Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/24/22 FULL THANKSGIVING SHOW ROUNDUP!

Episode Date: November 24, 2022

Krystal and Saagar bring you all a Thanksgiving roundup show with some of the best recent clips and partner segments to enjoy over the holiday break.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. 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. Time now for our weekly partnership segment with The Lever. Joining us this week, we have great journalist Matthew Cunningham-Cook.

Great to see you, sir. Good to see you, man. Great to see you, too, Crystal and Sagar. So let's go ahead and put your latest piece here up on the screen. The headline is Wall Street readies an avalanche of lies. The subhead is public pensions with investments in private equity are about to face a reckoning, but they have no way of knowing how bad it might get. So you're really sounding the alarm here about a potential mass financial risk for public pension funds. Just lay out what you found.

Yeah. So what we know is that the largest single source of capital, potentially besides sovereign wealth funds for private equity and hedge funds and private equity real estate firms, are public pension funds, the pension funds of firefighters, cops, teachers, social workers, bus drivers, whose pension funds decide to make these risky investments in these high fee, low transparency vehicles. And what we know, though, is that there's been a lot of questions about how accurate the performance they report is, because there's no open audit of the underlying performance of these investments. So with the stock market downturn, the big risk that's being raised is that these investments tend to be highly leveraged. So in a strong market, that means that their returns are supposed to be amplified, even though that hasn't really been the case because of the enormous fees that are being paid that drag on the performance.

But in a bear market, there's a real risk that the losses are going to be amplified and you're still paying the fees. Right. And so it's a real risk for these public pension funds. One of the things that you pointed to is about the secrecy that's built into this industry. Can you just outline that for us? Yeah. I mean, basically about 20 years ago, journalists started poking around and asking some questions about these investments right as they were planning a big upswing. And so they hired lobbyists to go all around the country and exempt critical

information about these investments from public views. So that includes the contracts. With them, they're some of the only contracts that are not subject to public disclosure. You can't even get a redacted copy of the contract in most states, in places like New York or New Jersey or California. They exempted discussions about these investments from open meeting laws. They made it so the underlying cash flow reports are not subject to disclosure either. So it leads to a lot of problems because the less transparency there is, the more likely that there are some frankly insane provisions. So there's one guy who writes about this is a guy named Jeffrey Horvitz, who's a wealthy heir whose family office invests in these types of investments. And he's like,

I've seen managers propose that I agree to a full waiver of fiduciary duty. And I guarantee to you that family offices tend to be much more discerning than public pension funds are. And that's in part because there's a huge revolving door of public pension fund staff and Wall Street, and there's huge incentives for the staff to give Wall Street whatever they want. And the trustees are either politicians or they're folks who typically don't have the most investment experience. And so it can lead to problems like this. Now, there's plenty of trustees with investment experience who make the same bad decisions, let's be clear. But it's a problem in terms of deferring to the staff on everything. So what are the real risks here in terms of how ordinary people might be impacted? Yeah, I mean, what we saw in the aftermath of the financial crisis, so the last time the market was doing as poorly as it is now, basically, is there was a coordinated 50-state attack on public pension benefits. John Arnold and the Koch brothers. And they really went after public pensions

and they changed accounting rules to make it so they would look less funded. And at the same time, famously supporting politicians who are both pushing cuts to accrued benefits like Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, and also at the same time, massively increasing pension investments in hedge funds and private equity. So that's Gina Raimondo, that's former

Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, and people who also have deep connections to this industry. So Raimondo is also a former venture capital executive. So yeah, that's the real risk is that is that they're going to use these these bad investments as another excuse to go after the ordinary benefits of workers. And so I worked closely last year, actually, with with the unions in Vermont to stop a heinous pension-cutting effort. And basically, we won because we showed the public how poorly the investment decisions were. And as soon as we started talking about that, they backed off. So it shows kind of both, I think, on the one hand, how verboten discussion

of how bad these investments are on the one hand, and two, how much the powers that be don't want to talk about their golden goose. Because again, I mean, the largest campaign contributors are from this industry. Stephen Schwartzman on the GLP side, Shelley Pingree's ex-husband, Donald Sussman on the Democrat side, major donors to both parties. Yeah, and as always, follow the money. Matthew, thank you so much for breaking this down for us. We really appreciate it. Thanks, man.

Thanks so much for having me on. Great to see you. Getting a new glimpse at how new CNN chief Chris Licht might approach coverage of Trump as he launches his third presidential campaign. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. From Mediaite, the headline here says Chris Licht lays out CNN's new approach to covering Trump and ensuring the network doesn't fall for his noise. This all comes from an internal town hall that he did. He was interviewed apparently by CNN host Alison Camerata, and she asked about how they were going to cover Trump this time coming up. And he's trying to make a distinction with how Zucker covered Trump, trying to make a critique

that they, you know, sort of went too far in and we're just doing outrage porn all the time. He says directly, don't fall for the outrage porn. He wants the media strategy to distract. Trump's media strategy, he says, is to distract and create noise that's specifically designed to gin us up. He argued the network has to choose carefully what actually matters and focuses on what actually has impact. I thought this was interesting, his quote here, sorry. He says, part of Trump's strategy is to make sure everything he does gets a lot of coverage. So when he slips in something that's really consequential, like a coup, it feels like noise. And I don't want us to succumb to that. Hours after this town hall,

internal town hall occurred, Trump did actually launch for the presidency. CNN carried about 25 minutes of that. Then they had a panel discussion, very critical, including Mick Mulvaney and Alyssa Farah Griffin. And then Daniel Day came on and did his whole, like, you know, fact check of the speech sort of thing, which, you know, I mean, to me, that sounds a lot like the way that CNN has been covering for a while now. Look, we'll see. Again, we will see. I have no idea. It does seem that the tenor is somewhat different this time around, but that's more a function of novelty than it is of CNN's editorial choices.

Will they be able to resist whenever the special counsel issues? Like, no. We all know the answer to that. So I also think that, well, Licht isn't in a tough spot, right? Today, the news actually came out that he's going to have to fire thousands of people in December over at CNN. So a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. This is part of a large cost-cutting maneuver at the holding company of Discovery.

So they have editorial cuts they need to make to preserve their profit of some $700 million or so this quarter. And will they really be able to care? Will they really be able to afford that luxury whenever they're leaving views on the table? Because it's not like they have built up credibility with anybody else. It's been too short. And that's not really how the stock market works. So I'm just very skeptical they're going to stick to this in the long run.

But I mean, look, I would hope it's true. I just don't think it is true. Yeah. I mean, that's been my view from the beginning is ultimately there's a reason that CNN covered Trump the way they covered Trump. There was a business imperative to do that. You haven't changed the business model. So I am highly skeptical that you're going to really actually change the way you cover him. And, you know, I mean, by the way, like, he's the former president of the United States.

He's running for president again. Him being potentially indicted, what he says on the campaign trail, what he's running on this time. I mean, those are really important newsworthy events. So I've seen some people arguing that you should basically like not cover these things at all. Like there was a critique of CNN for covering Trump's speech, which I actually thought the critique was in the other direction of like, I don't know how you can avoid assessing that that is a newsworthy event, whether you like the man or not. Now, where they went, you know, got very silly was, I mean, first of all, in the Russiagate coverage, they all got wildly out over their skis.

The, you know, as he puts it, outrage porn, I think is true about like every last utterance, being able to, being unable to sort out what the administration was actually doing, the areas that were really consequential in terms of foreign affairs and our own domestic life. Like they just, it's not so much the amount of time that they covered him was the problem. It was that the coverage wasn't accurate and oftentimes missed the real story of what the problems were.

So for example, Russia's the perfect example. Not only do you have all the Russiagate nonsense, but then they also misportrayed what Trump's actual policy vis-a-vis Russia was. So if you're watching CNN, you would think that he just was like super easy on Russia, gave them whatever they wanted. And in terms of like verbally how he would talk to and about Putin, it was like, you know, this like weird fawning kind of a thing. But the policy was actually very hawkish. So that's an example where it's not the amount of time you covered it that was the problem.

It was that your coverage wasn't actually accurate. So I guess that's the question is whether they'll do a better job of just actually being good at their jobs and telling the truth. Look, it's baked in to their editorial model, to their staff, even to the limited reductions that they have. They're still committed to the Don Lemon, Jim Acostas of the world. As long as they're on their air, you're going to get what you get. And they only know one thing in a way to get ratings. So anyway, good luck. That's all I can say to them. Good luck. We've been tracking the development of the housing market for some time, and we just hit some very grim milestone. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. It is now official. You need a six-figure income just to afford a typical home in the U.S. So let's

break some of that math down. Previously, to afford the $2,682 monthly mortgage payment on a typically priced U.S. home, the real estate brokerage now determines that a prospective homebuyer must have at least $107,000 in income. Now, that is a 30% increase in just the last year. And that previous threshold represents that jump even more so than 45% from the previous baseline. So a 45% increase in the overall income that you need to have in order to afford a home. That's because mortgage rates right now are anywhere between 6% and 7%. And even if they do level off at, let's say, 4%, 5% or 5%, that's still very high compared to where it was. It wouldn't matter as much if the price was low. But we have not seen the commensurate drop in the level of price. That's right, because we have low seen the commensurate drop in the level of price.

That's right, because we have low inventory. And we also have, when people see, like, oh, I have a mortgage rate that's locked in at, like, 2%. And now if I were to move, I'd have to get a mortgage at, like, 6%. This is a disaster. I think I will just stay in my house for now because that seems like a terrible deal. And you have a disincentive with those high rates also for builders to come in and build more housing. So it is a it's just a bad situation basically for everyone all the way around. Now, this also doesn't take into account like, OK, so if you make one hundred and seven thousand dollars, a lot of money, you can barely afford potentially the mortgage payment on a typical house.

