Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/11/22: CDC Confusion, Polls, Afghanistan Famine, Ivy League Cartel, Insider Trading, Bernie Sanders, MSNBC, Big Tech, & More!

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about CDC messaging on covid, brutal new polls for Dems, a potential famine in Afghanistan, price fixing by the Ivy League, a proposal to ban stock trading by legislators, Bernie's challenge to the Democratic party, MSNBC'S hiring of a Kamala official, Dan Crenshaw's big tech fraud, and more!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/Rachel Bovard’s Substack: https://rachelbovard.substack.com/ Rachel Bovard’s Article: https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/04/why-dan-crenshaws-section-230-bill-wont-stop-big-tech-censorship/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Lots of interesting stuff to get to. First of all, we are now learning what Americans' priorities are for politics this year versus last year. There's some pretty interesting shifts here to get into. Also, got to update you on the absolute disaster that is unfolding right now in Afghanistan from a humanitarian perspective. Effectively, I mean, the U.S. is helping to create a famine for millions of people with devastating consequences. Naturally, the media, which pretended to care so much about Afghan civilians, they don't give a single shit about this story right now. Why? Because Raytheon can't turn a profit off of it.

So we'll tell you everything that's going on there. Also, a lot of Ivy League schools being sued. Basically, the allegation is that they are a cartel. No, literally. Literally a cartel. Something that our friend Matt Stoller has, of course, been talking about for a long time. So we'll tell you about that. We have Rachel Bovard on the show to give us some updates on big tech.

Also, a little bit of a shot across the bow within the Democratic Party from John Ossoff, of all people, preparing legislation to ban members of Congress and their family members and their spouses from holding and trading stocks while they're in office. Of course, Nancy Pelosi had famously, you know, scoffed at the idea that something like that should be enacted. So we'll give you all of the details there. But we wanted to start with what is going on at the CDC right now. So let me start with this. The CDC's messaging has been so bungled and so messy and so arbitrary and confusing that even liberals who have followed their recommendations like their gospel have now turned on the CDC. But I wanted to start with, there was a little bit of a kind

of online firestorm yesterday about some comments that CDC Director Rochelle Walensky made where it was cut out of context and it sounded like what she was saying is that 75% of all COVID deaths are people who have four or more comorbidities. So this led a lot of folks on the right, they clipped out just that part to say, like, oh, see, it's just people who have these other issues for if you're healthy, then, you know, whether you're vaccinated or not, COVID is not a risk. But they left out the question, which included the context that she was just talking about. People who are vaccinated, those who still die, have all of these comorbidities, basically making a case that vaccinations actually work. Let's take a listen to that entire clip.

I want to ask you about those encouraging headlines that we're talking about this morning, this new study showing just how well vaccines are working to prevent severe illness. Given that, is it time to start rethinking how we're living with this virus, that it's potentially here to stay? The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75 percent, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities. So really, these are people who were unwell to begin with. And yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron. This means not only just to get your primary series, but to get your booster series. And yes, we're really encouraged by these results. OK, so she doesn't get totally off the hook because she should have included the full

context that she's just talking about vaccinating people. But that was clear in the question. I think it was wildly misleading to just cut out her comment saying 75% of all people had these other comorbidities. This is based on a CDC study that found 78% of those who died who were vaccinated had four or more comorbidities. All people with severe outcomes who were vaccinated had at least one risk factor. So this was turned into an argument against vaccines when actually the data creates an argument in favor of vaccines because it says, listen, if you're vaccinated and you're healthy, you're going to be good. I don't know if it was turned into an argument against vaccines necessarily. It was more that by some dishonest people, sure. But the reason why that I think it's still important is that if you remove that and the CDC still refuses to release the numbers for all people, unvaccinated included, is that even amongst those people, COVID was always dramatically more of a risk for people who were much older and fatter, especially people with comorbidities like diabetes, heart disease and all that, regardless of vaccination status or not. But all of this is

very important because we are finally getting the truth from the CDC and from the hospitalization status that we continue to see from New York and Oregon and some other states, Miami releasing its data, the with COVID and the without COVID or the with COVID and because of COVID numbers. In the state of New York, I think you sent this. It was 50% of all of the people in the hospital system were with COVID. Yeah. And I think it's important to say that those numbers have changed with Omicron because Omicron is so incredibly infectious that hospitals that have a protocol of testing everybody for COVID when they come in are coming up with insanely high numbers of their patients

who were showing up. You know, they might be there to have a baby. They might be there because they had a, you know, they were in a car accident, whatever it was, insanely high numbers of them have COVID, even though that's not the reason that they're there. That is different with Omicron in terms of those numbers. There were, of course, people who that was the case with before, but with Omicron, that has become a much larger number. And that really matters when you're thinking about strain and stress on hospitals and the reality that's going on there. And I will say, you know, even though that is the case, that you now have way more people who are coming in who are there with COVID instead of because of COVID, it still does create a lot of strain on the

hospitals because, number one, then you does create a lot of strain on the hospitals because number one, then you have to follow all of these protocols to try to stop the spread. And number two, they have so much staff that either, you know, left and retired when they could or are themselves out sick that hospitals really are very heavily burdened due to Omicron in places that have been hit hard, even as this disease has been shown to be a lot milder. I agree. The problem I see is that I see all these Twitter threads. Oh, my God, the hospital's at 70-something percent ICU.

But they don't tell you that ICUs are actually built because they're so expensive in order to normally run at like 60 to 65 percent. So you're like, okay, it's like a 10 percent increase. I don't want to minimize ER docs and the nurses and all that that are doing that. But a lot of this context that we've learned about the hospital system and the health care system is not really there. And in terms of the whole triage care and all that, have not yet seen it. So, look, we're at the height of the spike, quote, unquote.

In terms of severity, it's pretty clear now the severity evidence isn't there. CDC director is now at least admitting, look, the people who are vaccinated, the people who are dying almost dramatically are going to be very, very old and have four different comorbidities. So really what it shows you is that the vaccine works. Congratulations, everybody. This is the part I never understand. And I saw the Pfizer CEO just yesterday saying, at this point, we can offer little protection. What? What are you talking about?

Because he's pushing a fourth booster. And it's like the amount of under—they have underconfidence in their own product because they're all trying to make money. The lack of honesty around this has been driving me nuts. And it seems to be breaking the dam around hospitalization numbers. Now the CDC director out here admitting some of this stuff. Soon we'll be hearing about natural immunity. I'm virtually certain of it.

Not a surprise to me that Dr. Fauci hasn't appeared in the media in order for his whipping, although he is due one. And I just see a lot of people who are beginning to acknowledge some of these truths in the public square. Schools is another one, too. You see in the New York Times. It's a good thing, but it

still is annoying. Yeah. I think the message that she was trying to articulate, and again, it's not just me who's saying that Rochelle Walensky, in terms of her job of communication, has been doing this. She actually sought out media training. So even I think she recognizes. From a Dem operative though. This is not perhaps her strength. But the message they're trying to communicate are basically like, look, if you're vaccinated

and you don't have four other comorbidities. Yeah, you're fine. You're good. I think that message should have been out there for a much longer period. But to the point of, you know, frustrations now with the CDC are sort of generalized across the population. Of course, everybody has sort of different gripes

with the way that they've handled this thing. But a real breaking point for liberals, I think, came when they changed pretty arbitrary, just randomly and arbitrarily, the guidelines around how long you're supposed to quarantine. And I think they were right to say, like, you just changed these guidelines because you got pressure from the business world. Now, I happen to think, and I think most of the population believes, that the revised guidelines and taking account, you know, society being able to function, I think those are reasonable things to do. But the fact that they just got pressure from the business community and then sort of like arbitrarily picked a number out of the hat of like five days with or without a test, that seems fine.

