in the Democratic primary. In South Carolina, Pete won 2% of black voters. 2%. And that was after the media did everything they absolutely possibly could to prop this dude up. This is the guy that the donor class thinks is our best hope. And by our best hope, of course, they mean their best hope to keep control of the Democratic Party and continue that party's march into oblivion with the multiracial working class. Actually, a poll of Democratic primary voters recently came out that was pretty interesting as to their great white hope here, not to mention to Kamala. YouGov asked Democratic primary voters who they would back if Biden does not run in 2024. The sitting vice president, of course, should be the obvious answer, and Kamala does still lead here, but her standing in that poll has plummeted 22 points

since the question was last asked in August, so just a couple months ago. Coming in second, not Pete, but Bernie Sanders. Even now, with Bernie like 304 years old and having had a heart attack and having indicated he has zero plans to run again, he still beats Pete Buttigieg. Pete is stuck in third, clustered in single digits with Warren, Abrams, and AOC all statistically tied with him there. If anything, it looks like Pete has lost support since he came in second in Iowa and in New Hampshire back in the Democratic primary.

But wait, there's more. Insider is out with another report on this donor-created Kamala versus Pete rivalry. Apparently, Kamala Harris allies are worried that if Buttigieg challenges her in 2024, it will, quote, be ugly and help Republicans. Now, this one is obviously planted by Kamala people who want to send a message that anyone who dares challenge Kamala will be helping Republicans. Also a pretty revealing insight, right? They're not worried Pete might offer a more compelling platform or prove himself more able to govern. They just want to scare Democratic primary voters into staying the course because to inject even the tiniest illusion of Democratic choice would be far too dangerous. Gotta suck it up and vote Kamala. A call back to the uninspiring but ultimately winning message of the Joe Biden campaign. So to the extent that

the ruling elite decide you should have a choice here at all, it's between a woman who has proven herself incapable and unimpressive as vice president and a man who as secretary of transportation should be at the center of the supply chain crisis, but is so irrelevant no one even noticed that he hadn't been working for the past three months. Of course, we already know the horrors of living under Donald Trump. Kamala repeats most likely general election opponent if it does come down to that. In other words, good luck, America. Sagar, a lot going on here. Oh, man.

Two people no one wants. We don't need this. Being foisted on it. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, for a long time, Joe Biden's superpower was simply nobody really cared that much about him. When he ran for president and won, nearly 60% of the people who voted for him did so simply because his name was not Trump. And when Trump and the campaign tried to attack him, they found out that while people reveled and despised other Democratic figures like AOC and Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, Biden himself seemed to just have Teflon and how Americans just simply kind of liked him. And in the early months of his

presidency, this held fast as Trump and the Republican Party continued to run against culturally left forces, trying to tie Biden to them, but never really attacking him by name. At an early Trump rally, this was especially evident. Reporters hardly saw one sign or a t-shirt with Biden's name on them. Nothing about Hillary. But now, nearly a year after the election, all of that is changing. Biden really has himself to blame for it all. I've been fascinated over the last few weeks to see the Let's Go Brandon meme sweep across the country. For those who aren't familiar, we covered on this show at a recent NASCAR event.

While the entire crowd chanted F Joe Biden, the reporter tried to claim that they were saying, Let's Go Brandon. Now the name of the racer, who she happened to be interviewing at the time. The meme and the energy around the saying have swept across the nation with signs at sporting events, but what especially caught my eye was this.

Four different rap versions of Let's Go Brandon are now in the iTunes top 10. Now, you may not know this, because it appears iTunes is the only place where you can even see the popularity of the songs after YouTube deleted the account of the original Let's Go Brandon song, and others have been working feverishly to quash it. Now, again and again, as the phrase new reaches new heights in popular culture, you begin to see the

media machine kick into overdrive. Just look at this one. NPR did this very helpful explainer for its listeners, saying, quote, no one is really cheering on a guy named Brandon. Instead, the phrase is being used in conservative circles in place of a more vulgar message directed at President Biden, with the obvious attempt at trying to censor the phrase and brand those who use it as bad people. Now, look, things have reached new heights of hysteria after a Southwest Airlines pilot apparently signed off an announcement on a recent flight with Let's Go Brandon.