But what about the amount that you have to have in cash up front to be able to put the down payment on a typical house. But what about the amount that you have to have in cash up front to be able to put the down payment down? So in some ways, this understates the extent of the problem, because we know with permanent capital flooding into this market and making all cash offers, just how competitive it is just to be able to get your foot in the door, no pun intended, to start with. This, again, was a stated upfront goal of the Fed, was basically to slow down and cool the housing market. And it also, the just perpetual rise in housing prices, with the exception of after the 2008 financial crash, I mean, this has been going on for years and years. And no one talked about this as inflation,

even though it is such a core part of, you know, people's budgets, of how they're just able to live, of their idea of the American dream. It's becoming increasingly out of reach. And at the same time, people who are already homeowners are a very powerful sort of like entrenched interest group that, of course, have an interest in housing prices continuing to go up and up. But in the current market where housing prices are flat or even going down and it's mortgage rates that are making this so wildly unaffordable, it's not even good for people who are current homeowners either. Yeah, that's right. And look, I mean, only about

30% of the country actually makes more than $100,000. So to put that in perspective, and then if you add the savings part on that, it's even worse. Like literally only 15% of the country even makes between $100,000 to $150,000. So it's a real issue. And when you consider that from a decile perspective, if you already need to be in the top one-third of income just to be able to qualify and afford that on a normal salary, and this is household income that I'm talking about. Then you include savings over years and years and years. It's a single worst time in, what, 40-something years in order to buy a house in the United States. And the crash on price, even if it crashes by 10%, that's not going to be enough. You'd have to hope for a historic crash. And I don't hope for that, because a huge amount of people's wealth is tied up in that already. So there's really no good solution on this except to increase inventory.

And that, of course, is just not going to happen anytime soon, especially with these policies. And it's a real crapshoot for the next couple of years, I think. I really think this is a sleeper issue that is going to increasingly define our politics because it is so core to, number one, being able to build any kind of wealth as a middle or even upper middle class at this point household in this country. It's so core to our psychology and our cultural mythology about what it means to have like the stable American dream, the good life. And it's just increasingly

completely out of reach for all but an elite segment of Americans. Or like if you're lucky enough to like have your parents home handed down to you or have your parents fund your, you know, upfront down payment, that's basically the only way that young people are able to start to climb this ladder. And so that just means that, you know, like generational wealth is even further locked in and entrenched than it already is. So I really think that this is going to increasingly be like a central issue to our politics for years and years to come because this is a disaster. I agree. Time for a sad annual tradition here at Breaking Points. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. We have a new record high for the Thanksgiving meal. We did

this last year and sadly a lot of people found it very informative. So where are we at right now? A 16-pound turkey, $28.96, 21% more than the average cost just a year ago, and $9.57 more than in 2020. Other holiday staples, what do we have? 14-ounce bag of stuffing is $3.88. That is up 70%. Two frozen pie crusts up 26%. Whipped cream is up 26%. A pound of frozen peas is up 23%. A dozen dinner rolls, 22. 30-ounce can of pumpkin pie mix is up 18. Only one item, which is a 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries, has had a price drop down 14%. We should look into the cranberry market.

I'd be curious what's happening. See if there's any learnings there we could replicate. Yeah, so overall, the Thanksgiving prices for every metro area in the entire country has gone up. The most expensive meals, for those who are wondering, will be in Boston, Honolulu, New York City, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. Great for us. Two bad scores for Washington overall. Whole turkeys, where I live in the Northern Virginia area, Crystal, will cost a total of $44, which is actually double the national average price. I'm curious as to why that is.

And currently, some store-bought pumpkin pies in Little Rock, Arkansas are going for $22.50, which is crazy. At that point, you should make it yourself. Anyway, it's sad that we have to do this, but these things do matter. They're an important way that people feel the economy, especially whenever they look past what they spent before. And it's a way that you look at the cost of the turkey and everybody's getting together and it's just harder and harder for people to make ends meet. And it's like a big illustration of that

on a macro level for everybody. Yeah, oh, absolutely. When you're looking at, okay, what can I put on the table? You wanna have the day just be about celebration of friends and family and you're worried about whether you're gonna be able to

provide the sort of basics of what people expect to have on Thanksgiving. Remember, wasn't it last year that the Today Show did some segment that was like, just don't have turkey. Yeah, that was it. Just for Go Meat all together. We did. I remember that vividly. Yeah, they were like, just skip the turkey this year.

It's just so expensive. Everyone's like, what? Like, maybe, I guess, if I have to, but that's not the way that it should be on Thanksgiving. I mean, low-key turkey is not all that good. I'm not a fan at all. All the ways people try to jazz it up, like, I'm going to fry the turkey. I'm going to brighten the turkey. Every year there's some new gimmicky way to do your turkey thing.

I mean, they're ultimately not that amazing, but I still want to have one on the table because it just doesn't feel like Thanksgiving with that. I've attended a couple of deep fries. They almost inevitably go wrong, although they are fun to attend. You showed me a million of the videos. My Thanksgiving tradition is watching compilation videos on YouTube of people burning their houses down

while deep frying turkeys. Don't do that, guys. Highly recommend. Don't do that. If you are going to do it, please. Watch the videos. Don't do the deep fried turkey. Yeah, if you're going to do it,

please do it responsibly. The number one thing is, no matter what, I actually witnessed this. don't do the deep fried turkey. Yeah, if you're going to do it, like please do it responsibly. Don't, the number one thing is no matter what, I actually witnessed this, is I was watching my old boss actually having to sit there and let his hand get burned rather than just drop the turkey

because if he dropped it then the whole thing, the turkey would have, the oil would have spilled. It would have caused like a, so he had to sit there and like take it as he was lowering it in there

and it was sputtering because I guess it hadn't, didn't have, anyway. In my estimation, you probably just shouldn't do it So he had to sit there and take it as he was lowering it in there and it was sputtering. Because I guess it hadn't de-thunked. It didn't have the thunk. Anyway. In my estimation, you probably just shouldn't do it. But people have fun, so enjoy yourselves. Now, growing up, did you guys do the traditional turkey? No, not really.

No, I did it mostly when I moved here. Because my parents don't eat vegetarian. They don't eat meat. Right. And in general, I just don't like turkey. Even, like you said, Thanksgiving turkey. I am just not a fan. Every time I have tried it since then.

Some of the stuff is fine. Thanks, yeah, the cran... What is the... It's like... Oh, God, I'm trying to think. It's like a casserole or something like that. Whatever that is. The green bean casserole.

Green bean casserole. You're a fan? That's pretty good. I'm a fan of that. Stuffing, on and off, depends on the stuffing. Cranberry sauce, not a fan whatsoever. Oh, cranberry sauce is wonderful. I actually recently listened.

But you can't, the kind that comes out of the can and just like, that's gross. We'll see. But if you make a good cranberry relish, it goes with everything. Look, I'm going to be in Texas. I'm going to be eating Torchy's tacos for Thanksgiving. That sounds like it. That sounds much better than whatever is on the table here. But we've established I have different culinary tastes

than the rest of the people. All right. We love you guys. Happy holidays. Hope you enjoy the day. We'll see you soon. Update for you after the FBI and Air Force Security Services raided the home of a UFO researcher and host of a popular Area 51 website. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. The owner is now speaking out and said, quote, it could be your door next. So here is the statement that he's issued after the case, I have discussed this case with an attorney specialized in federal cases. He says, what I learned is truly incredible and in my opinion, a much bigger story than the raid of my homes. What was done to me and my girlfriend who were unarmed, innocent,

cooperating senior citizens is apparently totally within the law, which is truly incredible. After the report that 15 to 20 armed federal authorities from the U.S. Air Force and the FBI raided two of his homes belonging to him and the girlfriend while he was present, and one of them, agents busted through the door, yanked the pair outside where they were, quote, detained and treated in a disrespectful way. Now, to be clear, we still do not know what exactly these people were doing this raid for. Yeah. The owner of the website says he still doesn't even know what specific crime that he violated

and only knows what the agents told him during the raid, which was that the incident was, quote, related to images posted on my Area 51 website. Now, again, to reiterate, he has had some $25,000 of damage, which was done to his home. He was literally held at gunpoint, him and his girlfriend. There's actually photos here in the piece of his door, completely broken, the frame. He even says, quote, I have not been charged with a crime. All my attempts to reach out to the FBI to at least get my much needed medical and financial records, passwords stirred on the seized computers are completely in vain. Quote, crickets from the feds. He says, look, the federal government has a right to harass and traumatize random citizens that are not accused of a crime, kicked in their doors, manhandle them, take whatever they want. Said citizens have no rights to reimbursement of their damages,

return of property or compensation for the trauma that they were subjected to. Now, the Air Force has confirmed that there is a, quote, open investigation into this researcher, into the website. However, FBI has yet to say anything. And all of this, okay, let's say again that this is related, Crystal, to leaked images of Area 51. Well, guess what? They're out there. So now why are you busting down somebody's door? Also, he's committing an act of journalism here. It's clearly it was leaked to him somehow by someone. Go after the leaker who maybe works for the Air Force.

Storming into a private citizen's home, stealing their stuff, and then also not charging them with a crime and not letting really any of us know in an open court of law is totally outrageous. Over some photographs? Yeah, photos. Like this guy is some grave imminent threat like imminent threat to, you know, to life and liberty. This is completely insane. And what they say is that his site, which is called Dreamland Resort, features videos of drone footage from around Area 51, satellite images of the base, discussion forums and articles on various rumored top secret projects involving UFOs. Site also features photos of, quote, super secret aircraft being developed by the U.S.

military. I mean, they could have sent a cease and desist. They could have knocked on the door. The over-the-top, aggressive nature of this is completely insane. And like he says, he hasn't even been charged with a crime, and they can do this, and it's apparently totally legal. I mean, that's the part he's clearly most shocked by. Yeah. He's like, I charged with a crime. And they can do this. And it's apparently totally legal. I mean, that's the part he's clearly most shocked by. Yeah.

He's like, I can't believe this. He basically has no rights. Right. They can keep his property, including his laptops, which have private information on it, which have passwords that he needs, which have medical information that he needs. They can keep them indefinitely. His lawyer says by the time you get them back, they'll be wildly out of date. And so, yeah, this is the treatment of an American citizen who is, you know, trying to figure out what's going on with some government secrets. And they just come in completely over the top and treat him and his girlfriend this way.

It's really crazy. And, again, we – and, by the way, based on the images and stuff that I looked at, I mean, I didn't see him all that revolutionary to me. Also, there's a real question here on why does the Air Force get to just bust down your door? Last time I checked, they don't have jurisdiction. He's a private citizen. He doesn't even work for the military. Why are they doing joint raids, you know, with the FBI?

Now, if the FBI involved, it's supposedly a federal crime. I'm like, okay, then file something in a federal court. We had nothing from a legal team. No, you know, even the search warrant, like they're not listing specific crimes. They say it was related to images. Okay, specify exactly which one. What are the images? Ask them to take them down.