That broke a lot of faith among liberals who, again, have followed are just making this stuff up based on a whole competing set of political interests and business interests and your own sort of psychoanalysis of the population and what you think people are able to withstand. So that has led to even folks like Brian Stelter on CNN being pretty critical. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Oliver, you've been writing about some of this in the Reliable Sources newsletter. Here's a big, overly broad question for you, okay? Is the media at this point out of touch with the public about COVID? I think it's hard to argue that, you know, the media is a large group of people, but a lot of the media does seem, when I look at it and then travel the country, to be very out of touch with people.

I mean, if you travel the country, people are not really living in the same bubble that it seems that most of the media is messaging toward. And so, yeah. And so I think this is an issue because if people are tuning out what's going on in cable news, if we're not messaging toward the general population, you know, they're just, you know, ignoring everything and living their lives. And we're not really getting the information that they need to them. Here's a great example, I think, of how to cover this moment in time. Here's the Today Show. Here's Savannah Guthrie interviewing the CDC director, being very much in touch with the public, recognizing the CDC has turned into a punchline. It is so sad, but it's true. The CDC has turned into a punchline. What? The CDC has turned into a punchline. And then

he throws to a clip of Savannah Guthrie grilling the CDC director saying, look at these people are making fun of you. Don't you think that's a problem? So there has been a real breaking of faith, even among the sort of liberal faithful with the CDC. You're very right. And this is something I think that has been bubbling under the surface for some time, but is now at least exploding into the media sphere. My personal theory is just because Omicron was so infectious, these freaks finally were exposed and they're like, oh, it's not so bad. And no matter what I do, despite wiping down my groceries, nothing is going to happen.

Derek Thompson has a new piece, The Atlantic, let's put it up there on the screen, about the more and more Americans saying they are, quote, vaxxed and done. I've very much been in that category from the day that I got mine. And the reason why is that, look, the way we have discussions in this country is as if most of the country is not vaccinated, like half. 85% of U.S. adults have had one dose of the vaccine, vast majority of Americans. Like I've said, if you had a government policy, you told me 85% compliance, I would tell you that's one of the most successful government programs of all time. And yet nobody seems to discuss it. There is a wide swath of people out there. They're like, yeah, got the vaccine. Now I'm living the rest of my life. They've been doing that since what,

April, May. And yet the lagging in terms of the restrictions, bringing back the masks and all of that has just really reached a breaking point. And ha. And really what it was was Omicron because then it took away all of the case for, oh, the cloth masks. And they're like, oh, the cloth masks don't work. Oh, really? If they don't, then why have I been having to wear them? Why do I still have to wear one on an airplane?

Oh, vaccination does not necessarily do anything in terms of transmission. Oh, wait, what? All it does is provide you hospitalization and death. Not all does. It's still very important, but it's not like that's the way that we're talking in the media. Now we're learning about case counts. Same with schools.

Maskings there. It's like every single shibboleth that these people were abiding by has been struck down. And I think it's a good thing. But I want to say some of those things have changed in Omicron, which is a different variant. So for example, with Delta and with the previous variants, there was some protection against infection. It was not as much as was originally sold, but there was some protection even against infection. And then there was dramatic protection against hospitalization and death. With Omicron, I mean, we're still getting the numbers, but it doesn't really seem like the vaccine alone protects against getting Omicron at all.

Still protects, again, against severe illness and death. And actually, I have to say, I think I was a little bit wrong about the boosters because the data we're getting now shows that the only thing that does seem to protect against getting Omicron at all is having the booster. Now, you shouldn't take Pfizer's word for it, but that's what the independent research seems to indicate is that actually boosters are the one thing that does help to stop the spread in terms of Omicron. The numbers of people going to the hospitals who are there with COVID instead of because of COVID, those have also changed significantly because of Omicron. How do we know that? Well, because if we go back and look at hospitalizations and deaths from COVID, those track very closely. They spike at the same time as excess deaths in the population overall. So again, some of these things have changed because

of Omicron, but it's become increasingly clear that the CDC has not been upfront about some of these things and that a lot of their guidelines ultimately are arbitrary. So the five-day thing I think is a perfect example where, again, I do think you should take into account – I think our political leaders should take into account the strain on society, the ability to keep schools open, the ability to keep the workings of the government and society going. But for a health official to sort of arbitrarily just say, ah, five days, we're going to just change it to five days. And whether you have a test and whether you have symptoms or not, that I think has been, you know, pretty eye opening for a lot of people who were really following this closely. For me personally, when Fauci just randomly pulled out of a hat, the 10,000 case, remember that? Of course.

And Michael's like, 10,000 cases. Where'd you get that from? You almost know for certain that when it's like an easy round number like that, you just pull that out of your ass. And so there's a growing realization that that is the case as far as Derek Thompson's piece. And I think he always, you know, he's a very astute observer. Omicron has led to a divide among people who, you know, have been worried about the pandemic. People who have gotten vaccinated have, you know, been willing to take those precautions where, you know, you and I think are in the mainstream of public opinion and feeling like, all right, if you've gotten vaccinated, you're pretty good and we should do what we can to keep society going. That is overwhelmingly the mainstream opinion.

However, what you hear most online is the opposite. The fringe. You hear from, you know, the people who are, you hear a lot from the people who are extremely vaccine skeptical and absolutely no restrictions and just, you know, like, I don't care how much death there is. I would die rather than get the COVID jab. You hear that piece.

And then you hear the people who are like, no, we've got to lock down. We've got to close the schools again. We've got to have another lockdown. We've got to, you know, go in this direction. So those are the voices that are loudest and most strident. But, I mean, it's a huge majority of the population that feels like, all right, let's, if we got our vaccine and we feel like we're relatively protected, let's try to move forward. I completely agree. I think that's been

the center of gravity of the public opinion for probably the last six months. And now it even includes now mainstream opinion, or at least some. As you pointed to, mainstream media even turning on Ms. Walensky. Let's put this up there on the screen. Rochelle Walensky is not good at this from the Washington Post. So when you've lost CNN and you've lost The Washington Post, and these are the people who have been worshipping you for the last two years, you've gone and screwed up. And look, they've lost a lot of credibility.

I've pointed to those studies. The diabetes one was a complete bunk. I'm very glad that that was well-received yesterday. It got a wide amount of attention in some of the circles I've been trying to reach in terms of just like normal folks. I was really happy about that. The masks in schools and more, these things need to be more publicly aware. A lot of the CDC studies that they're pushing for the restrictions are not based in science whatsoever. And we need to keep pressuring them in order to release the real data around hospitalizations, around comorbidities, for all cause, as well as with

vaccination. Just give us everything and then people can make up their minds. Even without that, people generally. Yeah, there's only a few states that are even like releasing or maybe even tracking. That needs to be the national standard. Yeah, I totally agree. The more information that we have about what is going on at this phase in the pandemic, the more educated decisions that we can ultimately make about this. All right. Related very much to that discussion of the CDC and how people are feeling about it is new polling data showing what Americans' top priorities are for 2022 as opposed to 2021. Let's go ahead and throw this tear sheet up on the screen. The big headline here from the AP is inflation up, virus down as priorities in the U.S. And actually, I mean, listen, this is often the case.

The economy is the number one issue. The number of people who name COVID as a top issue of concern has fallen significantly year over year. Let's go ahead and throw this next tweet that we have up on the screen with some of the numbers. So you now have 37% who named the virus as one of their top five priorities. That is down from 53%. So last year it was a majority. Now it is, you know, not a majority, 37%. While 68% said the economy was a top priority. So that's almost 70 percent of Americans who view the economy as a top priority. The economy is always a top priority. But I think this dovetails with the conversation we had yesterday about how the Biden administration is really trying to spin this economy as great. And try to convince people through misleading charts and certain statistics that actually things are great in your life,

actually the economy is roaring, and, you know, don't believe what your experience is in your day-to-day life. Believe this super misleading chart that we put up in the White House. That's just not going to work, especially when you have, I mean, this really hits home. When people go to the grocery store and they see that their dollar doesn't go as far as it was. And they're having to make cutbacks and plan for that. And they feel very unsettled about the future. And part of why they feel unsettled is not just that reality, but the failure to project a vision, the failure to project that the Biden administration is in touch and cares about those concerns rather than just trying to write them off writ large. So very interesting data here.

