Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/22/22: Rail Strike, Anti-Corporate Polls, Trump's Middle East Corruption, FIFA Anti-Gay Policy, Hunter's Laptop, Jon Stewart & MORE!

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Krystal and Saagar bring the news about an incoming rail strike, anti-corporate polling, Trump's Middle East deals, FIFA controversy, Hunter's laptop, Jon Stewart debating Clinton & MORE!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it means the absolute world to have your support. What are you waiting for? Become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of big, interesting news happening this morning. First of all, looks like we might be heading to a rail strike. Once again, the largest union representing workers who work on the railroad, they have voted down that tentative deal that was struck by the White House and the railroad companies and the union leaders. So we'll get into all of that and what that might mean for Christmas. We also have some new polling breaking down exactly who swung and why in the midterm elections. Very interesting granular look about exactly what took place. Also new details about Trump's latest business deals and how they may not may they how they do directly conflict with being the

president of the United States and call into question exactly how he would be conducting his foreign policy. We've got some updates on the World Cup and Qatar. Not good stuff about how they're banning, you know, anything that looks like it could be in support of LGBTQ people. So we'll break all of that down for you. And also some real courage from the Iranian soccer team that we have to bring to you and show you what was going on there. Also, this is just amazing. CBS News, how many days, years later has finally confirmed, oh, it turns out the Hunter Biden laptop was real. It's been more than two years, Crystal. So shocked. I could have seen. I mean, you knew at the time when they didn't even directly deny

that any of the material on it was accurate anyway. This is ridiculous. They finally bothered to get around to saying, yeah, I guess it was real. So we'll get into all of that. But before we do,

live show. Live show. All right, let's go ahead and put that up there on the screen. We are coming to New York City and to Boston. Back-to-back dates,

December 6th at 7.30 p.m. Standard Time. Great Standard Time. And then December 7th, we will be in Boston. Go ahead and buy tickets, guys. As we said, it would definitely mean a lot to us. We have a great show planned for everybody. I know tickets are selling quite well, but we'd really like to have sold-out shows, back-to-back nights, really show the big cities on the East Coast who exactly they're dealing with.

So the links for those are down in the description. Yeah, that's going to be fun. Let's get to the show. All right. So big news this morning. As I was saying before, we could be heading once again to a rail strike. This, it seemed like, might have been averted previously, but we always warned that the sort of congratulatory celebration of, yay, we have a deal, was way premature because

every union, the rank and file members, got a vote on whether what was being offered was sufficient. And we now know that for several of them, it was not. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is from the Washington Post. The headline here is, Rail Union Rejects Contract as Strike Threatens U.S. Economy Before Holidays. Attendance and sick leave policies have led to widespread anger and frustration among rank and file railroad workers on major freight lines. So the bottom line here is that the union that has the largest number of rail workers narrowly voted down the agreement that had been struck at sort of the last minute between, you know, Biden administration officials were leading the negotiations and you had the rail bosses and you had the union leaders. But we always said, look, first of all, this deal doesn't look that amazing on the surface.

There wasn't a lot of transparency about it to begin with. And then we did get the details. You saw a lot of rank and file unhappiness about what those details were. They gave them, for example, one more paid leave day. So it wasn't like they got the moon and the sun and the stars here. So there was always a question of whether the rank and file members would accept it. And it's been a mixed bag. I think there are 12 different unions that represent workers who work on the railroads who would be involved in this particular deal. And the largest one now has voted it down. There were three other smaller ones that also voted it down. There were three other smaller ones that also voted it down. But the important thing to keep in mind is that they all have an agreement that if one goes on strike, they all go on strike in solidarity so that they can have the maximum

amount of leverage. Let me give you what the White House is saying. This is from a White House official. They say, as the president said in the beginning, a shutdown is unacceptable because of the harm it would inflict on jobs, families, farms, businesses and communities across the country. A majority of unions have voted to ratify the tentative agreement, and the best option is still for the parties to resolve this themselves. You also have some indications here that some of the smaller unions also voted this down. The timeline is that the first unions could go on strike as soon as December 5th. That would be the end of the lockout period is what it's called. That would also be a time, you remember last time around, the railroad companies actually started a lockout. So that's sort of like the opposite of the strike. The

strike is when the workers walk away. The lockout is when the companies say, basically, we're shutting this down. So in any case, we could be headed for a strike here very shortly. Yeah, I think that's right. And the American prospect actually has a really good explanation about everything that's happening here. Let's take a listen. And of course, you come in and there is one of the most disruptive events in the history of our supply chains, which is the pandemic. You know, many, many people have attributed sort of the current performance issues in freight rail to that and the changes in goods demand and issues with workers. And others say that, you know, this is a legacy issue that long predates COVID and goes back really to the core of the business model. Where do you fall on that?

I think it's almost without debate that it has very little to do. The real problems in the freight rail network have almost nothing to do with the pandemic. To quote one of my early political mentors, Harold Washington, that's a canard, a word he loved to throw around. If you look at the history of freight rail in the last six, eight, ten years, freight rail began to disarm itself and reduce its resources long before the pandemic began. By the time the pandemic hit, the seven class one railroads had reduced their workforce by close to 30 percent, about 45,000 people. You cannot run a robust freight rail network with that much of a reduction. Some reductions, maybe. I don't have a magic number. I just know that what they did has been way too much. The pandemic led the

railroads to then reduce the workforce by even more. And not only has it exacerbated the situation, and anybody who knows anything about freight rail, and the people who run the railroads certainly ought to know it, would know that you can't just dump that many workers and then expect to recall them all immediately when you need them. It doesn't work that way. Yes, in the past years, more furloughed workers came back. That was a positive experience. But everyone knew the pandemic was something new and unique. And before rushing into dumping more workers, you ought to think about it. And I've said so much to the railroad CEOs, all of whom I meet with from time to time. So that was Martin Oberman. He's the current chair of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board. So he has a close-up look at what exactly is going on with the freight

railroads. And this gets to the backstory of how we got to this place. Basically, the guys who run these railroad companies decided in order to squeeze as high a profit margin as they possibly could to lay off a bunch of workers over a long period of time. This has been an ongoing situation. Now, when the pandemic hits, that exacerbates the situation. They lay off even more workers. And then once the pandemic starts to come to a close, and even once they realize in the pandemic that you still have a lot of demand for a lot of different goods and you really need these supply chains operating in order to move goods around and not spike inflation and all of that, they try to recall workers and bring them back. But it's just not that simple. And so since they don't have the workforce through their own doing, again, what they've done instead is put the burden

on the workers who are still there. So they institute this point system in terms of how you can take days off. That is incredibly onerous. I mean, we have played all kinds of worker testimony here and showed you how arduous, how really unfair this ultimately is. People unable to just take a day off to go to the doctor, take care of basic things. There was someone who couldn't go to the doctor, ends up having a heart attack and dying. I mean, just horrific, horrific owner's burden put on them. And this was really the core issue, not so much wages. It really was about these work-life balance conditions. And that was what to go through. You know, I know we've been covering

this a lot, but just to remind you, the way this worked is first you had upset, you know, with the railroad workers who initially voted to strike. Then because railroad labor relations are governed by a separate set of law, the next thing that happened is the president actually appointed a board to try to come to some sort of resolution. Well, what they suggested didn't deal with any of these quality of life issues whatsoever. And so it was basically just siding with the bosses. The workers again reject this. And that's how we came down to the wire last time around with, you know, the labor secretary, Marty Walsh, and Biden even intervening directly and other, I think Pete was involved, other Biden administration officials trying to strike this deal. They come to a tentative agreement, which kicked the ball

down the road and got us through the midterm elections. That tentative agreement now voted down leaves us with a question of whether or not these workers are going to go on strike, which would have, of course, widespread consequences, all because their bosses don't want to give them a few days off and because they really screwed the pooch in terms of laying off all these workers. Or the other option is that Congress now could actually intervene and cram down a deal on the workers and force them into some sort of a capitulation. Right. And on the business side, I just think it's really worth pulling back and considering how much these companies have been basically working for Wall Street. And the irony is the workers are getting screwed and actually the customers are getting screwed, too.