I mean, to do all of this without even giving any sort of insight with the over-the-top tactics is very, very disturbing. Yeah, that's right. All right. We'll see you guys later. There's been a lot of questions. How did Sam Bankman-Fried pull it off? Well, one of the reasons is that venture capitalists basically did no due diligence before handing him billions of dollars. This particular story is just so incredibly hilarious. And it's about Sequoia Capital, which is one of the largest funds in all of Silicon Valley. Find out how exactly SBF charmed them and got them to give him billions of dollars to fund his FTX fund. Let's put this up there on the screen. So here's a direct quote. When SBF

told Sequoia about the so-called super app, quote, I want FTX to be a place where you can do anything that you want with your next dollar. You can buy Bitcoin. You can send money in whatever currency you'd friend in the world. You can buy a banana. You can do anything you want with your money from inside FTX. Suddenly, the chat window on Sequoia's side of Zoom exploded. Quote, I love this founder, typed one partner. I am a 10 out of 10, said another. Yes, exclaimed a third. What Sequoia was reacting to was the scale of his vision. It wasn't a story about using fintech in the future. It was a vision about the future of money itself and an addressable market of every person on the planet. Quote, I sit 10 feet from him and I walked over thinking, oh, shit, that was really, really good.

And it turns out that SPF was playing League of Legends throughout the entire meeting. And that is a real article that actually was published by the F by Sequoia itself in an update on why they decided to give money to FTX. And Sequoia, after giving billions to SBF and now being called out on this, now says, quote, let's put this on the screen, quote, we did careful due diligence. We looked at it. There's nothing much we could have done any differently. I can tell you for the next three to six months,

we are going to dream a little less. Oh my God. This is insanity. SPF literally playing League of Legends and saying, imagine if I was like

pitching somebody on breaking points. I'm like, I want breaking points to be where your grandma could watch and your grandchild could. And that's actually real, unlike what FTX was pitching. And that was the extent of the pitch.

And people were like, yeah, it's just totally brilliant. Here's $3 billion. Yeah. What? And it's even worse because, like, I mean, with FTX, you have to have some there there in terms of like the financial like basis for what you're doing. Here, at least there's like a product you can actually see and some metrics you can actually see. It reminds me a lot of, you know how Elizabeth Holmes crafted this whole persona and image, copied Steve Jobs, the expressions on her face, the way she would style herself, the turtleneck that she would wear. She adopted this affect that she thought would sell in Silicon Valley and would lead people to

believe that she was this visionary genius, once in a lifetime, once in a generation founder. And they freaking bought it. And I mean, Silicon Valley people bought it. All sorts of elites backed her project. And it's the same thing with Sam Bankman Freed. I mean, that's what came out partially in the DMs that he was exchanging with this Fox reporter, where he's basically like admits that I was all a front, you know, the posturing as some great philanthropist, that that was basically PR, even his efforts in Washington to supposedly want to regulate crypto and portraying himself as the golden boy of crypto, that that was a front, that that was a brand play. You know, the goofy hair, the casual dress, all of this stuff was

very strategic and very intentional in order to derive exactly the reaction that you get from these idiots at Sequoia. And, you know, for for those of you don't know, I mean, Sequoia is like the top known fund in Silicon Valley. Like these are, again, the elites of the elites. And so I am very sad for the people, genuinely sad for the people who have lost money in this scam and many others. But I love the unmasking. I love the unmasking of SBF. I love the unmasking of the politicians who took his cash and were happy to have him here and fed him like he was some young lord. I love the unmasking of the media class who bought all the hype.

I love the unmasking of the business press in particular, who have been feeding all of this. I love the unmasking of these venture capital morons who, you know, he said the word banana and they basically like, you know, fell over like he was a Greek god. It's just like, we're told so much that these people are so brilliant and they understand things that none of us could ever understand. And we should just trust them and they should be allowed to run society however they want. And don't worry your pretty little heads about it. And you see here, even the elite of the elite, the billionaire class themselves, you see how hollow and empty it ultimately all is. And it's amazing.

It's amazing. Very well said, Crystal. Yeah. So they're going to dream a little less. Hearts are broken. Just so perfect. Unbelievable. So they're going to dream a little less. Hearts are broken. Just so perfect. Unbelievable. We'll see you guys later. Hey there, my name is James Lee. Welcome to another segment of 5149 on Breaking Points, where we dive into different topics at the intersection of business, politics, and society.

And today we're going to talk about artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is no longer science fiction, right? Most, if not all of us already use AI powered technology on a daily basis, or it's being used on us. And it's a scary, powerful technology, one that could be used to make our lives better for sure, but also one that has major ethical and moral implications that need addressing. So the question I think we need to all start asking is how AI technology can be abused by the tech companies themselves who develop and monetize this technology and by governments, both authoritarian and democratic, and what we can and should do about it. First off, where there is money to be

made, venture capitalists flock. This is a chart from NYU professor Scott Galloway's blog showing that AI investments from VCs have skyrocketed since 2020. Over $100 billion has been invested in AI startups since 2020, and funding doubled in 2021. Now, capital at this kind of scale creates both opportunities and challenges. Opportunities in that the pursuit of technological breakthroughs are not bound by resource constraints, but challenges in that the financial interests of capital necessarily leapfrogs all other considerations, whether they be ethical, moral, social, ecological, etc. AI has been an important way we approach our mission. In 2001, we were using a simple version of machine learning to suggest better spellings on search. And by 2011, deep learning techniques

were helping pave the way for things like better speech recognition and more accurate maps. A decade later, AI powers so many of the products people use every day. We see so much opportunity ahead and are committed to making sure the technology is built in service of helping people. Like any transformational technology, AI comes with risks and challenges. That's why Google is focused on responsible AI from the beginning, publishing AI principles which prioritize the safety and privacy of people about anything else. That was a snippet of Google CEO Sundar Pichai's opening remarks at Google AI 22 earlier this month saying all the right things, right? Google will engage in responsible AI development, in service of helping people,

prioritizing the safety and privacy of people above all else, yada yada. We end today's show looking at protests inside Google over a secretive project to provide advanced artificial intelligence tools to the Israeli government and military. The Intercept recently obtained documents about what's known as Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract between Google and Israel. The Intercept reports, quote, documents indicate that the new cloud would give Israel capabilities for facial detection, automated image categorization, object tracking,

and even sentiment analysis that claims to assess the emotional content of pictures, speech, and writing. That's a little bit different than what Mr. Pichai promised. Project Nimbus will be a big, ugly moment in Google's history and a shameful and embarrassing engagement. Project Nimbus will demoralize and agonize the many Googlers who truly believe and stand for Google's mission and values. Working at Google was always my dream job until I learned about Project Nimbus. I feel like I'm making my living off the oppression of my family back home. If Google truly believes in avoiding unjust impacts to the use of their AI, then why are they choosing to profit from a billion-dollar contract with a government

and military which consistently violates international law? That's a good question. Why are they choosing to profit from a billion-dollar contract with a military which consistently violates international law? Well, it's because they have to, right? The VCs, they've identified a technology that no doubt can be monetized, and they've invested billions in hopes of making trillions. And, you know, this is what they do. This is why they exist. But then companies, even the behemoths like Google,

who aren't necessarily at this stage recipients of VC money, they still must respond to similar pressures from their shareholders and from Wall Street who expect high returns. And thus thus Google must continue to find ways to boost earnings. Unfortunately for them, according to recent reporting from AP, their primary revenue driver, which is advertising, has slowed down dramatically, which in turn has eroded the company's profits in recent quarters. This means that in order to keep the investors and shareholders happy, they must find alternative revenue streams, AI being one of them. And this is kind of what I'm talking about when I think it's so concerning, this inevitable incompatibility

between ethical considerations and the financial realities of big tech, which the employees within Google have tried to speak out against because they're right. The way we do business today has profound impacts on society and democracy around the world. Now, the idea that we might one day have machines that can think like humans raises a whole bunch of ethical and philosophical questions about what it could mean for society. Ava, go back to your room. Never mind the fears about the next level after that, artificial superintelligence,

where the machines go beyond human intelligence and we start moving closer towards those sci-fi extremes. Almost every major jurisdiction is thinking about regulating AI in some shape or form. I'm glad governments are somewhat awake on these dystopian type scenarios. And throughout the world, they are looking for ways to regulate AI and their right to do something about it. But that effort will be perceived by VCs and investors and big tech as a direct threat to their long term profitability, especially in those AI applications that fall in the moral gray areas

like that have to do with civil liberties and privacy. So the inevitable outcome is a full court press to protect their investment. This is a report from earlier this year. Big tech loves talking up privacy while trying to kill privacy legislation. Study claims Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft work to derail data rules. Essentially, big tech giants have deployed an army of 445 lobbyists to influence lawmakers ahead of the introduction of privacy bills in dozens of states.

That is obviously not a new playbook. Lobbying with cold hard cash is rather effective, but something that is equally effective, as the famous saying goes, is to manufacture consent. And this time it's to manufacture public consent to fight a new Cold War. Why an us versus them approach to China lets the U.S. avoid hard questions. As national security framing and fears of China's AI advancements propel U.S. AI policy, some human rights watchdogs worry it will facilitate a focus on AI investments with military applications and allow the U.S. to deflect scrutiny for its own AI practices.

Now, I'm not saying China and the ambitions of Chairman Xi isn't something the world shouldn't be concerned about, because we should. But because the West, we just don't have a lot of visibility into how things work in China, both socially, politically, culturally. China's threat to national security is opaque. It's kind of perfect for stoking public fear. Former Google CEO turned AI investor Eric Schmidt said in an interview last year, quote, why don't we wait until something

bad happens and then we can figure out how to regulate it. Otherwise, you're going to slow everybody down. Trust me, China is not busy stopping things because of regulation. They're starting new things. Okay, why don't we wait until something bad happens? Why not? The AI system was found to be a factor in the two plane crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX, one in Indonesia and one in Ethiopia. 346 people died. The autopilot was AI powered and it wasn't designed to allow for a human override. So it gave dangerous nose down commands and it forced the plane to crash. Right now we're really worried about things like

mistakes, algorithmic mistakes, not a mistake by the computer. It's a mistake about how it was written, how the code was written and whether or not the processes were put in place for adequate recourse so that you can tell if something's gone wrong. The stakes get even higher when we're talking about war and AI being used in lethal weapons. We already have armed drones controlled by people that use AI technology. But it's not a big stretch to get to fully autonomous weapons. So machines making life and death decisions about who or what to target. It's probably inevitable, but it's really quite scary. You can imagine some really bad situations happening.

