Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/13/26: Trump Says Help On The Way To Iran, Credit Card Interest Caps, Influencers Take Foreign Money, Midterm Red Alert

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump says help on the way in Iran, Trump pushes credit card interest caps, influencers caught taking foreign money, midterm red alert for Republicans.   Yanis: https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis?s=20      To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows. unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have

Crystal? Indeed, we do. Of course, another jam-packed busy day. There is reporting indicating Trump is leaning towards strikes in Iran, so it'll break down all of that for you. We also have some interesting economic moves being made by Trump via executive order, including trying to cap interest rates on credit cards, something that he talked about on the campaign trail. So we'll dig into that and what is going on there. A bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal about all of the right-wing influencers who are getting paid by a whole variety of foreign countries. So digging into the details of that, pretty important to know who is getting paid by what country when they are telling you making claims and pushing this administration on various issues. We also have some significant 26 news, both in terms of party identification for Democrats, is going up.

This was one of the warning signs for Democrats back under the Biden administration when Republicans overtook them. We also have a important Senate candidate entering the race in Alaska that actually gives Democrats a legitimate shot, not just at that state, but actually taking back the Senate. Dig into some of that. Also, we're taking a look at Matt Stoller highlighting how gambling is now the second fastest growing part of the economy. So it's basically like AI data centers and gambling. Polymarket integrated fully into the Golden Globes, all sorts of dystopian things. happening there. And then we're going to get to a monumental, I would say, guest on the show today, Yanos Verbachis, former finance minister of Greece, actually hosts his own podcast now called the econoclast. Is that what it is? I'm pretty sure that's right. I'll double check my notes in any case. He is going to weigh in both on what Venezuela means in terms of global geopolitics, more broadly,

what the Trump administration is exactly up to. And then also wanted to talk to him about AI. Sagar, he is one of the most deep faked person people on the internet. I had no idea until you told me that. And some of them are so good. He said it took him two minutes of watching this fake version of himself to figure out that this was not, in fact, him. So very dystopian preview of what is to come. And of course, the big tech company is not exactly responsive when he reached out to them and say, hey, what the hell is going on with this? It is terrifying.

If you think, I mean, you and I have spoken on camera almost every day for what, like eight years, something like that. If somebody showed me, they're like, this is a clip of you from eight years. Like, maybe. I don't know. I have, I don't know. No, you showed me a clip of me from last week saying some stuff that's on. I'm like, yeah, maybe. Maybe. Right. It's possible. He said the way he figured it out was he has two homes. And the shirt they put him in in the fake video is a shirt that was at the background was one of the homes. And the shirt stays at the other home. And that was how he was able to tell because the cadence and the content sounded like him. That is terrifying. Crazy. That is absolutely terrifying.

We need just a national ban on like likenesses, period. I know that the companies would fight with us, but seriously, I really think we just need all likenesses ban, period. At the very least, it has to be really clearly marked, right? And some of the, and there's like multiple channels that all they do is fake Janus Verifakis video. That's so crazy. We recently had an inspect. You won't say the name, but our logo is getting ripped off. Our old logo is getting ripped off breaking points for another show, which is out there, which we will not deign to mention.

Anyway, before we get to all of that, thank you to everybody's subscribing, breaking points at dot com to become a premium subscriber. But we have noticed in our YouTube data there are a significant number of you who do watch our videos but don't subscribe to the channel. It really just helps other people find the show. So if you could hit subscribe, we would deeply appreciate it. And if you're listening to this on a podcast, please send an episode to a friend. It really helps other people find the show. So let's go ahead and get to Iran. Hey, everyone.

Just after we recorded this, there was actually a new announcement from the president. Let's put it up there on the screen, and I'm going to read from it. He says Iranian Patriots. keep protesting, take over your institutions, save the names of the killers and the abusers, they will pay a big price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the census killing of protesters stops. Help is on its way. Miga, President Donald J. Trump. So, crystal, massively important to the discussion, which everyone is about to hear. But pretty clear, diplomacy rolled out. The killing of protesters, mega, help is on its way. We're about to kick to ourselves talking about

reporting about leaning towards airstrikes, looks all the more likely. What happened to the Donroe doctor? And I thought we were just focusing on our hemisphere. I thought, yeah, interesting. It would be shocked to learn, as I pointed out, but that is not actually what happened. So anything else you want to say before we kick to our discussion?

No, just bear this in mind as you watched, you know, the discussion saga and I already recorded, you know, the internal dynamics here. It seems pretty clear Trump indicating like any sort of diplomacy is off the table. So I guess we know what direction we're headed in. Which is funny, because as we're about to kick to, my analysis appears to have incorrect and where we think we're all being pushed. There you go.