They're not getting cheaper freight prices. So consider this. Last year, the seven major railways had a combined net income of $27 billion. That's up $15 billion from a decade earlier. And over the past decade, six of the seven railways that are publicly traded stocks paid out, listen to this, $146 billion in stock buybacks and in dividends, which is over $30 billion more than cash than they had even invested in their business. So you can easily have work-life balance if you were to just hire more employees and cycle them in and out, but that would be bad for the stock. And this is the funniest

thing. Whenever you look at these numbers, you're like, hey, 146 billion in stock, buyback, let's do 100. Just take the 46 and keep the shareholders happy and you can have more employees. Let your workers have a decent quality of life. One of our favorite clips on this is from a Newsmax interview where one of the hosts was shocked to discover what the actual conditions on the railroad are. Let's take a listen. David, we did reach out to the Association of American Railroads and they say that workers get six days and paid time off.

But what I want to talk to you about is what does this mean for Americans if you do go on strike? Well, whoever told you we get six days, our six days is manipulating the data. We get paid time off that we earned the previous year before. Before the new policy came about, we were allowed to take five days off and two weekend days off a month. Now we could take virtually one day unpaid off a month. And then the only other time we could take off is our paid time that we had to earn the previous year. Yeah, that does seem ridiculous. They would never let airline pilots do that. Is that issue number one for members of the union? 100% is number one. And if we go on strike, yes, it could hurt the economy. It could be bad for society, but we don't want to do that. None of us want to do that.

Well, and I know Amtrak's already suspended. We're not asking for the world here. We're asking for a few days off a month to spend with our family instead of living on a train. We spend 240 to 260 hours a month sitting on these trains or sitting at the hotel rooms away from our families. Amazing moment. Yeah, I think it's great. People are like, wow, I had no idea. And we were covering a lot of this. The media was not focusing on that and the conditions nearly at the time. That's right. It was all machinations and it was all like, when are these guys going to go back to work, et cetera.

Like, look, you know the basic facts here. And also, you know, this is what we're setting up for our next part. It's very likely that this doesn't actually end up in a real strike and Congress is going to force them back to work, unfortunately. That is very much what it looks like is going to happen. So let's go ahead and get to that. We've already had comments. This was a couple weeks ago. It was actually right before the midterms,

which is why we didn't have a chance to cover it. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, let's put this up on the screen. He says Congress needs to block rail strikes if there are not new deals. deal. So as I was just saying, because labor-rail relations are covered by a separate legal framework, the next step that could happen if workers and the rail bosses are not able to come to a deal is Congress could cram down a deal themselves. Now, this came close to happening before the midterm elections. You had all the Republicans ready to force on the workers the really terrible deal that came from Biden's presidential board from their recommendations that basically completely sided with the rail bosses.

Republicans still stand ready to vote for that bad deal for workers. Marty Walsh now in this statement says that without a deal, he expects Congress will step in and impose contracts on the unhappy rank and file union members. So he is basically saying, listen, y'all need to come to a deal or else Congress is going to force you into a deal, effectively siding with the Republicans and what their posture was before the midterm elections. But even beyond that, it really takes away the workers leverage. So if you have if the rail bosses know that they're likely to get their way through Congress anyway, then they're not going to respond to, you know, a threat or a potential strike.

Instead, they're just going to wait it out because they feel that Congress and the Biden administration is likely to side with them and force a deal that, you know, on rank and file workers that they have rejected. So very, very likely that is where we're headed since, you know, I mean, the Biden administration is going to look, they're going to say it's Christmas time, shopping season, all that stuff. We can't have this disruption to the railways. And so we're going to side with the business interests over the workers because that sort of like efficiency and smooth operation and everything is more important to us than the lives of these workers. I think that makes it effectively confirmed because we're

already in the lame duck. You would have the administration that would back it. For them, it would be a catastrophe to have any sort of disruption over the holidays. Now, you know, they could pressure the rail companies to actually give what these guys what they want. How about that? That's one option, but they're not going to go with that option, it seems, as of yet. And the companies, as you sell, they have major Republican allies. The Chamber of Commerce and others are lobbying very hard right here in Washington. You know, for all of the noise, like this is the top of what I would imagine that lobbyists on K Street are working towards. And it seems like they have all their ducks in a row. Throw the next one up there on the screen, please,

the Politico tear sheet. This basically lays it all out and quoting many of the top Republicans on the committees and laying out the path through which effectively forcing the strike to end if it was triggered in the first place. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, that's very likely where we're ultimately headed, which is sad that the Biden administration has already signaled they're likely to just give the rail bosses their way so that, you know, we can make sure that the Christmas holiday season is not disrupted, which, listen, I understand nobody wants these sorts of economy-wide shutdowns. It is a disaster for farmers. It's a disaster for consumers. It's a disaster for the country. But as you said very well, Sagar, there is another option here, which

is just to pressure the companies to give these workers a few days off. It really shouldn't be that much of an ask. And I do want to underscore the fact that it has gotten to this point, I think really shows you how unhappy and how burdensome these workers really find this new system. And, you know, we have had a lot of talk about the supply chain, how important it is, how when it goes, the rails, not to use a bad pun, how much everybody suffers, how it impacts prices, how all of this is incredibly critical, how it's been taken for granted. And yet here we have one of the most critical pieces of our infrastructure and our supply chain basically

being held hostage by a few rail bosses who want to be able to do their stock buybacks and reap as much of a profit as they possibly, possibly could. It is a very poor way to run a country. It's a very poor way to run an economy. It creates all kinds of risks, not just for these workers, but for people around the nation. Yeah, I think that's it. And that's why I thought it was important. That's why we decided to lead this show with this, especially going into the holiday season, especially when we consider there are thousands of people, so-called temporary workers, who are being staffed up in factories and elsewhere to get stuff that

we order on Amazon and to fulfill the holiday crush. And this is a little bit of the cost of what that all takes. And these people are really invisibilized. Nobody's even thought about rail workers in this country for, what, like 100 years. Literally, I think the last major rail strike was, what, 1946? That's what kind of spawned, that spawned the laws around Congress and its ability to crush the unions. And anyway, it's an interesting part of American history that we used to have like real titanic struggles over and now they're basically invisibilized. Yeah, no, that's right. I mean, there was a monumental rail strike that led to like, you know, burning of all kinds of, I mean, militant had to call in the National Guard,

that kind of stuff in our past. The other thing that I think it's worth saying is, you know, this is part of during the pandemic, these workers became a lot less invisible. And that's why we've seen reverberating effects, not just with rail workers, but, you know, service workers, delivery workers, warehouse workers, where, you know, they were sort of intentionally put in the background of American society pre-pandemic. And then when everything shuts down, you come to realize like, oh, if these people don't keep working, we're really hosed. And so that, I think, really elevated them in the public's eyes and why so much of the public really has been siding with them in these fights, which was not something that you could take for granted

before this period. And then the other thing that I have to say is that, you know, I think the media has done, obviously, a very poor job of covering this whole situation. Case in point, as you were pointing out, a lot of the coverage has been very slanted towards the portrait that the rail bosses want to paint and didn't even accurately describe the fact that they basically had a lockout, that they were the ones that were risking the economy. You'd have whole articles that went through without mentioning any of the quality of life, really legitimate concerns of the workers. And then, you know, when this tentative deal was struck, there was very little educating of the public of what it actually meant and that this was not like, OK, we're done. Great job, Biden administration. Way to go. You've

averted a catastrophe, that this was just the first step and that the rank and file workers were going to get to say, have a say as well. So anyway, that's where we are. You know, very likely what's going to happen is Congress is going to intervene. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh has already stripped these workers basically of any leverage. So that's likely where we're heading. That's right. All right. Let's move on to the next one. We're doing some fun evergreen stuff today. So let's go and put this up there on the screen. A poll that really struck Crystal and I post the midterm. So we're looking at verified winning swing voters who helped deliver victories for Democrats and who exactly these moderates are who disapproved of Biden, don't like the MAGA GOP,