Imagine in the Taiwan Strait, for example, having a large group of American drones facing off Chinese drones, and they're trained on classified data, how these two swarms of drones interact and whether they might accidentally fire at one another because they mistake maybe some light reflecting of a drone for an attack. That could mean that you accidentally end up in a war or even a nuclear conflict. Yeah, nuclear war. Should we wait until it gets to world destruction before we do something? We wouldn't want to do anything that jeopardizes your ROI. By the way, CNBC reported last month that Eric Schmidt has helped write AI laws in Washington

without publicly disclosing his investments in AI startups. I'm going to keep reinforcing the unfortunate truth that policy is driven by capital and that the interests of capital have risen above the interests of the American nation. And by being aware of this fact, we can help better decipher the various ways politicians and business leaders misdirect our attention to further their financial or political interests. Knowledge is power. Quote, it's easy to criticize China or some of the other autocratic governments and shield the US and other democratic countries from criticism. Some of it is legitimate criticism, but it's very

easy to use that approach to deflect any responsibility and accountability for things that other countries are doing and use this AI race framing for more funding into military or surveillance technologies, which then find their way into experiments in domestic law enforcement or migration management. That was a quote from Merv Hickok, Senior Research Director and Chair of the Board for the Center for AI and Digital Policy, a nonprofit AI policy and human rights watchdog. And that is the point of today's segment. It's clear at this point that AI has a myriad of practical applications in both the public and private sectors. Things like commerce, the way we communicate, our transportation industry, our infrastructure, our domestic and national security. I could go on. But like I said, it is a powerful technology, one that can be used to analyze the populace, surveil people, and ultimately control societal behavior. And once corporations and governments,

both authoritarian and democratic, have a taste of this kind of power, they are unlikely to subscribe to Breaking Points. Thank you so much for your time today. war on breaking points. It's been one year since workers at the Elmwood Avenue Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York made history by becoming the first of the company's 9,000 corporate-owned stores in the United States to successfully vote to unionize. What happened next was even more historic and incredible. It's the kind of thing you read about in history books. And it's the kind of thing that terrifies bosses and wealthy executives at literally every corporate chain. The kind of thing working people in this country are told is impossible until it isn't. With the awesome speed and scale of a prairie fire, a wave of grassroots worker organizing at Starbucks locations across the country has put the world's largest coffeehouse

chain on its heels, turning that first victory in Buffalo into the beginning of a movement. Over the past year, workers at hundreds of Starbucks locations from Maine to Hawaii have filed for union elections, with the overwhelming majority, around 250 stores at this point, voting in favor of unionizing. However, a deeply concerning trend began to take shape in the second half of this year, as the number of new union election filings began to drop dramatically, from about 70 in March to fewer than 10 in August, Noam Scheiber reports at the New York Times. As we all know, and as outlets like The Real News and Breaking Points have covered extensively. Starbucks, which has profited handsomely for years by painting itself as a progressive company, has responded to its

employees exercising their legally protected right to organize and work collectively to improve their jobs with a vicious, deliberate, scorched earth, union busting campaign. Workers, organizers, and labor scholars have all pointed to this campaign as the primary cause for the drop in new unionization efforts, which is exactly the goal for Starbucks. At the same time that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was publicly stating that he would never accept the union, which is illegal, and at the same time that Starbucks announced that it would be raising pay and expanding training for all stores except those that had unionized or were in the process of unionizing, which is also illegal, workers on the ground have reported

an intensifying culture of fear unleashed by the company. Honestly, we would be here all day if we tried to count all the different instances in which Starbucks has been accused of breaking the law and violating workers' rights. But I know that you know that the number is jaw-droppingly high because you, like me, have been seeing headline after headline about this every single week. Workers at Starbucks have reported myriad forms of retaliation for their organizing activity, including having their stores chronically understaffed and partners having their hours deliberately cut so that they suffer financially and even lose their company health insurance, for which they need to work an average of 20 hours per

week to be eligible. Dozens and dozens of workers involved in union organizing have been fired for dubious reasons across the country. And many more say their shifts have been made miserable by supervisors watching them like hawks, looking for any flimsy excuse to terminate them. And Starbucks has even gone so far as to close stores where workers unionized or were in the process of unionizing, like the College Avenue store in Ithaca, New York, or the Broadway and Denny store in Seattle, the first store in the city to unionize that was just closed yesterday. Now, as always, Starbucks resolutely denies that any of this has anything to do with union busting and that every firing and every store closure is justified for business reasons and that the

company respects its employees' rights and that it will bargain in good faith. And so that's the situation we're in. We're all just expected to sit here and pretend like these are all just coincidences. We have to keep calling these alleged violations and act as if we are not witnessing a massive corporate crime wave happen in broad daylight while an anemic and grossly underfunded National Labor Relations Board dukes it out with a megacorporation in drawn-out legal battles and while workers continue to suffer. And while all that time is passing, Starbucks is getting what it wants. The longer this drags out, the worse that life gets for workers.

The more organizers get fired and lose their insurance and their paychecks. The longer we go without Starbucks negotiating a contract with unionized stores. The longer we go without the public and elected officials raising hell about this. The more the chilling effect takes hold and workers get discouraged and demoralized. But this thing ain't over yet. The struggle very much continues and worker organizers with Starbucks Workers United are fighting back with everything they've got. Last week, at dozens of stores around the country, Starbucks workers walked off the job and went on strike demanding that Starbucks stop its union busting campaign and negotiate a contract with the stores that won their union elections fair

and square. On the same week, the NLRB petitioned a federal court for a nationwide cease and desist order barring Starbucks from firing its employees for union activity. To talk about all of this and more, I'm honored to be joined today by two guests. First, we have Len Harris, a shift supervisor at Starbucks in Superior, Colorado, who has been with the company since 2016 and has worked at stores in both Maine and Colorado. They were the union leader at their store, having started the movement last December, which resulted in their store becoming the first unionized Starbucks in Colorado. Len was fired last Friday, one day after the Red Cup Rebellion Day of Action. I'm also honored to be joined today by Rin, who worked at three different stores over about 14 months in the St. Louis area during their time with Starbucks. They were fired earlier this month, but they're still

working with their friends at the store, as well as the St. Louis Organizing Committee to disperse information and to help organize the unionized stores in their area. Len, Rin, thank you both so much for joining us today on Breaking Points. Thank you for having us. Well, especially with everything going on, you know, I can't emphasize enough how grateful I am to both of you for coming on and talking to us. And I really, you know, want to take this time to sort of, you know, refresh everyone's memory and refocus viewers and listeners on where we are right now. I mean, it's been a year since the union victory in Buffalo. So like I said, I want to take this opportunity to refresh people's memories about where and why this all started, what has happened in the past year, and what needs to happen now to support workers and to stop this widespread illegal union busting campaign.

So let's start by getting to know a little more about you both, right? What you've experienced, both good and bad, during your time working at Starbucks, and what was going through both of your minds when you saw the news about Buffalo this time last year? Lynn, why don't we start with you, and then Wren will go to you. Sure. So I'll start with the good stuff at Starbucks. Um, I think most people would agree who work at Starbucks that the best thing about it is your coworkers. Um, usually because Starbucks touts itself to be this really humanitarian company and this very accepting, progressive, open-minded company. Um, those are the kinds of people that tend to gather as employees at those

locations. And so very like-minded people from very different walks of life. It was usually the most diverse workplace that I've ever worked at. And it's what made every day at Starbucks worthwhile for me. Customers, of course, you know, having a good customer here and there also added to that. But that's really that was like the good thing for me with Starbucks was with my co-workers. And that, I think, is honestly what motivated me the most with wanting to unionize. So when I saw the news with Buffalo at that point in time, we'd already been experiencing pretty severe problems at our store, issues with staffing. We had changed managers earlier in the year, around July, end of July. We went from a manager who was pretty tight-knit, ran a pretty tight ship and really knew how to manage to a manager who didn't quite know what they were doing,

and it really showed. And, um, we were suffering pretty severely with not having adequate staffing during the busiest parts of our day, frequently asking for support and being denied, um, gently by saying, oh, the numbers are saying you don't need it. So, you know, just kind of stuff like that. And it got to the point where people were coming in exhausted and crying and just not knowing what to expect, you know, other than, you know, being denied support. And when I saw, I'd seen it on Twitter, actually, when I saw the Buffalo store unionized, I'd already been thinking for a while, like now, that if I want to make a change in what's happening, what I'm observing, not even just at my store and my workplace, but generally in America,

this exploitation that's happening with workers, I need to do something. And if I'm going to do something, I should do what they're doing. So I'm going to, I think I'm going to start this process. So that's, that was kind of how everything began in my store. Hell yeah. And Rim, what about you? hell yeah hell yeah and Rim what about you I think when I first heard about the first union victory in Buffalo

I was working at the previous store that was the second of the locations that I had worked at and I actually heard it while I was on the floor I was making drinks and then one of my coworkers, um, who had just come back from break turned to me and said, there was a store in Buffalo that just unionized. Um, and I was shocked. Like I had never heard, um, of anything

like that happening at Starbucks. Um, and so I was, I was really surprised. And as soon as I got home, I Googled it and I was reading every article I could reach. And I remember thinking, this could be what we needed. Because at that point, I had worked for Starbucks for months and months. This was the second location I'd worked for. I worked for a number of managers. And like Glenn said, a lot of times, like no support or different things that we asked for, either it was like support or technology to be fixed. It would just be kind of brushed under the rug. We would just be told, well, you know, we don't have the time. We don't have the money, which is a wild lie to hear.