I mean, if you turned it around, if the Biden administration handled this properly, you could see it as a win for Dems to say, look, people aren't as concerned about the pandemic anymore. But because they haven't shifted their footing to say, look, things are a lot better with the pandemic, and now we're going to focus on the economy in an aggressive way. Instead, this is sort of seen as a rebuke of Dems, where, you know, they're seen as being out of step and out of touch with the primary concerns that people have at this point. I completely agree. You know, what's really fascinating in this poll is to see not only where people are, but the differences from one year ago.

So as you said, there's been a minus 16 drop in the amount of people who care about COVID as their top priorities, dropped from in the mid 50s up down to 37. But the economy has actually remained static at 68. So it's not that people always cared more about COVID, it's that the differential between them has dropped dramatically. The other ones that are interesting that are increased in salience are immigration, not a good issue for the Biden administration. And then the only other, actually, that's literally the only one where there's been a dramatic increase there. I think gun violence was another one.

Well, gun issues. Gun issues. That's a very interesting way of phrasing it. That is an interesting way of phrasing it. It means a lot to whoever, from a one person Texas versus Connecticut, not exactly the same thing. But it seemed to me that those two things indicate, you know, the rise of these sort of like culture war type concerns. Oh, personal finances and cost of living. That was another one. But I guess you could loop that into the economy. The stuff that's been dropping is very interesting to me, too. Politics in general has been dropped in interest.

I think that's probably a good thing. Climate change, relatively static. Foreign policy, static. Education, static. Racism and racial inequality, nine-point drop from 2021. You know, I actually thought the education one was kind of interesting because there was a lot made of education in the Virginia race. I know. And then we both said at the time, this is not the real story.

The real story is, you know, people feeling bad about the economy and feeling like your promise to get us back to normal ultimately was a fraud. I think this helps to bolster that point that I'm sure there were some people who were motivated by education

on the margins in Virginia, but I think the bigger story of what's going on is in these economic areas. It's a very online GOP-based thing. Yes. And I've been trying to hammer this home to people. I'm like, look, I agree critical race theory is bad, but a lot of people just don't care whatsoever. And I'd point to the Dems too. Right now, the Biden administration is going all born on voting rights. People don't care, okay? Where is that on the list? And you can go after me, blah, blah, blah, if you want. People worry about the price of gas and the price of food and the fact that their kids are in school one day and then not in school the other day. It's actually pretty simple. to pair with this because I think this is very important. Record number of Democratic retirements.

And people were pointing there, Crystal, to Representative Ed Perlmutter. His district got redistricted. It was like a D plus 10. Now it's a D plus 3 in terms of the general average. And he's retiring, indicating there that it would be very, very difficult. So you just look at that long list, 26 incumbent Democrats who are retiring. Some of this is people because of redistricting and the shrinking number of districts and all of that. But a lot of that, and as we saw this in 2018, a lot of Republicans retired at that time too, simply to not have the indignity of losing their incumbent seat. It's a very interesting phenomenon.

Also, it's not just the fear of their own loss, but also being in the minority is not as much fun as being in the majority. So if you're someone who's actually interested in being involved in the mechanics of governing, I'm not saying that these people actually are, but it's a lot more fun to be in the majority, have more power, etc. If you were kind of thinking of retiring anyway, now is a good moment because then you are saved the potential indignity of losing your seat and you're saved from having to sort of sweat it out in the minority for a couple years. Yeah, I mean the house already, in my opinion, kind of sucks.

So to be a backbencher in the house and in the minority, that is a real indignity. That's rough. It's not fun. Having to show up to some like, what is it, committee on agricultural products, and then you don't even get to send a question or whatever because you are one of the minority members who gets two minutes, that is very grim. Personally, I'd like to see more of these people retire.

Yeah, I know. So the longer this list is. Yeah, let's keep going. Let's get some Republicans on that list. Let's go. Let's add Pelosi on that list. Why not? God, I know. I mean, she's so unbelievable. And some of these people, I mean, the other thing is, like, the Dem caucus is extremely old.

The Republican caucus is kind of old. The Dem caucus is way older. So some of these folks, it was time to hang up their hat. Absolutely. I just want to circle back to one thing, which is that the lack of the ability for the administration to understand that poll, which has been so self-evident now for some time, is just amazing. I mean, you even see, and they trotted out, I thought it was amazing in this piece, an interview with the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. And he was like, look, I get it, pandemic fatigue is real, but as a doctor, you know, what we have to do is go after the health

problems and try to continue to make people understand that this is a problem. And the White House actually is trying to do the layup, as you said. They're like, look, people are less concerned about COVID because of all the good stuff that we've done. I don't think anybody agrees with that whatsoever. So you both see an institutional failure on COVID and you have the lack of connection on the economy.

I was thinking about this. They rolled out their new personal testing plan. This is incredible. This is the biggest joke I've ever seen. You get eight tests a month that have to be reimbursed. If you buy a test- If you have insurance. Right, right. If you have insurance with, what is it, 30 million Americans don't? By the way, some tests are outside network. So insurance companies have to reimburse you up to $18 on those tests. It's a disease. It's like, what is this? This neoliberal brain disease.

They have to make everything so freaking complicated. Just give people tests. How complicated is that? Jesus Christ. I'm going to have to go buy. They say, I read the guy's system. Is it in network? Keep your receipt.

Send it in. Is it in network? Keep your receipt. Send it in. Is it in network? Is it out? We're going to incentivize them to do X and Y and Z. It's like, Jesus Christ, this isn't complicated. Just give people tests. This is like so emblematic of the neoliberal brain disease that makes everything way more complicated and way less successful than it ultimately should be. Yeah, that was really super annoying. Good luck, folks. I can't wait.

We wanted to give you what I think is a really important update on what is going on in Afghanistan. And frankly, it's it's absolutely a disgrace. I want to put this Washington Post tear sheet up on the screen, and I want to read a little bit from this. It says, as Afghanistan's harsh winter sets in, many are forced to choose between food and warmth. They talk about this man, Mahmoud Iwaz. He's 28. He's a former tenant farmer, father of four. And he was listening one night to his one-year-old daughter coughing and wondering whether he should put his very last log on the fire that was resting in the corner. The pantry in the family's mud-walled home in West Kabul had only a few onions and potatoes. The stove was dark, too cold for his boys to go out and scavenge. So we reached for the log and started shaving off pieces. This country is in absolute crisis right now. Of a population of 39 million, nearly 23 million Afghans out of a population of 39 don't have enough to eat already.

