Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/1/22: Midterm Polls, Ukraine Aid, Affirmative Action, Pelosi Attack, Elon's Twitter Plans, CNN Decline, & More!

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Krystal and Saagar cover the midterm polls, Ukraine military aid, Vine possibly returning, affirmative action, Pelosi attack, Twitter's business model, cable news' managed decline, & Biden's failed booster rollout!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/Vinay Prasad: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/ https://sensiblemed.substack.com/ https://www.plenarysessionpodcast.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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a new, better, healthier, and more trustworthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points premium member today at BreakingPoints.com. Your hard-earned money is going to help us build for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for? today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. A lot to get to this morning. First of all, the poll that we teased relentlessly yesterday. The New York Times, their last look at the Senate races headed into Election Day. Some favorable numbers for Democrats. But recall, last time around, New Election Day. Some favorable numbers for Democrats. But recall, last time around, New York Times had some favorable numbers for Democrats in 2020 that

didn't exactly pan out. So we'll get into all of that. Also, we have some updates out of Ukraine. Zelensky concerned about the Republican positioning in terms of not just military aid, but specifically continued economic aid to that country. So we'll break that down for you. New insights into potential plans from Elon Musk and Twitter. Maybe bringing back Vine. Interesting move. It's happening, people. It's happening. Actually, my daughter, when she was little, she loved Vine. Vine was cool. We'll get into it. Yeah, absolutely. There's also, it looks like affirmative action is kind of on its last legs.

Arguments in front of the Supreme Court yesterday, the conservative majority seemed very skeptical of its continued constitutionality. So we'll break that down for you. And we have even more details about the Paul Pelosi hammer attack. The accused assailant himself spoke yesterday. We have some details that are quite shocking, in fact. So we'll get into all of that. Sagar is looking further at Twitter and their business model and some potential trouble ahead. I'm taking a look at cable news and their business model and whether they are dying or

already dead. We also have Dr. Vinay Prasad on to give us an update on vaccines. But we wanted to start with the midterms as we are coming down the stretch here next week, Tuesday. It's happening. It's already upon us. So this is The New York Times' last look at the key Senate battleground races. Let's put this up on the screen and you can see what the overall numbers are here in Arizona. That is where the Democrats, according to this New York Times-Siena poll, have the largest lead, plus six for Mark Kelly over Blake Masters. John Fetterman, according to them, still holding on to a decent lead here. It says plus six, but in my—I think I'm doing the math right when I say 49 minus 44 is five.

Then we have Warnock and Walker, 49-46, so that is plus three for the Dem. Cortez Masto and Laxalt in Nevada, that one they have even. So pretty close, but much more, slightly more favorable numbers for Democrats than we have been seeing recently. If you dig into this poll, go ahead and put the next tear sheet up on the screen. This is their write-up of it. They say, and I think this is an accurate assessment of kind of where we are, Senate control hinges on neck-and-neck races. The contests are close in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Many voters want Republicans to flip the Senate, but they prefer the Democrat in their state. And that's that macro-micro dynamic that we've been talking about

the whole time. If you look at the macro numbers, if you look at the economy, if you look at how people feel about the economy, if you look at Biden's approval rating, if you look about at right track, wrong track, if you look like we did yesterday at these key battleground states, these candidates, the Republican side, are upside down in terms of approval ratings. So people don't really like the candidates. Overall, they prefer Republican control. Which thing ends up winning out? They break down a few of these races in a way that is pretty interesting. So the Mark Kelly in Arizona beating Mr. Biden's approval rating by 15 points, winning nearly one quarter of the people who disapprove of Mr. Biden's job performance in the state. All of these candidates are actually outpacing Biden on his approval rating. So

there's a question, you know, is that sustainable? Can that really hold when it comes to election day? In Georgia, you have questions about the character of Herschel Walker. Nearly half of all Georgia voters view Warnock as more honest and trustworthy, while only 37 percent of voters rate Mr. Walker the same. So, again, on this question of candidate quality, is that the factor that ultimately determines the race in Georgia or is it these big top line numbers? And in Arizona, there was one thing that was a little bit unique about the race there and potentially why Mark Kelly is actually doing better than the other Democratic candidates, according to this poll and actually a lot of other polls. In every other single one of these states, voters say that the economy is the most important issue. In Arizona alone, cultural issues have a slight edge over the economy. And there have been some fierce battles in that state over

what the future of reproductive rights are going to be there. So it kind of makes sense that that would have additional resonance in that state. And I think that's a big part of why you see Mark Kelly doing pretty well against Blake Masters pretty consistently in polls. Mark Kelly is a strong candidate. I mean, you know, he doesn't keep a national profile. He actually speaks out against Biden on the border almost consistently in every single time that he does give a speech and in the debate. So look, I mean, that's what individuality and regionality can give you. I think it will be the true and ultimate test of quote unquote candidate quality versus national trends. I do think,

though, that we owe it to people to just show you that this poll, exact one in 2020, was not the most accurate thing. So let's go ahead and put the next thing up there on the screen. So you can see here, this is the New York Times Siena poll from basically the exact same time period, October 26th to 31st of 2020. So for the presidential election in Pennsylvania, the Times had Biden at six points up, the election margin, Biden won by 1.2. So that's a miss of 4.8, which means that if you were to factor in the exact same thing, that the same poll is tied between Fetterman and House. Right. Fetterman is up five right now in their poll, and they had basically a five-point miss last time around. So as tight as it could be.

50-50. All right, so Senate in Arizona, same, actually, exact same candidate, Mark Kelly. So we could presume a little bit there. Mark Kelly was up by seven, according to the New York Times. He won by 2.3 with a 4.7% miss, which means it's effectively tied in that. I guess Kelly would get there. A little bit of an edge. I mean, if you look at Nevada, they had Biden up by six, Biden won by 2.4.

So that means it's a 3.6% miss, which actually, that means that Laxalt, if you factor in the same thing, would be winning. And actually, some of the details that I looked at, Crystal, and I know it gets sketchy in terms of who gets polled and whether they're overweighted or not. Let's just assume this, which we have. The Siena and the Times have not made any major changes to their methodology from 2020. Right. From what I read. Which is the information that we have available. That's what we have available to us. Well, then I would presume that the mist would be relatively consistent with 2020 and with 2016. So when you consider that, I would probably be the Republican candidate in every single one of these races. Just except maybe in Pennsylvania. I would say except Arizona. See, I don't know. I think

Pennsylvania is tighter. Well, Arizona, I mean, first of all, Kelly has a larger margin, and the Miss was about the same as Pennsylvania, but he does have a little bit of a larger margin. I think one thing that is interesting about Arizona, like I was saying, is that the social cultural issues seem to be weighing more heavily on voters there than in other places. And Mark Kelly was the only one of the Democratic candidates in any of these Senate contests who is actually winning voters without a college degree. So he sort of stands alone on that metric. And then Blake Masters, as we covered previously, who's obviously the Republican nominee, he said some really extreme out there things on abortion during the primary that he's since tried to soft pedal and walk back. But I mean, you know, he already said

it is being run in ads. And so if social cultural issues are more of a factor there than they are in other states, it makes sense to me that Mark Kelly would be in a slightly better position than some of these other candidates. And then when you add to that, he has a very solid identity and persona in the state. People have known him for a long time. So he has high favorability ratings. Blake Masters has low favorability ratings. So I think that one is probably the best bet for Democrats. There was interesting news, though, this morning. The Libertarian candidate dropped out and actually endorsed Blake Masters. I did a podcast with him.

He was only polling at like 2% or 3%. Yeah, but if it's close, it could make a difference. It could certainly make a difference. So that was one in his favor. At the same time, there was that other independent candidate in Pennsylvania who also was polling at like 1% or 2%, something like that, who dropped out and endorsed John Fetterman. So again, when it's 50-50, it's a game of literally of inches. So you never know who exactly is going to pull this out and whether those things could make the difference. But it does also eliminate any future case of like spoiler or anything. It's like, no,

this is a true up and down contest in both. Let's find out. It'll be fun. I feel like Republicans don't whine about that shit the way the Democrats do. Yeah, you're definitely correct. Well, I don't know. I'm trying to think. Yeah, you know, you're right. I think that there are states- I really can't think of Republicans like complaining about spoilers in the same way. I think there are states where if Gary Johnson or Joe Jorgensen hadn't been on the ballot, that Trump likely would have won like Georgia and in Arizona. But you're right. I don't see Trump and the National Republican Party being like, Joe Jorgensen is a spoiler. We were wrong.

They're just like, well, you know, well, I mean, they do think they're wrong. But they made up a different reason. That one might have actually had more salience than the nonsense that they ultimately invented. Okay, putting all that aside, let's put this next piece up on the screen because I do think that this is interesting, which is Biden's approval rating in each state is really, really bad. In Arizona, he has only a 36% approval rating, which makes it even more remarkable that Mark Kelly seems to be holding up pretty well in these polls. You've got in Nevada, 38% approval rating. This is a state, you know, these are all states that he won. Georgia, 39% approval rating. Pennsylvania, he's doing the best, 42% approval rating. And that's the state where the Democratic candidate

is sort of outperforming him by the smallest number. You have Mark Kelly running 15 points ahead of Biden's approval, Warnock plus 10, Catherine Cortez Masto plus nine, and Fetterman plus seven. So Biden really weighing down Democratic chances. I just don't think there's any denying that at this point, given his lack of popularity and the fact that these Democrats are able to, at this point, given his lack of popularity and the fact that these Democrats are able to, at this point, apparently outperform where he sits in terms of his approval rating, you know, is a testament. I don't know if it's such a testament to the Democratic candidates or their messaging as it is to the very poor quality of the Republican candidates and some of the nervousness about electing them. Yeah, don't know. I would personally,

you know, an interesting thing right now, Crystal, is there's a narrative kind of on the Democratic side that Republican pollsters are flooding the zone in order to like change the game. Yeah, I saw that yesterday. Yeah. But then somebody made a great point where it's like, if you think the Democratic groups aren't also polling, they're just not releasing their polls. And so the limited amounts of, there was a group like Democracy Corp or whatever, one of the few Democratic groups to actually release it. They had Republicans up by like five on the generic ballot in their latest one. So I think that if the Democratic groups had polls to release, which would be good for them, they would release it to kind of, quote unquote, flood the zone in the same way. It's not like individual candidates and all those others all

don't have, I mean, look at John Fetterman. The guy's got millions of dollars in the bank. Super PACs are banking all of these, what, to the tune of over a billion dollars. So I think that there's plenty of Democratic polling. They're probably just not releasing it because it's not good. I just want to say that for those who might be buying this GOP is flooding the zone. I'm like, well, they're flooding the zone because the polls are good for them. And if they had counter ones, look, this is also part of the issue with averages, with considering polls, like what group, what not, et cetera.