But it was definitely something where I saw it and I thought, I really hope that this is able to spread. I actually ended up leaving Starbucks for a little while just because I had had a pretty bad experience at the second store I worked at. But I came back to Starbucks specifically to a unionized store near me because that was, I knew it was the only way I was going to be willing to work for them again. And so I think that was very interesting to me to work at two non-unionized Starbucks and then to work at a certified union store. The difference was pretty shocking to me. And to be able to jump in and the people that I worked with were, committee that i worked with specifically in st louis have been some of the most supportive uh gentle but loyal people that i've ever met um which is why i'm so glad i still get to work with them but i think it was definitely so much excitement a little bit of fear but so much curiosity as well to see like how far this

could go and a year later it's dozens and dozens, hundreds of stores. And like, we just had the Red Cup Rebellion Day action. And I think that was a really great turning point in people realizing like, oh, this is actually something that can happen. Because I hadn't seen it up to that point. And I just remember feeling so much excitement when I saw that news. Yeah, I mean, I can imagine we were all there with you. And I think that it makes sense, right. To, to kind of be blown away because it speaks to the historic nature of this campaign. I mean, like every service job that I've worked in the past, like this was never even a thought that entered our heads, right. It was like, if you're being

treated like crap, or if you like the job, which many folks at Starbucks have said they do, but they want to make it better. They don't want to just leave, you know, and get another job and start over from the bottom, right? This is really, I think, a crucial point that so many of y'all have kind of banded together after, and even before the initial victory in Buffalo to say, like, you know, I don't care if the service industry is notoriously hard to unionize. I don't care if, you know, there are naysayers out there who are going to be like, oh, well, this isn't meant to be a permanent job, as if that's somehow a justification for workers not being able to exercise their rights or not be able to live with dignity and have a say at

their workplace. So if you're watching and you subscribe to that viewpoint, I beg you to disabuse yourself of that bullshit quick, fast, and in a hurry. Every worker has these rights. Every worker deserves these rights, actually. Not everyone has them, of course. Everyone deserves these rights, and every worker deserves to have a say in their job. And, you know, even if you're a service industry worker or manufacturing worker, right? And I think it's just been so incredible and so inspiring to watch so many people at so many different stores, right? You know, really launch this grassroots effort, turning to their coworkers, banding together while facing the harsh union busting that we're going to talk about in a second. But again, given that we're a year after the Buffalo victory, and it can be easy for people

to sort of lose sight of how far things have come in the past year, I wanted to sort of refocus us in that moment when the organizing that y'all were involved in really sort of kicked off, right? And I was wondering if you could kind of take us back to that time and talk to viewers and listeners a bit more about what compelled you to get involved with the organizing yourself? What were you and your co-workers talking about? And what was that organizing looking and feeling like in your stores and around the country? So I suppose I'll start. I know for me, what motivated me to start is for a while now, I've been very aware of this incredibly exploitative nature of the American workforce. Just like you said, the mentality that surrounds working and especially working

service jobs or, you know, industries that aren't what started the whole industrial evolution, like architecture and construction and things, you know, once we expanded beyond the sort of laying of the foundation of our workforce and as our system demands that we create jobs in every single facet of our culture, like entertainment, like service, like food, you know, those works deserve the dignity and respect that every job, if it's required, if you pay real money for it, if it's demanded by the society and clearly demanded by the customers, then the work should be respected. But it's not. People frequently look down on work that they have never done, that they don't understand, they don't respect, and it shouldn't exist. That is, I think,

probably one of the worst mentalities that I have noticed in all of this is how people think it's okay to talk down to people who, who serve them. And, um, that was the biggest thing that I wanted to change. Um, you know, I can't change people's mentality, but I can certainly change the compensation of the people who are working those jobs like myself. And I knew that if this was going to take off, I really had to speak to the hearts of people. Because if that mentality is so pervasive as we know it is, we know that our fellow co-workers probably harbor some of that own mentality. And Reese, maybe you've experienced this as well, but even the best meaning people

that I've worked with have had really similar mindsets of like, well, I'm lucky to just have a job. And like, if you, you should feel guilty if you call in sick and you know, I work 70 hours a week. So this person shouldn't be complaining that they work 65, this very, like, I'm going to wear my exploitation as a badge of honor because that's what this company wants. They want me to internalize my own exploitation so that I perpetuate unto others. So that when you say, hey, we deserve a living wage. Like we work really hard and this system demands that we work this job. We should be paid. And the response to that is what, what do you think, what are you talking about? You're, you're, you're selfish for wanting that you're greedy. You're, you're entitled. Um, and so, um, I knew that I had to speak to people's hearts about this.

They couldn't just be like a, you know, you just run into it. So I would really talk to people like, Hey, do you really think it's fair that we're working with a skeleton crew, sweating, crying, hurting ourselves, burning ourselves, like slipping and falling and hurting? You know, these are really precarious working conditions on top of just the emotional and psychological damage that we accrue from the general lack of respect and regard that we get from our fellow co-workers, our customer base, and even management and our employees, employers rather. So I had to really talk to people like, hey, do you think this is actually fair? And over time, and not even that much time, thankfully, and again, this has to do with a mindset of people who tend to

congregate at Starbucks, usually very progressive, forward-leaning, that kind of thing. They started to recognize that this isn't right. Like, this is absolutely exploitative. This is absolutely taking advantage of me. And I do work really hard. You know, I go to, I leave work at the end of the day and I'm exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally. And so once people started to really pay attention to these patterns of thinking, like this whole, you know, I don't know how many managers I've worked with that are like, I work 70 hour weeks, so other people shouldn't be complaining. But then they'll perpetuate this, I want a better future for my children. I'm like, you know, those are competing viewpoints, right? Those are antithetical viewpoints. If you want a better life for your

kids and yourself and your kids and the generations to come, you got to set that precedent. You got to blaze that trail. And all you're doing is perpetuating the cycle of abuse. So it was a bit of a psychological, emotional journey for people. But if anywhere, Starbucks co-workers, my Starbucks co-workers were absolutely willing to take that journey with me. And that's what made the difference. Yeah. I mean, you know, again, like I was saying, I think that probably one of the biggest obstacles to, you know, my co-workers and myself doing anything like this at my past service industry jobs was our conviction that we didn't deserve that, right? Or that, you know, that this was the best we were going to get that, like you said, we were grateful to have the jobs. You know, if we did anything to try to kind of change it,

we were just being ungrateful. We were being troublemakers, so on and so forth. If we didn't like it, we should leave. Like breaking that mentality is probably the biggest hurdle to get over. And I'm so grateful to you for kind of laying that out. Rin, what about you? I guess, can you take us back to when you got involved in the organizing and what were y'all talking about and what did that organizing look like? Yeah. So when I really started to be able to very directly start organizing was when I joined this last store.

And it's actually, I was thinking about it in a very similar way to it sounds like Glenn was. I've been working service jobs since I was like 17. And it was just always part of my life. I think that a lot of people who had to work either for college or for school or just to make a living has worked some kind of service job. And so it's always been something, the older I get and the more that I look around and the more that I start to see the way that people are living, this idea that like work just is so pervasive and

then it takes over every part of your life that work is the only thing that should matter that you should be willing to sacrifice your peace and your body and your entire life to this job that is not even paying you living wage it's something that I started to think like I really don't think that it needs to be that way um but at the same time people who say like well if you don't like the just leave. I think that that is one of the most frustrating things I've heard. Like so many different kinds of people cluster to Starbucks because there is at least a system in place for minorities or marginalized groups to be able to be treated well there. So I have, I don't even know how many friends who have gone to Starbucks specifically for their gender affirming healthcare plan. And there's a lot of them there who have encountered

a lot of issues at the job, like, like skeleton crews, the fact that we will be running a play on the floor where we're supposed to have eight or nine people. And I've done it with three or four. I've been, I've been been had I don't even know how many burns and cuts and scrapes and falls um and it was just things like that where I started to think like this is not the way that it has to be and this very American notion of like work is the only thing in your life that matters and that um if you are not working overtime and you're not hurting from your job and you're not sleeping, then you don't care enough. It's absolutely wild to me. And I think it's been really, really hopeful for me to see like people realizing that is not the way that it has to be.

And just because this job isn't perfect doesn't mean we want to leave. Like I've said that, like I love the people I work with at Starbucks. Those are some of my best friends that I've made. Like, and it's, it can be a really good place, but it doesn't mean that there's not room for improvement. And so I think that's where I really jumped in watching this movement and reading about it, realizing just because a place is, is not perfect doesn't mean it's just abandon it, jump ship and find somewhere else. Because there isn't a whole lot of other great places in service work, but it is worth fighting for myself and my coworkers and the people around me that I care about. And I think that was something that I was really able to talk to people about. It was some of the most interesting conversations

I've had about bigger things came from like, hey, are you willing to stand with us for this one small action? And I think that was something that I'm starting to see a shift in the way that people think about it, which is not great for big corporations because when they realize that their workers are starting to think, oh, I don't have to be constantly abused and mismanaged and working with literal scraps. And there are things that we can do if we all stand together. We can say, hey, we're not going to do this. Like, you can't treat us like this and expect us to give 40 hours to you, overtime, holiday work with dangerous working situations and dirty stores and no managers. Like, it's just not something that I think is, um, something they can demand for much longer. And I think that was

the really exciting thing to me is like, not only is this like a unionization of, of, of a massive, massive corporation, I think it's also the beginning of a shift that I've seen, um, in conversations that I've started to have with people about, Hey, you don't have to live this way. And, and I've talked to have with people about, hey, you don't have to live this way. And I've talked to various people, especially some of the people in the organizing committee at the store I was a part of, some of the other people in St. Louis.

Like we've talked about, hey, this is a way forward. Like this is not just something that matters right now to Starbucks in our store. This matters to everyone who works at Starbucks, but it also matters to people who are in service fields across the country. Like our Red Cup Rebellion, I was able to hear from a couple of different groups. There was a man who came out from Amazon and he said, hey, like when we saw this, that Starbucks is unionizing, we said, hey, maybe we can do that too. People from Trader Joe's and Apple

and everyone are looking and saying, hey, this is possible. And I think that was really what inspired me to be part of it too, is that this is not just something I'm doing for me and the person next to me, but for people in stores across the country and even in service fields across the country. Because there is kind of a general disrespect that you feel by a lot of people who haven't done the job and who haven't worked in places like this. They've never had to. And I think it's just been very, very beautiful and hopeful even for me to see the working together that we've been able to do and the conversations that I've been able to have with people that I never would have before this happened.