Already. And winter is far from over yet. Many also lack solid shelter and money to heat their homes at night, forcing them to choose between food and fuel, creating additional potential for a full-fledged humanitarian disaster. I would say that this is already a full-fledged humanitarian disaster. And here's the thing, folks, we are extraordinarily complicit because the Biden administration, after pulling out of Afghanistan in a way to politically appear like, oh, they're tough on terror and they're tough on the Taliban, they froze that government's billions of dollars

in assets, which are mostly held in U.S. banks with the idea being, oh, we don't want to give money to terrorists. We don't want to give money to the Taliban. And I get that sentiment. But the consequence of that, and it's not all the U.S.'s fault, but we have a huge hand in this. The consequence of that is millions, millions of Afghans on the brink of starvation, children dying for lack of food, basic shelter and heat. This is pure insanity. And the other part of this is that the media, which when Biden ended the war, when they were so distraught about Afghan civilians and the women and the girls, et cetera, et cetera, they have barely said a word about any of this that is going on. And it's very clear what's happening here. When it came to ending the war, that was a threat to the profits of all the military industrial complex ghouls who they would invite

onto their shows to pretend like they cared. Unfreezing the Taliban, the Afghan government's own money that doesn't have any profit margin at stake for Raytheon or Northrop Grumman or any of these people. And so they don't say anything about it. They don't care. And it really exposes the game of why the media pretended to care and that it exposes how hollow and shallow their pretend protestations and concerns for these people were. And it also exposes, I mean, the Biden administration freezing this $9.4 billion in Afghan government assets is truly creating a massive humanitarian disaster that could kill even more Afghan civilians than were killed during our 20 years of war. So it is an abhorrent situation. I do want to say, they said this morning they're

going to give like $380 million in aid, something like that. It's better than nothing, but it is wildly insufficient for what the need is right now. And let me just say one final thing on this. Even if you don't care about Afghan civilians, you don't think this is going to fuel extremism? You know, if the thing you're worried about is terror, you don't think that this sort of, you know, despair and extreme need and want and pain is going to fuel extremism. It's also going to trigger yet another U.S.-sparked refugee crisis in Europe. So even if you don't care about the plight of these individuals, you should care a lot about the safety and security implications for all of us. No, I think on the media front, I can't emphasize that enough,

which is that, and look, a lot of people were played in terms of people tried to manipulate your good-hearted emotions to say, oh, this is why we got to stay in Afghanistan. This is why we – Biden should have stayed in for another five years because pulling out of a war always goes super smoothly, and everybody became an amateur tactician on how they would have defended the city of Kabul because they're 100 percent great generals. Look, it was all scam.

It was all in order to cover up for the fact that they wanted to stay forever. A lot of that part was money. And they used a lot of these Afghan civilians as pawns. They didn't actually ever care about the civilian casualties. People will never tell you that the year before we left was actually the deadliest year ever for Afghan civilians who were caught in the crosshairs of the civil war and of a corrupt government that decided not to fight for their own people and flee. And apparently now we're bankrolling those folks over here. I say we should kick them the hell out of the country and they can go and face whatever they want in Afghanistan. This is the biggest problem right now. 23 million people are facing hunger and famine.

As you said, refugee crisis. A lot of these Afghans were already flying to Germany, Berlin, Romania, Hungary, all that stuff, which triggers domestic political crises in those countries. Pakistan is the same thing. They have a massive refugee problem over there. Then, you know, in terms of just the actual security situation, it deteriorates. If our long-term interest in Afghanistan per the Biden administration was the decline of the Taliban regime and the emergence of an Afghan democratic republic. This is probably the last thing on earth that would help that situation. If anything, it strengthens the Taliban's hand and say, look, they are not letting us help you. So what are they going to do? This is just a perfect view into the fact that there's no

cable news segments about this. There's no very emotional guys on Instagram being like, this is, you know, shows the failure, blah, blah, blah. No, it's just like one story. We were even alerted to it because Just Security, an organization here in DC, wrote up that piece where they were like, look, in this, you know, there's a massive Security Council problem here in terms of lack of funding and more. They don't care. Nobody ever cared about the Afghan civilians. They still won't.

$380 million is not going to do anything, especially if they allow it only to be administered by the UN World Food Program. Show me one thing that they've actually done successfully. And you know who else has been trying to call attention to this is Jeff Stein. And this isn't even his beat. But I think he got pulled in to sort of pinch hit on this story. And he's really been trying to sound the alarm bells. Just to put some numbers to it, there was an analysis of the evening news of ABC, NBC, and CBS. Since September, they have devoted six minutes of time to saying anything about this humanitarian crisis. Since September, six minutes. That's it. So when we say, you know, this isn't just us saying the media didn't care and they moved on and their whole like, oh, the Afghan

civilians thing was total bullshit. That is clearly evidenced by the programming choices that they've been making since the end of, you know, since we finally pulled out of that country. So it's truly disgraceful on every level. There were 40 House Democrats who called on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. They sent a letter calling on her to unfreeze Afghanistan's central bank reserves. Again, this is $9 billion plus held mostly in U.S. bank reserves. And I think this is really telling. They say the Biden administration has said that recognition and release of funds won't come until the Taliban form a, quote, inclusive government, guarantee the rights of minorities, women and girls, including full female education and sever all ties with terrorist groups,

including Al-Qaeda, that threaten the homeland. And look, the terrorist part, I totally get. But the inclusive part, I also, you know, extremely sympathetic to. But if you're a woman or girl in Afghanistan, what do you care more about? The percentage of parliament that has girls in it? Or whether you can eat and your child is going to die.

OK, something tells me that those concerns may be weighing a little bit more heavily on the minds of ordinary Afghans right now than having inclusive, you know, government with checking all the right boxes on diversity. Remind me, Crystal, do we have that same policy when it comes to the government of Saudi Arabia, a Wahhabist kingdom? I'm going to have to check. Do we have that same policy with Bahrain and Qatar

and Jordan and Egypt and a lot of other of our security partners in the Gulf? Yeah, no, because it's fake, okay? The Muslim countries, they can run their government

and their society however they want. How about do we even have that requirement for the Saudis when it comes to affiliating with terrorist groups? Yeah, yeah. Tell me again how many of the 9-11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.

I know it may sound bitter, but there's a lot of still settling up to do with some friends who have talked a lot, big game on Afghanistan. Not a single American has been killed by the Taliban who has tried to leave. I heard a lot about that, about, oh, their lives are in danger. Really? Not one of them has been killed yet. I'm not defending the Taliban. They killed a lot of American soldiers. But that concrete claim, not true. What about interpreters? Nope, there hasn't

been a mass slaughter and roundup of any American allies in Afghanistan. Hasn't happened. Taliban's now been in power for several months. Al Qaeda, not one report, and you know that they would, not one report of a substantive regrouping of Al-Qaeda within Afghanistan, high-level operatives, all of these people. Where is it, folks? I was told all of these things were going to materialize very quickly. And you know it didn't happen. Yeah, oh, yeah.

Now we get headlines. You think the CIA wouldn't be pumping that into the media and leaking it to The New York Times immediately if it wasn't happening? So, look, I think the simple truth is most of the people, especially on the right, you got straight up played with some absolute lies about what was happening there. And as usual, as I said from the top, nobody ever cared about the Afghans, all of that. They were used as pawns within these. The only people who benefited were the bosses in the Taliban who got filthy rich and the bosses in Afghanistan who we put in charge who also got filthy rich. The people who benefited, they live within about 20 to 30 miles of where we sit right now. The real victors are here. dollars richer with U.S. taxpayer dollars because of the 20 years that we spent there. And meanwhile,

23 million Afghans are starving when it is preventable. Right. Okay. Let's move on. Speaking of criminal cartels, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. This is a landmark report. I want to spend some time in terms of the details. Yale, Georgetown, and other top schools, according to a new lawsuit, illegally colluded to limit student financial aid. This is very important. 16 major universities are being sued for alleged antitrust violations because of the way that they work together to determine financial aid for rewards. Now, what they show is that lawsuits representing five former students shows that universities engage in price fixing and unfairly limited aid by using, and this is

the key thing, a shared methodology to calculate applicants' financial need. Schools are allowed to collaborate on some of their formulas, but only if they don't consider applicants' financial need in admissions decisions. And what they show is that the suit in the suit is that they do weigh a candidate's ability to pay in certain circumstances, and therefore that formula should not be exempt from the antitrust exemption. Why does this all matter? We all know that the price of school and the inflation in education costs outstrips almost anything else in American society except for healthcare costs. Now, why exactly is that? Well, whenever they can go and deny people financial aid, then they have a select group at the top as well who they can charge whatever they want, enriching their coffers, which then leads to their endowments, which have essentially become massive hedge funds at Harvard,

