Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/12/24: Lib TikTok Goes Full Stop The Steal, MSNBC Ratings Plummet, DNC Member Rips Party, Jon Stewart Shreds Dems

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss lib TikTok goes full stop the steal, MSNBC ratings plummet, DNC member rips party, Jon Stewart destroys woke Dem autopsy.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators, shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there,

and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company 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. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. So there are some very interesting things happening over on liberal TikTok that we wanted to update you guys on.

First of all, I'm not really on TikTok, so I was not aware of any of these phenomena, but apparently there are a bunch of astrologers on TikTok who are very popular, who are very confidently predicting that Kamala Harris, because of where her sign was in alignment with whatever, was going to win the presidential election. And they're having to grapple with that. And people who believe them are also having to grapple with that. And apparently a number of these TikTok astrologers are asserting that actually they were right and the election is not really over.

It cannot possibly really be over because it's simply unimaginable that they read the stars incorrectly. Let's take a listen to a little bit of that. I'm sad about the election, too. But what I'm especially sad about is the fact that I can no longer trust a single TikTok astrologer on this app. So, thanks. I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but something feels off about this election. How did we raise over a billion dollars in just four months, packed rallies, and they won by a landslide in just a matter of hours? Also, why is he not on Twitter boasting and bragging about himself?

When she had her concession speech, it felt like we weren't done yet. Like, we still have some fight, but we're going to fight silently. Her walk-off, I know that walk-off. Hmm. The fact that almost every witch, every astrologer, every medium, every psychic on this app is sort of coming together right now because of this presidential election is incredible. Because by now we all know that almost everyone who's intuitively connected in any way woke up between 2 and 4 AM the morning after the election and we all knew something was up.

But at the same time, we all felt sort of peace and calmness within. Here's the thing. The astrology girlies have not let us down all year. So while y'all accept these results, while y'all accept what's on this screen right here, I will not be counting my chickens before they hatch. So, that's happening. I didn't realize, you I feel like had more connectivity to this astrology trend on TikTok.

No, not really. No? I feel like you were more aware of it than I was. I mean, I was aware that it was happening. That doesn't mean I was watching it. Yeah, there's a lot of lib stop the steal that is currently happening. Astrology is a big part of it.

Another part of it is this clip that's going viral from Joe Rogan. Oh, well, no, before we get to that, because the Joe Rogan ties into the next clip, but we have another. This is the big, like, Libs Stop the Steal conspiracy, which is this one woman who said she works in tech and her dad called her and she lays out in a nine minute video that went super viral why she believes that Elon used Starlink to change the results in key states. Now, I'm going to be honest with you. I listened to this video and I really did not understand the argument she was making at all. But let's take a listen to a little bit of that nine minute video so you can get a sense of it. With that being said, he sent me a video letting me know that California and other swing states were able to use Starlink in order to tally up and to count ballot votes or voting ballots in their state.

OK, those systems were connected to the Internet. Those machines have absolutely no problem tallying up votes like they have done since the beginning of time. There's a lot more there that she goes into that you guys can listen to and assess for yourselves. But part of what this ties into is this Joe Rogan clip. Yeah, that's right. Because if your theory is Elon was actually using Starlink to control the election results, then you hear this Joe Rogan clip and it really makes sense to you. Take a listen. It was interesting because the beginning of the night, no one knew what was going to happen. So you're watching the first results roll in and there's

like this weird thing. And then Trump gets way ahead, but you're like, you don't want to get too hopeful. Like, how far ahead is he? He's ahead by 100 points. That seems like a lot. Yeah, and you're like, what is it? And some channels are like, and then every channel's kind of different. Yeah, they had different numbers.

I was getting a different number off my Apple News update than I was getting off of CNN, and then I was texting people people like Tulsi and J.D. Vance. I was getting a different – apparently Elon created an app and he knew who won four hours before the results. So as the results were coming in before – four hours before they called it, Dana White told me. Elon was like, I'm leaving. It's over. Donald won.

He just fucking he just fucking somehow or another. I'm going to go back into my pod and evaporate. I don't know what he's getting, where he's pulling his data from, but he had like the most accurate data in terms of the rural states hadn't put the results in yet. But yet Trump was ahead in these states. Kamala's never going to win those states. So tabulated that and put it all together. I don't know how he did it. Yeah.

I haven't even talked to Elon about this. I don't know, like, the Dana translation. But Dana said he had an app, and he was, like, showing them. He's like, it's over. He fucking left. Dude just left. It's over. Jon Jones won. He just fucking left. Dude just left. It's over. Jon Jones won.