And that's why part of why I'm just looking, exactly, is looking at the record of the ones that we do have and be like, okay, well, even in the quote unquote independence, average miss of five, especially in many of these states. So just factor that in. Yeah. I mean, 538, which I think most people would say if it's biased, it's more in a liberal direction, has the Senate at 50-50 right now. Yeah, there you go. And if you want to make a case for why Democrats might outperform, which I do think the outcome of this election is genuinely uncertain. We live in very chaotic times. People are voting in patterns that they haven't before, mail-in ballots, all this stuff. Voting is different than it ever has been before. There's clearly extremely high interest. So if you wanted to make a case for Democrats are going to outperform, I think the case would be

they've been turning out in a very strong way in the early vote. I would personally discount all of the early vote numbers because that doesn't always pan out the way that you think it's going to. But anyway, that would be the case. They're turning out very strongly in terms of the early vote. We had those special elections where they outperformed. You have young voters who maybe are showing up in higher numbers than pollsters ultimately expect. That would be ultimately what you are banking on. I mean, it doesn't hurt the fact that gas prices have been going down a little bit. So, you know, maybe that helps Democrats a tiny bit here down the stretch. But, you know, it continues to me to be a question of candidate quality, like micro,

regional, state-based trends versus overall national mood. Which one of those things ends up being the most important? My theory of politics generally is that, you know, the maxim used to be all politics is local. Now I think all politics is national. So do I think candidate quality makes a difference at all? A little, yeah, I think it makes somewhat of a difference. Do I think it's going to be determinative in each of these races? That I start to be really, really skeptical of. The race that we have probably focused the most on, and I think the national media the most on, and I think the national media has as well, and I think for some good reason, is Pennsylvania. You know, Pennsylvania, right now, that seat is held by a Republican. So if Democrats are able to pick that

one up, that makes the Republican task a little bit harder. You know, they have to be able to pick off one of these other states in order to be able to secure their Senate majority. Biden and Obama obviously see the state as key as well. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. They are planning to campaign together in Philadelphia on Saturday. I did a whole thing yesterday on Obama back out on the campaign trail and also the notable lack of Biden on the campaign trail, which has been very different from his predecessors. You know, even Obama back in 2010, when he was under a lot of fire and his approval rating was similarly not great. He was out there on the campaign trail. Of course, Trump loves doing rallies. He'll do them every chance he possibly gets. So, of course, he did a lot of campaigning and is doing a fair

amount of campaigning for Republican candidates this time as well. Biden has not done much at all. And in fact, one of the places he went was a little strange. He went to Florida to back up Charlie Crist, who's like in a doomed race against Rhonda Santos. I was like, OK, I don't know why you're spending your time doing that, but whatever. He's done some Zoom events, but this will really be, you know, the big marquee event. I think Biden still thinks he's got that like Scranton Joe Pennsylvania touch. They clearly see Pennsylvania central to their chances. They clearly understand Fetterman is, you know, kind of on the rocks or on the ropes that his polling has been sliding here down the stretch.

And so they, you know, want to go and see what they can do to garner as much enthusiasm among the Democratic base as possible and urge them to turn down at the last minute. Yeah, I mean, I question whether it's, I mean, here's the issue with Obama. He has never shown any capability at actually transferring his own personal popularity to Democratic victory. 2010, 2012, 2016. I've done several monologues, I think, playing that last clip of him from the 2016 election where he's like this, you know, X is on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. I may not, my X is on the ballot, but I'm on the ballot. My name might not be on there. I'm on the ballot. And he asked me, he took it to the American people. He said, you need to vote as if my name. And it's like, well, they did. So it didn't turn out to work out so well. So he might be a popular figure amongst Democrats. But again, we have reams

of data to tell us that he has never once been able to transfer his personal popularity. On Biden, it's a negative popularity. He's underwater by almost two thirds in the state of Pennsylvania for his approval rating. If I was Fetterman, I wouldn't even want to look on the same stage as him. I was actually surprised in one of the few moments, like it was kind of clear out of the Fetterman debate, is remember they asked him, they're like, would you support Joe Biden for president? And he said, if he chooses to run again, I would support him 100%. Well, Pennsylvania of the swing states is the one where Biden continues to have the highest approval rating.

Now it's low, it's 42%. But I mean, I think that's the reason why if he was gonna go to any of these states, he would think that Pennsylvania was the spot. And like I said, I think, you know, he has this self-image, self-conception of like Scranton Joe and in touch with the working class and the white working class in particular.

So they're going to Philadelphia with the thought of, you know, we'll really turn out the Philadelphia, like the urban core and suburban vote that is increasingly, you know, what Democrats rely on. And then at the same time, Trump is going to be doing on that same day on Saturday, a rally in the western part of Pennsylvania, which is a place, you know, he feels like is really behind him and where people, you know, turned out that hadn't turned out in a long time to vote for him in 2016 and in 2020. Again, it's kind of a potential preview, potential 2024 preview. And I think the expectation is, you know, Trump may announce his presidential run fairly quickly after the midterms. We'll see. Biden

will probably get in after the holidays. So this may be a little bit of a preview of the presidential race that the rematch that no one wants, but we're probably going to get anyway, that one. That's what we're going to get a preview of this weekend. There were some interesting numbers, Sagar, I'm curious what you make of them, in that New York Times-Siena poll about Pennsylvania and how people feel about Fetterman's health in particular. You had a plurality of voters saying Fetterman was not healthy enough to do the job after the debate Wednesday night. So most of their calls happen before the debate. Right. And overall, only a little over a third said he's not healthy enough to perform the duties of the job. It's very partisan. Republicans, a majority,

71 percent have concerns about his health. Well, they weren't voting for him anyway. Majority of Democrats, 83 percent say he is healthy enough to do the job. But there does seem to have been somewhat of a shift. So it's still not a majority, but a plurality, they say, in the calls they Most of these people not even vote anyway. They probably already voted early voting. Pennsylvania and the way that the mail-in ballots and all that have been working, most of that has been sent in. Republicans, they were going to turn out against. At best, it might have an impact on day of vote to the extent that that matters. We are actually, unfortunately, seeing major polarization in America on how people vote. Many Republicans are dragging themselves to the polls in person on election day, specifically because they've been told they can no longer trust mail-in balloting. So where they really, is it going to really impact the way that people

vote on election day? Of course, I'm not a psychologist. I have no idea how these things are going to play. In general, I think that his position on crime and or his ties to Joe Biden on the stage are going to matter tenfold more than the actual. I mean, that's always I mean, this is the candidate quality on the Democratic side question. Right. And to be honest, like and I've said this before, Hershel Walker, you know, with all his issues and his lies and the hypocrisy and all of that, I understand if you're someone who's like, no, abortion is my issue. So I really don't care if he's, you know, has CTE or whatever issues or is a liar or whatever, like he's going to vote the way I want him to vote. And I want Republicans

to be in control. I don't think that that is, I don't think, that makes some sense to me. Like, I don't think that is illogical. And I think it's the same thing with Fetterman here. It's going to be much more. And this is ultimately, except for this one instance, this is ultimately better for Republicans. I don't think that candidate quality is as important as whatever the national mood ultimately is, which is why I continue to think that Democrats are likely in for a rough night. But I just want to couch all of it and saying, I really don't know. I mean, I'm just like so humble at this point about making any predictions of how this is all going to unfold. We've seen so many polling misses. We live in such chaotic times. It's just really hard to analyze any of these races with any level of certainty about what is ultimately going to happen. So listen, going back to the

beginning, New York Times has polls that look pretty decent for Democrats. You factor in the misses from last time around, and you basically, once again, have a total jump ball for the Senate. And so I think that's basically where we are. I concur. Look, I mean, if I had to bet, I'd put money on the Republicans. That being said, been wrong a lot. Elections are crazy. Americans have a way of always surprising us on election day. That's honestly why I love covering it. Anytime you'll cover it and you'll see returns out of South Texas for Trump,

and you're like, holy shit. It's like one of those things where you're like, I didn't think this was possible. It's cool that it is. I love living here. By the way, we are going to be doing live election night coverage here. So stay tuned for details on that. We'll have, it'll be us, Ryan and Emily will be here. Sagar, you are Sagar.

Kyle and Marshall. My other man. The full crew is here. My other co-hosts will all be on deck here to analyze whatever the hell happens that night. So it should be fun regardless of the outcome. Yep, absolutely. Okay, let's talk about Ukraine. So some interesting things that are happening on the domestic front with regards to Ukraine. We covered previously how GOP lawmakers had said that they would see a tough time passing a new aid to Ukraine, specifically military aid by Kevin

McCarthy. He said that the American people can no longer have a blank check for Ukraine. He was quickly, however, rebuked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was like, no, we're going to do anything that we want for Ukraine. So there's a little bit of war going on. There's like three camps is how I would describe it. McCarthy is under pressure, not from people who are skeptical of the war, but of the fiscal hawks who are like, hey, we shouldn't be doing 50 billion. And actually, current indications are that Democrats are going to try and pass another 6060 billion in aid for Ukraine in order to preempt all of this. That would bring it to $110 billion, which is, as I have read, more than any foreign aid to any country ever, especially in a military conflict. On par right now with South Vietnam in the middle of the Vietnam War.

Just to put it in context. It's not a proxy war, guys. Right. Anyway, so there's the fiscal people. Then there's like people kind of like us, probably the smallest contingent of like maybe five to 10 lawmakers at best in the House of Representatives who are like, hey, maybe we should do something else. We're contingent to say it on diplomacy, etc. Then there's the third camp, which are like the McConnell folks who are like, no, we're not having no question, no debates. We're going to give Ukraine anything it possibly could want.