Yale, and all these other places. But even more important is this. By colluding in order to keep people outside of financial aid and artificially inflating their price, which is not connected whatsoever to the actual product that they deliver, what does that mean? They are knowingly putting their students in more and more debt. That's the worst part because they are not the guarantors or have any financial incentive whatsoever in the actual debt itself. So everybody's losing on both sides of the transaction. The debtors, right, who are not ever going to be able to get repaid back, the actual people who are taking out the loans themselves, and the people who are getting filthy rich are these colleges. And the 16 universities, in using the same formula, what they're doing is making sure that the less and less students that get financial aid, then the more that they can charge and that they continue to inflate their price in the future. I don't think I can

underscore enough how much of this is going to people like Harvard and Yale, who have endowments in the tens of billions of dollars, who are major investors and limited partners in venture capital funds and hedge funds. They are some of the biggest players on all of Wall Street. And nobody seems to understand that those endowments are not being used for the students. I saw some statistic where it was like Harvard could pay every one of its students' tuitions for like a thousand years or something like that with its current endowment. It's not for their beneficiary. They don't even build, you know, they can build enough fake new buildings all they want, and they're still becoming filthy rich on

the other side. And look, it's not like each person is making millions and millions of dollars, but they're using it to fund all sorts of extraneous DEI programs and all this other stuff there. It's becoming a permanent bureaucracy, which is all artificially subsidized by a fake system. So look, it's a criminal cartel. And what do you do with criminal cartels? You break them up and you tax the hell out of them. That's what we need to do here. Yeah, I mean, the reason these institutions are so important

is because they are the pipeline to society in America. And the fact that you have such a large percentage of folks who are going to the Ivy League who are already wealthy and such a very small percent that come from lower working class citizens. You know, that in and of itself means that you perpetuate the people who were doing well before. You funnel them through this pipeline and they're the ones who come out on top and run the country. So that's why these institutions matter more than most. As to the cartel situation here, so back in 94, Congress apparently passed this legislation giving them certain exemptions from antitrust violations, which I don't know why they did that to start with.

Actually, I have a good idea why they did that, corruption. But anyway, they give them these exemptions and say, all right, you guys can collude and price fix with regards to, you know, the financial aid offers that you're making to students. We're going to allow that, but it has to, right, which you shouldn't because what that means if you're a student, you're not going to get these schools to go into sort of like a bidding war to try to get you to come there because they've fixed the price. So you're on the short end of the stick there ultimately. So they said, okay, you can do that, but you have to make sure that you practice need blind admissions so that you're not taking into consideration whether a student is rich or poor when you're ultimately admitting them to the school. And what this lawsuit says is that they couldn't even abide by those rules.

Yes. That in certain circumstances, admissions are not need-blind. Specifically, lawyers said some of the schools consider financial need by giving an admission edge to children of wealthy donors. Some also weigh applicants' finances when admitting them off the waiting list and also look at finances in admission decisions to certain programs. So you got to carve out. You got to play, you know, your little cartel price-fixing games.

You got a legal carve-out from Congress in 1994. This lawsuit is saying is you could not even follow like they already are letting you engage in anti-competitive behavior and you couldn't even follow the basic guidelines of what we put in place for you. So, you know, I think there's a larger conversation here about the way that the rules don't apply to these elite institutions. They get special car vows for Congress. Even when they get those car vows, they still engage in what is effectively criminal behavior with very little ever accountability on this. Two things I also want to highlight. I didn't know this until I was researching this story. In 1991, all of the Ivy League were actually fined for participating in price fixing. And number two, in Congress, there is a law specifically that extends the antitrust exemption, which is set to expire in September unless Congress renews it. That's going to be interesting to follow. Exactly. I'm going to follow the hell out of this now that it's actually on my radar, which is that why should these people get that antitrust exemption? Somebody please tell me.

If they're allowed to collude on financial aid, I am almost always going to say that's never going to be for the benefit of the student, which is what all of our laws on this are supposed to be. I mean, so much of what's happened in the pandemic has been so revealing to this. These people treat their students like cattle. I mean, literally in Yale, they're not allowed to go out to eat in a restaurant, even outside in the city of New Haven. There is a mass just disillusion with a lot of these universities. But the universities know they can still continue to charge whatever the hell they want. They did an entire year of Zoom school. I know people who went to the Ivy League who were in law school and they are doing all of it online

and are still paying tens of thousands of dollars a month in order to attend these institutions, going into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. All of it is the elite credential itself. And when you have such an unfair system like that, in which this deck is really stacked against the people participating in, then what they can charge and not comes down to whether this is criminal. And we have seen now, you know, those Columbia University students, the film students going a hundred and something thousand, $170,000 in debt. The NYU student who we talked about here on the show who had to sell her eggs in order to make her debt payments. I saw some pushback. People were like, oh, they attended it. You know, they knew what they were doing. Look, doing look when you're 18 years old a hundred thousand dollars you have no idea what that even

means oftentimes you're talking about people who are making these decisions when they're 17 that's what i mean i mean their brains are not fully developed like you can't say that they knew what they were doing you might say yeah 300 grand you don't know what rent costs you don't know what like a car costs or what it means in order to just live. You don't know about taxes and payroll taxes and all that stuff, take-home pay versus what you actually are supposedly getting paid on paper. These are not decisions that we can say lightly that these students knew full and well what they were doing because that's not the case whatsoever. And the people who have made sure that they don't are these universities themselves. Yeah, that's right. And they also were sold a bill of goods about, you know, what the university experience was and all of those things.

So I think we deserve—they deserve some compassion about—they shouldn't be saddled with a lifetime full of unpayable debt. That is absolutely insane. I 100% agree with that. Okay, let's move on here. There's a real shot across the bow, both in a bipartisan way and then in a partisan one. And we'll start there with the Democratic Party. So let's put this up there on the screen. Senator John Ossoff of Georgia is going to snub Nancy Pelosi by introducing a bill which would ban ban stock trades, it actually would also stop conflicts of interest and make it illegal for lawmakers and their families to trade stock while in office.

Now, no Senate Republicans have yet signed onto the bill. I am calling on a Senate Republican in order to sign onto this. I know it won't make any of your colleagues happy, but that's what it's all about if you actually want to serve the people. Yeah, do it to stick it to Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, seriously. Actually, framing it in that way is probably the best way to get some sort of Republican to sign up on this. Look, we now know that the Stock Act is woefully inadequate. It only requires them in order to report trades. Unusual Wales, who is a great account who Crystal and I both follow, just put out a new report on congressional stock trades. I actually think we need a little bit more time

to delve into it just because it came out yesterday. And we'll put that on the show on Thursday. And we will show you every member, the trades they made, how they beat the S&P 500. Only 53 hedge funds or whatever beat the S&P 500. Happens to be flurries of activity around major legislative events and Congress beat the market because they're just such trading geniuses, Agra. That's what it is. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I mean, look at these people and be like, I know you. You're an idiot. There's no way that you made money better than the guys on Wall Street. Something is going on here. And look, you see all of this. We see now effort by John Ossoff. I would say that this is one of those areas where without

the internet, this would not be happening. And it's because of the Stock Act. It's because of people like us and unusual whales, people on Twitter. I'm not giving us all the credit. I'm saying we're just a small part of this ecosystem. I'm trying to bring this to light, getting people in major public consciousness to talk about it, that people, our representatives, are saying, hey, the smart ones at least, there's a lot of energy around this online. I could use this to score political points for myself and make Congress less corrupt. And it just broke this morning that Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, is now floating if the House takes back the majority,

that to try to stick it to Nancy Pelosi, they will consider a ban on lawmakers holding and trading stock. Now, some of the details, it's still up in the air, but here's what they said. Planning is in early stages. One idea would be to force lawmakers to hold only professionally managed mutual funds. Another proposal is that it would bar lawmakers from holding stocks in companies or industries that

their committees oversee. Other members have advocated for mandatory blind trusts for lawmakers' holdings. Look, there are problems in all three of those, but any of them would be better than the status quo. If we could even get it to the blind trust, still, the fact that Nancy Pelosi and her husband are out there trading multi-million dollar deals in terms of options and more, hours before votes, that is just outrageous. So if we can at least crack down on that, it will be a victory. Look, I've been here for a long time. I know that this will probably never, ever come to pass. But a 10% improvement is still a 10% improvement.