All right, let's kick to it. Turning now to Iran, some very fast-moving parts. Everybody needs to pay attention now if you care about this story over the next couple of days because things are moving very quickly in a bad direction. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. Wall Street Journal, major leak story, lots of factions. You can interpret this two ways. First, from the story and in of itself.

And second, in terms of what's going on in terms behind the scenes. They say White House weighs Iran's nuclear offer as Trump leaned. towards strikes, quote, Vance leading efforts by some aid to persuade the president to engage in negotiations with Tehran. So if you read a little bit more quickly, they say the White House is weighing a last-ditch Iranian effort to engage in diplomacy over curbing its nuclear program, even as President Trump currently leans towards authorizing fresh military strikes on Iran. They talk about some of the factional debates inside. But, Crystal, to me, what was important was that this was, this is leaked. You can read this two ways. One, you could

read it as somebody who is pro-diplomacy leaking it. I think it was leaked by the pro-strike crowd. Because if you read it, what's the one thing that you never want to be? You never want to be as the person who's opposing Donald Trump. And if it's current iteration is to say we're leading towards strikes, you're saying, oh, look at these disloyal people. The Wall Street Journal already owned by Rupert Murdoch, extremely pro regime change. This is exactly the type of outlet you would go to. But second is that what you're watching is, in my opinion, again, is kind of trying to discredit any sort of talking effort by not only just pointing at J.D. Vance, but I think actually it's about Steve Wiccoff and a smaller contingent inside of the White House. The reason why they're also saying

that leaning towards authorizing strikes is, again, in my opinion, is a bat signal to the pro-strike crowd to ramp up the pressure and to enforce the media environment. And so that's why, as we talk for the rest of today, what we're going to watch are statements from the White House, and obviously that's what matters the most, but the CBS News, the Fox News, the entire ecosystem that surrounds Washington, which has been pushing regime change now

for some 40-odd years. Put A2, please, up on the screen just to show already the direction is strongly leading toward striking Iran. Trump saying yesterday, effective immediately, any country doing business with the Islamic Republic

will pay a tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the USA. This order is final and conclusive. This is basically a backdoor, way of saying that there will be a tariff of some 25% on China and on Russia. China, in particular, one of the largest trading partners of Iran. There are various other ones, but those are the two that most importantly matter. And then finally, you know, you have a strong signal here from the White

House just basically putting air strikes there on the table. Let's play A3 from the White House Press Secretary. The trial strikes off the table in Iran and if he believe there's a potential path to end the protest there without military action. Well, I think one thing President Trump is very good at is always keeping all of his options on the table. And airstrikes would be one of the many, many options that are on the table for the commander-in-chief. Diplomacy is always the first option for the president. He's told all of you last night that what you're hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite differently from the messages the administration is receiving

privately. And I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages. However, with that said, the president has shown he's unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran. No one knows that better than Iran. You know, this, and just in the context, because I know you guys

covered it yesterday, part of the reason I've been so angry at these people, because I've been getting from these people for years, they call me a bedwetter, and now an idiot, they're like, oh, you were wrong about Iran or Venezuela. Nothing bad happened. And I was like, well, you know, you're assuming that things happen in

a discreet manner. And that Midnight Hammer, the operation to bomb Iran, just happened in a vacuum and we're not allowed to see that it could potentially lead to more escalation from Israel and by the United States. Oh, wait, is that exactly what's happening right now, some six months odd later? Venezuela, the same thing. You have a highly, like, you have a highly specialized operation, which is just to kidnap Maduro. And then you start to believe your delusions of grandeur and the ability to do something a little bit bigger. And so this one is the exact same way. So, yeah, We have these protests in Iran. You and I are talking, do you know how difficult it is from here in Washington to be able to assess these protests?

It's impossible. We are a wash in propaganda from both sides. We have, I mean, I was just reading Michael Tracy this morning traced the death toll numbers to a single think tank here in Washington, which is tied to regime change efforts. So who knows what the debt? I mean, I could tell you maybe 2,000, it could be 15,000. It could be 12. I mean, literally do not know. There are regime accounts putting out pro-regime protests saying these are the real protests.

I think it's undeniable. There's some level of protests. There's no internet in the country. We literally don't know. There's something that is happening. But organically, if you look in Washington, where the entire narrative is about tens of thousands of people are being killed, again, maybe, I have no idea, can't confirm it. Can't believe the government, certainly, whenever they tell you, everything is being stepped up for. this is going to be some sort of benevolent action.