I think that was really what inspired me to jump into organizing and being an active part of the unions in my city, especially. Yeah, man. I mean, there's no shortage of, you know, keyboard clacking dipshits and armchair quarterbacks, right, who want to, you know, tell you about, you know, which types of workers are and aren't deserving of dignity, right? Or who the real working class is, right? And, you know, I think that, you know, all the pundits and politicians who trade in this shit, right, are just doing the boss's work for them because what the boss always wants and what they always get and what they always do is divide and conquer, right? That is how they have won in the past. That is how

they're trying to win now. But the hopeful thing, as you're hearing from our amazing guests, but as you can also see around the country, is that real working people aren't buying that crap anymore, right? I mean, maybe you're watching this and you are someone who thinks like, oh, well, those are service jobs. You know, they're meant for like 16 year old high school students, which is like a wildly outdated view. And thus that means that, you know, they shouldn't have a living wage. They shouldn't have any say over their scheduling. They shouldn't get healthcare. They don't deserve a union, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Maybe you're one of those people. Maybe you're one of the people who's looking at the largest strike going on in

the country right now by 48,000 academic workers in the University of California. And you're thinking, oh, those aren't real workers. They're not chopping down trees. They're not mining coal. They're not driving trucks. Again, you're just really telling on yourself because right now there are Teamster truck drivers refusing to cross those picket lines. There are your traditional blue collar workers standing in solidarity with academic workers, with service workers, because they know that, you know, there are two classes of people is the great speech in the movie mate one says there are people who work and people who don't. You work, they don't, right? The bosses don't. They just rake in all of the money here and workers are banding together and standing together. And they're saying like, regardless of the kind of work that they do,

these workers are generating massive profits and massive revenues and doing massive amounts of essential services that keep the universities running, that keep the Starbucks running, all of that stuff. So like, that's what we need to focus on. And it's so heartening to see, like last week during the Red Cup rebellion, so many people showing up, showing solidarity and getting past all of that bull crap ideology that's beaten into our heads in this country. But also this is why we need to all care about Starbucks's, you know, vicious, rampant, blatant, ongoing scorched earth union busting campaign. Because I guarantee you, even if you think that Starbucks workers aren't real workers, service industry work, isn't real work. Every company,

regardless of whether or not they're in the service industry or not, they are watching what Starbucks is doing. And if Starbucks succeeds in delaying, demoralizing, and squashing this union effort by breaking the law enough times so that workers just run out of steam and give up, that is going to be the playbook for any type of worker that wants to unionize in any type of industry moving forward. So you should care about this. And Lynn, I apologize. I've been holding this in for so long. And when I heard about you both getting fired, it's just coming out. But I wanted to talk about that, the union busting, right? It's been happening so much. We've been seeing headline after headline of this person got fired. This person got fired. This store just got closed. The first store in Seattle that unionized just closed yesterday while we were planning this segment. So can you talk to viewers and listeners about that? Like, what are folks seeing and what are they not seeing about, you know, the company's vicious response to

this historic organizing effort and how they've tried to frustrate, delay, and demoralize you. So just like Wren said earlier, one of the best things that I've seen in this movement is just the empowerment that my coworkers have been instilled with. And the company's really scared of that. And I think that's the thing, is they want to get influencers out. They want to get people like me, like Wren, who are outspoken about the realistic expectations of these companies. You know, Starbucks is known to be this company that touts itself as humanitarian, as progressive, as inclusive. And I've said this before, where I think there's, I mean, I think, I say I think to be kind,

there is a level of insidiousness to it, because we all know that they ascribe to the same level of exploitative capitalistic measures that every corporation has. It's just a way to get people to come. I think it's a way to bottleneck people personally. You know, when you think of people who are gender nonconforming or their sexual orientation isn't the typical, you know, what everybody expects of a white supremacist society and immigrants, other people who are just marginalized, when they're turned away from all these other positions, where do they go? They go to places that advertise a safe place for them, which Starbucks is one of those places. So of course, I think it's important and valuable to

have a place like Starbucks that says, hey, you're welcome here, but how much of that is actually taking advantage of people who have nowhere else to go, and when it comes to union busting, they know that we have influence. They know that we're a tight-knit community. So they need to absolutely dismantle it. So at my store, for an example, when we unionized, because we unionized on Earth Day of this year, April 22nd. And when that happened, there was a huge shift. So immediately we started getting cuts to our hours. I went from about 34 hours a week on average, because I'm also a small business owner. I own my own business.

So I have a lot of other things I'm balancing. I went from 34 hours a week to at one point, it was seven, seven hours a week. And so they started slashing hours. They started cutting people. Some people didn't even get hours during the week. And so they started slashing hours. They started cutting people. Some people didn't even get hours during the week. So that happened, which was really interesting, especially seeing as, you know, that severely damaged their business. So clearly they're willing to undercut their sales and like hurt their own bottom line to, to stop what we're doing.

But interestingly enough, there was a shift and I'm maybe when you experienced this too, or you noticed it as well, but it, it took a shift from all these issues that non-unionized stores were facing. And suddenly, like if we were in a position where we're like, we're super understaffed and that, that did, that did persist despite the fact that we were unionized. However, if we were like, hey, we're understaffed, we can't handle this workload, they'd be like, okay, we'll turn off mobile letters. Okay, you can close the lobby. That's fine. However, we started getting slammed with tiny infractions.

So we had somebody who was fired on the spot for being out of dress code. We had another person who was fired on the spot for being out of dress code. We had another person who was fired on the spot for being late. We had another person who they tried to fire because of a small mishap that they performed during like I got fired for leaving cash on the counter for a second to go grab an oven. Like so they started like coming down on us so hard and all these policies and infractions and human mistakes where at other non-unionized stores or stores that they weren't trying to get, you know, trying to clean house, they could get away with all those things, no problem. But they would be understaffed. They wouldn't have mobile

orders turned off. They wouldn't be able to close their lobby. And I'd be willing to argue that they're willing to turn off mobile orders and close the lobby, one, because we're unionized and we can use that against them. But two, it just set a precedent to close the store as well, to say, oh, well, look at all these, look at the history of sales here. They're tiny because we didn't have the staff to take on the amount of sales we would otherwise. So they'll just close it. So it's interesting, all the stuff that they have been trying to pull

in order to really demoralize folks and to make them feel like they're powerless and to basically, you know, arrest the power that we have within ourselves to make change and make it seem impossible. I mean, we have managers. I had so many managers spouting union busting nonsense all the time. Like, oh, we're bargaining. You're going to have to give up everything and start from zero. That's not how that works. That is not how that works. And then, you know, when we didn't get our raises, when we didn't get our benefits, which is illegal, they said, oh, well, you're unionized. Like, that's illegal. And they're like, oh, I didn't know. Are you sure you didn't know?

Yeah. Are you sure? Are you sure you didn't know. And it's like, are you sure you didn't know? Yeah. Are you sure? Are you sure you didn't know? The NLRB is pretty clear about that. No, we're working with people who claim not to know, who don't know and just spout that nonsense anyway. That's, I think, honestly, I think that's my biggest obstacle is dealing with people who claim they don't know or actually don't know, be it management, you know, um, pushing this rhetoric, this anti-union union busting rhetoric, or even coworkers who are like, I don't want to lose my job. I don't want to get fired. And, um, it's that that's the complicated nature of it is, is you are legally protected in these efforts, but that does not mean that they're going to not find every little tiny thing to fire you for. And that's, I think that's what I'm most frustrated with is people who are genuinely scared as they should be, unfortunately, to lose their job because we live paycheck to paycheck because a company is union busting. And so they don't want

to exact their, or they don't want to, you know, enact their rights. They don't want to, they don't want to fight this fight because enact their rights. They don't want to, they don't want to fight this fight because these companies have so much money that they can be blatantly, you know, they can be blatantly evil and perform illegal things all the time and get away with it because they have so much money. And that's, that's what it is.

They know that really is, this would be a temporary thing for them. Then, you know, ruining their image and shutting down all these stores and losing all this revenue. This is just a well and pay them, then you actually retain a lot more money because you're not paying turnover, you're not paying training, you have people who know how the business runs. Like, it's been proven time and time again, if you treat your workers well, your business will grow. Yeah, it really is scorched earth, though. Like, the way that you're saying, like, they don't care about their bottom line as long as we as workers give up hope. I actually had the district manager was speaking to one of my coworkers and friends. And she said, we are willing to wait you guys out.

Like said that. And my friend was like, oh, wow, that's you're really you're not backing down and I think that's the other thing that I've talked about um with a lot of my co-workers is it is wild to me that the levels that specifically store managers and assistant store managers will go to um to union bust to blatantly lie I had the manager that fired me um we actually I had um a situation before we all chose to wear union t-shirts together, like the whole shift, morning shift, mids, everything. And she got every single one of us and gave us a documented coaching because we were breaking dress code. So everyone

before that had worn their union shirt at various times. But this was three days after another union organizer in a store a couple miles from us got fired for dress code. And so I think by that point, like they were ready. They had their sheets ready. They knew that something was going to happen. And so they documented coaching, handed us documented coaching, literally I think nine or ten people. And it was crazy to me when I told them, hey, you know, like this is a federally protected right to wear union apparel. We've all worn them before. What do you think you're doing? I had my manager look at me and say, I'm sorry that your union lied to you about your rights. You don't have rights here. And that's just one of those. Yeah, that's that's the other thing that I think that people don't realize is it doesn't really matter to me whether or not you think that this is a job

because I know that it's a job. I work eight hour shifts, you know, where I'm standing on my feet. I burn myself on ovens. I have people screaming in my face about their coffee. Um, but we're, we are enduring very real, uh, consequences for this. So when we talk about like hour cuts, part of what draws so many people to Starbucks is that you can get a full healthcare plan at 20 hours a week. And it was noticeable to me that after unionization, people who needed that most,

their hours got cut to below 20 hours. So what does it matter if you're gonna say that you have like healthcare for trans people or people who need healthcare for their kids, if you're going to cut their hours, so they can't even have that. And I, last time I checked, last time I read about it, there was over, I think 35 ULPs filed with the NLRB for over 900 violations by Starbucks. And I think that's something that I'm not seeing much about is like, it's not just people saying, oh, well, you know, unions are bad.