He just fucking left. So there you go. Just color me. Here's the thing. Four hours before. So the AP called it at, I want to say, what, 3, 4 a.m.? Something like that. Okay, well, by midnight, if you're watching Breaking Points,

where we told you, Trump won the election. Yeah, we were like, we're going to bed, guys. This is a wrap. It's like, he's going to win. We'll come back tomorrow and tell you, like, The only question was whether he would, like,

by what margin he would win the popular vote. That was literally the only question at midnight, east coast time. And there were certain, like, sentences and stuff

that were on the call. Yeah, that was all up in the air. And obviously, that took a while to call, but, you know, what timing would you say I was like,

Trump's going to win? 10 o'clock? Honestly, that's conservative. I would say 9 o'clock. I mean, we really tried to, even as it became pretty clear, the direction, we really tried to be like, okay, but you know, maybe. We have to do that. Yeah, you have to be like, yeah, you never know. Right.

You know, maybe something crazy happens in Pennsylvania. But probably by 10 o'clock for sure. By 10 o'clock, I was like, I have a 100% chance Donald Trump is going to win this election. This is pretty much over. It's game over. Yeah. Especially because by that time, PA had come in so hard for Trump. And I was like, all right.

And Georgia too, remember? Because everyone was like, oh, well, Georgia, we're still waiting on. But these initial numbers look really good. So Georgia was the first indication. Then North Carolina was number two. Because North Carolina, it was like, okay, well, the case for the Kamala landslide was Georgia, North Carolina. None of those panning out. And then by 10 o'clock, you're like, PA is coming in hard and that's it. It's game time. Yeah. Once it was like, okay, Georgia, North Carolina, you're like, this probably is going

to Trump. But maybe there's something different going on in the industrial Midwest. Then once you see Pennsylvania coming in, it's like, all right, this is not happening. You know, on the other hand, can I blame these TikTok girlies? Not really. I mean, listen, what did they watch? They've watched still the Republican base still. And Donald Trump thinks that he won the last election and offered evidence equivalent to like my astrologer said so. And here's a clip of Joe Rogan saying something that I find to be nefarious. So, you know, whatever. Libs have their conspiracies too. And at some point, you know, there will be, because I think if you did have some Democratic politician

who was actually willing to indulge this stuff, I think they'd be hugely popular. Oh, massive, yeah. I think there's a wide open lane. I'm not encouraging this. I'm just saying that it's inevitable that someone is going to take up that market opportunity. Not maybe this cycle, because they're still very invested in the like, we're the ones that take election results

seriously, whatever. But Trump opened Pandora's box to basically every election, whichever side loses, people are going to come up with, because in every election, there's always weird irregularities, things you can point to and say, well, this doesn't seem quite right. And what about these vote totals? And that doesn't make sense with last time's election. That's the other big conspiracy is like that Kamala got some number fewer votes than Joe Biden. But even that turned out to not really be because a lot of it was just California hadn't counted their ballots yet. Yeah. Was a big part of that as well. Anyway, so there's a lot ofDC that's floating out there. My point, my only point, I think this is the new world that we live in. And while it mostly is on the Republican side at this point, like it's more prominent and as a percentage of the base,

I think that we're going to see an expansion and flourishing of the liberal conspiracy as well, especially as liberals now are also becoming disenchanted. This is a good segue to our next segment. Disenchanted with mainstream media establishment institutions as well. You're much more likely to have a flourishing and embrace of these types of conspiracy on the liberal side too. Yeah, no, definitely. And I mean, look, it's also been there for a while. There was Russiagate. That was the elite one.

That's what they did last time. There was also in 04, there was a huge like glib style steal. Wow. Objection. I'm not saying there was nothing to it, but I'm just saying. Let's ask RFK Jr. about that one. Yeah, you can ask him. He was in on it. On Ohio and the voting machines and the Cheneys.

There's a whole 2004 HBO documentary about it if you're interested in going to watch. So anyway, it's been there. It will continue to be there. And yeah, I'm sure that some politician will take it up and they will be. I think the difference is it's like really gone mainstream. Oh, yeah. And on the right, it's fully. Obviously, Trump still hasn't conceded the last election on the Democratic side.

I think it also will be more and more mainstream. I mean, look, it's like Keith Olbermann. You need to release Valve, and it will happen. The only question is when and which character will emerge in this. So, like you said, we've got media conversation. Let's get to that. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis.

We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie.

We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you, but then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast Hell and Gone,

I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her.

And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd

like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we got a few interesting media shakeout post-election updates for you. Let's put this up on the screen. So apparently MSNBC, which did very well on election night and eclipsed CNN for the first time ever. Now they have lost half of their viewers compared to this time last year. She had 54% of their viewers. I believe CNN also completely plummeted after election day. And, you know, it's not just this. So, you know, part of this is just like liberal depression post Trump getting reelected, Kamala losing. This is very

normal after election cycles where, you know, the chosen candidate loses. I remember Fox last time after 2020. Oh, they got blown out. Well, there was a stop. I was going to say, they suffered a significant blow, not only because Trump lost, but then they didn't really think he lost. And then these other outlets, One American Network and these other places were willing to fully indulge the conspiracies in a way that Fox, I mean, they only dabbled in indulging the conspiracies.