Anyway, let's put this up there on the screen. So, Ukraine is now telling the GOP that, quote, it can't just be about guns. I found this really fascinating, which is that Ukrainian leaders believe, despite notes from some on the far right, that the GOP won't skimp on giving Kiev military aid. In fact, Ukraine expects even more robust weapons packages if Republicans are in charge. That is according to their own lobbyists here in Washington. The Ukrainians are, though, more concerned about Republicans paring back future economic aid to the country. And this is something I've actually tried to emphasize here a little bit, which is that, look, you know, the war is the war. But, you know, Ukraine as an polity, basically does not exist without the United States. We pay all their bills, balancing their budget, effectively backstopping their currency,

making sure that they can buy things on the global market. All of that is because of US treasury aid. And actually, the United States has given the vast majority of economic aid to Ukraine. So it's actually interesting because one of the critiques I had seen, and this I could see really landing with some GOP officials, was when Rand Paul and others were like, we're balancing Ukraine's budget before we balance our own. Now, I don't necessarily believe in a balanced budget on the federal level, but what I'm telling people is that that attack line actually could quite well land with the GOP caucus. They've never had a trouble of writing blank checks to military aid, right? But on this, the Ukrainians are probably correct to think, hey, you know, this could be a real problem for us because, I mean, if you think inflation is bad here in Ukraine, it's like nobody even really knows, 30, 40%. I mean, it's a classic wartime

economy. Their budgets are a mess. Their own currency itself is effectively like completely backstopped by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economic system. So the point being that if they lose some of that, it actually could cause major problems for them on their ability to buy weapons and other things out on the global market, even to denominate different ways their transactions for grain. From what I've read, it could be a serious problem. Anyway, it's interesting to me that the Ukrainian government, they're relatively confident they're going to get their weapons, but they're like, no, no, no, no, we really need the economic aid to keep this thing going too. Because they don't just have Zelensky arguing for the weapons. They have all the weapons manufacturers also lobby. I mean, that's where the real divide goes. Why are the Republicans so anxious and willing to send military aid but reluctant on economic aid?

Well, they're getting campaign contributions from all of the, you know, military industrial complex. So they have a big political incentive to continue moving in that direction. And then if they withhold the economic aid, they get to play, you know, virtuousness on the fiscal front. And there is a real populist message that I think just doesn't just land with the Republican base, but with land with a lot of Americans of like, oh, Jackson, Mississippi doesn't even have clean water. And yet we're, you know, shipping all of this aid, no strings attached to the Ukrainians indefinitely writing them a blank check. So I do think, as we've been saying, as we get into winter, as, you know, inflation continues to bite, as this thing goes on and on with no real end in sight, as some of the,

you know, failures of the U.S. policy and the NATO policy up to this thing goes on and on with no real end in sight, as some of the, you know, failures of the U.S. policy and the NATO policy up to this point become more and more manifest, I think there's going to be an increasing political audience for that type of messaging. And, you know, at the same time, there's increasing reports the Biden administration is kind of frustrated with Zelensky and sees him as kind of like ungrateful for the overwhelming support that we've been providing. There were some indications of that actually in the Politico of frustrated with Zelensky and sees him as kind of like ungrateful for the overwhelming support that we've been providing. There were some indications of that actually in the Politico article that we just set up, just had up. They said early in the conflict, Zelensky urged the

U.S. to establish a new fly zone over Ukraine. But Biden, of course, declined. More recently, he's called on Biden to formally declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. And they are sort of frustrated with, although they understand that Zelensky is just trying to look out for his own national interests, and I think we all get that, there's a frustration with the amount of aid that we've sent and then the continued escalation of public demands from Zelensky. That apparently broke out into the open on a phone call back in June. According to a report, let's go and put this up on the screen. Apparently, Biden lost his temper. He got grumpy old man with Zelensky in a June phone call when the Ukrainian leader

asked for more aid. And the context here is they say Biden had barely finished telling Zelensky he just greenlighted another $1 billion in U.S. military assistance for Ukraine when Zelensky already started listing all the additional help that he needed and wasn't getting, Biden lost his temper. People familiar with the call said American people were being quite generous in his administration. The U.S. military are working hard to help Ukraine, he said, raising his voice. And Zelensky could show a little more gratitude. It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. I mean, I think everyone almost certainly expects that the Senate may be a little bit of a dicier proposition, but Republicans are almost certain to be in control of the House. And the House is actually where you have more dissent in the Republican caucus in terms of the direction on Ukraine aid.

So there is a possibility here that this could be some sort of negotiating leverage for Biden, where he can play a kind of good cop, bad cop of like, of course, I want to continue supporting you, but I got to deal with these Republicans in Congress and they have different views about this. It could, in a sense, strengthen his hand if he wants it to. See, I just don't think so, because I think the Dems will just give him $60 billion beforehand. They'll just pre-appropriate it. Yeah, but we see how fast they rip through that. Well, they haven't even spent most of that. A lot of it, I think more than half of it has not even yet been dispersed. So they're effectively just going to write. Remember how this, and this has always been my problem with the aid, which is that I don't have any problem giving Ukraine's military aid,

but I think that a lot of it should be constrained by the People's Congress and by some goals for what exactly we want in Ukraine. So, for example, I don't think any aid should go to Ukraine if they're going to use it to maybe bomb a bridge in Crimea or maybe launch an airstrike on Crimea with a U.S.-provided weapon. Or bomb a Russian civilian on their own soil. You want to do that and get into a war by yourself? You be my guest, but you're not going to do it with the stuff that we give you. And so that's always been my issue, which is that none of this is preconditioned. And unfortunately, the way that, and I read this,

if people will remember the last time that supplemental aid passed, I read through those provisions where it just says to the president of the United States up until 2025 may disperse that as his will to the country of Ukraine. That's the issue, which is that, and again, remember, look, Biden could drop dead tomorrow. You want Kamala to have 68 billion to play with, to give whatever she wants to Ukrainians? You should ask yourself that question. Same with Trump, just so everybody knows. I mean, you know, Trump is exactly a yo-yo on Ukraine. He's constantly either we should nuke Russia or the other way. All of this aid, just so people will be aware, would be completely at the disposal of the commander

in chief of the United States for whomever holds that office. You know, it was interesting. I was looking at some of this polling last week, and in the early phases of the conflict, the critique coming from Republicans, including Trump, and really led in certain ways by Trump, was that the Biden administration wasn't doing enough. They weren't shipping enough weapons. They weren't doing the no-fly zone. They weren't being hawkish enough.

Now, as you said, that's sort of yo-yoed to what I consider to be a better position of, you know, we can't do this forever. We need to have preconditions. I mean, in the best of their critiques, some of their critiques are a little bit off the mark, but in the best of their critiques, it's like, hold up, let's have a little bit of, let's have some accountability about where this is all going. That could just as easily yo-yo right back to, they're not doing enough and we need to ship more weapons. And in fact, that's where all of the center of gravity really pulls you in Washington, D.C. That's the easiest case to make. All of the cable news networks, but especially CNN and Fox News,

are all primed to make that argument. It's frankly, at this point with the American people, given the way that the war has been, like the lack of education on the war and the potential consequences that has occurred with the U.S. media, it'd be easier to make that case to the American people, ultimately, given where their emotions are right now. So it's just as easy to see the Lindsey Grahams and the Mitch McConnells of the world winning out the argument and having the Republican base led by Republican leadership saying, no, no, no, we need to do more. We need to give them longer range missiles. We need to be all in, especially when it comes to weapons. So I don't put that off the table. You shouldn't put

it off the table. We already had a redux of this. It's called 2014 and then 2018. So what happened? So brief history lesson. Barack Obama gets savaged by John McCain, Lindsey Graham and many other people, Mike Pompeo and others for not shipping Javelin missiles to Ukraine. And they're like, you need to give him Javelins. And Obama was like, no, I'm not going to do it. He does a major spread with Jeffrey Goldberg where he says, at the end of the day, I'm roughly quoting him here. He says, at the end of the day, Ukraine will always be a core interest for Russia. It's not a core interest for us.

And if people want us to go to war with Russia, they should say that because I don't believe that we should. Very different rhetoric. Pre-Russiagate, Trump comes into office, despite all of this, oh, I want a Russian reset, et cetera. He abandons that at a policy level, caves to Mike Pompeo, the Lindsey Graham's of the world, immediately starts shipping javelins over to Ukraine. And look, I mean, accelerated the civil war almost certainly to the point of where it is. I'm not saying that's sole cause. I'm saying it was obviously some factor in what happened over there. So we have had that play out. It is not a guarantee that they don't do that. And in fact, it's very possible, as they said, that they could pass even more demanding things through Congress telling Biden

that he has to ship certain weapon systems to Ukraine if the aid does want to get signed by the commander in chief. So look, it's a jump ball on how exactly it all goes. And I don't want anyone to come away with the idea that, you know, if the Republicans take control, this is going to change the situation on the ground. I actually think it's probably the opposite, as you said. Overwhelming pressure. I've said a lot of controversial things in my life. I don't think people have ever been more angry with me than when I questioned the Ukraine consensus, just so everybody knows. Yeah. All right. Well, you saw what happened to the progressives when they tiptoed barely into that water. The difference is I don't give a shit. Right. That is the difference. And you have a little tiny bit of

a backbone unlike them that are just total mushes with the exception of Ro Khanna, who I do want to give credit to. Correct. All right. So let's move on, though, to the next part, because there's some weird stuff going on. And let's put this on the screen. Norway actually has put its military on a raised alert level in response to the Ukraine war. Now, obviously, the question is, why? Why now? It actually gets back to the Nord Stream pipeline and to increasing worries whenever we are thinking about energy infrastructure across Europe as it continues to get colder. So here's what they said, quote, this is the most severe security situation in several decades. There are no indications that Russia is expanding its war to other countries,

but increased tensions make us more exposed to threats, intelligence operations, and influence campaigns. He continued to emphasize there is no reason to believe that Russia will invade Norway or any other country, quote, directly, but we must be more vigilant. I don't believe ordinary people will notice any change. The reason why is that, A, Norway is currently seeking to bring a new fleet of U.S. submarine hunting patrol aircraft into regular operations in its territory because people should remember that at the very same day, actually, that the Nord Stream Pipeline, whatever happened to it, that Norway actually had inaugurated a new pipeline from the Baltic Sea, which was specifically designed and being sold by European policymakers as the new energy lifeline outside of the Russian influence sphere. The problem, obviously, is that

Russians and nobody, military planner on earth, is stupid, obviously, is that Russians and nobody, military planner on earth, is stupid and can look at that pipeline and say, hmm, that looks like a real nice target for me. Whomever would want to sabotage that, change the situation, it's a very, very single point of failure which could have tremendous consequences. I was reading a very interesting article yesterday. I had talked about, oh, I was like, Europe's probably going to be fine because they do have a lot of natural gas stock, all that. What my mistake was is I was thinking about it in the current infrastructure. I was not factoring in that

if they do lose this pipeline, if they do lose a couple of key pieces of energy infrastructure, you're actually back in the dark ages effectively.. Then you are talking about 30%, 40% cuts across the board. So the issue across Norway and a lot of this area is they are home to a significant oil and gas infrastructure, which is not just powering them, but powering the entire continent. It also comes on the heels of a really weird report out of Finnish media. Let's put this up there on the screen. Thought that we owed it all of you to discuss it, which is that nuclear weapons could be, and I want to emphasize, could be positioned in Finland if the country's application to NATO is approved. This is according to a major Finnish newspaper. So remember, Finland and Sweden have submitted applications to join NATO

in May after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, according to the major Helsinki-based newspaper, which I am not going to try and pronounce, regarding NATO membership, they will possibly, again, before Parliament, does not include any opt-outs in the script for nuclear weapons deployed on their territory. The assumption is basically if you're in NATO, you're accepting this, the potential of nuclear weapons being placed on your territory, and they did not say that we don't want that. It hasn't been part of their negotiation.