Now look, personally, I think when you're a pilot and your job is flying different types of people around, you should probably leave your politics at home. But hey, whatever, it's a free country. But oh no, that wouldn't do. Immediately, the media machine, the Lincoln Project and others, journalists, they began tweeting about the pilot should lose his job. The Lincoln Project said, hey, Southwest Airlines, this isn't going to fly. CNN's Asha Rappagana compared the pilot to one who was shouting a pledge to ISIS after flying. Yeah, that's the same. But here's the biggest problem with the media. They are trying to go after the people shouting, let's go, Brandon, instead of asking, hey, why is Joe Biden suddenly becoming the central flashpoint for nearly all that is wrong

in America today. To me, Let's Go Brandon is encapsulated in these stats. 61% of latest respondents in morning consult polling said they agreed with the statement that the United States is on a seriously wrong track. That was 71% in the NBC poll that we covered today. Now, there's a variety of reasons for this. Inflation, gas prices, COVID debts are still like $1,500 a day. But I think it's everything together and more. There's a general sense of malaise that we cannot get through this thing without ripping each other apart. That the country wasn't what it was. That the Biden doesn't seem to have a clue. That Biden's problem is that when he was elected and he barely won the presidency,

he was all things to all people. Now that's great when you're running against someone like Trump, but it's actually terrible when pretty much all things begin to have negative indicators. We just had the slowest quarterly economic growth of the entire pandemic recovery. And Biden never really promised to do anything

except for making things go back to normal. Now it's all he really stood for. So when you look around today and you still have to wear a mask on a plane and in much of public life, whenever you look around and you see the economy running into the ground, you see cultural tensions still at all time high. You look at Washington, you see whatever the hell the latest crap in the bill seems to be. Can you blame people for chanting, let's go, Brandon? I mean, the biggest story in the country right now is just the sheer discontent everybody seems to be feeling. When Biden promised all things to all people, he's going to be blamed for all things by all people. He never, like Trump, defined himself as a figure that appealed on purpose

to a select group of the country. And that very well could be his entire downfall. All eyes right now are on Glenn Youngkin's campaign in Virginia, where Joe Biden won the state by 10 points. Now, if Youngkin does win the election, it will be confirmation that Biden is following in the footsteps of the man he served as vice president under. A president who had great promise, but who screwed things up in the first year,

unleashed a boon to the Republican Party, and who became culturally reviled and mostly impotent for the remainder of his days in office. Except this time, things are worse. Last time, Obama at least had Mitt Romney waiting for him in the wings. Today, there's Donald Trump, who under the worst conditions possible already came 44,000 votes away from winning the presidency. The let's go Brandon phenomenon could very well be the harbinger of make America great again chance to come. And when and if they do, don't be surprised. Biden only has himself to blame. I think it is amazing though, Crystal, because we were talking consistently throughout the show,

which is that Biden's superpower was people were like, yeah, whatever. Okay, guys, we're having some technical difficulties here today in getting our guests. Actually, completely unrelated to our 4K studio upgrade. So once again, thank you all so much to the premium subscribers. Guys, for the interview segment that we'll do with Jody, we're still going to tape it. We'll send it to you guys a little bit later. For everybody else, this shouldn't really impact your viewing experience. Thank you all so much for supporting our show.

There's no way we could have done this awesome upgrade here. We've got all this new equipment. We've got big, big plans, all of it enabled by the Lifetime members and all the premium subscribers. The link is down there in the subscription. Thank you guys so much. We're really building something big here and it's because of all of your support. Yep, absolutely. Love you guys so much. Have a fantastic day and we will see you back here tomorrow. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

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