So they took a big hit as well. So in certain ways, this is typical. But in other ways, I think it is significant and it is different in this sense. I referenced in the last block, there's been a liberal disillusionment with the mainstream press. Some of this is, I mean, it's justified. Some of their specific reasoning is not particularly justified. So the original angst and agitation was around the reporting, the accurate reporting on Joe Biden's decline. There were a lot of liberals who were very mad about that. And then there's a whole cottage industry of liberals who are very upset, many times justifiably so, about New York Times headlines. And in their worldview, they feel that these outlets have not been harsh enough on Donald Trump. Then the Washington Post, Bezos deciding not to make an endorsement in this election was really, how many subs did they,

they lost like? Several hundred thousand. It was like a quarter of a million, at least, that was at that point, that was like a day or two in of their paid subscribers. So there has been a real blow to liberal trust of establishment media organizations. And there have been some outlets who have been picking up support in the wake of this loss for the more liberal institutions you know, institutions that have been the mainstays. Our friends over at Lever News, they apparently are doing really well. We can put this up on the screen, D2. So I talked to David Sirota yesterday and he told me I could share with you that not only has Master Plan, their podcast, which you guys really should listen to. Not only has that jumped up the podcast charts, but they have seen an 11% overall increase in their paid subs in just the

past couple of months. So a huge, huge jump in terms of their paid subscribers. I talked to Ryan at Dropsite also. He said that they have seen, specifically on the free sub front, they've seen a massive multi-thousand person surge in terms of Dropsite News subscribers. And then Nathan J. Robinson, who is a lefty, runs Current Affairs magazine, put this up on the screen. He says they've seen a 900% increase in the rate of new Current Affairs subscribers over the last few days. He says people know independent left media tells them the truth, other outlets delude them, and more vital than ever in combating right-wing propaganda. So there's some, you know, some interesting energy that is out there kind of on the left looking for independent outlets that people feel more effectively report the news and, you know, share their worldview and also are like with Lever News. I mean, these guys are doing actual journalism, Ryan, obviously, and Jeremy doing really important

actual journalism over a job site. And it's stuff that the mainstream press has largely completely ignored, like accountability journalism. And with Ryan and Jeremy in particular, big for big focus on foreign affairs. So kind of an interesting shift that's happening there over on that side. I can only hope. And look, Russiagate saved their ass last time because this happened last time around too. But this time, I don't know. You can tell me. Psychologically, it just feels very different.

Last time, it was a shock. Trump was a shock. If you're too young to remember, I will never forget. So I was up till like 3 or four in the morning, election night. We were working at the Daily Caller office. Went home, grabbed a couple hours of sleep, got on the Metro. The next morning, came to work. It was the death.

It was like 9-11. I was too young to remember what it was like to be an adult, but that's what I could imagine. It was like to have been around the day after 9-11. Yeah, when I was walking through the airport, I had the same vibe. People were just deeply shocked. I was like, this is insane. Yeah, this is11. Yeah, when I was walking through the airport, I had the same vibe. I was like, this is insane. Yeah, this is insane. Shocked. This time, it was just like, eh, you know, it's normal.

Also, there's no cope this time. He won the popular vote. He won all the swing states. It wasn't narrow. It was a blowout. There's no Comey. There's no Russia. Yeah, there's no letters.

They left it all out on the field, and they got their asses kicked. And there's, so if anything, there's like a reckoning of like, all right, well, you know, we lost to him twice in eight years. This was not a one-off. It was not a fluke. It's not a we're going to get him next time. No. In the end, like he got away with all the stuff and he won. And he won.

Yeah. And not just won, like he won the popular vote. Like that's a mandate. You know, I mean, I remember, you know, everyone was like, how can this possibly be it? Look at the RNC. You know, we were talking earlier about immigration. They held up signs that said mass deportation at the RNC. Don't be surprised when mass deportation happens. He stood up in front of a sign the day before election. There were only two things that said behind him, end migrant crime and mass deportation. America knew what it was voting for, 100%. So it's one of those where, to them, that's unimaginable to the liberal mind, but now they have to grapple with that. And it's one of those where they're like, what do we do? And the truth is MSNBC has no coherence to explain that strategy. That's correct. And it's because, and look, you can give a left, you know, analogy. We have plenty of disagreements. We'll continue to talk over the next four years.