how they voted and why exactly. So of the who disapproved of Biden, don't like the MAGA GOP, how they voted, and why exactly. So, of the winning swing voters who supported Democrats in key races were the moderates who actually disapproved of Biden. This is actually a common phenomenon. A lot of these people voted for Trump also in the past. So, who are they? Well, party identification. Roughly split, 42% Democrat, 19% Independent, 39% Republican, which led to a net Democratic victory of plus three. Now, ideology. The vast majority of these people, 63%, consider themselves, quote, moderate and 20% conservative. They also voted for Biden. Of them, their approval rating, Biden's approval rating was only 34%. 64% disapproved. So he had a minus 30 net approval

rating amongst these people, and the Democrats still won their votes. Now, economic approval, same thing. 70% disagreement and 29% approval on Biden's economic. But, and I think this is the key, favorability towards MAGA Republicans, 18%, 21% for independents, 61% unfavorable, a net unfavorability of minus 43. And what actually strikes me is if you compare that to Trump, MAGA Republicans were found to be more unfavorable than Trump himself. Yeah, isn't that interesting? Yeah, well, actually, it totally tracks because, look, with Trump, you can say this. He's funny. You know, he has his own unique personal dynamism. But Bulldog, you know, Lauren Boebert, Blake Masters, Herschel. They're not pulling it off the same way he does.

They don't have the star power, I think, is a very kind way of saying it. So when I look at that, it actually shows you that these MAGA-type clowns really were such a massive drag on the ticket. And I also think that if you continue down, we don't have necessarily on the elements on this, but the best reasons that these voters decided to back Democrats were healthcare, abortion, January 6th, and the environment. But the SCOTUS ruling on abortion is one that strikes out to me so heavily, Crystal, because amongst these swing voters, it was winning Democrats by 48% for people who disapproved of the overturning of Roe versus Wade. That was, by and large, the single biggest driving factor for a lot of these people. So it proves really kind of our snap takeaways from the election, which was bad candidates and abortion were two massive drags on the Republican Party. And a lot of GOP people are willing to admit the bad candidate part, but they don't want to touch abortion, even though it is literally the area where they are most out of step with the swing voters and mostly the American people. You know, it's interesting, too, because tied with SCOTUS and overturning abortion rights

for the greatest reason to support Democrats was actually the cost of quality health care and prescription drugs. You know, Democrats didn't do a lot on it, you know, and they didn't even tout it all that much. But the fact that they even touched on trying to lower the cost of insulin for a subset of the public, apparently that landed with voters. It was very clear to them that Republicans were on the other side of that. So I thought to me that was a surprising takeaway. Future of Social Security and Medicare also ranked decently high in terms of reasons to support Democrats over Republicans. That was kind of a late push that Democrats made in terms of their messaging and got a little assist there from Senator Rick Scott, who, of course, had suggested that in his like little plan he put out, much to the chagrin of Mitch McConnell, and continued to talk about, you know, how they wanted to, their words are like preserve entitlements, which

always means we're going to cut them. Yeah, reform. Exactly. Preserve them for future generations. When you, which always means we're going to cut them. Yeah, reform. Exactly. Preserve them for future generations. When you hear that, that means they want to cut it. Yeah, I don't know if you saw the political genius Paul Ryan says that he doesn't think entitlement reform will be, quote, as toxic as it once was. My dude.

Okay. Some people never learn. Yeah, they truly, I guess in a way, he does believe it. So there's some credit to that. Let's pull the next one up there on the screen. This is really fascinating. And this is something you and I have been kind of obsessed with, which is that right now, if you look at a recent poll,

this was 2015 people, corporate greed is one of the most pressing issues facing our country. Our political leaders are either in their pockets or never get around to doing anything to changing things. Agree, 76%. Disagree, 24%. I need to meet those people. I like that. I like that. Who are you who thinks that that is not true? Why does that matter? That is a big change. It's a big shift in the way that Americans and specifically Republicans think about enterprise. I mean, we don't have to go back that far. 2012, the makers and takers election.

Paul Ryan is the 2012 nominee. Bain Capital. Mitt Romney, corporations are people too, my friends. Corporations are people too, my friends. I mean, there's so many classic quotes which really just drag the GOP down in so many of these areas. That's how Barack Obama won Ohio, again, even though the economy wasn't that great. Even though, really, if you looked at the polling, it wasn't nearly as big of a blowout as the Electoral College would make it. He was quite vulnerable. It's just that they ran so clownishly

and Obama was able to paint Mitt Romney as a corporate stooge. I mean, I remember Obama had that website. It was like, how much more in taxes did you pay than Mitt Romney? And that stuff is devastating to people. I mean, it is really interesting to me because I was thinking about this wasn't just a shift in attitude of like, you know, the sort of like rhetorical shift that the Republican Party has made with regards to corporations and working people. This is a shift in the base. And what it signals to me is that, you know, the base was really ready after all these years of neoliberalism and the clear, like, consolidation of corporate power and how really sort of almost authoritarian it is, just how influential it is in American life. The Republican base was ready for that message. They were ready to hear a critique of corporate power. Now, Trump offered a little bit of that in terms, again, rhetorically. Now, from a policy perspective, the only thing you could really point to, and I do think this is significant,

is a very different posture towards trade, which was a break from not just Republican orthodoxy, but bipartisan orthodoxy in Washington. And so it almost created a permission structure for the base to have their own critique of corporate power. Now, the question is, and this is what I've been thinking about with regards to these election results and why the, you know, economic message from the Republicans wasn't enough, is it seems like it's no longer sufficient for them just to say, like, the economy is bad or to just rhetorically sort of gesture towards a check on corporate power. There's going to have to be some more there there or else, you know, their own voters are going to see through what

is just a like rhetorical feint and sort of like anti-corporate virtue signaling. And that holds for the Democratic Party as well. It's no longer going to be enough to just, you know, say the words. They're going to have to actually challenge corporate power. I do think the Biden administration is doing that a little bit with their antitrust moves in particular, with their personnel on the National Labor Relations Board. But this is going to be a force in American politics that's going to be, I think, very difficult to resist, even as, of course, you have all of the big money interests lined up with that 24 percent or whatever on the other side. Yeah, I think that's right. You know, interestingly enough, Senator Josh Hawley out with an op ed. He's trying to retcon the GOP autopsy. Let's put this up there on the screen.

He put out this is, frankly, in my opinion, much better than the J.D. Vance's op-ed. Let's say autopsy. He says, quote, the GOP is dead. A new GOP must listen to working people. He says, quote, the old Republican Party is dead. It's been wasting away for years. This month's midterms are finishing blow. Now, quote, many Republicans are primed to learn the wrong lessons. Over the past week, we've heard this election

is about nothing more than candidate quality. Wrong. The problem isn't principally the tactics. The problem is the substance. For the past two years, the Republican establishment has capitulated on issue after issue, caving to Democrats on the Second Amendment and on the left's climate agenda. These Republican politicians sided with Big Pharma on insulin and advocated lowering tariffs on our competitors overseas. They then wonder why working-class independents have little enthusiasm about voting Republicans. They have now for decades

sung a similar tune on economics. They cut taxes on big corporations and talked about changing social security and Medicare. George W. Bush even tried to do this. In the name of growth, the same Republicans have supported ruinous trade policies. The tax and trade agenda has hollowed out too many American towns. So it's kind of a familiar script. It's interesting. Whether it would be paired with anything is the real question. And I wanted to get to this final part. I'm curious for your thoughts. It says, quote, we need explicit support in our tax code for marriage and family, a parent tax credit for working families. We should adopt new

protections for parents to ensure they control their children's educations and medical care, and families cannot thrive unless they are safe. That's why we need 100,000 new police officers on the streets. Right now, the Republican Party stands at a crossroads. Its leaders can resurrect the dead consensus of offshoring amnesty and free trade. That is just the path to further losses. So, I mean, I don't know. It's interesting because he really is kind of alone in the way that he's taking this away. That said, part of the reason why I have seen both J.D., Josh, and many others who are very MAGA aligned not want to lean into candidate quality is because doing that is implicitly a critique of Trump. We haven't had a chance, I don't know, Chris, to even dissect Vance's autopsy.