And that's what I would like to see when it comes to this. Well, on the hopeful side, to your point about the Stock Act, which is obviously woefully insufficient, but it gave the tools for some folks online to really compellingly make this case about corruption and why it is so important to go a lot further. So in a way, it was potentially a gateway drug, at least to exposing the public and creating this heat that is now putting pressure on both Democrats and Republicans to change what is an obviously abhorrent situation. We covered here Stephanie Rule and Aaron Ross Sorkin being like, this is insane.

Why are they allowed to do that? I mean, when you've lost— Yeah, when you lost Park— Well, like, Wall Street Press. I lurk on Park Avenue. Also, one other update that came through is Richard Clared, I think is his last name, who's one of the Federal Reserve folks who was under fire for potential sort of corrupt training, resigned and stepped down. So again, another instance where the revelation of this behavior, the public pressure, the outrage online may have actually led to a real world result here.

So there's a lot to say about this. First of all, let's just marvel at the colossal failure of Democrats to give Republicans a lane to get to the left of them, to get to a better—left, right, forget about it—to get to a better place on corruption than where they ultimately are. We all remember some of this flurry of activity got kicked off by Nancy Pelosi's disgraceful comments justifying the current status quo with regards to our public servants and trading stocks. Let you have any reaction to that. And secondly, should members of Congress and their spouses be banned from trading individual stocks while serving in Congress? No, I don't know to this second one. Any, we have a responsibility to report in the stock on a stock, but I don't, I'm not familiar with that five-month review, but if people aren't reporting, they should be. Because this is a free market and people, we have a free market economy. They should be able to participate in that. Yeah, free market economy.

Should be able to participate in that. I mean, and that will be one of the questions. If McCarthy is serious, big if, and not just using this as a way to sort of, you know, posture, heading into the midterms, all of which are big ifs. One of the big questions will be whether the rules apply to spouses and family members. Because her husband is the main initiator of a lot of these trades. Exactly. And it's not just Pelosi. Actually, Ossoff, I mean, some of the commentary around him and Warnock both, partly they owe their seats in the Senate to the fact that both of their opponents were sort of caught, accused of pandemic insider trading.

Neither was found guilty or charged, et cetera, et cetera. But there was a lot of public consternation about some of the trades that these individuals— David Perdue had huge and huge trades. Loeffler did, too. Right, exactly. They both did. So that was actually a really important part of both their campaigns. this is true or not, potentially Ossoff and Warnock feel like they owe their position in Congress to, you know, exposing the wrongdoing and corruption of certain members of Congress.

It created a situation where, you know, people are kind of posturing to get to the right place on this issue, some. So it's a little bit of encouraging bipartisan potential possible progress. At least some of them are saying the right things at this point. Yeah, that's right. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, I've been saying for a while that a major problem for Joe Biden is that even if he wanted to forcefully make the case for a particular policy or particular vision, I just wasn't really sure he was up to that task. He's definitely lost some pep in his steps since the days when he was mopping the floor

with GOP wunderkind Paul Ryan in the vice presidential debate. But last week, he kind of proved me wrong. On January 6th, he did in fact deliver a forceful and effective speech. Take a listen. He's not just a former president. He's a defeated former president. Defeated by a margin of over 7 million of your votes in a full and free and fair election. There is simply zero proof the election results were inaccurate.

Watching that, I could not help but think, where is this energy on literally anything else? If you can muster this type of stirring rebuke of Trump's actions on January 6th, then surely, theoretically, you could muster this type of channeled outrage at the greedy corporations raising prices, or the sold-out politicians blocking wage increases for working-class people, or the pharmaceutical giants charging Americans triple what the rest of the world pays for the very same drugs. It's not, apparently, that Biden is unable to do these things. He's just willing. And turns out, I'm not the only one who is frustrated and disgusted by some of these failures. The junior senator from Vermont, one Bernie Sanders, he's had it too, lashing out at the Biden administration and the Democratic Party in a new interview with Stephen Greenhouse.

He tells Greenhouse, quote, we have tried a strategy over the last several months which has been mostly backdoor negotiations with a handful of senators. It hasn't succeeded on Build Back Better or on voting rights. It has demoralized millions of Americans. Now, this is striking because Senator Sanders was actually a central part of that backdoor negotiation strategy for Build Back Better as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Senator Sanders played a key role in crafting the initial legislation there. And as the leader of the progressive movement, Bernie also played an even more critical role in getting progressives on board with the White House's strategy of breaking Build Back Better apart from the bipartisan infrastructure deal.

Now, Bernie was always clear he didn't like that direction, but he did accept it. And he brought the squad and other progressives along with a promise that the two pieces of legislation would ultimately pass in tandem. He promised that, of course, was broken and a strategy that fell apart when nearly all progressives caved to media and leadership pressure and passed the bipartisan infrastructure deal. In other words, Bernie played the good soldier for the Biden admin. He stayed on script, not saying things that might upset the apple cart with Manchin or Sinema, and ultimately, it didn't work. It was a failed strategy for Biden, and it was a failed strategy for Bernie and the progressives, too. These new remarks seem like an

opening salvo in a more pointed critique of the party, especially because they don't actually come in isolation. In addition to trashing the Biden administration strategy, Bernie trashed the direction of the Democratic Party writ large. He told Stephen Greenhouse in that interview, quote, it is no great secret that the Republican Party is winning more and more support from working people. It's not because the Republican Party has anything to say to them. It's because in too many ways, the Democratic Party has turned its back on the working class. Even more striking, in my opinion, was Bernie's statement on January 6th. He said what he needed to say about the general awfulness of that day. But he also dared to suggest that

Democrats and Republicans both shared some blame for leading the country to such a horrendous place. Quote, over and over again, people in this country see the very rich become much richer while politicians and the corporate media ignore the collapse of middle class and the painful realities facing working families. He continued, Democrat or Republican, who cares? Nothing changes, or if it does, it's usually for the worst. Okay, so he's saying the right stuff. But what does it matter? The inept corporate wing of the Democratic Party is all the power, all the mainstream media organs. Bernie has proven himself to only be willing to go so far when it comes to criticizing Joe Biden personally.

But he does still matter for progressives in a big way. He does still set the tone, both for elected squad members and for a lot of lefties on the outside. And he's just created a permission structure for some of the less courageous voices on that side of the aisle to criticize the party and the president. It's no accident that this comes at the very same time that progressives are starting to suggest to journalists that they may just mount a primary challenge of Joe Biden. I recently highlighted this article from Politico's Holly Otterbein, who is well-sourced on the left. The piece suggests Nina Turner or Marianne Williamson could primary Biden include some pretty bombastic quotes from former Bernie campaign manager Jeff Weaver and from former AOC aide Corbyn Trent. As the piece notes, don't expect such a challenge to come from a current elected, but from someone on the outside, someone with some real spine and courage.

Failure of the elected left's play nice strategy is just as clear as the failure of the Biden admin's backdoor strategy. At the very least, Bernie's comments and increasing agitation are a sign that they have noticed that. Now, will they actually do anything different? Will they enter the second year of the Biden admin still satisfied with Ron Klain liking their tweets, content with having more cocktail party invites and having more fun in D.C.? Gesturing at the party's failures is a step in the right direction. Making some noise about a primary challenge? That's a good start. But talk is cheap.