So there are no restrictions right now also on establishing NATO bases in the country. So you could read this two ways, which is one, you could say they're keeping the door open for the immediate term. Two, which is they'd be fools to rule it out. Because, you know, you never know what's going to happen. You may want to be in a situation. Anyway, it caused a little bit of a stir in Finland, because they have debates over there, too. People shouldn't forget, it wasn't really until Ukraine that a lot of Finns did not want to be in NATO. They were like, no, we don't see any point. What's the point of antagonizing Russia? But then after that, they were like, okay, screw it. Part of why, by the way, the Russian invasion was such a strategic disaster, to turn effectively neutral populations

who have literally fought wars against you and said, no, we're out. We don't want even to have the chance of this. The point is, is that a lot of eyes right now on US nukes deployed across Europe. Nobody exactly knows where they all are. We know that we've got some in Belgium and Germany and Italy and the Netherlands and in Turkey. We don't know whether we are still considering what the Polish prime minister had asked for, which is he wanted nuclear weapons directly in his country, the Finns, I guess, keeping the door open. All of this just points to it's still a precarious security situation. We may not be talking about missiles raining down on Kiev, although low-grade attacks on their critical energy infrastructure continues

every single day in the war. So just because it isn't that major missile rain down thing that we saw a couple of days ago doesn't mean that the war isn't continuing and that the people in the region are not preparing for a possible escalation in the event of some, you know, insane event. So look, nobody thought Nord Stream was going to happen and then that happened. So we have no idea what this move could be. Well, and whoever is behind the Nord Stream sabotage, Putin used it to say, oh, we see that it's OK now. You've set the precedent because they're, of course, blaming the U.S. and NATO. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're not. But they're using it to say, oh, you've set the precedent that we can strike critical infrastructure. And we've seen what they've been doing on the ground in Ukraine. So that's part of the nervousness here. There was one other piece of news that I noted this morning that I wanted to make sure to bring

to you guys, which is that Putin is now officially saying that the partial mobilization of citizens to fight in their war against Ukraine has ended. Obviously, that provoked huge backlash domestically. And really, in a sense, it was a very psychological turning point for the Russian population, because up to that point, all of the efforts had been to insulate most of the Russian population if they were going to continue to have any kind of a shot in this war ultimately. You know that some hundreds of thousands, we don't really know, of military age men fled the country to avoid this draft mobilization. There's no guarantees that this will be the end or that they won't do another draft, but at least for now what he is saying is that the partial mobilization has been completed. Yeah, makes sense. Let's go ahead and move on to the next one. This is something which I love. Let's put this up there on the screen. Some major, major news after Elon has bought Twitter.

Elon has ordered the team of engineers to revive the Vine code and reboot the app sometime this year. So people may not remember. Vine actually was shuttered in 2016 after it was acquired by Twitter in 2012. It's really interesting. What a lot of Twitter engineers are saying is that the old code base, quote, needs a lot of work because it hasn't been updated in six years. And it's not really built for, I mean, not only like modern platforms, but if you just think about how much social media has changed in updated in six years. And it's not really built for, but I mean, not only like modern platforms, but if you just think about how much social media

has changed in the last six years with the emergence of TikTok. One of the reasons it's interesting is I'm doing a whole monologue on this, which is like, how exactly did they turn around, which is a failing business on almost every metric from staffing, advertising, the way that they bet their future

was just fundamentally wrong. And that's part of the way that they bet their future was just fundamentally wrong. And that's part of the reason why they ended up having to sell to Elon. And even at $44 billion, it was a dramatically overpriced company. At its current valuation of what it should have been worth, it's something like $25 billion, which is like an average week or whatever at Facebook. So how exactly does that happen? So what they're pointing and looking to is a couple of things. Number one is it doesn't take a genius to figure out that TikTok is at a very precarious ground here in the US. They really only have a couple of options, which we've talked about previously. Number one, they could get outright banned, which I think is increasingly on the

table. Although I don't think the Biden administration wants to antagonize young voters. Two, this is the more interesting one to me as a for sale. Basically, we're like, look, it is just not possible to have this company with this amount of access to America's data having been used specifically for spyware purposes to be in the hands of the Chinese government. So you've got to sell it. The issue is, and I didn't know this, you'll love this. Part of the reason why the Trump administration's forced sale didn't work out is that U.S. investors in ByteDance would have had standing to sue in a forced sale if they didn't decide that it was a fair profit that they were making. So they're effectively weaponizing American securities laws against their own government for a national security concern. Classic. It's actually easier to ban it than it is to force them to sell.

Interesting. Which is hilarious, given the way that our legal jurisprudence system. I didn't even know this. A couple of my legal friends were telling me. The third option, which is the least desirable option, in my opinion, is that they would reach some fake deal

where they're like, well, all the data has to be held by Americans and a fake independent review board will look at it. It's all bullshit. Right. If a Chinese company owns it, it's over review board will look at it. It's all bullshit. If a Chinese company owns it, it's over. They have access to it, and the CCP can have control. Again, it does not take a genius to figure out that one of those three options is on the table. It is going to have some impact, some we don't know, on TikTok.

So what's the closest analogous technology? It was Vine. And a lot of people have been saying for a while, Vine was not first to market necessarily in the format, but it was a thriving platform that was really taking off and had somewhat of a cultural imprint at the moment. From what I read though, part of the issue though, and let's put this next part up there on the screen. Elon actually had a Twitter poll where he was like, should I bring back Vine or not? 70% voted yes. Mr. Beast replied and said, if you did that and actually competed with TikTok, that'd be hilarious. And he said, what could we do to make it better than TikTok?

So I think that Elon and the team over there are really thinking about what the future of that short-form media content could be. I do think it is worth, though, revisiting before we all get our hopes up. Because I actually did think Vine was cool. Personally, I'm just not a big consumer of that type of content. The short-form videos. That type of content. But it's worth saying, okay, what went wrong here? Let's put this up there.

Twitter shuttered the company in 2016 after buying it in 2012. The reason why is that they decided that short-form content like that was not the future. And get this, that Periscope and live streaming would be their major bet in video. Now, I'm not saying Periscope is bad, but I think we all know how that worked out. How consequential has that been? Several years ago. There's a couple of options, though, which is like, what happened? In 2012, Vine was one of the number one apps on the iTunes app store after only six months. They had 200 million active users. However, this is part of the issue. A lot of Vine stars were not staying on the platform. What they point to is that Vine stars were getting big on Vine, but then

they were going to Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube to make it big. And I kind of remember some of the Vine creators that I used to follow. And I was like, hmm, I wonder why that is. There's a couple of things going on, which is that first and foremost, it was just really early. Second, that was also the age when all these platforms, this is like pre-awokening and censorship and all that, they were just throwing money at anybody who had a big presence. So Instagram was reaching out to people on Vine, like, hey, why don't you just come post here? In a lot of ways, Instagram was just straight up copying a lot of content, right? They stole Snapchat stories. They made it so the short-term video were going to get on there. Vine didn't have a particularly unique value add. But in a lot of

ways, given the way that everything has kind of, you know, Instagram creators, I'm not saying that they don't, they're usually,. Most people are platform first these days. There's very few who are genuinely omni. I think that Vine, their issue was that they just didn't have the recommendation algorithm. They had the content down, but they didn't have the algorithm of really knowing you. So they would have to nail that to become a true TikTok competitor. And I think that's the hardest part. Well, and then you're just straight up copying TikTok.

I mean, that's the thing is like, we talk about all these social media platforms and, oh, our tech ties, these are these great innovators. I mean, every single one of them right now, all they're doing is trying to copy TikTok. That's the whole thing. Like YouTube Shorts and Instagram and Facebook,

all of them, you know, and Twitter now is like, okay, let's do our own TikTok version. And I do think that it's the thing that made TikTok really work and really explode was that recommendation algorithm. I think with Vine too, you know, my understanding at the time is like, they had trouble monetizing it. That was part of the issue as well. And I don't know, for creators, it may not have been, it was apparently not as lucrative as other platforms as well. TikTok's not either.

That's the thing. You know, they got the fake TikTok. That is the weird thing. You don't make a lot of money on TikTok. Right. And I do wonder if they would be vulnerable to the same thing ultimately. Because, yeah, I mean, we saw in our little dabbling on TikTok, it's actually not hard to get a lot of views because of the recommendation algorithm. But it's only the top, top stars

who get sponsorship deals and those sorts of things. You have to almost go outside of the platform in order to monetize whatever content you're creating on the platform. So Vine suffers from, Vine would suffer from that same issue. So I don't know. I mean, again, the way I looked at it was just like,

oh, how surprising. Twitter's now going to also copy TikTok just like every other social media platform ultimately. I'd be fine with it. Look, I would much rather have an American company doing it. That being said, I know that there are. The problem is, you know how this goes. Like once a thing gets established and that's the place that you go for sure. Like my daughter, who was, like I said, my oldest, she was really into Vine when she was little. There were some creators on there that were super funny and silly, and she loved their content.

She watched them all the time. Vine goes away. Well, she's a teenager now, and she's on TikTok. And she's happy with TikTok. She finds TikTok. You know, she really enjoys it. She gets served content that she finds really hilarious. She's always sending me little videos or sending other people little videos. I don't see that she has a sense of like, oh, I should go over here now.

So TikTok has already established such a large footprint. I think it would take something like completely banning it for people to be forced to move into another zone. Banned it in India. They had competitors within two weeks and they've got a thriving environment. Look, I agree with you. I mean, I've tried to use some of the TikTok alternatives. They're terrible. I remember there was one like Triller or something like that. Even Reels.

I mean, again, the format's not for me. I know that some people use it, but I just don't think it's particularly all that great. As I get it from my friends who love TikTok, the algorithm is everything. Unless you can replicate that, I don't think it's possible. Even if you do replicate that, again, you have to not just make something as good as TikTok. You have to give people an actual affirmative reason why they would decide to leave this little social media home where they're comfortable and happy and go somewhere else. Yeah, true. And it's not clear to me what that proposition would be.