And if you look at the military operations that have happened now under Trump, they're exactly designed to potentially inflate somebody's delusion of being able to do something. I mean, again, I've made the comparison of like, we have a military, which is highly specialized at F1 race cars. But if we ever got into a real conflict, you need Toyota Camrys. Guess what we camp out. Somebody, literally, Toyota, does, you know, is a Japanese company? It's not our philosophy, our ability, our supply chain that is capable of doing this. And you are looking at a country.

And I mean, let's not even pretend the sentiment of like, oh, we're doing this for the grandeur of the Iranian. I mean, come on. Sorry. Yeah. Oh, we're just going to. Very concerned about Iranian protesters. Right. Exactly.

But the deaths of Iranian brief, especially in the context, you know, not to be a huge shitlet, but in the context of this whole ice thing, like, come on. Like, what are we doing? Like, you know, it's ridiculous. And beyond that, oh, we're going to be the savior. of protesters against Iran or Islamic theocracies? What about Saudi Arabia? We're going to bomb Saudi Arabia? No, it's preposterous. It's all ideologically driven. And, you know, the idea that we care about the well-being of the Iranian people. I mean, you and I both know, the modal outcome,

if we do strike Iran and try to depose the regime, is going to be a full-blown chaos. And so look at Syria. How could you possibly want, you know, the Western powers to pump weapons into your country depose the person in power, or Libya. as well, and then become a plaything of the U.S., of China, of Russia, and of Israel, and varying intelligence factions for the next 15 years. The likely outcome is that 10 times more of you would die as a result of that than if the current regime stayed in power. I don't support the regime. You know, you and I both, I don't know, I feel very torn. Like, of course, I want people to have self-determination and the ability, you know, to rule themselves. We live in a, that's a

fantasy, you know, whenever you have Israel, the U.S., and all of these global powers which have interests inside of the country, who very easily would vie for, you know, turning it into a play thing. And they don't want a strong Iran. That's the last possible thing. Yeah. They want to cleave it. They probably want to turn it into a civil war barren wasteland that could never pose any threat to the U.S., you know, Gulf allies, to Israel ever again. And more likely you get a massive refugee crisis. Yeah. Like what happened with Afghanistan. No, you will not be able to have true self-determination for the people of Iran until number one they get nukes and number two, we leave them the fuck alone. Like this just, I mean, that's the reality. And I think

we have somewhere in here the Mike Pompeo tweet where he's like, happy New Year's, the protesters and Mossad agents who were working alongside of them. And, you know, I mean, Mossad brags about their infiltration into Iranian society. There's no doubt that CIA Mossad are on the ground. That doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate grievances. I know that, I mean, the economic situation, the way, largely due to our own engineering. But in any case, the economic situation is incredibly dire. The regime there is incredibly repressive. Like, all those things are true. There is no doubt that there is, you know, some sizable contingent. Is it a majority or not? I genuinely have no idea who want to see something different, who have legitimate aspirations. There also are going

to be people, and again, you know, speaking of the propaganda, very hard to parse who is with what in what's really going on here. There were pro-government marches as well. And some of the people I saw interviewed said, look, I've got issues with them, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let, like, the U.S. and Israel come in and metal and, like, get to install their puppet into our government.

Like, I will take what I've got here and at least have a shot at some sovereignty versus just becoming a puppet of the U.S. and Israel. The thing that I can't figure out here, Sager, is, like, you know, with the first bombing campaign, There was some propaganda effort, right? We saw right through it was very flimsy. Tulsi Gabbard had just testified to Congress the exact opposite in terms of their nuclear program.

But there was a propaganda effort. And we were led to believe this is about their development of nuclear weapons. I don't even know what this is about. Like, no one, literally no one is going to buy this. Oh, we're worried about the protesters. No one is going to buy that. Yeah. Right.

So what is this even about? And Trump has already come in and said, you know, the Trump, the Shah's son is not a viable ruler here. You know, very similar throwing him under the bus the same way that he did with Machado in Venezuela. I support that. I mean, it's realistic. Like, right. So, I mean, that demonstrates some understanding that if we actually try to do full regime

change, I think he did learn that lesson from Iraq of like, don't want to get boots on the ground, totally embroiled, trying to install a new government and do nation building. like don't want to do that. He likes these, you know, quick mission accomplished moments and then move on to the next thing. But I don't even know what, like, what would the mission accomplished be? Just that we bombed them to what end? Yeah, it would be we bomb them. We have the regime go from power, probably bomb the IRGC or something like that and just say, okay, you guys are ready to, you guys can do whatever you want to do from that point forward. But this ignores Israel because as you just said, I mean, look, the Israeli press is bragging about it. And I do not want

to disparage all of the protesters to say that they're most, that'd be ridiculous. Like, that is not what I'm saying at all. But it is obvious that they have intense interests in Iran as they acknowledge in their own press articles themselves. And that because, as we all saw in April, during the 12-day war, that they had highly penetrated the security services of the country, that they had literally built a secret base inside of it. Like to ignore that their ability to shape events on the ground would not be Titanic is ridiculous. And I think probably the result would be, if I'm thinking from their messaging, we would bomb it or we would allow Israel to bomb it.