But there's a coherence to what you're offering, to what Kyle is offering, to, I mean, to even the Pod Save guys, to what they're offering. Yeah, true. But there is no coherence to MSNBC Morning Joe liberalism that offered a path and got blown out by the American electorate. That is such a key point because the Kamala Harris campaign, like they ran the Morning Joe campaign. It was run exactly like Joe Scarborough would want it run. Yes. Right? The embrace of fricking Liz Cheney, the obsession with never Trump Republicans, the constant like shunning of the base and anything that they would want, the constant like shilling for Israel

and really, you know, basically smearing your own base as a bunch of anti-Semites for wanting a ceasefire and wanting peace. They ran that campaign and Joe Biden ran that campaign and Hillary Clinton ran that campaign. And Joe Biden ekes down a win barely, barely at a time when Trump's approval ratings were in the toilet. People were getting killed during COVID. Like it was a mess and you barely eked down a victory. Now it's like, wow, this whole universe, especially the MSNBC, CNN universe in particular, but also the Washington Post, New York Times universe, your view of the world was wrong. Like it was wrong. It was

repudiated. What you told us was going to work when you promised that these were the people who were electorally viable and this was the path and these were the, you know, issues and this is how they should talk about. It's like they did all of that and they lost. They got blown out. And not only that, but you told us that Donald Trump was an existential threat. And you did not act like it. You did not act like it. I mean, especially like Joe Scarborough. These people were running cover for Joe Biden and still trying to keep him in the race after that debate.

They wanted a 400 electoral college vote blowout. So I think there's just a very justified loss of confidence, not only in those institutions, but in that worldview entirely. So, I mean, it creates an opening, you know, that clearly like places like Lever News, Dropsite, and others are, you know, are there to fill in this whole conversation about like, oh, the Democrats need their own ecosystem or whatever. It's like, listen, it may not be as big as the right or as well-funded as the right, but it's not like there is no one in the left-of-center podcast space. It's just that you've spent most of your time ignoring, shunning, smearing, minimizing that world, and I think that probably is somewhat gonna change.

The last thing, just as mentioned, which is kind of funny, Chris Wallace is apparently leaving CNN. I'm gonna put this up on the screen. Wasn't there a lot? What was he there? Four years? Yeah.

Three years? About three. So he came for CNN Plus. Yes. Oh, I remember. I remember. Apparently, though, it's kind of misleading when they say he quit CNN. What happened is that they offered him a pay cut.

And they were like, you can stay, but you're going to have to take a massive pay cut. And he was like, oh, I can't handle that handle that i mean he was getting paid like seven million well this was actually a very smart way for him to frame this to be honest with you because he was like you know what this cable news thing no that's this is tired like streaming is where it's at i'm gonna go out and do like the podcast thing which good luck it's bs good luck first of all his show was awful on cnn very low ratings. The only reason anyone watches almost any of these people is just because it's on in the background. Yes, exactly.

And that's it. There's no, like, I'm tuning in for Chris Wallace. That's not really the thing. He had a very low-rated show. He tried to do all these weird interviews with pop culture figures. Yeah, that was very, very strange. He completely lost his lane. Never should have left Fox News Sunday.

So, yeah. I mean, look. He's like a 70-something-year-old man. Like, he'll be fired. That's not fire at this point, right? Yeah, exactly. Retire, look. He's like a 70-something-year-old man. He'll be fine. Yeah, exactly. Retire, bro. He's got plenty of money. Multi-millionaire.

Your father was famous. I'm sure it hurts not to be as good as your dad. It's okay. You know, you're an old man. You've had enough time to reconcile at this point. Just ride off into the sunset, all right? Leave it to us. We'll continue to fight here.

I like imagining him, like, over on Twitch trying to compete with, like, Hasan or something. Yeah, it's incredible. And you and I both know here. I like imagining him over on Twitch trying to compete with Hassan or something. Yeah, it's incredible. And you and I both know that. I like that. I would like him to try that, actually. Yeah, ask Don Lemon how it's working out for him. All right, let's go ahead and get to Jim Zogby to talk about his analysis of what went wrong, what is going on at the DNC, the spending, the blaming of voters.

The AOC Trump voter got a lot of things we want to get to with him. So let's go ahead and do that. Let's get to it. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part, our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone.

In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own.

Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still

out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We are really fortunate this morning to be joined by James Zogby, who, of course, is the president of Arab American Institute

and also a 32-year member of the DNC. Am I right about those numbers? Long-suffering 32-year member of the DNC. They're the suffering ones. I think we're all suffering right now, to be honest with you, Jim. At least you and I are at this table. I had a number of things I wanted to chat with you about, but I first did want to talk to you about the DNC in particular, since you have such deep knowledge of how that organization works and where some of the problems are. Let's put this first element up on the screen. Jamie Harrison has gotten into a bit of a back

and forth with Bernie Sanders. Bernie, of course, came out with a quite scathing indictment of the Democratic Party after Kamala Harris's loss, saying that they abandoned working class people. Jamie Harrison, chair of the DNC, described this as straight up BS. I'd love for you to discuss, you know, both your thoughts on this particular battle, but also more broadly, what some of the issues that you see are at the DNC and what you think would be important in terms of reform? Well, look, I'm going to leave some of the political issues aside and just talk about the DNC first. I grew up, my mom was a precinct captain, and I used to go door to door with her and go to ward meetings. And on election day, we'd get poll cards and we'd go to the polls and pass them out.