And he was like, don't blame Trump. He said the problem was money. And here's the thing. Okay. Silly. Let's accept that as money. Who do you think stole all the money? It's Trump.

True. Trump is the one who, during his fundraising, would take 80% or 90% would endorse people like Blake Masters and basically hang him out to dry and make Mitch McConnell spend all the money. Yeah. It's like, Trump, you've got $150 million in the bank. You can spend big time, my man. You've got all the money and fundraising apparatus in the world. And yet, every time he fundraisers for Herschel Walker, he takes, what, 99.9% of the dollars that are raised. It's absurd. I think it's 90%, but yeah, it's bad. It's ridiculous. If you're mad about money, Trump is actually the problem. He sucks it all up. Yeah. I mean, I had to laugh at J.D.'s autopsy because yeah,

it was just so clearly an attempt to be like, Trump has nothing to do with it. He wanted the headline that said, don't blame Trump. I'm like, look, I get the game. He wanted Mar-a-Lago to see that little headline. I mean, it was very transparent what was going on there. And then he's like, the problem is ActBlue, which is literally just a platform for raising for Democrats to raise money online. Republicans have a version of that, too, by the way.

It's called WinRed. So if your grassroots base isn't excited enough to donate money, it's not because you're just like lacking the mechanics of an online fundraising. It was ridiculous. Getting back to the Josh Hawley one, because I think it is more interesting. Listen, some of this stuff, obviously, Democrats don't agree with and wouldn't go along with some of this. I definitely disagree with.

I mean, in particular, like green industrial policy is good and would be good for the working class. And, you know, there should be a partner there if you're actually interested in, like, building the working class, whatever. We'll put that aside. There are a few things here that obviously Democrats could work with him on. I mean, some of the big tech stuff, new antitrust laws, he says, for big tech. Democrats have a bipartisan, there are bipartisan bills that could deal with some of these issues. Does Hawley or any other subset of the Republican caucus, do they actually look to work with Democrats on that? You know, a potential

parent tax credit for working for this is something that Democrats have been talking about and to their credit. I mean, there are a few Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio said something about, I mean, there have been a few Republicans who have like floated the idea of maybe we could get on board with something to this effect. But do they actually go and do they actually work with Democrats on passing something that they all could agree with? So, you know, I mean, I also have to I also have to note there's no mention here whatsoever of the union fights that we cover here, the labor struggles, which are the most significant thing happening for working people in the country right now, arguably. So to just sort of like ignore that and put it off the table also calls for me into question your seriousness.

And ultimately, where this attempted wing of the party of the Republican Party has failed is on two counts. Number one, rather than having an overall systemic critique of corporate power, it's like specific to, let's say, the CEO of Disney or in Marco Rubio's case, the woke HR executive at Amazon, rather than a sweeping critique that would lead to those curbs of power, which, you know, something like antitrust regulation that he floats here would get to more of a systemic critique. So can they, you know, get to that broader discussion rather than just focusing on like this or that executive who said some woke thing that they don't like? Okay, that's number one. Number two, this is the big problem, is we've heard these noises from Josh Hawley before. And then what does he do?

He leans into January 6th. I mean, that's how he became sort of like a MAGA figure, a MAGA hero. And that's why he and J.D. Vance aren't going to have more colleagues who might think differently than them joining them in the Senate and joining them over in the House is because they've tied themselves in to this very conspiratorial part of the Republican Party, which is wildly unpopular with the general public. So as long as those two things are married together, you're really going to be running into a wall in terms of your electability. I would add a third element to that, which they also tend to be the most socially conservative members. True, that's a good point too.

I mean, I don't know what J.D. has ever said on a national abortion ban. I don't know if he's ever endorsed it necessarily, but both him and Ali are like major pro-life warriors. That's fine, you know, but take a look at the election results and the polling. It's an interesting amalgam. So look, we'll see. The point is, though, is that somebody will eventually have to fill it because let's go to the next one. And this just buttresses the point that we were making about the change research poll. Republicans' views of banks and large corporations have become way less positive since 2019. So just in a three-year shift, we have now gone, consider this, banks and other financial institutions. Republicans in August of 2019, 63% say it has a positive effect. Today, 38%.

Wow. Yeah. Large corporations, August 2019, 54%. October 2022, 26%. Wow. August 2019, technology companies, 58%. Today, 40%. It's actually Democrats are the only ones who still have a positive view of technology.

I bet Elon's tanking that for them right now. So you might be right. So actually, maybe it's a good thing. But what other than tech companies where Dems have relatively kept a flat thing, you have banks and financial institutions and large corporations all taking a what, minus 25 at minimum drop in approval rating across the board, all parties. Yeah. So Republicans, Democrats, and independents. So look, we're living really in the anti-corporate moment. You now have large swaths of the people across everyone who have no support for banks and major financial institutions. And I think it's also interesting to go through who actually has some support within the public. And that's that graph for those who are watching on the right. You'll see small business, the military, K through 12 public schools, labor unions,

churches and religious organizations, colleges and universities. We'll see if we can do something about that one. Technology companies, banks and financial institutions are the ones who are negative and large corporations. So right now, two of the only places with basically no popularity in the public in terms of non-governmental institutions, banks and large corporations. So eventually something has to give on that front. I don't know if it will come in this iteration. And as we have now found out in politics, people can want something. It may take two decades to even get it.

But you look at this and something's going to happen. There's just simply no way to consider that it will just float off into the ether. I think things are already happening. I mean, it's not enough, right? It's little baby steps. But again, the Biden administration taking a different approach on antitrust and even a handful of Republicans talking about antitrust in a different way, that really represents a sea change in American politics. And it's not because Biden is great or he's visionary or he's like done with neoliberalism. That's a response. Biden has always situated himself where he thinks the center of public opinion and the center of the Democratic Party ultimately is. So if you see him move on an issue and him going for, you know,

a different approach to antitrust is definitely him moving on an issue. That's a reflection of the American public being in a very different place. So, again, it's baby steps. But when you talk about, you know, the type of personnel they put in place, some of the fights that they've taken on yesterday, we covered that they're the DOJ under Biden is investigating Ticketmaster and the Live Nation merger that went through under Obama. So you can already see the wheel starting to turn. How quickly does it turn? Who takes advantage of it? None of this is inevitable. There can be backsliding. All of those things are the case. But I think you're right that ultimately this level of pressure from 75 percent of the public is not something that you can resist forever. So it's going to be you know, it's going to be interesting to see.

You're going to have some interesting different characters in the Senate coming up. You could have, you know, if they chose to work together, you could have an interesting populist caucus. You could have John Fetterman and Josh Hawley, like, coming together on child tax credit. I'm not holding my breath for that, but you never know how these things might ultimately unfold. Yeah, I think J.D.U. actually will probably introduce some very interesting legislation. I know some of the people who are working for him. They're very, very bright individuals. And look, we'll see.

Where is it on trade or where do you think he's different from the, like, Reagan consensus? I think trade is going to be a big one. I don't have a feel for it. I think trade and China are going to be some of the—and those are also the areas with the most bipartisan crossover, right? Especially given Sherrod Brown. So I think they're going to have some smart—they have two tactics. A, they need to shore up their right flank, so they're going to have some culture stuff, which probably most people won't be happy with who are on the left. But at the same time, I think they're going to have some major fights on the corporate front, on financial institutions, regulatory.