I mean, we see this with, like, all the free speech platforms that have popped through social or whatever, like people are on social media platforms because that's where everybody is. They get comfortable in a certain ecosystem and, you know, they understand how it works and they've got followers. They've got people who they are following, creators that they like and whatever. It takes something really significant to get people to move over. So, you know, like I said, I think it takes more than just like sort of copying what TikTok is doing. You got to come up with something that is truly new and different and provide something to your audience base or your user base that doesn't already exist. And I mean, maybe they'll come up with something, but that is certainly not laid out in these pieces here. Definitely. All right, let's go and move on to

the next part. This is really interesting and potentially earth shattering in terms of its impact on American society. Let's put this up there on the screen. So the Supreme Court, the conservative majority there, signaling major skepticism of race conscious college admissions. So what happened yesterday, which is that at issue are these two policies, Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, that permit their admissions offices to weigh the race of applicants as one of many factors that will help decide who is being accepted. Depending on the scope of the court's ruling, and this is important, they could rule in many different ways, the outcome could have impact on workplace and other longstanding, quote, anti-discrimination law.

And I want to be very clear, which is that how exactly they rule and the scope through which could restrict it completely to admissions. This is why we're even spending any time covering it, or it could go all the way out into the way that diversity practices work, even at a quote-unquote private company. Anyway, so there were over five hours of arguments. I was even considering doing a monologue, but the arguments weren't wrapping up. And I was like, I can't do it without, you know, I was like, I can't do a whole monologue on this until it's actually done. Luckily, it ended last night. What we effectively noted is that the conservatives on the bench were talking about the 2003 precedent that does permit the use of race in college admissions that had urged policy should not be in place indefinitely. So what we should remember is that in that 2003 case, effectively the court was like, okay, you can keep in mind race.

You cannot use points-based admissions. That's just not on the table. But to say that you can't keep it in mind at all is not going to happen. That said, you need to come up with a system so that you don't rely on this indefinitely. And what I found really interesting in the court and a lot of the arguments that I was looking at is that none of the universities, neither Harvard nor the University of North Carolina, could actually spell out a time frame as to when it was going to be appropriate or not. Yeah, but I mean, I feel like that's kind of fair.

That's like being like, on this date in 2032, we will have total racial justice. We will have solved racism. So, I mean, it's kind of fair to be like, I don't know. We're not there yet. But hopefully at some, it's kind of fair to be like, I don't know, we're not there yet, but hopefully at some point in the future we get to that. I don't even disagree, but I was looking at it and I was like, you know, that just part to me makes the whole idea of the O3 case being like, yeah, but it eventually has to end just even more patently ridiculous because you probably always make an argument. So we're like, okay, so then we should consider it on what is

the actual impact. This goes to the Harvard University portion, of which we've covered now for several years, which is that Harvard, from the lawsuit and the court rulings and all that have come out, it has been shown repeatedly that it is highly discriminatory against Asian American students by giving them lower scores for, quote, personal attributes. I mean, some of the stuff that came out. Yeah.

It's outrageous. I don't think there's any denying that whatever you think of affirmative action, that the current system has discriminated against Asian Americans in a very perverse way. Right. And because they'll be like, well, they, so, I mean, they literally can show that you can have the same test scores. You can have the same, basically, attributes on every single thing. And then on the personal section,

they're getting rated dramatically lower. And it's all these very racist tropes of, like, doesn't show leadership qualities. Not social. Yeah, it's like, oh, this is bad. This is really bad. Anyway, so the point is, is that in that 2003 case, they set that 25-year timeline,

but they didn't necessarily cap themselves on when race-conscious admissions were coming up. This, of course, would take place 2022 and is based really on both anti-discrimination practices and the way that affirmative action is being used against Asian Americans, but also just in general on the idea of race consciousness. And the reason I thought it was important is not only in terms of the scope of American society, but really politically. This is one of the great disconnects, and Crystal, you did a fantastic monologue on this a while back over at Rising, between really elites and the rest of the public. Affirmative action is perhaps one of the most single unpopular positions that exists in the United States States was defeated in the state of California on a ballot level in 2020. And yet you have the Biden administration that went to bat for it actually at the court, the U.S. Solicitor General saying that it was a national security imperative to keep it. Let's take a listen. That truth is vitally important to our nation's

military. Our armed forces know from hard experience that when we do not have a diverse officer corps that is broadly reflective of a diverse fighting force, our strength and cohesion and military readiness suffer. So it is a critical national security imperative to attain diversity within the officer corps. And at present, it's not possible to achieve that diversity without race-conscious admissions, including at the nation's service academies. The military experience confirms what this court recognized in Grutter, that in a society where race unfortunately still matters in countless ways, achieving diversity can sometimes require conscious acts by our leading

educational institutions. So that was the U.S. Solicitor General, effectively like the chief litigator on behalf of the United States, making it, of course, in the purview of what they have, which is the U.S. service academies. Because, as we said, if it does impact higher education, even at a private university like Harvard, it would, of course, also apply to the service academies. Let's consider it, though, in the public context. Put this up there on the screen. Most Americans actually say that colleges and universities should not consider applicants' race in order to further student body diversity in education. So U.S. adult citizens, 23% yes, 23% not sure. A majority, 54%, say no. Even amongst Democrats, Crystal, only 40% say yes. 26% say not sure. 34% say no. Independents, 17% yes. 28% not sure. 55% no. Republicans,

overwhelming majority, say no. I also think it's important to note, if you ask Black Americans, only 36% say yes. 33% say not sure, and 33% say no. The same fits with quote unquote Hispanic, whatever that means. And then amongst white Americans, 16% say yes and 64% say no. I would love to see the class breakdown. Of course. I would love to see the class breakdown. I mean, I have a lot to say about this because I think the reason why it's so unpopular is because it really rubs up against the notion that Americans want to strive for a colorblind society. And so there is this real rub there. I mean, the issue that I always have talking about affirmative action and why it's such sort of tricky ground for me personally is I sort of feel like I disagree with everyone on it. There's a lot of presumptions

behind the policy in the debate on affirmative action that I just don't accept and don't agree with. The whole debate takes as fact the idea that we have a meritocracy, that the meritocracy is generally functioning, that the thing we should be striving for is to perfect that meritocracy rather than, you know, my goal as a leftist, which is to make sure that everyone is able to succeed. I also think, like I said, Asian Americans are getting screwed by this policy. There's just no denying that. And I think that's something that people who are big proponents of this policy really have to grapple with and really have struggled to grapple with. That's number one. Number two, I don't agree with the arguments that are being

put forth by the conservatives on the court, which is basically like mission accomplished. Colorblind society done. Don't need this policy anymore. And we shouldn't pretend that the arguments that were being offered on the court, which is why I don't even spend a lot of time. Like I read through the gist of what they were saying. But ultimately, this is an ideological debate. It has very little to do with what their actual interpretation of the Constitution is. The six conservatives on the court, they don't like affirmative action. They're going to find a way to strike it down, regardless of the arguments that are being made to them and whether they're persuaded on the constitutionality of it or whatever. And the liberals are on the

other side. This is an ideological debate. The Supreme Court is partisan. We should keep all of that in mind as well. So those are some of my thoughts. But the other thing that I always come back to is like, what is your goal? What is your goal with this policy? If the only option on the table for me is let's diversify the elite class. Which is what this is. This policy is effective. And you know what? I would rather, if that is my only option, is have a non-diverse elite class, and I'm just talking about racial diversity here, or have a diverse, racially diverse elite class, then I will take the diverse elite class. Okay, if that's my only option on the table. know from history, which is a goal that I personally care a lot more about than I care about the technical racial diversity of the elite class, we know from history that this policy does not do that. That in fact, the policies that have been most effective throughout our history to help to close the racial wealth gap, which we still have a very long way to go on, are universal policies that lift the floor for

everyone. Things like lifting the minimum wage, things like making sure that Social Security and living wage benefits apply across all job categories and we don't carve out the job categories that are disproportionately filled by black and brown people. So if that's your goal, and when you layer on top of that, how much we know this policy is really unpopular, there's also a pragmatism here of like, we shouldn't assume that we can use our political capital to do absolutely everything. We shouldn't invest our political capital in the policies that are going to have the largest effect at achieving ultimately our goals. And I think we have one other piece on from David Shore on the last element here. Fascinating, actually. That if you track, these are like all of the

different sort of like democratic aligned policies, affirmative action is one of the least popular. So again, it has been beneficial primarily for middle and upper middle class minorities to, you know, get into college and to ascend into the elite class. I don't think that's a bad thing. I do think diversity is an important value. But it goes back to the question of what are you really trying to accomplish and what are the policies that will most help you effectuate that goal that have broad public support. The last thing I will say on this, because I cannot leave this out, is that it is kind of a screwed up world where this gets struck down, but you still have legacy admissions,

which are affirmative action for rich white people. And it's like disgraceful that that is something that goes on and is so important, especially at our elite universities. It's actually interesting that this could have an impact on legacy admissions as well. I also, I want to concur with almost everything that you said. And I think one of the most impactful pieces that ever been had on me was written by the socialist Matt Brunig about the racial wealth gap. And I think people should know this. The vast majority of the racial wealth gap in the United States is about the top two deciles of blacks and whites. As in, you know, when everyone's like black wealth and white wealth, that's between the top

20% in both groups, as in the top 20% white people are much richer than the top 20% of rich black people. If you look at the median income of white earners and black earners, there is a gap, but it's not even close to what the gap is of what we're looking at, which gets directly to your point, which is that do you want a society where the NASDAQ remains the same, but there is a black person that's on the board of the directors? Or do you want a society where NASDAQ companies chase policies which are better for their workers and for the median American? And in general, my problem and why my politics are the way they are was coming to the Northeast and seeing the way that elite liberals talk about so many of these issues and realize like, this is all just a game

for all of you. As in like, you want to protect whatever this little slice is and diversify this very small slice of the economy, the elite, the electorate, and not talk about anything that impacts like any of the people I grew up with or even grew up around. It's like they're used as pawns. And I think that generally is why I get so annoyed by it and why I like pointing to the political popularity, as you said. If you can't get affirmative action passed on the ballot in California, how are you going to defend it as the national law of the land or at the very least as allowing it in some of our,

not just major institutions in government, military, all across the workplace. The polling is not in and of itself determinative. I support other policies that don't poll well because I think they're the right policy, and you should be willing to argue for that. But when you couple that with the fact that this really doesn't, to me, help to deal with what should be the core goal, which is closing the racial wealth gap, and you're really antagonizing a majority of the

public with this policy, then it gets to the question of, okay, is this really ultimately worth it? And I can imagine situations where, you know, I'm generally a big supporter of universal policies, as you guys know, Medicare for all, living wage, unions for all. Like, I'm generally a big supporter of universal policies, as you guys know, Medicare for all, living wage, unions for all. Like, I think those are the best ways. And again, the track record bears it out to not only support the entire working class, but specifically, those policies are most beneficial for black and brown people who are disproportionately impoverished and in low wage jobs and, you know, struggling at that end of the economy. So in general, I think those are both policies. Can I imagine a policy that would be sort of like specific to, you know, to racial discrimination? A hundred percent. Absolutely.