You belonged to something and you felt like this was part of who you were. That's no longer the case. Being a member of the Democratic Party means nothing more than I'm on an email list. I'm on a text message list, I'm on a hard mail list, I'm on a phone list, and I get asked for money. Nobody asks my opinion. There is no way to record your feeling about an issue. DNC, even DNC members, first time we had an actual, in all the years I've been on the DNC, first time we had an actual election was when Keith Ellison and Tom Perez faced off after the Bernie-Hillary race.

First time we had a floor vote and a debate on an issue was at that same meeting when we debated whether we should accept money from PACs that emanated from businesses that violated the DNC positions on oil, fracking, whatever. The fact is that DNC members even were like props who go to meetings and fill chairs. And I can say it because I'm a Catholic. We know when to stand up, when to sit down, when to clap, when to leave. And votes are a done deal. Staff decide what we vote on. When I was chair of the resolutions committee for 10 years, people, even Barbara Lee, would write a resolution and submit it. And the staff would say, well, we're not going to accept that. And I'd say, well, the hell are you to not

accept it? In the Unity Reform Commission, I was able to get both sides, the Hillary and Bernie side, to agree on a resolution to honor our bylaws and fulfill our bylaw requirement to annually review the budget and evaluate the effectiveness of expenditures and staff by creating an elected finance oversight committee. Guess what? Staff wrote it out of the final. They deleted it from the final report and would not have a vote on it, and then sent me to the Rules and Bylaws Committee that, after I fought and said, I want to vote on this, they said, yeah, we go to Rules and Bylaws Committee, which is peopled by some of the very people,

the consultants that I was busy railing about in that proposal. Because every year, every cycle, the DNC spends hundreds of millions of dollars. This year, well over a billion. And guess what? I have no idea where it's going to go. The Harris campaign raised a billion dollars is in the red. We will never know where that money got spent. We will never evaluate was it effective or not. People give $3 donations monthly because they think we have no idea where that money goes. And as opposed to being a governing body, like I said, we're props at meetings. And so what has to happen in the future is that the DNC has to be the governing body of the party. And we have to build a party as an organization that people belong to. There has to be the governing body of the party, and we have to build a party as an organization that people belong to.

There has to be financial accountability and transparency. There has to be democratic decision-making so we know where this stuff – I mean, who decided that – now let's get to the issues. I'm on a tear when I get into this. This is – Go off. Go off. Who decided that Liz Cheney was the ideal person to campaign with? Who decided that we would give up on the working class and go to suburban, moderate Republican

women? I mean, how did those decisions get made? Who thinks that stuff up? Who decides that, yeah, in Pennsylvania, we ought to be pro-fracking. Who decided that we should give up on universal health care? Who decided that we should target our vote-getting to constituencies that we could not reach and not focus on people that we could reach? Because I see what Jamie is saying that, yeah, Joe Biden had a pro-labor agenda. That's not the campaign we ran in 2024. I dare say if you asked union people how pro-union were we, they wouldn't have said so. And on something particular to me, who decided that no Palestinian speaker at a convention because because it would be what, too controversial? When actually that's where the base of the party is?

Yeah, well, that's something we wanted to ask you about, sir. We have some interesting, there was AOC actually asked some of her constituents, many of whom did vote for her and for Donald Trump. She was like, why? Let's put this up there on the screen. There's a variety of interesting answers. And you can see there's quite a few, but some are actually quite simple. There you go. It's simple. Trump and you care for the working class. I wanted change, so I went with

Trump, blew for the rest of the ballot to put on some breaks. They say a few others are pointing out very different stuff about war. But a lot of it was about war, foreign policy, Gaza. There were several of those. And so I'm curious for your reaction, considering that Trump did obviously run up the table in the Bronx, but AOC actually was able to hang on to some of that. And she says there, I'd like to talk about the Gaza pieces as well, and we'll make some stories about it later. She outperformed Kamala Harris in this district by 22 points. A lot of Democrats outperformed Kamala Harris in their districts. And where's the accountability for that? And I don't believe it's Kamala Harris as much as it's the political consultants who run, make the decisions for the

party. It's the big donors who contribute to the party and the consultants who get the money and make the decisions about what we do and what we say and what's possible. And they do the same with the candidates. I mean, what we need is control over that process so that these consultants who incidentally never lose an election, they never lose an election because they make their money, live with the consequences, but they make their money and they come back again two years from now, four years from now, and do the same stuff. Frankly, that's got to change. And on Gaza, I understand completely. Look, I've been polling on this issue for a while. What we call our coalition these days, young people, Black, Latino, Asian voters, they are decidedly against this war and against continuing to fund human rights violations

as we do. And we didn't pay attention to them at all. It's been so easy to speak to them, we didn't. Let's put E3 up on the screen, guys, because this has some of the relevant data. This is about Muslim voters, Muslim Americans back in 2020, 93 percent for Joe Biden, 7 percent for Trump. This time around, 53 percent for Jill Stein, 21 percent for Trump, and 20% for Kamala Harris. Well, I'm going to differ with you on that poll. Go ahead. Why I wanted to ask you is because you've done so much research and polling yourself. What did you see and how significant do you think this ended up being to Kamala Harris's loss?