That's something Marco Rubio has been spearheading for a long time, not just on semiconductors, but literally on major index. I've talked about some of it here over the years, like index funds

and the way that they invest in major Chinese corporations, the way that the State Department and all that handles that. Some of this will be deep in the regulatory weeds, but it really, really matters. So we'll see. Again, I will withhold judgment until we actually see it. But knowing the people working for him, I expect some very interesting stuff to come out of

this. The last thing I want to say about this, that just going back to the beginning of the polling that we initially showed about like the winning swing voters and the thing that really characterized them is they were negative on Biden and they were negative on Trump and the Republican Party. So these were people who are like not happy with anyone. And they ultimately swung a little bit towards Democrats. And when they went through and polled them on Democratic accomplishments, including the CHIPS Act, including the inflation reduction, including the infrastructure bill, including the PACS Act, which was health care for veterans who were injured by toxic burn pits. All of that was really, really, really popular. And some of it, I mean, the CHIPS Act very clearly has this sort of like new industrial policy direction. So clearly, these are things that have a big bipartisan

consensus for them, even among people who are like really not into either one of these parties. Another thing I would say to Josh Hawley here, who, yeah, I think in part the op-ed is an attempt to distract from like, you know, some really obvious blame that Donald Trump deserves. But he's got a real point on the insulin piece because that was more important to voters than I mean, this analysis says that was actually really important to voters and they were actually paying attention about which party was on which side. So it is kind of heartening to see this polling that some of the substance here did ultimately matter to people, even as they're continuing to be disgusted with the corruption of both political classes. I think that's definitely correct. All right. Speaking of corruption of both political classes, we have some new reporting

for The New York Times about some of the latest business dealings from former President Trump, and it is really something. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is from Eric Lipton and Maggie Haberman. The headline here says, Trump family's newest partners, Middle Eastern governments. The government of Oman is a partner in a real estate deal signed last week by the former president, intensifying questions about a potential conflict as he seeks the White House again. Let me just read you a little bit of the details here. So they say when former President Trump returned briefly last week to his office at Trump Tower in New York, he was joined by his son, Eric, and the top executive of a Saudi Arabian real estate company to sign a deal that creates new conflict of interest questions for his just-launched presidential campaign. Here are the specifics. The deal is

with the Saudi real estate company, which intends to build a Trump-branded hotel, etc., etc., as part of a $4 billion real estate project in Oman. But here's the real kicker. It's not just with this Saudi company. This project is backed directly by the government of Oman itself. Now, you couple this with the live Gulf deals that Trump now has also directly with the Saudi government. And these are really, now you might, like your eyes might glaze over at all of the conflicts of interest that Trump has long had, including diplomats staying at his hotels, all of those things. But I wanted to really point these out because it is very different for him to have a direct financial interest and entanglements with a foreign government. So obviously he's had all kinds of projects all over the world. This is the first time, at least in his presidential era, that we've been able to see that there is a direct business deal now with the Saudi government and with the government of Oman. in terms of conflict of interest, in terms of calling into question what Trump's policy is in the Middle East and throughout the world. And I also think it's important to put this on the table at the same time that, as CounterPoint's covered last week, the Republicans are all in.

The very first thing that the Republicans, once they took the House, announced is they're going to investigate Joe Biden and how he was connected to Hunter Biden's business deals overseas. Okay, that's all well and good. But if you don't have anything to say about this, Trump directly having business dealings with foreign governments, then obviously you're not a bad attacker. That's always the issue. And look, lucky for us, we've got Hunter and we've got Trump in the show.

I've always thought this is the great scandal of the Trump administration, which is just the unbelievable foreign graft that they're willing to accept. And nobody really did any proper investigation. They did some bullshit Russiagate, you know, instead. Look, even just yet last week, we got a new report that the Trump hotel receipts reveal $10,500 a night rooms for foreign officials that were trying to influence U.S. policy. Those include the governments of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, China, and Malaysia, who all spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at the Trump Hotel. At the same time, they were literally in town to try and influence the U.S. government. They include the prime minister of Malaysia and his delegation spent 250 grand in a single week. You know, they even charged $1,500 a day for a personal trainer to accompany him.

10 grand for, quote, coffee breaks. And look, all of this is clearly like there's an exchange of something. I've always said that the most disgusting part of the, quote, perfect phone call with Zelensky, back when Zelensky was a different figure for all of us, when he's like, oh, Mr. President, we stayed at the Trump Hotel when we're in. I was like, that's disgusting. That is the actual, you know, play to play that people really should focus on. And look, nobody ever has anything to say. And this is a longstanding pattern now for Trump and the officials. So you have the Trump government now or the Trump organization now in a direct deal with the foreign government and having now taken Saudi cash. Jared Kushner bailed out by the Saudi Arabians, specifically bailed out because we know internal Saudi documents said that his fund should not receive the billion dollars in investment. He received it anyway, being directly overruled by MBS. And Secretary Mnuchin, literally his treasury secretary, also has a new hedge fund backed entirely almost by the kingdom

of Saudi Arabia. So these people are putting down payments on because they love Trump. They love his policy towards them while he was in office and they hope that he wins and that he comes back. It's like, okay, I'm here and have done extensive monologues on the Hunter Biden laptop, the big guy about the China dealings, about Rosemont holdings, BHR holdings of which Hunter's on board. We can go toe to toe on the details for all that. But it's like, nobody ever wants to talk about this. Yeah. If your I if you aren't if if your news outlet isn't able to see corruption in the Trump family and, you know, talk about Hunter and the laptop and the Biden family, they're not giving you a complete picture. I mean, I think that's just a bottom line,

like little litmus test for you there, because this is this is next level. I mean, imagine, just imagine what the right would say if Joe Biden had a direct deal with the Chinese government, with the Omani government, with the Saudi government. And these are countries that we have very challenging and delicate relationships with. I think Ken Klippenstein is going to be covering for us the fact that now that the midterms are over, Saudi's like, oh, maybe we will increase OPEC protection. They have clearly decided to be basically like overtly partisan actors, clearly on the side of Trump, funneling money to him through LiveGolf, funneling money into Jared Kushner, $2 billion through that fund, as you said, MBS, overruling the judgment that like, yeah, this guy's really not up to getting this kind of money. He's like, we don't care. We're going to send it to him anyway. And then the Omani government, I think they were the

only government in the region that did not sign on to the Abraham Accords that were struck by Jared Kushner. So, you know, there's questions about trying to end the war in Yemen. All of these countries are tangled up in those questions of foreign policy. And the last thing you want is a president who you have to ask, like, is this, are you acting in the best interest of the American people? Are you acting in the best interest of your own personal bottom line? So it is truly grotesque. And as I said, I think it was important to highlight in particular, as the House of Republicans start their Hunter Biden investigations and plan to make that a real focus of the next

couple of years. Yep, absolutely right. All right, let's move on to the World Cup. Some interesting news that's coming out of there. So European hypocrisy combined with Qatari hypocrisy. There really is no better, juicier story for me personally. Let's put this up there on the screen. European team captains made a big show of how they were going to wear these love armbands, which showcased support for gay rights, given the Qatari government's prohibition on homosexuality and imprisonment of people who are found to be doing that in their country. them a yellow card, all seven of the European national soccer team said, yeah, we're not going to wear those armbands anymore because they would have punishment on the field and possibly affect their gameplay. So they originally had planned for their captains to wear these with the words, one love to promote gay rights because homosexuality is illegal in Qatar. But FIFA came out basically the day before

they were about to take the stage, or to take the pitch, and said, look, if you do that, we're going to punish you. Eventually, they put out a joint statement on the One Love armband. They said, FIFA has been very clear it will impose sporting sanctions if our captains wear these armbands.

As national federations, we can't put our players in a position where they would face sanctions, including booking, so we have asked the captains to not attempt to wear them in the world cup games yeah it is so basically it's like we were only willing to wear them when there was literally no cost to it and the moment that there was even the hint of a cost we're out let's put the next one up there because the belgians actually and this is how paranoid the Qataris are. On the back of the shirt, not on the back like facing the crowd, basically like the tag says love, the FIFA has demanded that the Belgian team remove the internal tag that says love from the collar of their away shirt, according to ESPN.