It is subversive psychological, like manipulation of truth and saying like, you know, if you unionize, like I remember there was a person at our store. He was one of the few very blatantly anti-union workers that wasn't in management. And I remember hearing him in the back training a new person saying,

yeah, you want to take advantage of your rights that you have and your healthcare, the benefits that you have now, because they're pushing for a contract and we don't know what will happen then. And you might not be able to have any of those benefits after that. And I remember stopping and going, what? Like, that is such a blatant lie. And so I think, like, the misinformation that is being spread is terrifying to me. Especially because, like, people, managers can lie to you with no consequences. Like, when I got fired, I think the official term they used was for use of profane language, which I had no previous write-ups. I wasn't even on a last and final write-up. And the other crazy thing is that I was fired for something that I had said to her in the cafe loudly in front of partners and her this

was all in her little report she said that when I left I said go fuck yourselves which is crazy because I did not and I got fired I hadn't I worked my whole shift that morning like a week later I worked my whole shift and five minutes before they pulled me off the floor and said hey we're firing you like no warning nothing and I was just in shock because I was like I looked at the paper and I I know without any doubt that I didn't say that and I talked to my co-worker who they said was like based on when they said it happened he would have been standing right next to me and he was like you didn't say that so I immediately filed the ULP with NLRB um but it's scary to me that like that's the kind of thing that's happening like I

I was fired for a blatant lie and it was because I was one of the people in the store I was one of the few people in the store who worked um like I would open so I would work 4 a.m on pretty often so I was one of the people in the morning shift who was very vocal and like, Hey guys, we don't have to live like this. We can, we can change this. Do you see what's happening across the country? Like there is hope. Um, and I was told by several of my coworkers that they really believe that the manager was intimidated by that. And by the fact that I was, I was listening to people and befriending them and saying, Hey, I hear you and I feel the struggle that you're feeling, but we don't have to do this

like this, you know, like there is a way that we can change things. And if we can all stand together, say, hey, you know, we don't hate this job, but it can be so much better. And we need these things to help us. That is a thing that we can do. And I think that was a lot of why she targeted me specifically. And it's also, it was interesting. I was listening to a podcast the other day from someone in Boston

where they had that 64-day strike, which is the longest strike in Starbucks history, 24-hour picket lines. And they were talking about why are so many of the union leaders, young people and queer people? And I think in a lot of ways it is because they, like Glenn, you were saying, like they appeal to a crowd that is generally more progressive, more young or marginalized communities. But in doing that, they are able to deny and manipulate and kind of gaslight people into thinking that their experiences don't matter, that maybe they're just being too picky. The amount of like, as a queer person myself, and as someone who works with so many trans and queer people next to me, the amount of times that we were told, you know, like, well, you shouldn't be upset about them saying that, or you shouldn't be

upset about that, or it's just not a big deal you know things like that even um i have friends who were disabled who had um accommodations that they needed um and as this process has gotten further and managers get more hostile accommodations have been taken away um and it's it's to the point where like it is mentally and even physically damaging to people this kind of scorched earth union busting, we'll wait you out. We don't care how much it hurts you or how long it takes. I think that Starbucks has done a great job of hiding that, which is terrifying to me. Because the stuff that's happening is just hidden,

but it's there. It feels, I don't know, Rin, you probably would agree with this. Maybe I'm just putting words in your mouth, but it feels like we're screaming that the sky is blue and they're so affluent that they're like, no, shh, it isn't. Yeah.

It isn't blue. And everyone's like, you're right. It isn't blue. That's how frustrating because it's like, I mean, this is not exclusive to Starbucks. It's not even exclusive to like the working class, but Americans in general, we know the the education system it leaves something to be desired to put it very kindly um but um i think that's that's

really what we're dealing with here is this this pervasive lack of education and knowledge that these corporations like starbucks are absolutely counting on um to keep people totally in the dark and they're holding us hostage in this way. Like the benefits thing, the situation you were talking about, these are queer disabled people who are already marginalized in society who need these things in order to survive. And cutting our hours down to the point where they're just barely working enough to get these benefits if they are off sick or if you know they get called anything it basically just it literally holds us hostage and it's yeah it's incredibly frustrating having

to to battle these this mentality um that's that's just across the workforce it's not even exclusive to starbucks like i said um so yeah it's it's an uphill battle. And I think that's great too for me because like I have encountered, even talking to my coworkers, like I remember at one point I was talking to someone about the Red Cup rebellion and they were a little on the fence and I was like, that's fair. This is scary. Like I understand this is a big thing, but they said, I don't want them to fire me for that. And I said, if they fire you for that, that is quite literally illegal. Like they cannot do that. And they said, what do you mean? And I said, striking over an unfair labor practice is a federally protected right. But that is not something that anyone knows. And the amount of times that I heard management say, oh, well, you know, like,

you're going to lose your benefits. You're not going to get wages. You're not going to have to come off. Like it is illegal and it's terrifying because they're getting away with it you know and it's it's amazing i was explaining kind of what was happening to one of my friends who hadn't really followed um what was happening and they said like is it really just like management against baristas and it kind of does feel like that's what it is because store managers would be dropped in a heartbeat if they didn't comply into being like literally just union busting cops. And that's what's so scary to me is like the misinformation and the gaslighting and the make sure that they believe this filter so far down from Seattle, from Howard Schultz and all of his little gang up in their offices. There is so much misinformation, and that

has been one of the hardest things with union organizing, is not even getting everyone together. It's just like, hey, that was a lie. This is your protected right. This is what's actually happening. And just because your manager says it to you doesn't necessarily mean that it's true.

Gas managers lying it's management these are people that you're supposed to trust these are the people you're supposed to look up to when you need guidance like yeah so so yeah so it's there's like multi and that's the thing i think too is american culture is very like everything exists inside a vacuum. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. It's quite the opposite, actually. Literally everything is connected. Everything.

Everything has some sort of connection. But it's so much more beneficial to the American work culture. Yeah. To push individualism. That's why I think, again, the campaign that y'all have been waging, the incredibly heroic kind of struggle that you and your fellow workers at Starbucks across the country have been involved in while facing this vicious union busting is so important and so inspiring and so necessary. And we need all of us who are watching this, everyone who's listening to this, everyone

around the country who you know, who believes themselves, you know, a defender of workers' rights needs to get involved in this, needs to keep the spotlight on this, needs to hold companies like Starbucks accountable for what they are doing to workers like Len and Wren, who, you know, I could talk to you both for days, but I've kept you way longer than I was supposed to. So we do unfortunately have to wrap up, but I've kept you way longer than I was supposed to. So, so we, we do unfortunately have to wrap up, but I just can't thank you enough for, for taking time to talk to us. And I wanted to just like in a quick, like lightning round, if you, if you could just say, uh, what folks out there can do to help where things are going now and, and we'll sign off.

Um, okay, I'll start. Um, honestly, just make a stink, make people, make sure people know, spread awareness. Cause that's, I think spreading the Honestly, just make a stink. Make sure people know. Spread awareness. Because that's, I think spreading the awareness and really ensuring that people are educated about this is going to be the biggest difference that we make with this. I mean, when I was fired, I could not tell you how many co-workers reached out to me saying that they never would have fought for their rights or had known to do that if I didn't teach them. And like, of course, it's so meaningful for me to hear that. Like, that's what I want to hear. But I'm just one person and they got me out. And that's why they got me out.

So just make sure people know, be active in your community. Don't be silent about it and harass the company. Like call them, jam up their phone lines, give them hell. And also ensure to send verbal support to your local workers. You do not know the amount of influence you have as an individual to go in and say, hey, you know what? I heard what you're doing and I'm with you, union strong. Like that makes a world of difference. So that's what I'd say. Be active in your community, be forthright about your support, both in individualistic personal levels, as well as

just overall, like making a stink with the company. And just don't turn a blind eye to it. Don't let companies convince you that you don't have power, that you're just one person. One person won't make a difference. No, we, you know, we survive as a unit that's how that's how this gets done is solidarity so yeah i think i the only things i would add to that are um do not cross picket lines anywhere ever yeah do not do it you do not need your coffee that badly uh you can go somewhere else um local and then also that's the other thing is like local shops the other thing i would say is um there are, there's a thing called the coworker coworker fund that a lot of people have

been applying for. They're able to give out cash stipends to either fired organizers or people who are currently organizing in their workplace. And that is a very tangible way to support people like, like Len and I who have, you know, been fired. And now we're looking for a job um i would say also if you are looking for information uh starbucks workers united has an instagram and there's also ways to find um like the starbucks workers united for your local city or region and

that's a great way um if you hear about someone getting fired so like if you live in colorado if you live in st louis places like that, you can find kind of what's been happening. And even going to those stores and saying like, hey, I really, I support you guys. Like we have your back in this has meant the world to here. But also just like mutual aid, you know, like taking care of each other. We are the people that keep us safe. And we're the people that are going to protect each other. So I think like Glenn said, spreading the information, making sure that people around you know what's happening. I know that we've had people kind of

phone bank, like the district manager, store manager, say, hey, we do not support you harassing, intimidating, union busting, and we won't stand for it. That's been huge. But really making sure that you spread information and that you send, whether it be verbal support or even just putting like your name is Union Yes. I know that makes like our whole store go like, oh, that's cool. And I think like financial support, verbal support, everything is really what we need right now. Just don't let people sweep it under the rug.

Oh yeah. Please, everyone watching and listening, do whatever you can to show solidarity with Len and Rin and their co-workers because they desperately need it. And we got to stay up on this. So Len, Rin, thank you both so much for all your time today. I really, really appreciate you talking to us on Breaking Points. Thank you so much for having us. Listen, Starbucks is acting like a criminal enterprise right now, not a well-meaning enterprise that happens to commit a crime, but an enterprise to which committing these crimes has become an essential part of the enterprise itself.

And it certainly appears to everyone who's looking that committing these alleged union busting, people hurting crimes has become fundamental to what Starbucks is and does. And here's the thing, a union does change that and challenges that because Starbucks knows that it will have to change if workers have an actual seat at the table. And what we are seeing in Starbucks' response to this union drive is the corporate class whining and thrashing and all out assaulting the working class, trying to crush us rather than recognize our human right to have them look us in the eye as people and get to the goddamn bargaining table. So please, before you go, I ask you, donate to the Coworker Solidarity Fund, the link to which you can find in the show notes for this episode or on the webpage of Starbucks Workers United. Please also, if you can, donate to Len

and Rin's solidarity funds that have been started to help them pay rent after they were fired under dubious circumstances. And donate to any of the solidarity funds that you see for fired workers or workers who have had their stores closed. Please, as Len and Wren said, you have no idea how much it matters. Thank you for watching this segment with Breaking Points, and be sure to subscribe to my news outlet, The Real News, with links in the description. See you soon for the next edition for the art of class war. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever. Hi everyone, this is Ken Klippenstein with Breaking Points, the Intercept edition. I'm joined today by Khalid Al-Jabri once again, a Saudi expert, frequent commentator on U.S.-Saudi

relations. I'm going to be talking to you today about the coincidence of all coincidences, which is the Biden administration's recommendation that MBS, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, its de facto ruler, be granted immunity in a civil suit filed against him by Jamal Khashoggi's widow. And that happened on Thursday of last week. Fast forward to this weekend, it turns out the Wall Street Journal, can we get that element up? The Wall Street Journal reports that Saudi Arabia is considering an oil production increase after months and months of the Biden administration jet-setting back and forth to Jeddah and Riyadh, urging them to increase oil production. They failed to do so,

even sending the CIA director William Burns on secret diplomacy, urging the Saudi leadership to increase that production to have the effect of lowering prices. They don't do it. They don't even do it right before elections, which is a very, let's say, risky decision for them to make. Finally, there's discussion now that they're going to increase production just several days after this grant of immunity. Khalid, can you speak to that a bit? What do you make of this extraordinary coincidence? Thanks for having me on the show again.