Number one, that was a bogus, that's not a poll at all. The demographics of it don't match. Look, from the group that did it, 53% for Jill Stein. If there are 2.5 million registered Muslim voters, which is what that group says there are, and 60% of them turned out, which is 1.5 million, 53% of them is 100,000 votes, more than Jill Stein actually got in the hard count. So that's a bogus thing. What we found in our polling was among Arab Americans, we don't poll Muslims overall because it's a very diverse community, the largest group portion of which are African American, who I believe did vote for Jill, for, I'm sorry, for Harris. I think in the Arab community, what you got was a more even split between Trump and Harris.

That's not enough because Joe Biden got 60% of that vote and Donald Trump got a little over 30%. He beat Trump two to one if harris had beaten trump two to one she might have won michigan uh um with arab american votes um as it was she lost 60 70 000 arab american voters statewide coupled with students and others who stayed home or also voted for other candidates, and you got the loss. But again, that kind of autopsy is not going to be done. And that's when I saw reports that there ought to be an autopsy. And then I saw the people that were mentioning for the autopsy. It's like giving the murderer the right to dissect the body and figure out what, you know, you don't have the consultants

who brought us the mess do the autopsy on how the consultants brought us the mess, because that's where it came from. Don't blame the voters. I have an interview in Rolling Stone right now. We actually can put that up on the screen, guys. Don't blame the people you let down. I mean, so how do you get to a point where the Republican Party, what's his name? Lindsey Graham can say, we're the party of the working class and Democrats have become the party of the elites. How did that even, how did we get to that point? Aren't we ashamed of ourselves that we let down the working class to that extent that they don't see us as their champions, that they see this bigoted, xenophobic, narcissistic, misogynist criminal as their

champion because he talks to them. And Joe Biden did talk to them. He did. I don't believe the Harris campaign did. I think she could have, but the consultants had a different message for her. It was going to be joy, but there weren't people in the country feeling joy. There were people feeling hurt. And why did the consultants not understand that hurt? Why didn't they understand that people felt socially, economically, politically dislocated and unsure of their future. Why did we not understand that and craft a campaign? Why? Because the consultants are out of touch. Here's what I say. You know how Ben Rhodes calls the foreign policy blob? People who've been

cycled for decades and don't get the world and how it's changed? We have the political consultancy blob. It's the same people who populate all these campaigns, who make all the decisions, and they're completely out of touch with where the electorate is. And yet they keep coming back campaign after campaign. We see the same faces running things. Jim, last question for you. Do you have a favorite for next DNC chair? I do. Who do you like? He hasn't announced yet. He will announce on Friday. But it is a state chair. Yeah, it's a state chair.

And I believe that we need somebody who has the commitment to building the organization as an organization. And I believe that the other thing is there ought to be an end to the dominance of the political consultants over decision-making. Electing a new chair is one thing, but we've got to have a DNC that is empowered to be the governing body. And I will tell you, I'm thinking of running for one of the vice chair slots. Oh, that's fantastic. slots because I have 32 years and I am up to here with the, you know, the bang on my head against

the wall for change. I decided I guess I'm just going to have to try to raise those issues. I don't know if I'll win, but at least I'll have a chance to raise the issues. And I want to do it. Well, that is some rare good news for me, at least, to hear post-election. So always great to talk to you. And I hope, you know, once you officially jump in and your ideal candidate also officially jumps in, that you'll come back and explain to us why you think that this is the right course. Good to see you, Sarah. Take care. Bye.

You too. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name?

Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died.

I'm like thanking you, but then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1.

Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast,

Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day.

The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the wake of Kamala's stunning defeat, Democrats have been studiously passing around various charts and data points to try to make sense of it all. Here's a regression analysis of voter preferences in seven key states. Here's a graph mapping ideological leanings versus district overperformance compared to Kamala and Biden. Here's a heat map of the precincts where Trump accumulated the largest eight-year improvement correlated with income decile. Listen, I get it. I've done the same.

I'm a little A student teacher's pet type, and I too would like to plot, chart, and data analyze my way to the one correct answer for how Democrats should look, walk, talk, and act. But to be honest with you, that shit needs to stop because it utterly misses how politics actually works. In fact, this type of focus group, poll-driven, laundry list approach to politics is exactly what Democrats already do, and you can see precisely how that's worked out. In fact, Kamala ran the platonic ideal of this approach, which has been dubbed popularism. Now, the guy who popularized popularism, David Schor, he actually ran a $700 million super PAC for the Kamala campaign. The basic idea is you pull a bunch of policies, you pick what's most popular, and you run on it. And like a good little