Things will get interesting if they lean into their divides with the Dems on corruption, on curbing corporate greed, on universal programs as opposed to neoliberal means testing. Name and shame them. Force votes and yeah, bring on the primary. Let's see where this goes. What did you make of Bernie's comments? Because it's definitely a different tone from what we've heard from him. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, it can always get worse. That is the ironclad rule of following the corporate media. Despite the fact that CNN, Fox, and MSNBC collectively have seen a nearly one-third drop in ratings since the beginning of the Biden presidency, they continue to double down on hate-mongering content, which has no purpose but to balkanize the American public. All three announced programming updates yesterday, signifying which direction they're going in, in the spiral to the bottom. And each actually bears some analysis for all of us. So let's review. Starting with MSNBC, perhaps the worst personnel

update, Simone Sanders, after a failed stint trying to convince the American public that Kamala Harris has anything to say, is joining the liberal network, not only with her very own weekend show, but with an exclusive streaming show on Peacock that will air every day. That's right, while you use Peacock to watch The Office for the 9,000th time, they want to try and trick you into watching brain-dead identity politics hour every day. It really is stunning to me that with the rise of independent media, with the clear and present danger that YouTube and other independent platforms pose to these news organizations with younger people, that they continue to look at a clear political hack like Simone Sanders and they go, yeah, you know what kids want? It's that.

Now, least of all is the hypocrisy. How many times did we hear under Trump that Fox was state TV when Sarah Sanders joined Fox or Kayleigh McEnany? It was gross insiderism that MSNBC would rail and rail about. But now they literally hire someone straight out of the White House comm shop and their criticism is nowhere to be found. Hypocrisy is an understatement. It underscores now that while they might be correct sometimes in their criticism of Fox News and its proximity to the Trump campaign, the Trump White House, the RNala Harris from a single critical question from Charlemagne in their most recent interview, where she claimed that they couldn't hear him ask who the real president was and then tried to cut the interview short. Let's relive that moment, just for good measure. Who's the superhero that's going to speak against Joe Manchin?

No. I want to know who's the real president of this country. Is it Joe Biden or Joe Manchin? She can hear me. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me, Madam Vice President? They're acting like they can't hear me. I can hear you. Oh, so who's the real... I can hear you. There is no universe in which someone like that,

whose former job was to be a paid propagandist for the current administration, could be charged in any way by a news organization to tell anyone what's going on. But that's where we are. It's no surprise, really. Over at CNN, it's just as bleak, but for different reasons. CNN announced that the former host of NPR's All Things Considered, Audie Cornish, is joining CNN+, where she will host a weekly show, a podcast,

and occasionally appear on the main channel. Once again, I actually ask this with respect for NPR, or at least the product that they had before they used it to go woke. Who would pay to actually watch a worse version of All Things Considered on a crappy streaming channel that isn't even allowed to give you the news? The dirty secret of CNN and MSNBC streaming platforms is they are not allowed to deliver any of the stuff that makes cable news even worth watching in the first place. Live news, live shots of the Capitol, or storm being stormed, BLM riots, 9-11. That stuff is reserved for cable, and it will be for a decade or more

due to lucrative contracts that they signed a long time ago with the cable companies, and from which they derive the majority of their revenue. Finally, though, there is Fox. After a long and tortured search for the host of the 7 p.m. hour on Fox News, they decided they were going to replace a straight news show with Jesse Waters. Waters is perhaps best known in America for his sojourn into Chinatown in Manhattan of 2016 to ridicule old Chinese people. But to me, his most recent admission on the air is the most problematic. Let's take a listen.

But do I feel sorry for Joe Biden? No. I work at Fox. I want to see disarray on the left. It's good for America. It's good for our ratings. That was a week ago. It's a really gross admission. The worse things are for the country, the better for Fox. The better for him. And I guess the better for his primetime show. I can't stand Joe Biden, and we cover him critically all the time, as I hoped for Trump, Obama, and even Bush before that. I still wanted the country to do well. That's what being patriotic really means. It's what gives away the whole game here. They don't care about you, and they don't

care about information. They care about making money and ripping everybody apart. Each individual network is looking at the things that we are doing here and what so many others are doing in this space. And they are trying to bamboozle you with their familiar bag of tricks to stay relevant. And as I've said before, that probably won't work in an actually free market. But we're not dumb. That's not what we're dealing with here. That's the thing that we need to realize. As it comes out that Simone Sanders' show will be a massive flop and CNN Plus is likely to be one of the dumbest and most obviously failed projects in modern TV history, it won't matter. They will prop them up with fake news from their legacy operations. They'll dial up censorship calls to 11.

Already, I see the ground laid. The New York Times just ran that piece days ago about how misinformation is skyrocketing on the podcast format. The implication is obvious. The RSS feed has to be censored. We cannot have pesky podcasters doing whatever they want. The dream of the free and open internet has not been alive for a long time. But the real war is still coming. Because as soon as reality hits these idiots in the face, they will come for all of us. Personally, I'm geared up and I'm ready for it. But be aware as a consumer, it is going to be an existential battle for actual truth. That's the thing I continue to think here, Crystal. I mean, Simone Sanders, streaming show? Yeah, that's what the kids want. Like, let's take...

And if you want to hear my reaction to Cyber's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now, great friend of the show, Rachel Bovard. She's here to talk about all things tech. Rachel, it's good to see you. Great to be back. Great to see you, Rach. All right, Rach, so you're bringing on for our favorite role, which is let's go after the tools in Congress.

Let's put this up there on the screen. Dan Crenshaw, he's got a new Section 230 bill. This came a little bit to light within the Republicans when Marjorie Taylor Greene was banned from Twitter. Just give us some of the breakdown here about what Dan Crenshaw says he wants to do about big tech and why he's mostly full of it. Yeah, so this came in the wake of Marjorie Taylor Greene being banned from Twitter, but also in the wake of this weird feud that was going on between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Dan Crenshaw. And, you know, as a result of this feud and her banning, Dan Crenshaw says, well, Marjorie, look, I'm a serious member of Congress. I'm legislating on this issue and here's my legislation that will prevent you from being banned from Twitter. The problem, of course,

is that that's not what his legislation does. And to make it worse, it's almost like this is a bill the Republicans would have put out like three or four years ago when they were still trying to figure out like how exactly tech censorship worked or Section 230. So it's kind of an embarrassing effort. So start from the basics of for people who don't understand, what is Section 230? Why are people so obsessed with it? And what does Crenshaw's bill purport to do? Yes. So Section 230 is this very tiny provision of law passed in as part of a larger telecommunications bill in 1996, designed to do one thing, and that is to get porn off the internet. That is all it

was designed to do, was to clean up the internet, essentially by giving these tech companies- Well, that works like a job. Yeah, it obviously works, yeah. But it's designed to help solve the moderator's dilemma, right? Which is how do you incentivize these companies to take down content? No one actually wants to see. It's not just porn. It's like harassing, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, all defined in the law, you know, without making them liable for it. And so it gave them a big sort of bulletproof shield from third-party liability. So whatever users post, the companies can't be sued for it. Now, over the course of decades, what actually was a porous

liability, it was meant to be fairly contained, has been contorted by the courts into this insane bulletproof liability that protects them from all kinds of things, including hosting sex traffickers online. You know, they will now argue in court, Facebook actually just made this argument in the Supreme Court of Texas that, oh, you know, we know that these kids were trafficked into sex slavery, these 14 and 15-year-old girls, but we're not liable for that. That's their problem. And so there's a lot of focus on this issue from the right and the left, but primarily from where the right sits, you know, their biggest concern with

tech is censorship. They feel like their voices are being shut down. And so naturally from where the right sits, they look at Section 230 and they say, oh, this is a benefit that's being given to these companies by the government. We should then be able to put criteria or layer criteria into this benefit. That's sort of a very conservative way of thinking about things. If I can frame this, the idea is, tell me if I'm right or wrong about this, the idea is since you're receiving this benefit with the understanding that you're just a neutral platform, you're not performing the functions of a traditional publisher picking and choosing what viewpoints are represented, those are the circumstances under which you've been granted this benefit and you all aren't playing by those rules. Is that kind

of the idea? Yeah, that's how the right tends to view it. Now, people will nitpick at you and say, well, the word's neutral and platformer, not in the law and all, and you'll get into these like, make you want to bang your head against the wall, kind of like tedious wordsmithing. But that's generally how the right views it. They say, we should have a role here because this is a benefit the government created, right? This isn't the government sort of meddling in business. It's just sort of tweaking a benefit they already receive. Got it. And so let's get into the Crenshaw bill because I would say that Crenshaw's bill is probably what, mainstream of the actual Republican legislator, not necessarily the

base. What exactly does he claim that he wants to do about it? So he claims that he says this will ban all political censorship because it will limit, you know, what the benefit is at the end of the day. So if you are going to receive Section 230, you cannot censor on, I think it was like, religious, political, sexual identity, like all that he lists this criteria.