A bit of background. So the crampers of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, is facing multiple lawsuits in the United States. And just actually two weeks before the infamous fist bump in Jeddah, a federal judge in D.C. asked the Biden administration three questions, three legal questions, including, is Mohammed bin Salman immune? Now, at that point, Mohammed bin Salman was only the son of three questions, three legal questions, including is Mohammed bin Salman immune? Now, at that point, Mohammed bin Salman was only the son of the king. He was not a prime minister. And Saudi Arabia is a bit different. It's not like the UK where the king or the queen are just a figurative symbol. The king is actually the prime minister. He is the top official.

And what's really interesting about this recent decision is just a few days before the court appointed deadline, MBS was made prime minister of Saudi Arabia. Just, you know, it's almost like him sitting with his lawyers. How do I, you know, evade this court process? Like, you know, your highness, if you if you can become prime minister. OK, daddy, can you sign me in order to make me a prime minister? And what's really funny is although he was named as prime minister, he did not have all the powers of being a prime minister. He can't appoint a minister. He can't fire a minister. He can't even appoint his own cabinet.

And he didn't even bother to show up to more than half of the cabinet meetings. So it tells you the only reason for somebody to assume a title, and we call it title washing, just a few days before a court deadline is for this purpose of evading, you know, accountability. And then what's really interesting also is for the Biden administration. I get that they say this was a pure legal process, but there's more to that, and there's a lot of pushbacks. Number one, they were not obliged to answer the court. It was an invitation by the court, and they had the option to remain silent. Indeed, they remained silent in two of the other questions. And there are precedents where they actually, head of states of Taiwan and I think Ghana, where the U.S. administrations basically

said, I'm not getting into this. And they could have done that with this case as well. Now, understand, you know, customary international law, but it was not designed or adopted to allow unstable dictators to turn embassies into torture chambers where Washington Post communists are dismembered and then use the same customary international law to shield themselves from accountability. It was adopted to prevent kings and presidents and prime ministers from being distracted by frivolous lawsuits. But in this case, this is not a frivolous lawsuit. This is a lawsuit where the merits have already been, let's say, pointed at from the administration itself when they released the CIA report last year, basically concluding that Mohammed bin Salman ordered the dismemberment and approved

the dismemberment of Washington Post's communist Jamal Khashoggi. Yeah, I think that's a really important point, is that Washington's decision, the Biden administration's options here, wasn't a binary of, do you say no to the immunity request or do you say yes? There's a whole range of choices within that. They could have just, you know, stood by and said, you know, we don't have comment, which is what I had expected them to do. But they sort of took the maximalist position of saying, give them immunity. And in the context of these kind of courts, the judges are extremely deferent to the government. Yes. Usually, you know, federal judges are, you know, they have a deference to what the government kind of submits. But also, you know, again, they say this is just a pure legal kind of practice,

but I think it's a dangerous precedence because basically you've allowed somebody to game and play the U.S. justice system to avoid accountability. Only a few days before the deadline, he made himself prime minister by name only, not by practice. And the only reason that the U.S. admin gave him immunity is because, well, now we're recognizing him as prime minister. It was a ploy and it's a dangerous precedent, meaning that future dictators who are probably now watching, and Putin must be very happy being the president of Russia, they feel that they will get away with any atrocity they commit. That's a crucial point to make, is the way in which the United States and the unique role that

it plays with the power that it has, not just militarily, but economically across the globe, the way in which authoritarians and dictators look to how we treat our client states and think, oh, they're telling me the line is over here, and I thought it was over here. Now I can take more risks. They really are very receptive to these things. Excellent point. And if we go back to candidate Biden, he promised and

pledged to hold Mohammed bin Salman accountable for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. He said he was going to make him a pariah, which leaves no question in anyone's mind. Well, not only has this admin decided to forgo accountability, but they actually, it was a full swing. So imagine saying to somebody, I'm going to hold you accountable. And then when it comes to reality, no, I'm actually going to give you immunity. And as much as people can argue for that or against that, for me is this administration has not only forgone accountability for the dead, but it's actually creating a lot of problems for ongoing victims. There's a lot of, you know, American hostages right now. American citizens in Saudi prisons. The extent of this is absolutely

extraordinary. And the State Department does little to nothing to help. And you know what? Like, you always have to ask yourself, how would MBS perceive Maimou? Especially from somebody that promised to hold him accountable. The way he's going to understand that is, any U.S. president, no matter what the rhetoric is,

or the principles are, or, you know, the power, I am going to get away with it. And for somebody like MBS, the learning curve from what happened to Khashoggi isn't, oh, this is a crime and I should stop going after detractors. The learning curve is, I just need to make sure I don't leave fingerprints.

And this is why you've heard a lot of people, including myself, saying the perception by MBS, effectively, he's going to see this immunity as a license to kill more people, now knowing that he will never be held accountable. When, you know, like private citizens have only a few avenues for redress and seeking accountability, and there are federal courts. The Biden admin has not only forgotten holding MBS accountable through mechanisms that supersedes any kind of customary international law, but they've literally shut down one of the most potent remaining avenues for people to seek accountability. I spoke to somebody, you know,

and I saw his interview in one of the outlets, the son of Saad Al-Mahdi. This is a 72-year-old American who basically lives in Florida and went to Saudi for vacation and got arrested at the airport for critical tweets he made from his house in Florida and now is basically decaying in MBS's dungeons. He received a 16-year sentence in terrorism court for tweets. His son was- And the tweets were like just sarcastic, right? Like it was like not even that edgy. So his son, who has been very vocal and critical of the State Department saying they've abandoned my dad and bungled the case, was actually planning to sue MBS as one of the last tools to free his dad and bring him home to Florida. And now, effectively, that door has been shut. One point in all this that I found pretty persuasive and that you helped me to understand was Saudi law around the head of

state, which is a point I want to make to viewers, is that MBS is not head of state. They're still a living king. And if you look at Saudi law, there's no sort of gray area around that question. And so to say, oh, we need to be realistic. He's the de facto leader. That's not true on paper. He's still yet to be named king and official leader. And more importantly, if we go to the legal arguments, which I think the administration should have done, they should have said the case is not ripe for our intervention. We encourage the court to exhaust, you know, other jurisdictional arguments and so on.

In practice, so let's say today we have a cabinet meeting every Tuesday in Saudi Arabia. Let's say the king attends. Actually, as the law stands, the king would be the chair. Let's say MBS, who's now claiming to be prime minister, has one opinion on one matter, and the king has a different opinion. The king's opinion would supersede. Let's say MBS says, you know what, I want to form my own cabinet. He can't do that. So it is nothing but a ploy, a title washing to try and evade accountability in federal courts. He played that gambit and

unfortunately it worked because the Biden admin allowed itself to be played by MBS once again. What's extraordinary about this is that, as I've reported, this decision to recommend immunity comes right after the midterm elections and the Saudis' failure to, as I think Amos Hochstein reportedly called it, hold up his end of the bargain and produce what they said they were going to produce. How are they humiliated in this fashion? And not only not punish him or do anything in the way of reprimand for this young crown prince, who bear in mind is like in his mid-30s and is right now actively shaping his idea of how he's going to interact with democratic administrations. This is the first time he's been de facto ruler and there's a

Democratic administration in power. So this is telling him, here's how you relate to the Democrats. You can walk all over them. How does the Biden administration look at that and just say, you know what? Fine. You can have your immunity. To be fair and objective, the court deadlines were dictated by a federal judge order. And that order, like I said, the first order was two weeks before the fist bump. And the moment I saw that, I was like, oh my God, it's just going to overcomplicate what's already being complicated.

But I get it. Perception in international relations is everything. And basically, the way it is, the timing, people are going to see this as a quid pro quo. Now, I also have to be fair again. And after the Wall Street Journal reporting came out yesterday, which historically has been accurate on oil, the Saudis came and denied that vehemently,

saying that we're not going to... There's nothing there. Yeah, just a coincidence. In fact, we are going to stick with the 2 million barrel reduction until the end of 2023. And, you know, there's also like one thing that, even if the Saudis raise the oil production by 500 barrels, this is not a win.

Like, since the fist bump, this is a net negative of 1.5. So nobody should claim that as a win. Yeah, there's a lot of this goalposts moving of like, oh, this is an increase. And you sort of zoom out. It's like, well, it's an increase from two months ago. But if you look at how it was a year ago, this is much worse off.

And again, like this whole, you know, Biden and BS saga, oil production, this is not the result. This does not result in the current tensions in the Saudi-American relationship. This is a symptom of an ongoing deterioration.

We're only probably a few weeks away from the next strategic blunder by MBS. This is a symptom. This is not the disease. It's not like if they fix their oil policy or Saudis are happier with U.S. kind of military support and protection that the relationship would go back. No, it's been downhill and it truly needs a full re-evaluation from both sides. Yeah, and that's what you've heard the Biden administration repeatedly pledge to do. I mean, very recently we saw in the Washington Post a report of a highly classified report about U.S.-UAE relations. So it's like relations are fraying across the Persian

Gulf in general, a lot of these regimes. Obviously, UAE is very close to Saudi Arabia. Describing, I think it was interference in U.S. political system and elections, even espionage. I'm thinking, what is their response at this point? I mean, this is very serious stuff. And the response we're seeing is, here's your immunity. I just don't understand. What is the rationale here? What's happening here is you have Gulf states being custom and used to in terms of fossil fuel revenues, and they want to have an assertive and expressive foreign policy, both regionally and on the globe.

So they are overplaying their hand, knowing that their whole security apparatus is dependent on U.S. protection. But I think, unfortunately, their delusion of being powerful or a superpower has been validated by inactions from successive U.S. administrations. I think they do need a reality check, and it's time for the Biden admin to get its golf ducks in a row. I couldn't agree more, and that's a good note to end it on. Kali, thanks for joining me. Thank you so much.