centrist, Kamala eschewed all divisive talk of race or gender. She spent the entire campaign running around with Republicans to convince everyone she didn't actually really stand for anything. She embraced the GOP position on the border. She talked endlessly about how she prosecuted transnational gangs and argued the problem with Trump's border policy was that he didn't construct enough of his vaunted border wall. Seriously. As Jon Stewart argued, though, far from running a woke campaign, Conlon Democrats obsessively tried to pander to the polls and adopted Republican framing. I only have one problem with the woke theory. I just didn't recall seeing any Democrats running on woke shit. These were the commercials I saw

for the Democrats. Sherrod Brown is working to fix our border crisis. Mondaire Jones is working to secure our border. Pat Ryan is restoring order at our southern border. I'm Laura Gillen, and I'm here at the border of Nassau County. We're 2,000 miles from Mexico, but we're feeling the migrant crisis almost every day. We can't let China steal Wisconsin jobs. Benefits for illegal immigrants? No way. Blocking support for white farmers? I mean, look at me. Standing with law enforcement against

defunding the police. I've owned a gun my whole life. Let me be clear. I don't want boys playing girls sports. You all know me. I've never pushed for sex changes. Well, that's just a weird one at the end there. And don't forget about Kamala Harris. It's not like she was exactly waving around her NPR tote bag. I have a Glock. They didn't do the woke thing. They tried. They acted like Republicans for the last four months.

They wore camo hats and went to Cheney family reunions. Do you know how dangerous it is to wear a hunting hat around Cheney. Kamala's campaign could have been designed by a centrist AI fed reams of focus group data, poll-tested messaging, world's most lethal military, opportunity economy, coalition of Liz Cheney, Taylor Swift, and Bernie Sanders. As Ettinger Mentum points out over on Twitter, quote, the way people are talking you would never have known. The central pillar of the Democratic campaign strategy was bringing up the border bill that Trump shot down. This was very much the first post-wokeness Democratic campaign. It was run by a party whose top people read Matt Iglesias and gave $700

million to a PAC heavily influenced by David Shore. For this wing to act like Cassandra's is beyond absurd. And I would add that she and Biden routinely took every opportunity to castigate lefty college kids for their campus activism, smearing the prototypical pink-haired college kids who happen to be opposing a genocide as raging anti-Semites. What's more, during the campaign, the popularism centrists, they all thought this campaign was going great. They loved the Liz Cheney strategy. Here is Jonathan Shade in New York Magazine. He says,

The race is close because Harris is running a brilliant campaign. Stop complaining. The centrism is working. But of course, even when Democrats run exactly as Chait, Iglesias, and Co. won, there's always some person out there existing in the world and being woke that they can blame for elite Democratic failures and working class abandonment. Now, I don't think it's fair to lay all the blame for Kamala's loss at her feet, but certainly she gets some of the blame. And so too do those who advocate for this bloodless, paint-by-numbers style of politics. It has failed routinely and now completely. And their capitulation Republican framing is already a moral and political catastrophe.

The core of Calma's approach, and that of Biden, the bulk of establishment politics, is to avoid controversy and avoid division. If an issue polls under 60%, avoid it. If a previous position drops in support, abandon it. Studiously avoid saying anything that might, God forbid, create a backlash. This approach is wrong. It's brain dead. It's idiotic, as is the saying that politics is about addition. Wrong. Winning politics that can also deliver anything worthwhile is divisive. The only thing that really matters is getting that division correct. Think about Trump, for God's sakes. He is the single most divisive politician of the modern era, without a doubt. He is also the most successful. He deeply understands his divisive politics, and everything he says and does effectively drives towards the division that serves his political interests and message. On one side are the

migrants, Democrats, and cultural elites who, in his narrative, want to destroy your town, steal your job, and indoctrinate your kids. On the other side is anyone who supports Trump against these forces, and Trump alone is, of course, the politician who can fix the problem. Another divisive politician, Bernie. Now, he stylistically, of course, quite different from Trump. But make no mistake, his fundamentally is a divisive politics. In the language of Occupy, it's the 99% versus the 1%. It's the millionaires and billionaires versus everyone else. Throw in the corporate media, the corrupt establishment, and you've got all you need for a winning, fruitful, divisive politics. Think about it. If you did your little checklist politics telling

how popular Kamala's policies are versus Trump's policies, Kamala would win every time. Democrats would sweep 40 states as evidenced by the fact that paid sick leave, abortion rights, and high minimum wages were passed in deep red states like Missouri. But that is not remotely how politics actually works. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake made this point when she explained the difference in how voters saw Trump and Kamala's economic policies. Quote, Trump economics is China, tariffs, tax cuts. Then you go to them and ask, what are democratic economics? And someone will make a joke about welfare and half the people can't name anything. It is nothing like the Republican brand. Now, this isn't because Democrats had a failed ad strategy.