I don't think we should put that off the table whatsoever, but I do want to emphasize again, the part of this that, you know, I, I really do chafe at from conservatives is their view is basically like meritocracy already good to go. No racial discrimination. Everybody can compete. Everybody can make it. So we don't need to do anything about this. And I don't agree with that either. I just think that we can aspire to more than diversifying our elite class. And ultimately, that's, you know, the thrust of my politics and where I like to spend my time. I think we totally agree on that one. All right. So, guys, the story you've all been waiting for. More updates on that horrific hammer attack on Paul Pelosi.

We did have federal charges filed yesterday by the Department of Justice. Let's put this up on the screen. And we got a lot more information because we got information from David DePappe. Is that how you say his name himself? DePappe. We have some summarized information from his ownPappe. Is that how you say his name himself? We have some summarized information from his own interview here. In any case, he was charged with assault, attempted kidnapping, following breaking and entering of the Pelosi residence. Paul Pelosi described to police he'd

been asleep. DePappe, who we'd never seen before, entered his bedroom and was saying, where's Nancy, looking for Nancy Pelosi. According to the complaint, minutes after the 911 call, two police officers responded to Pelosi residents. They saw Paul Pelosi and DePappe struggling over a hammer. Officer, this is kind of messed up, too. Officers told the men to drop the hammer. DePappe then allegedly gained control of the hammer and swung it, striking Pelosi in the head. So it's kind of horrific that it's actually when the police officers are on the scene and they're saying drop the hammer. And they're unable to stop the worst of this attack.

It happens. I mean, they're there and witness it. Officers immediately restrained DePapi while Pelosi appeared to be unconscious on the ground. As set forth in the complaint, once DePapi was restrained, officers secured roll of tape, white rope, another hammer, a pair of rubber and cloth gloves, zip ties from the crime scene where officers also observed a broken glass door to the back porch, which was apparently how he gained entry. Let's put this next piece up on the screen. So these are some of the details that really go about, you know, yesterday we talked about some of the conspiracies, some of the questions and the original details of what came out. Well, DePapi himself is doing a lot to dispel some of the conflicting information and some of the erroneous details

that were initially reported. So he says he broke into the house through a glass door. It was a difficult task. It required the use of the hammer. He said Pelosi was in bed, appeared surprised by DePapi. He told Pelosi to wake up. He told Pelosi he was looking for Nancy. Pelosi then responded that she was not present and asked how they could resolve the situation. There's more as well in terms of a motive, which was another question mark. I mean, he makes it pretty clear he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage. He wanted to he viewed Nancy as the, quote, a leader of the pack of lies told by the Democratic Party. His goal was to question Nancy Pelosi. He expected her to not give the answers that he wanted. And then he was going to break her kneecaps. That was the plan so that she would have to be wheeled into Congress to serve as a

message to the other Democrats that he also didn't like and, you know, ultimately wanted to target. In addition, there was the question of was there a third person because there was an initial report to that effect, which had then been retracted. DePappe says directly they went downstairs to the front door. So himself and Paul Pelosi, police arrived and knocked on the door and Paul Pelosi ran over and opened it, not an unidentified third person. So that is what is being reported here that the assailant himself, alleged assailant himself, is telling the authorities. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of the definitive word from Mr. DePappe. That's why I actually thought it was worthwhile, because I was like, okay, well, this is from the man himself,

like from an interview. He's like, I was looking for Nancy. I wanted to hold her hostage. That's what the zip ties were for. Here's how I gained entry. Here's who answered the door. No, there was no one else there. I wanted to break her kneecap.

So pretty clear at this point. Only question I still have is about security, which is that if he says that he went downstairs to the front door, broke the slide door open, as I said, I mean, I guess we do just have to believe that they had no shatter alarm or anything on their house, which is kind of crazy. Which is wild. Whenever you're in the third in line to the presidency, you're in a $6 million mansion in one of the most dangerous cities in the United States with high crime. Like, again, you know, I don't live in that dangerous of an area. And if you break my window, it's going to call 911. So I'm like, I don't really understand how they don't have that policy.

Also, allegedly, Paul Pelosi was asleep, right, according to DePapp whenever he was in his bed. And DePapp, this is so creepy. Imagine waking up to that. Oh, my God. In your house. I would freak. Lunatic with a hammer. That's a whole other discussion.

Yeah. About what you should also perhaps have on your bedside table. But anyway, the point being that this was very strange to me in how he was able to gate access. And if anything, if you are in any somewhat of a prominent position or even if you just live in a dangerous area, this is a good reminder to not put yourself in a position where anything like this is even possible. I do think, honestly, I do really think, just like after Gabby Giffords, I think the Capitol Police needs to come out and say what they're going to do for everybody else who's in the line of succession and elsewhere to make sure that this doesn't happen. Because, I mean, Steve Calise, you know, he can still,

he's still suffering after he got shot. But it's not just him. Kevin McCarthy, McConnell, Elaine Chao, all these folks. It also shows you, like, I mean, Pelosi herself has protection. So if she had been home, there would have been Secret Service protection there. So it shows you, I guess, the family members need security as well. I mean, it is a sad state of affairs that we're living in, but this is the reality is you have, you know, a lot of extreme political rhetoric, a lot of extreme conspiracy theories. And then you have people who are, you know, mentally unwell, who this guy was talking about, he thought he was a patriot, you know, he really thought he was doing the right thing and he was holding the lying Democrats to account. And that's, I mean, obviously, like deranged individual then fueled by this extreme, like, political rhetoric. And again, just to be clear, my position on this isn't like the liberal

position. That's why we must have censorship. And that's why we must, you know, I mean, this is why. And you can never say, like, what would have deterred this one particular attacker. But in general, this is why you need to have a functioning democracy where people feel like their votes and their voices are heard, where they feel like they have an opportunity and a chance for themselves and their family members to succeed. And, you know, more specifically to this case, where they're able to get mental health treatment and addiction treatment, and where we don't have, you know, so many people who are walking around with untreated mental illness, creating to, you know, exacerbating chaotic situations.

The last wrinkle, let's put this up there on screen, is apparently Mr. DePapp was a longtime U.S. visa overstay and was here illegally. So I'm sure that we got to crack down on those Canadians coming across the border saga. I don't disagree with you. I think they should get the hell out of here. It's their problem. You guys have free health care. Why don't you like it so much? It's too cold, maybe. That's a whole other discussion. The northwestern part of Canada is not that cold. It's actually very lovely. I've only been to be, well, I've been to Quebec, a beautiful city, by the way. Great food except for poutine, which is disgusting.

BC is actually very beautiful. I've never been to – Calgary, I think I would like to go. From what I've heard, that's like my vibe. I've been to Calgary. Calgary's okay. I don't know. I like BC more. I went to Banff National Park. I've never been there. That's beautiful. I don't know. I like BC more. I went to Banff National Park.

I've never been there. That's beautiful. You would like that. When I was in Glacier, everybody was like, oh, well, if you go right across the border, they have the Canadian part of Glacier. Yeah. Banff is amazing. But it is like, you said Glacier was really crowded.

I mean, Banff has the same deal. It's like very touristy, which kind of, to me, takes away from it. But it is definitely beautiful. I'm a Canada fan. I like it. It's all right. It's too cool for me. My dad got his PhD in Canada, to be clear. He loved it there. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, Elon's purchase of Twitter has me thinking a lot about the state of social media and the internet. I'm in a strange position. I literally owe my entire livelihood to the internet. Yet, I don't think I've ever been

less happy with the internet. My own personal usage is at an all-time low. My reliance on it is at an all-time high. It's something obviously I and many others need to square with our modern online economy, but it's also one that has us asking a lot of big questions. What does a reset might look like, and what are some potential benefits to it? A lot of this is sparked by a discussion Crystal and I had yesterday about verification. With The Verge reporting that Musk is planning to charge $20 a month to verified users who want to remain so on the platform, the theory behind it is a few things. Number one is something

Musk has been obsessed with, eliminating bots on the platform and verifying that there's a real person behind the keyboard. Number two, though, seems more interesting. Trying to fulfill his initial coda of making nearly half of Twitter's revenue come from subscriptions alone. I personally love that idea, especially as co-head of a subscription business like Breaking Points. What we know here well is that the more reliant that you are on paying subscribers, the less you are influenced by market trends. We have amazing premium subscribers. So if YouTube censors one of our videos, or if they play games with the algorithm,

or if Apple Podcasts decides tomorrow to take us off, not only will we not starve, but the business would be fine. It's telling, as Crystal said yesterday, that one of the very first things Elon did as CEO of Twitter was post a missive to Twitter advertisers, asking them to remain calm and patient, while also noting that no changes to content moderation were coming. That came after this report from the Wall Street

Journal and Business Insider that major advertisers on Twitter were considering pulling all their ads off the platform if Trump's accounts were restored. And it highlights a central conundrum that any ad supported business faces. The users are not the customers. It's the people who actually pay. If the people who pay are united in an ideology that is contrary to the benefit of the users, or in this case of the American body politic, then that's a structural problem. For context, Twitter is simply not a very good advertising business. Consider this. In 2021, it earned $4.5 billion from selling ads on the platform, which represented 89% of the company's total revenue. Put that up against Facebook or Google, which made a respective $117 billion or $250 billion in the same time period.

We're talking about a platform which is simply a fraction of that, or consider its daily users. Twitter, for all of its cultural cachet, has only 300 million daily active users. That's if you believe them on how many bots are on the platform. Facebook has 1.9 billion. Google has even more, with literally 8.5 billion searches per day on the platform. We essentially have a situation where Twitter has the same cultural cachet as these giants, but with a fraction of its user base and its revenue. That is why Twitter was losing money. In fact, in only two years of the company history, did they ever make a profit.