Why does all this matter? Because internally in Qatar, FIFA, as I showed yesterday in my monologue, is actively covering for this, is actively covering and trying to cover up the insanity of what's happening there with the crackdown on wearing a basic t-shirt with rainbow on it. And that's what happened. There was an American actually on the ground. Let's put the next one up there on the screen. Yesterday, he says, quote, just now security guards are refusing to let me in the stadium for the USA Wales game. Quote, you have to change your shirt. It's not allowed. Literally, it's just a rainbow around a soccer ball. That's it. And he's literally been banned from the stadium. And by the way, I kind of fear

for this guy because he went ahead and deleted that tweet ever since it went up, Crystal. And I think what it shows you is that he was detained further, according to him, for 25 minutes for wearing that shirt. He was forcibly, they took his phone out of his hand and angrily demanded that he remove his T-shirt to enter the stadium. He was eventually shunted off to some fan area, but he was straight up banned from the grounds. Now, pay attention to everything I just laid out. I'm basically the cowardice, aside from the man wearing the t-shirt, props to him for refusing to chain, of the European team captains. Because let's look at a country and at a team that's willing to protest and is going to face real consequences for doing so. The world

was stunned when Iran, at the beginning of its game, decided their entire team to not sing the national anthem. We have some video of that as they basically are stoic. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. You can see here that they are not singing. Their national anthem is literally playing in the background. And here's the crazy part. The Iranian crowd in the stadium is actually booing their own national anthem, both as a sign of protest against the regime, possibly even regime supporters. All of this in support of the protests that are happening right now in Iran. Let's go to the next one, because this is the Iranian football team captain. Here's what he said whenever he was asked about the protest. Quote, we have to accept conditions in our country are not right. Our people are not happy. They should know we are with them. We support them. We sympathize with them regarding the conditions. And then finally, let's put this up there, inside of Iran,

nobody actually found out about any of this because Iranian state TV actually censored the footage of the team refusing to sing the national anthem. And they're not going to hear from that press conference. But- They got social media. They'll find out. I hope so. I don't know. But I mean, when you buttress the Europeans saying, oh, we might get a yellow card, we're not going to wear this, with the courage of these guys, I mean, their lives could be in danger. I mean, hopefully nothing happens because they're too afraid that they'll get too much bad press about it. But you can be certain, you know, they might go after their family members. They're going to face harassment, interrogation whenever they go home, especially the team captain.

He openly rebuked the regime in front of the entire Western world. Shows like ours are covering it. All sports media is covering it. This is an act of complete and pure heroism with real consequences they faced at home. And the Europeans can't slap an armband on and possibly risk a yellow card. Some of the protesters reportedly in Iran, I mean, many have been arrested and some of them reportedly have been like sentenced to death. So this is. We don't know the number on that. Right. There were reports that it was like all 50,000. That seems not to be accurate. But there are some who have been sentenced to death. That is how serious this type of dissent ultimately is, especially on a national stage. This level of humiliation for the

regime. I mean, you really you can see as the players are standing there, like they're just, they're stone-faced and it really is quite a stunning moment of bravery. I thought about a couple of things. I mean, first of all, I think it's really important, like the cowardice of the Europeans, that's an important part of this, but obviously the worst actor here is Qatar. And I, these, I feel like these authoritarian governments, like they're so used to no dissent that they just have no ability to perceive how the world is seeing them right now. Like taking the label off the back of the uniform. This is like let them have their frickin arm. But no one's even going to really notice. It's just there. It's a total Streisand effect, kind of a situation where because they're being so completely insane, it really is what you said, Sagar.

Like they are really unmasking themselves to a world audience. And I'm not sure they have any ideal idea exactly how this is all land landing around the globe. I was driven, driven insane by the people who are making some like attempted woke defense of Qatar of like, oh, well, this is just Islamophobia. That's ridiculous. Like this is an authoritarian government. No freedom of the press. Homosexuality is outlawed. Like you're allowed to criticize human rights, whether it's here or there or in China or anywhere else. And I encourage you to do so. So there's that. And then the last thing I really thought about is, you know, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the reaction overall of the sports world was to ban Russians from competition in all sorts of different sports. to me as I was watching these Iranian players, that that has really denied Russian athletes a venue in order to voice their own dissent.

It's a good point. And, you know, in a way, it has sort of been a good thing for the Kremlin because it forces players who may have a dissenting view to basically shut up. I think it was Rublev, a tennis player who before all the bans on like Russians playing tennis wrote on the camera like lens. No war. We played it here. Yeah, we played it here. So, you know, that crackdown, which has been wrongheaded, which ascribes blame to the players who have nothing to do with what Vladimir Putin and Kremlin are deciding to do, but like punishes them for their actions, has really cut off the

ability for them to have this type of international dissent on display. And I think that's a real loss. I think that's a great point. Yeah, exactly. You know, many of these players are probably very cosmopolitan, travel all across Europe. I'd be willing to bet that they don't support. And even if they do, like, okay, you want to be clowning yourself by supporting unpopular war on the FIFA pitch and get booed in front of the entire world. Yeah, let's see that too. I've seen it happen. Remember every time North Korea plays, there's always some clownish display. There was some Russian gymnast who wore the like Z, the pro-war Z thing.

Yeah, they look like idiots. Fine, let people, that's always a good thing for people to see that in its full display. But yeah, I mean, you know, you put my thoughts really together, which is, you know, some woke defense of like, oh. And another thing is the idea that Qatar and Saudi Arabia represent the best of the Middle East itself is deeply, deeply Islamophobic in that most of the people in the Islamic world, they don't want to live that way. I've traveled all over Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Egypt. They don't live like the Qataris and the Saudis. In fact, they have a derogatory word, which I won't say here for people who are from the Gulf. And actually, I think we would have been very well off if there was a World Cup

in Egypt, in Jordan, in any or Lebanon, any of these countries, beautiful countries, great people, real societies that aren't built on like petrochemicals, deep history, love for the arts. I mean, you know, look, yes, I know, you know, alcohol and all that. People in, by the way, people in all these countries drink. But in Jordan, Egypt, they have a much more laissez-faire view of both social issues, alcohol. There might be some conservative Islam, but they're much less, not even strict, they're less authoritarian as the theocratic monarchy as opposed to military dictatorship. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but to me, it's like all on a scale. And if you really want to showcase real Islamic culture, it should have

been in Egypt or it should have been in some place which didn't just straight up buy itself off as a real society. Could have actual Egyptians build their stadiums if they wanted to. You know, this is just, it's a farce all the way up and down. And yeah, I mean, I maintain that the Qataris really played themselves because now the whole world is getting a view. Most people had no idea what Qatar even was. And now they know, and not in the way I think they want it to. Yeah, I mean, the Iranian protesters are Islamic culture as well. Yeah, great point. You know, there you go. Okay, let's move on. Our final segment here for the media block.

Just absolutely stunning and hilarious. CBS News, after beclowning themselves yesterday by leaving Twitter for a span of 24 hours over, quote, security concerns. Our second day of covering CBS News. I know. We have to keep beating up on them. Well, now they've just decided to air a segment where they're like, hey, you know, it's been over two years. We can now confirm that the Hunter Biden laptop is real. And this segment is just stunning in its hubris in airing it without any like admission that they've been holding off on this for the entire time.

Let's take a listen. And as Republicans take control of the House, Hunter Biden, the president's son, will be a target for investigations. And that means data from a laptop reported to belong to Biden could be crucial to the investigatory process. CBS News has obtained its data not through a third party or political operative, but directly from the source who told us they provided it to the FBI under subpoena. And we commissioned an independent forensic review to determine its authenticity. Senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge joins us now with what we found. Catherine, I'm very interested.

Good morning. Good morning, Tony. These House Republican investigations are coming and that could be a challenge for the White House as we head into 2023 and 2024. The laptop data we had analyzed showed no evidence it was faked or tampered with. Digital forensic investigator Mark Lanterman was previously a member of a Secret Service

electronic crimes task force. There was one thing that got my attention, and that was a voicemail. His dad called him, telling him, I love you. I love you more than the whole world. Hell, I gotta get some help. That voicemail, apparently from Joe Biden during his son Hunter's drug addiction, is one of many findings Lanterman used to authenticate what is believed to be Hunter Biden's laptop data. You're confident based on your analysis, this is Hunter Biden's data and

that it's real? Yes. This is so absurd. You take the laptop and you go, hey, Hunter, is it real? And he says no. Or if he says yes, guess what? He's never said either of those things. So if he doesn't say anything, then it's obviously real. All of the photos, look at some real tawdry stuff that has come out from there. It's obviously real. There's never been a question since the day after it was released and they didn't deny it. Every single thing off that laptop is real. They are welcome to dispute that at any time. I remember during WikiLeaks, they kept trying to say, like, maybe some of these emails were faked by the Russians. Which one?