And then he, but then, and this is a hang-up that a lot of Section 230 bills have, he says, but they can censor. They can do whatever they want as long as they clearly list it in their terms of service. And, you know, this is kind of the hang-up for people because Republicans say, well, they've made it clear. But nobody reads the terms of service, right? How many times do you just click through all those shrink-wrap agreements? You don't actually read them.

And so at the end of the day, his bill doesn't actually prohibit this, as long as the companies are just going to be straightforward about what they are going to do. And they're very shameless in how they ban people anyway. So you think they'll probably just be shameless in their terms. Oh, we see it all the time. Yeah. And there's like very limited enforcement mechanisms. He does, interestingly, rely on an enforcement mechanism at the FTC, made popular on the right by Senator Josh Hawley. But a lot of conservatives are like, oh, no, Josh Hawley, we can't do that. Dan Crenshaw does that. But then he also preempts any state efforts to actually legislate on this issue, which right now you're

seeing various states iterate on this question from, you know, most famously Texas and Florida are in the courts right now. Big tech hates that. Like Google hates that. And so Dan Crenshaw is like, yeah, we'll give tech a pass from state efforts. That's important. Does this bill have legs? Is it popular within the Republican caucus? Is this something that they will likely move on if slash when they take the majority? So this was one of the really interesting things about this bill. And what actually prompted me to write the piece itself was that Dan Crenshaw didn't write this bill. The bill he posted, both the file path and where it was hosted, was on the Energy and Commerce website.

So Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans drafted this bill as part of a, they say, larger package of reforms they intend to introduce should they take the majority to address Section 230. And that's housed within their jurisdiction. Now, that is okay, but I don't think this is a bill that they necessarily should be proud of. And I think it's kind of hilarious that Crenshaw's claiming credit for work he didn't do after claiming to be the responsible legislator. Yeah, the responsible legislator. Of course, he's always, that's what he likes to do. He always likes to talk down about populism as if he's some sort of genius. I think he recently said that anybody opposed to

forever war is not a serious person. That's pretty much a direct quote from him. The reason, though, that I do want to talk about this, too, is because if there is, the GOP says there's going to be a big governing agenda. And we were making fun of, before the segment, Kevin McCarthy put out a statement. He's like, if we retake power, we're going to do a parents' bill of rights, energy independence, and create jobs.

And as you so aptly put, you were like, hey, 2008 called and wants his talking points back. But I also remember like George W. Bush talking this way. So you recently put this out there. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is that Americans are threatened by public health, corporate state tyranny, out-of-control tech companies, the rise of China, university and public schools teaching racism, deindustrialization, precarious middle class economics. And the GOP is like, no, wait, seriously, energy independence. So is this bill kind of a preview of what is likely to come out of the Republican-controlled Congress? Do you have any hope? Is this bill kind of a preview of what is likely to come out of the Republican-controlled Congress? Do you have any, like, hope?

Like, what are you seeing, given that a sweep is very likely next year? Yeah, it's depressing. I mean, we're white-knuckle ride here at this point, like, hoping that they do something better than this. But, yeah, it's this sort of regressing back to the mean. It's almost like Donald Trump never even happened. I mean, right after Donald Trump, you know, lost his reelect, you remember there were all these think pieces, right, on the Republican side that were like, oh, a, you know, pan-ethnic working class, you know, a culture-focused GOP, you know, working class economics, we can do this. And it's like, hello? Did Kevin McCarthy read any of that? Because again, you know, what they- The answer is no, actually.

We're just going to say working class more. Right. Like, exactly. We'll just, like, wave the flag around the Keystone Pipeline and say it's working class because that is essentially what this is. And, like, I come back to this idea of the Keystone Pipeline because it is this, like, the shiniest, most blinding object in Republican politics. This idea that, you know, it doesn't have to just be energy independence, but you take one thing that really makes no bit of difference and you rally the troops around it to say you're doing something. That is what his entire statement says to me. And, you know, on the tech side, it's kind of the same thing. It's like you sort of wave a flag that you're doing something

without actually doing something. And, you know, the Crenshaw bill isn't, I hope, not representative of the entire sort of agenda. You're seeing bills from other members that I think are a little bit more promising. But that's all on the Section 230 side, which if you've watched the tech debate is such a reason. It's because it's very comfortable for their donors and their social circle. Like the mean is a place where it's comfortable to live. And since he made his movement all about like just personal loyalty to him and what you're willing to say about stop the steal, then they were free to do whatever they wanted. That was sort of favor, continues to be favorable to corporate interests without facing any sort of political consequences for that. As long as you say the right words about Trump, the man himself, then you're being true to Trumpism and that's that. Yeah, it really has let them take a pass. And I think it's really disappointing because some of the things that Donald Trump did that people didn't even really talk about at the

time were a roadmap, I think, for where the Republican Party could go. I'm thinking specifically of how he engaged on Medicare Part D drug pricing, how he put in a small but present tax on some of those university endowments, you know, how he really, you know, tried to go after insurance companies in some certain ways. Like this, that's the work the Republican Party needs to be doing. Yeah. But then it says everything that that small tax on university endowments comes in the context of a gigantic giveaway to corporate. Of course. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's how it says it all, right? We're talking baby steps. We're not talking like, you know, the Muhammad moving the mountain. But like, that was a big shift, you know, for a Republican

administration. And, you know, if you look at, if you want to create energy around those things and move the party forward on those things, you're just not seeing it. And I think it's a real disappointment. If Kevin McCarthy thinks that, you know, that agenda is going to win him a sustainable majority, this is what always happens. It's like Republicans think they're winning because they're great and not realizing they're winning because Democrats are imploding. And they have to have something more than just like a 2008 or someone pointed out to me more of a 1986 style. I mean, it's been fairly consistent for all of our time. So you can really pick any year.

It really is regressing to the mean. My last question, Rachel, you would know a lot better than me. What is the thinking amongst the people who are around Trump whenever it comes to all of this? Trump himself, look, the energy is all on stop the steal. But as we've discovered in the White House, the people around him matter a lot more than the man himself. Do they see, you know, the problems with Kevin McCarthy? Are they down with it? Are they ambivalent? Kind of where is the actual ecosystem around Trump, the man himself? What do they think? I think that everyone at this point, my sense is there is not any focus on the policy particulars.

Like it is much more, I mean, it's politics and it's egos and it's, you know, all the things that I think were really distracting about the Trump administration in the first place. That is just like turned up to 11. Yeah. Okay. So. All right. Well, hopeful note here. We can end on.

Thank you, Rachel. We always appreciate your insight, all that. We'll have links down there in the description. And you're, of course, welcome back here on the show anytime. Thanks, guys. Thank you guys so much for watching. We always appreciate your insight and all that. We'll have links down there in the description. And you're, of course, welcome back here on the show anytime. Thanks, guys. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. Thank you all for your support.

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