After those years, Wall Street kept pressing them for growth, and they were totally unable to deliver, both on users and by definition of revenue. As much as I believe in Elon as an entrepreneur, I think the fundamental problem is that Twitter is simply not a good business, especially for ads. But clearly, it does add value. When you put it up against Facebook or Google, it is arguably even more influential at an elite level. The discussion and the activity which is generated on Twitter potentially impacts hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars of our entire economy. The problem is that none of that value is being currently captured by the company. It's dispersed. And so that's why I think charging for verification actually misses

the mark. To me, it's quite simple. The value of Twitter is both to the users who can get instantaneous access to information, opinions, and discussions, but also to the people who are wielding that influence. It's the latter group enmeshed in the discourse, for lack of a better word, that can't lose that. Not only is it part of their identity, but it is literally part of their business. So if that's the case, simply charging them for it, the more that I think about it, the more I think that people should be charged per follower count. And to be clear, I actually think it should be free for the vast majority of users. Dollars should not even come into play until you hit like 25,000 followers. The exact numbers of users with that many followers

is not publicly available. But considering that the average person has only 700 followers, we can surmise it's not that many people. But the point is, is that those larger accounts, let's take one like mine, it has approximately 378,000 as of this writing, should have to pay for the ability to engage with the people who follow me. Why? Because presumably I am getting more of a value for my ability to communicate with my audience than whatever the prospective fee that Twitter would charge me. And as I said in my original tweet on the subject, the price should be tiered, especially weighted to making major enterprise brands pay a lot of money. Consider this.

Right now, people can tweet at American Airlines or some other brand about a problem they are experiencing. That brand can then reply in real time, message them, and solve their problem for them via Twitter DM, all on the Twitter platform. But at the same time, American Airlines does not have to pay anything to Twitter for that privilege. Even though, if you were to design a customer service platform, you probably could not create a better one than that. And if you presented it in that way from its inception, of course the companies would pay. At a basic level, consider Crystal and I, as a small business, have to pay all kinds of fees to run it, including to MailChimp to send emails, communicate with our

customers, Zapier to ensure that our mailing list is operable, podcast hosting platforms to publish our episodes, and many more. All the fees I listed are tiered. The bigger your list or audience, the more that you pay. Presumably, the value because you're deriving is more than what you're paying. And finally is the real question, why do I even care?

I'll tell you why. Because I was made on Twitter. It's the first place I ever got to engage in discussions and debates, and I was a lot younger, and I cared a lot about. As a junior reporter, it gave me a space to publish my work, to get noticed, to distribute it. There's zero way I'd be here without it. I want it to both be better and to actually become a viable business, not just a vanity play for Elon Musk. Bringing profitability and aligning incentives properly drive us away from the internet that we're all living in right now, where we all need it, but we don't really like it. And

if you take away anything from this, at least remember this. If you are using something for free online, you are not the customer, you are the product. And Crystal, I mean, I did this, A, because I hope it influenced you. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. What do you want to take a look at? I know you're all very excited this morning because today is the big debut of CNN's new morning show. It's called CNN This Morning,

the revamped morning show under new network boss Chris Licht, features hosts Poppy Harlow, Caitlin Collins, and Don Lemon. The show actually seems to be pretty emblematic of the direction that Licht is taking the network in overall. It represents less of a new vision or new direction for CNN, more of a shuffling of the chairs. You might say those are deck chairs. You might say they're on the Titanic. As Licht reveals planned layoffs, cutbacks, and a lack of ambition in new programming, he's really signaling that CNN is not going to try to compete in the new media cord-cutting era. Instead, the network is going to cut costs, hunker down, try to hold on to what they've got for as long as they possibly can. To be honest, might be the best play that

they can really make, a managed decline that will keep the network chugging along in diminished form for years to come. So if the future under Jeff Zucker, the previous boss, was sort of absurd and ridiculous, under Chris Licht, there's a brutal realism that basically there is no future. As Breaking Point's viewers will recall, Zucker put all his eggs into CNN+, spent more than $300 million on the Doom streaming effort, believing this would be CNN's big play for the new era. Zucker, too, recognized that the cable news business was a dinosaur with a business model built for a different time, but he believed he could remake it to match the moment. Apparently, he didn't realize that

streaming really only works if you have content and talent that people actually want to pay to consume. You can't just take the same old programming, make it more cringe, and stuff it into a streaming service and think that that is going to work out. No, the kids are not going to pay to see more of Chris Wallace. Licht's approach has been to make a few moves that give the appearance of a revitalization while hunkering down for the store. His first big move was to unceremoniously kill the flashy CNN Plus debacle that Zucker had been betting the entire network on. But now we're getting more insight into how specifically Licht views the business and CNN's future. In an interview with CNBC,

Licht was clear that significant layoffs were coming to, quote, right-size the network. Overall, more than a thousand jobs are set to be eliminated at Warner Brothers Discovery before the end of the year. Like the new morning show, programming changes have just entailed shuffling existing talent around rather than making any real play for any big new stars. Licht has also announced that the network will cease buying original content and documentaries. So series like Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown or Kamala Bell's United Shades of America, documentaries like RBG or the currently running series that's called the Murdoch's Empire of Influence. That's all going away. It's not that the content was unpopular.

Some of it actually was quite successful. According to Licht, it's just too expensive for them to continue to acquire. This year, the network is going to earn less than a billion dollars. That's the first time that they'll hit that mark since the Trump era. Put it all together and you get a picture of a business

trying to get lean for very hard times, betting on slowing the bleed rather than positioning for new growth plays and new expansion. Now, I don't mean to pick on just CNN here. There's just been the most reporting on the future of that network after the turmoil of the Cuomo affair, the abrupt departure of Zucker, and so many other things that have happened there. But the truth is, all three major cable networks, they're facing basically the same landscape. They make money from ad revenue, and they make money from cable subscription fees. Both of those items are in decline since ratings are down and cord cutters are up. All three networks saw significant drops in viewership in the third quarter. CNN was down 17% year over

year. Fox was down 13%. MSNBC was down 11%. This is even more notable given that we are headed into a hotly contested midterm election where the outcome is genuinely uncertain and where you've certainly got some interesting personalities to work with from a content perspective when you consider all the candidates who are involved. Of the three, Fox obviously has the largest audience and hence the largest longevity. They benefit from a conservative viewership that thinks they can more or less only get the truth from Fox, while CNN and MSNBC have to compete not only against each other, but also against every other mainstream news network. With Rachel Maddow gone, Fox also now boasts the only remaining cable news host really capable of drawing an audience

that's gonna show up every night, night after night as appointment viewing. That's Tucker Carlson, of course. It's telling that MSNBC, on its own path of diminished relevance and managed decline, did not even try to fill Maddow's shoes with someone who had a prayer of matching her ratings. Because in this era, on its own path of diminished relevance and managed decline, did not even try to fill Maddow's shoes

with someone who had a prayer of matching her ratings. Because in this era, anyone who could actually accomplish such an impressive feat, they'd be a fool to do it for a cable news network rather than to do it for themselves. Today, if you can actually draw an audience, you don't need to deal with the nightmare of network bureaucracy, the creativity stifling dictates,

the latent censorship, and the whims of corporate bosses. You can be successful, you can have relevance, and best of all, you can have freedom all on your own. That means increasingly the only talent left at these outlets is of the sort that is skilled at climbing the ladder within a large bureaucracy and playing the inside game of networking and access, but doesn't have a prayer of generating an audience all on their own. They can only get eyeballs thanks to the muscle memory of boomers who have cable news blaring in the background as they go about their days. Now, in fairness, the number of boomer eyeballs about to increase dramatically as we hurdle into the next Trump era. He's likely to announce his presidential run fairly quickly after the midterms. But does Orange Man Obsession really pack the same ratings punch that it used to? The act is kind of tired. Outrage is kind of

exhausting. Nation has become used to a certain level of ambient chaos, which wears down the novelty of Trump's whole performance. Sequels are never quite as good as the original, and this time around would be Trump's third time, third bite at the apple of running for president. Now, I don't doubt it's going to offer all three networks a temporary reprieve from their long-term trajectory of decline. It's also going to make mincemeat of Chris Lick's efforts to shift CNN away from all Trump all the time coverage as ratings, ego, and audience expectation will push CNN right back to the same formula that they've been using since Trump came on the scene back in 2015. But even a figure as singular as Trump cannot permanently rescue an industry where the

business model was built in different era and they are unequipped to navigate the new landscape. The reality is we are already well past the peak of the cable news era, but make no mistake about it. The remnants will hang on in relevance, elite power for a very long time. Zombies with continued destructive power. After all, elites love feeling like their own cable news appearances are a sign of their importance and their special status. But if you follow the business decisions, you can see they have already accepted their fate as diminished players. CNN's layoffs and cutbacks are really just the beginning.

And you see this most clearly CNN and MSNBC. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now is Dr. Vinay Prasad. He's a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, author of a fantastic sub stack of which we'll have a link down in the description. Dr. Prasad, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Great to be back on the show. Yeah, absolutely. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. You talked about Biden's bivalent booster blunder. Look at that alliteration there. Fantastic. I'm amazed that I was able to say it correctly. I quoted heavily from your

sensible magazine piece and many of the other curated thoughts that you guys have, but we wanted to have you on just to break it down. As a doctor, as an MPH, somebody deeply involved in the field in epidemiology, what do you think that the problem with the current administration's policy on the biovalent booster and Omicron vaccine is for all Americans? Yeah, so I think that the Biden administration has decided almost unilaterally to set what the regulatory standard would be for a yearly vaccine. It's not just about this year. It's about year after year after year. And what they decided was that we are going to adopt a model that's a little bit like the flu model,

where we're going to see if the vaccine can generate antibodies against a sequence that we wanna hit in mice. And so this vaccine did come to the US market, being tested in eight mice for Pfizer and 10 mice for Moderna, and no human beings received the vaccine before it came to the market. Part of the reason they did that was they said that there is an important rush. We got to get it out there. We want to get

ahead of the season. But one of the things that has emerged is that very few people actually want this vaccine. It's got a usage of about 7% right now. And so in my mind, there's a tension in that argument, which is that if it was so important to get, presumably people would have wanted to get it, but people don't want to get it. So presumably they want to see some better evidence. And then I think that unlike other nations, Europe has also moved forward with bivalent vaccines, but our nation is one of the few nations globally that is pursuing the same strategy in a seven-year-old as a 77-year-old. In Europe, they are targeting it for 50-year-old as a 77-year-old. In Europe,

they are targeting it for 50-year-olds and above, or in other nations, 65 and above. So we are also going after very young people. And this has naturally, I think, led to mandates in colleges, places like Yale University, Wellesley. They are mandating the bivalent booster for their ultra low-risk 20-year-old population. Can you talk a little bit more about this eight mouse situation? Because you hear that and you're like, that sounds crazy. Like no human trials and only eight. That doesn't seem sufficient. But as you indicated, this is similar to what they typically do with updating the flu vaccines.