There's some evidence their ad and ground game actually were kind of effective. It's because they have zero narrative. They have failed to create the right divisive politics. And if you don't relentlessly explain your story of the world, your goals, principles, heroes, and villains, your opponents, they will happily fill in the blanks. Ergo, she's for they, them, he's for you. So what would a better strategy look like? Well, it looks like Bernie's 2016 class versus populism, but on steroids. Democrats need to abandon a bland and offensive unity between the Cheneys and AOC and embrace a division that aggressively

excises everyone who puts the billionaire's interests over the working class. There should be purity tests on everything that is core to that war against the plutocrats and a large public purge of those who are on the wrong side of that divide. If you don't agree that billionaires should be abolished, then get the fuck out. If you don't want to tax the rich, get the fuck out. If you don't want to radically increase union power, get the fuck out. If you don't agree that billionaires should be abolished, then get the fuck out. If you don't want to tax the rich, get the fuck out. If you don't want to radically increase union power, get the fuck out. If you don't want to implement a universal jobs guarantee, get out. If you don't want universal health care, get out. If you do support these things, but you also have a more moderate position on abortion, guns, trans athletes, okay, there can be a space for you here.

But these cultural issues can never be central. They are distractions because to claim them as central is to void the correct divisive frame and undercut the narrative. The war is not between immigrants and Americans. The war is between the plutocrats and the people. Immigrant and trans panics, those are ploys to keep regular people divided against each other instead of against the corrupt political, media, and economic elite who have rigged the system and hogged all the spoils. Elon Musk is out there running around crying about trans people and migrants existing because he wants another giant taxpayer subsidy and an even bigger tax cut. He does not have your best interests or those of the country,

for that matter, in mind. Bernie explained this all perfectly in a classic clip, of course, which has recently resurfaced. Take a listen. Now, if you had an agenda like that and you went before the American people, tax breaks for the rich, destruction of Medicare, destruction of Social Security, as we know it, lowering the minimum wage or abolishing it, how many votes do you think you'd get? Not a whole lot. Maybe the richest 1% would vote for you. That's not a lot of votes. So what do I do? I've got a problem.

You package it. How do you package it? And here's, I want you to pay attention to me. This is bad stuff. We divide people up by races. Affirmative action becomes one issue. All them black people are getting the jobs that we white people used to have. Split people, working class, white against black.

Instead of working together to create decent jobs for all. Those uppity women now, they want the right to choose. We'll split people on the abortion issue. We'll split people up on the gun issue. We'll split people up on religious issues. You follow what I'm saying? So you split people up, and then they end up, if you're a middle class person, voting against your own interests, and the rich go laughing all the way to the bank. And they succeed with the help of the media, because the media will not talk about how, in a sense, the common problems that Americans face and how we bring people together.

And that's what I believe. I believe that on issues like everybody in this room thinks, I think, that instead of giving tax breaks to the rich, we should increase federal aid to education. Anyone disagree with that? Well, you know what? Most Americans agree with that. All of you think that every American should be entitled to health care. I suspect most of you think we should not have a trade policy which allows corporations to throw American workers out on the street and run to China. Most Americans agree with that. And our job is to bring people together on common interest and some of these extreme right-wing people. You watch the issues that they talk about. Affirmative action they use to divide. The issue of abortion they use to divide. The issue of guns they use to divide. And our job

is to say, let's focus on basic economic issues. How do we expand the middle class? This is a great country. Why is it the average American is working longer hours for low wages than 30 years ago? Let's talk about that. Amen, Bernie. And of course, there is another figure in American history we can look to who understood this politics of division and reaped massive electoral rewards, which allowed him to deliver an American social democratic program, talking, of course, about FDR, who famously welcomed the hatred of those economic royalists who would seek to block his agenda. As front of the show, RME USA Frimpong points out, plan is actually not that complicated, and FDR's economic bill

of rights will more than suffice. It reads, every American has the right to, number one, a job. Number two, an adequate wage and decent living. Number three, a decent home. Number four, medical care. Number five, economic protection during sickness, accident, old age, or unemployment. Number six, a good education. That's it.

That's the program, simple to understand, impossible to actually achieve with the current donor-beholden leadership of the Democratic Party. Probably the only hope is someone to come in like a bull in a china shop from the outside like what Donald Trump did. Even Bernie was ultimately way too nice to these people. And since the program is actively hostile to capital, the capital class will wage a far more aggressive fight than they really mustered against Trump. It is more likely the Democrats take the advice of those who are rushing to throw trans people, immigrants, whoever, under the bus and simply capitulate to Trump's narrative.

Many already have, in fact. This path may even be electorally viable in the same way that Democrats became viable after Bill Clinton adopted Reaganite neoliberal framing. But I don't care about Democrats winning, ultimately. I care about delivering meaningful improvements for working class people, avoiding wars, and keeping our democracy. Donor-friendly capitulation is a plan to avoid even joining the fight. Sagar, the John Stewart clip, enjoy that. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you.

There's going to be a great counterpoint show for everybody tomorrow, and we will see you all on Thursday. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future

where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators, shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi.

We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company 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. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.