All right. Which one is fake? Name one fake email. One email. Unbelievable. It's like, it's November 22nd, 2022. We learned about this in October of 2020. I'm so curious.

Why did them get around to it now? Like, it is astonishing. I don't get it. I, all these people just say we were afraid we thought, you know, WikiLeaks about, but, but doing that requires too much admission that you were taking your cues from the security state, from the CIA, from the FBI. I mean, I think a really crazy admission was when Mark Zuckerberg was on Rogan and he was like, yeah, look, from the FBI. I mean, I think a really crazy admission was when Mark Zuckerberg was on Rogan. And he was like, yeah, look, the FBI came to us and told us something was coming. So we were afraid. And we basically made it less hard to find on our platform. At least he fessed up to it.

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, it's better than these people. And these people are just like, yeah, we've confirmed that it's true. It's like, you're just be clowning yourself. Everyone in this country knows that that thing is real. Now, to the extent that it matters or not, we could talk about that. Absolutely. But this is the issue. They refuse to give any credence. They won't give any investigation. I mean, you know, some of the stuff Hunter was engaged in was sketchy. And look, it does appear that there is a chance. I'm not saying necessarily high chance, given what we know yet, that Biden was involved, at least on some level, of facilitating

transactions, possibly getting some money out of this. I mean, you know, one of like he's having these people get like anyway, in terms of using the White House and its platform for hundreds business deals, that is a scandal. I think it should be rightfully investigated and it should be investigated by the news outlets, just like the New York Times just did a piece on Saudi Arabia. Yes. And if like legitimate news outlets don't do it, then we're left with the frickin Republican House caucus and they're like totally bad faith investigation that they're planning. Yeah. I mean, listen, Hunter Biden was not on the board of Ukrainian Energy Company because he's a specialist in Ukrainian energy. OK, now, whether they got anything out of Joe

Biden or not, we don't really know. But was he getting paid because his last name is Biden and they were hoping to peddle influence with the White House? Obviously, you have to be an idiot not to think that that's what's going on here. So this was always not the photos and what sex workers he was with and what drugs he was doing. That is all totally inappropriate to talk about and totally beside the point. Salacious, just tawdry stuff. what sex workers he was with and what drugs he was doing like that is all totally inappropriate to talk about and totally beside the point. Salacious, just tawdry stuff. The pieces of, you know, that deal with business has always been a legitimate line of inquiry. There are a few reporters who have dug into it. Basically, once Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee,

a lot of that inquiry was completely shut down, you know, totally out of bounds, et cetera, et cetera. And then this is truly one of it was an incredibly shameful incident in terms of how the social media companies bent to pressure from the the deep state. And in terms of how little curiosity there was from any of these news outlets at the time to dig into whether or not the laptop was legitimate. And then the most shameful part, in my opinion, was all of these national security state guys, and I'm sure some women too, who signed that letter that were like, this bears all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Not pointing to anything that was fake after the Biden people didn't even deny that it was real. And they still run with Russiagate 10.0. It was so disgraceful. So this is really just the cherry on top that more than two years later, they finally get around to being like, you know, that laptop thing that actually turned out to be correct. Which is so insane.

All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? So Jon Stewart recently hosted two former secretaries of state on his podcast, one Hillary Rodham Clinton and Condoleezza Rice. It was an extraordinary conversation in a whole lot of ways because you had two leading representatives of the blob foreign policy consensus, one Democrat and one Republican, put on the spot to explain the U.S.'s disastrous foreign policy record of recent years. Now, if you listen to the entire thing, you will get to hear Condoleezza Rice defending our war in Iraq by claiming, unbelievably, that the U.S. government really thought there were weapons of mass destruction. They just couldn't stand to leave a dictator like Saddam Hussein in power. Such great humanitarians in the Bush administration, you know. You will hear Hillary Clinton downplaying our actions in Libya to take out Gaddafi, portraying our role as simply supporting local

actors, including the Arab League, shirking responsibility for the aftermath. You will also hear a consistent drumbeat from both of them trying to deflect from the disastrous interventions, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, and spread chaos and terror through an entire region. The propaganda, the lies, and the misdirections are really quite stunning. Now, in their telling, the U.S. is a good actor in the world, intervening for benevolent humanitarian reasons, and should be held blameless for all of our many mistakes. These mistakes are treated by the two as little oopsies rather than the catastrophic, devastating failures that they actually were. Whole thing is worth a listen.

But I thought I would share with you my favorite exchange in which Jon Stewart explains the military-industrial complex to Hillary Clinton. Take a listen. Have the actions of America led to a more unstable and globalized situation that has inflamed populism in this country, inflamed it in Europe. And I'll explain what I mean. You talked earlier about the buckets, defense, development, and diplomacy. Our priorities as a country since World War II have really all the conversations that you're talking about, but there's also this other sort of, as Eisenhower warned, military-industrial complex

that kind of has a mind on its own. And I'll give you the example. State Department budget is what, $50 billion? A little bit more. A little bit more, but around there. USAID, not big enough. Lockheed Martin got 70 some billion dollars just by itself. And if you think about a budget as a set of priorities, if we're giving one defense contractor, we sell arms to over a hundred countries. We sell arms to countries we sanction. We have, there are conflicts in the world where both sides are using U.S. armaments, Turkey and the Syrian Kurds.

Is our inability to control that aspect of our society sowing the seeds for the instability that we see around the world that's leading to this more populist, illiberal pendulum swing? And how do we rein that in? Some great points there about the military-industrial complex and a great question. Have the actions of America actually created more instability? I mean, it's actually a pretty simple question, but what he's really asking is with all your concern about democracy, are you Hillary Clinton and your ideological ilk, are you the real threat to democracy? Let's hear how she responds. I understand the question and I do think it's worth exploring and I'll get to that in a minute. But I think it is historically inaccurate to say that our defense budget or our arms sale has promoted the authoritarian impulses in Viktor Orban, who was a NATO ally, to Vladimir Putin, to Xi Jinping.

I don't see the correlation there. She doesn't see the correlation there. Behold the propaganda at work. First, Hillary chooses just three examples, Orban, Xi, and Putin, as if they comprise the entire world. Then she claims we obviously have nothing to do with the rise of these autocrats in these three countries. Even though, just with this tiny subset of nations, her analysis is already preposterous. Just consider Putin and Russia as one example, where first of all, we were instrumental in triggering the downfall of the Soviet Union.