Right. So why do you think it might be appropriate for a flu vaccine, but may not be appropriate for the updating of the COVID vaccine? Well, you know, as I have been talking about this issue, one of the things I think is that actually when it comes to flu, we might be able to do a better job. I mean, we're locked into a model we've been doing for 20, 30, 40 years now. We might be able to actually generate better evidence for the flu. As you know, each year, the flu shot can might be able to actually generate better evidence for the flu. As you know, each year, the flu shot can either be a close match or it can be a divergent match, in which case it has limited effectiveness. That's why some seasons it seems like it doesn't do much at all. We could actually try to improve that process and have it be more reliable.

But when it comes to the COVID vaccine, I do think there are some salient differences. With flu, what we do is we look over in the eastern hemisphere of the world and the southern hemisphere. We try to predict what strains are going to hit the United States this winter that have not yet come to this country. With the COVID-19 vaccine, they are going back in time to a BA.4.5 parent strain. Right now, we're dealing mostly with BA.5, but there are even new variants yet to come. And they're creating the vaccine against an older virus that's already been circulating in the United States. parent strain. Right now we're dealing mostly with BA5, but there are even new variants yet to come. And they're creating the vaccine against an older virus that's already been circulating in the United States. So I think it's a little bit different than the flu shot. The other differences I see are that when it comes to the COVID-19 shot, I think we'll all agree it's more reactogenic.

People have more side effects. People are more likely to be out for a day or so. It's not a big deal, but it is more in that direction. And I think when it comes to the COVID vaccine, what we really want to know is, does each additional dose lower your risk of severe disease or hospitalization? I think it's abundantly clear that no matter how many doses you get, you are going to get some COVID-19. The question is, is it going to be so bad you end up in the hospital, which we don't want? But if it's going to be like a cold, unfortunately, I think we're going to have to live with that. And proof of that is Rochelle Walensky herself got the shot one month later. She's got COVID-19.

So do you have more of like do you have an increased safety concern because of the limited nature of these trials? Or is your concern more around just the efficacy and how much sense does it really make to be having the same policy for a 70-year-old, as you said? Yeah, I have a little bit of concern in both domains, but let's talk about the safety. The biggest safety concern, of course, is myocarditis. It's mostly men 16 to 40 and mostly men 18 to 26. That's the highest risk demographic. And everything we see suggests there's no floor to myocarditis. It's not like after so many doses, it goes to zero.

The third dose is about one in 10,000 risk, which is very low, but one in 10,000 starts to matter when the risk of hospitalization is in that ballpark or maybe less frequent for say a 20 year old man who's already gotten three doses. I mean, their risk of hospitalization is in that ballpark or maybe less frequent for, say, a 20-year-old man who's already gotten three doses. I mean, their risk of hospitalization is going to be really, really low from ever getting COVID. But let's talk about efficacy. I think it is really important for both this vaccine and other vaccines that when they launch a campaign to vaccinate millions of people, they have some idea about what the vaccine efficacy is, some number. To do that, you have to give about what the vaccine efficacy is, some number.

To do that, you have to give it to human beings and follow them out. Now, why does that matter? If the vaccine efficacy comes back really, really low, I think it's going to be very concerning for the American people. People are going to feel like they were cheated a little bit. One clue that it might be very low is that people who have gotten the vaccine are very quickly getting COVID-19. Another clue are two studies that emerged, I believe one from Harvard, one from Columbia, where they administered both the old vaccine and the new vaccine to individuals. And they found that they had the same level of BA5 antibody, suggesting that even though this is a bivalent vaccine, we're not generating anything special against BA5. To which Peter Marks at FDA said, well, that study is just a little too small. To which I said was, this is the guy who likes to

hang his hat on eight mice. So, you know, you got to really have some perspective. And then the last thing I'd say is every time you change the sequence in the virus, it is possible you get less myocarditis. It's also possible you get more myocarditis. So I think we have to be open to detecting that safety signal if it were to arise. Right. And so, Dr. Prasad, some of the meta points that you've really convinced me on, you know, reading your work, is that this is going to have effects on global vaccination, on American trust, and on vaccines, which have far more efficacy, science behind them, longstanding

import to society. Do we see any signals yet in that data? Why are you worried about it as a corruption of like higher institution trust in the medical system? Yeah, so I guess my bigger concern here is, of course, that vaccination, the campaigns of vaccination, particularly for measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, polio, these are vital and important global public goods. And I do worry that in response to this and maybe other actions around vaccines and COVID vaccines, that we may be sending the wrong message both within the United States and globally and undermining U.S. trust. We can talk a little

bit more about U.S. trust in a second. But when it comes to vaccines, we do see a number of surveys showing a greater reluctance to vaccinate children, not just for the COVID-19 vaccine, but for other vaccines. In my mind, it's inappropriate to equate measles vaccination in children with this vaccination because I think measles is more important. We need to tell people it's more important so that if people were to choose, let's choose measles. And then, you know, we can have the discussion about how important the COVID-19 vaccine is. When it comes to trust, I think the United States, one of the great virtues of this country has been our U.S. FDA has been the premier regulatory agency for 40, 50 years.

All the nations of the world look to our FDA, who alone review the clinical study data independently. I think we're losing that trust in a number of ways. Our vaccine regulatory bar is going down, down, down, which ironically favors the companies who are making tens of billions of dollars off these products. But I'm not sure it favors the American people who need information. But our bar for other products is going down. We were talking beforehand about the Alzheimer's drug. We have a Lou Gehrig's drug that's controversial and cancer medicines. The more you lower the regulatory hurdles, by that I mean you make it easier for the company to get their product to the market. It looks like you're very innovative. I mean, you have lots of innovation,

but is that innovation actually making people live longer or live better? And I think that's the question that faces the FDA. So you write in this piece, you say the Biden administration's entire vaccine policy seems to be interested in giving Pfizer and Moderna a perpetual market share for a yearly vaccine, but seems to have no interest in generating credible randomized control trial evidence to inform the public. As such, they fail the American people. So why would they? I mean, maybe it's an obvious question, but is it just political corruption? Like, what are the incentives in the system that would lead this or any other administration to care about more about the profitability of big pharma than about the results for the American people? Yeah, I think this is something that you all cover very nicely on your show. I mean, the incentives, I think, are deeply skewed at the level of the highest

levels of government. One incentive is the revolving door incentive, which is that I am not worried that, like some people are, that the administration making decisions is currently receiving payments from Pfizer or Moderna. I think that's very unlikely. But I do think the primary place of employment for people who leave the FDA and people who leave the administration working in health care may very well be in the biopharmaceutical sector. I mean, the prior commissioner of the FDA, who I like, Scott Gottlieb, he's on the Pfizer board of directors. And we've done a paper on FDA reviewers, 50% of them go to work for, consult for the biopharmaceutical industry. So I do worry, it's very difficult to be a strict regulator. If you know there's a 50% chance that after this job is over, which it

might be over quite soon, you're going to be on the other side of the table. And I think that's a structural bias in government. I also think that this administration, they have always wanted vaccines and PaxLivid to be the answer. I mean, it's a simple answer. It allows them to feel like they're offering something to the American people. And, you know, to some degree, that might be a motivating factor. And then finally, I think that evidence-based medicine is something, you know, by that I mean having good evidence for making clinical decisions. It's always been under threat in biomedicine. It isn't always greed. It's sometimes true belief. It's sometimes wishful thinking. You know, human beings are wonderful at making ourselves believe like the next medical breakthrough is going to be a success.

What is it? The distinguishing feature of man is the desire to take medicine. So, you know, we really do kind of believe in these things. That's a great quote. Yeah, I haven't heard that one before. I like that. What's your overall structural takeaway from all of this? Is it like, is there a view for optimism? If anything,

I think it's good. People like me, many others, have taken a lot more interest in their overall health and in questioning what exactly these drugs are, what they do, what do they mean whenever they say this. Pfizer says there's a trial. Okay, how many people? What do you think outside of that? Is there any takeaways for the general population who just want to be healthier? If they want their kids to be out there, everybody just wants to be protected. Well, you know, I think you're making a good point, which is that there's a takeaway, which is that as it should have always been the case, you know, when you go to see the doctor, you have to be an empowered consumer of healthcare, which means when the doctor makes a recommendation, you have to always ask. The question I always like to tell people to ask is,

you know, that sounds great, but just for a minute, hypothetically, what if I did nothing? What would happen? And just get the doctor to talk about that. Or if you didn't use this treatment, what would be the other treatment? And why would you choose one or the other? What makes you decide? And I think those kinds of questions would really empower us a lot in our day-to-day medical encounters. I think there's a second level of lessons from this is on the Biden administration itself, which is I think that their COVID-19 policy is both a medical liability and a political liability.

And there's nothing about being a Democrat that says you have to be for a vaccine campaign annually in perpetuity in seven-year-olds based on mouse data. That's not part of the Democratic platform. That's the unique policy preference of the particular individuals that they are consulting with. There are other people they could consult with who have divergent views. One is Paul Offit, who is an expert in vaccine science. Cody Meissner, who's at Tufts University. I mean, they're not wedded to this group. And I think that the vaccine rollout

around young children and this bivalent booster does suggest there's a disconnect between their advisors and the American people. Now, why aren't Americans rushing to get this vaccine? And why didn't they rush to get their under five-year-old vaccinated? It's probably because they look at their child who mostly already had COVID

or they've mostly just had BA5 and they think to themselves, what's the point? I've gotten three shots. I've had this. I've cleared it. I feel okay. I know what it's like. I don't need this shot. And I want to say that there's actually something to that intuition because I'm not convinced that the shot, it will benefit you, especially if you've gotten three doses and you had COVID. And so the American people are voting with their feet and wisely. And so I think the administration, especially after the election, they may decide that they want to go in a different direction on COVID-19 policy, something that more Americans have buy-in to. I would add one to the list, which is, as you,

you know, really described, we got to close the revolving door and the revolving door, shut the revolving door, however you want to say it, get rid of the revolving door. That's the one, because, you know, whether it's this administration, the next administration, Republican, Democrat, I mean, we see a lot of these problems repeat themselves over and over again because of the endemic corruption in the system. So that has got to end for people

to have more trust in these systems. 100%. Highly recommend following Dr. Prasad's work. We're going to link down in the description to his newsletter. Thank you so much for joining us, sir. Great to see you. Thank you all so much for watching. We really appreciate it.

Look, we're doing election night planning. We've got some good hires that we're going to be announcing soon here. I think you'll all be very excited. All of it 100% because of you guys, of premium subscribers. Never been happier to be able to do this. We've got our election night coverage. It's going to be exciting. This is our first real ramp up for an election night. We're going to have a live stream, all of that. Premium subs, you guys will get first dibs and email about how exactly it's all going to go down. So anyway, link down in the description. We'll have some great content for you tomorrow. And then Friday is also CounterPoints. We'll be here on Thursday as well. So stay tuned. It's going to be a fun time. See y'all soon. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community.

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