We were center stage in constructing their post-Soviet system of oligarchy and imposing economic shock doctrine so that our capitalists could exploit the profit opportunity. And we pursued policies like NATO expansion after the end of the Cold War, which predictably led to that nation feeling they were under threat from the West. Let me give my standard disclaimer, none of this is a justification for their invasion of Ukraine. But to pretend like we had absolutely nothing to do with the current domestic political situation in Russia is, to borrow a phrase from HRC herself, historically inaccurate. But there's more,

because Jon Stewart is not ready to let her off the hook just yet. Let me draw it then maybe a little bit more specifically. And again, this is not to relitigate, honestly. What happened in Libya, we take out an authoritarian leader through a military action, but we don't have the civic institutions that you talk about to back that up. And it creates instability or what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's a chaos that is born of that, right? Suddenly you have 35 million displaced individuals who migrate towards Europe. Europe feels the heat of what they consider this other that's coming to their borders. It creates the impetus for more populist, more illiberal, more authoritarian impulses

to then gain traction democratically. Those are direct results of American military intervention. So Stewart's argument here, pretty clear, these wars and interventions triggered humanitarian disasters and floods of refugees, which were not only catastrophic, obviously, for those countries and those human beings, but also helped to create political instability around the world, and that this instability resulted in the rise of far-right anti-democratic parties. Here, Jon Stewart is actually offering up an explanation that Hillary Clinton herself agrees with. We know this because she has, in a different context, made almost exactly the same argument, just without connecting

the refugees' flows directly to U.S. actions. Here, for example, is HRC in 2018, arguing that refugees are fueling illiberal right-wing parties and suggesting that European leaders crack down on migrant flows in an attempt to maintain neoliberal political power. She told The Guardian, quote, I admire the very generous and compassionate approaches that were taken particularly by leaders like Angela Merkel, but I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part and must send a very clear message. We are not going to be able

to continue to provide refugees and support because if we don't deal with the migration issue, it will continue to roil the body politic. So he's got her checkmated here based on her own statements. Our policy, driven by the military-industrial complex, caused refugees. Refugees fed political instability and illiberalism. So will she admit maybe he's got a point? Of course not. It's very hard to lump even the examples you just put together into sort of one bucket and say that then caused dislocation, that dislocation meant refugees to the shores of Europe and that, you know, gate. Because remember, Angela Merkel took a million Syrian refugees. The United States had nothing

to do with Bashar al-Assad joining forces with Russia and Iran to suppress legitimate dissent. She took a million refugees and Germany did not turn into Hungary. But Germany feels that pressure, and you see those right-wing parties start to— No, not really. No, it's minor league compared to— Certainly compared to Hungary. Yeah, compared to that. Because of strong institutions. Orban didn't take any refuge. I mean, he built the walls, kept them out. He didn't take any refuges. He used the, you know, the issue not to solve a problem, but to consolidate power for himself. Right.

And so I think that there are lessons always to be learned from any of these situations. And woe on us if we don't learn the lessons. Woe on us if we don't learn the lessons. But apparently, per HRC, there are no lessons to learn at least not for her ultimately her response here boils down to well it's complicated so let's just pretend our policies had absolutely nothing to do with it now both of these women were part of catastrophic foreign policy mistakes neither one appears to have learned a single thing and more importantly their ideology still dominates Washington. It's the ideology that lamented

our withdrawal from Afghanistan as a tragedy for women, but remained silent as we starve them of their own money. The ideology that ignored our complicity in genocide in Yemen because it was being done by our buddies, the Saudis. The ideology that is pushing for full regime change in Russia and goes into complete meltdown if you even suggest the mere possibility of diplomacy to try to end the Ukraine war. Listen carefully to their words, because they may not have their positions of authority anymore, but their disastrous views still hold a lot of power. Sagar, the level of dissembling here, like total... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com.

All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, something I've been trying to highlight here on the show for months now is how corrupt the higher education system in the U.S. is, why full-scale war really needs to be declared on it. Not only because it's bankrupting unsuspecting college students, but also because its commitment to a pernicious ideology is seeding itself across the higher elite of American society. Perhaps no sector of our economy is more despised and yet more imperative than the law. Thus, the governing bodies of law, the American Bar Association, and more importantly, the law schools themselves, have immense power in how they run their institutions, which will undoubtedly influence one of the top tiers of our economy. So what exactly are the law schools up to these days? Well, if you sadly have been forced to pay attention over the last few years, as I have, I can tell you it's not great.

The nation's top legal educators have been embroiled in a project of who can out-crazy each other from the Yale Law School scandal where they try to effectively force out classmates and professors for every once in a while trying to have a view not only within the mainstream to routinely trying to get professors fired for towing the line. But the latest game at an institutional level is the most cynical move of all that the media is giving these schools a total pass on. The nation's top law schools are currently in open revolt against the U.S. News and World Report rankings. Ordinarily, I would cheer this, as I've done a whole monologue about why the ranking system sucks and how Ivy League schools like Columbia have gamed it for years.

But their deeper motivation for pulling out is sinister. If you listen to them, it sounds very high-minded. Yale Law School was the first to withdraw, and they ranked first in the country for a long time. So why would they pull out? Well, if you listen, again, it just sounds very nice. The U.S. news rankings are profoundly flawed. The dean said its approach fails to advance the legal profession, but stands squarely in the way of progress.

Harvard echoed a similar sentiment, saying, quote, its approach not only fails to advance the legal profession, but stands squarely in the way of progress. Hmm, progress. Anytime I hear that from diversity, equity, and inclusion-obsessed bureaucrats, I'm going to be very suspicious. And lo and behold, when I dug deeper, I have every right to be.

The timing of these decisions happens to come at the exact same moment that the Supreme Court is poised for the first time in history to strike down affirmative action in college admissions, as was evident at the most recent oral arguments in the court. This has left elite schools scrambling, who are wholly committed to a racial, quote, vision of diversity and not one of class whatsoever. Over years, they have evolved fake qualitative metrics that have had the effect of

outright discrimination against Asian Americans, Jews, and several others in pursuit of what their racial for the country should be. The Supreme Court decision will be a blow to this type of racism, which is casually accepted by elites. But the latest scheme actually goes hand in glove. The long-term goal of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and many of these other law schools is to preserve affirmative action in all but name only. As Megan McArdle explains, one way to keep from being held accountable for discriminating against Asians or in favor of underrepresented minorities is to downweight or eliminate objective metrics such as test scores in favor of harder-to-compare criteria such as essays, interviews, and recommendations. Now, because doing so in admissions would inevitably hurt them in the rankings, which weight heavily towards LSAT scores, they are preemptively pulling out of the rankings so they don't suffer. In many ways, what's happening right now

is just a prelude to 2025, when they get their long-held wish of eliminating objective criteria entirely. It is no surprise that at the same time that affirmative action is ending, the American Bar Association just days ago voted to eliminate the requirement that law schools use

the LSAT exam. That rule will go into effect likely in 2025 and effectively end any standardized method for comparing applicants. Meaning what? You already know. It will throw admissions purely into the realm of qualitative where law schools won't even really have to pretend anymore to discriminate against Asians and Jews, all in the name of affirmative action. Worse, this is not better for students in any way. As even the diversity-obsessed law school deans argued in an open letter to the Bar Association, doing away with LSAT ends the one last universal quantitative measure of applicants and will likely lead to more people

getting admitted who cannot either handle the course load or less likely to pass the bar exam. Why is that a problem? Because currently, average cost of law school is $46,000 a year. At Ivy League, like Harvard, it is $70,000. Imagine racking up $150,000 in debt to not even reap the rewards of your degree. So much of this scheme is exposing that the law schools are committed to preserving affirmative action and they're willing to burn any vestiges of remaining academic credibility that they once had. They are also exposing one of the great lies about the so-called meritocracy. It doesn't have anything to do with merit anymore these days. It has more to do with the anymore these days. It has more

to do with the social vision of a few select bureaucrats at Ivy League institutions. Overall, I'm of several minds on this one. On the one hand, I abhor the basically legalized racism of affirmative action. On the other hand, I want these major credentialing institutions to lose credibility and burn so we can reimagine our entire higher education system. But in the meantime, while thousands of would-be lawyers are going to suffer, those that make it may incur a lifetime of debt with no payoff. And the only people laughing to the bank are the administrators using their and government money to re-employ themselves. It is a scam and we all need to wake up to this as soon as possible. You know, it's really interesting, right?

Because at first, you're like, oh, screw the rankings. This is great. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. It's been a fun show to do before the Thanksgiving holiday. Go ahead and buy those live show tickets if you can for December 6th.

And for December 7th, we will have counterpoints tomorrow. We are also going to have content for you all throughout the breaks. You are really not even going to notice that we'll be gone on Thursday. And we'll be right back here at the desk on Monday. We love you all. Thank you very much. Have a beautiful, wonderful, glorious Thanksgiving. Don't listen to Sagar.

Eat whatever you want. Enjoy yourself. You can if you want. Just make sure you work out on Monday. That's what I will be doing. And we will see you guys back here next week. Love you all. this is an iHeart podcast