By the way, the Israeli Security Cabinet is meeting tonight. So everybody keep and I, or tonight, whatever, in Israel time. So we'll probably know sometime in the afternoon or so. They're meeting tonight, potentially to green light some sort of strike on Iran, potentially by even the United States, who we use them as our dirty work, as we all openly acknowledge in Washington. Anytime I've challenged the admin, why do we support Israel? They're like, oh, well, they do all the stuff that we can't do. The perfect example. So, yes, we may bomb Iran and have some sort of mission accomplished of removing the regime, and then we would just leave it to Israel to go into an internally shape the entire country.

I think that it's a fantasy to imagine that the regime would be toppled so easily. Yeah. You know, I mean, they took significant. close in the last bombing camp between the Israelis and the U.S. And there was no sign of, you know, any, if anything, the evidence was that there was a bit of a rally around the flag moment in the context of those attacks and those bombings. So I just, and so is the idea that the, you know, the figureheads of this regime are killed or step aside and then you've got some sort of a Delci Rodriguez type person who's with the same government, but a. is now going to play ball more. I mean, the Iranians, again, like Venezuela, they have been willing to negotiate, right? They've been at the table. They were in a nuclear deal with us.

We're the ones that walked away. Even that, you know, notwithstanding, they were still willing to come back to the table. We use some of those diplomatic negotiations as basically a fain to trick them into letting their guard down and then the Israelis come in and start their bombing campaign. I just, I genuinely, you know, putting aside, of course, I think the whole idea is a bad idea. I think it's immoral. I think it's a terrible direction to go in. I think it's only going to cause more pain and suffering for the Iranian people. I don't think it's going to provide any benefits to the United States, certainly outside of maybe a handful of oligarchs, but I just don't even really get what the plan is, like even in their most wishful thinking. And so,

look, I, you know, there could be something I'm not seeing some plan that is there that is not readily apparent, but it seems like they're high on their supply after this Venezuela operation. They've been convinced, Trump has been convinced, that these protests mean that the regime truly is wobbling and that it would be another quick and dirty, easy mission accomplished moment and watch the regime choppel and say we brought democracy, good luck to the Iranian people, and move on to the next thing. That is literally what it is. I've said it before. We are drunk with power that we don't have. Like we literally are completely drunk and high on our special operative. Look, we should be. I mean, they're great. Okay. But I mean, it's also immoral, as we saw

over the last 15 years, we turned the entire U.S. military strategy into just put everything on the special operations. And what happens? Oh, you know, massive PTSD, drug crisis, Fort Bragg cartel, like absolute insanity. Go listen to their own podcast and the toll that it took on them, the so-called limited operations. And now we would want to put the same group, you know, back in charge of some highly specialized thing. So this- And no one doubts the capability of our space space. No, like that's never been the question. Right, exactly. Can they go and do some complicated right or like, oh, we know that. The question is always what then?

Exactly. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam, available now.

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emotional health, fatherhood, identity, and the unspoken pressures were taught to carry alone. We talk honestly about mental health, about healing generational wounds, and about learning how to show up with more presence and care. If you want a healthier relationship with yourself and the people you love, then Sacred Lessons is the podcast for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Dolorotia on America's number one podcast network, iHeart follow sacred lessons with mike delarocha and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today and this is the thing about the u.s civilian plan i mean the current plan that lindsay graham and all of them are selling is what they sold in iraq is that we will easily be able to depose we will be

great at as liberators i mean that's basically the pitch uh we have lindsay here basically laying out this case a four let's take a listen i pray and hope that 2026 will be the year that we may make Iran great again. I want a military invasion of Iran. I don't want any boots on the ground. But President Trump has chosen wisely to be with the protesters. He's the first president since 1979 to pick the people over the Ayatollah. President Trump says, if you continue to kill your people, all hell will break out, all hell

to pay. That's as strong as when Reagan said, Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall. So you could see there, Ronald Reagan, first from 1979. make Iran, great again. All of this is an effort to, you know, pump up his ego. And like, this is really what it's about. And that's why that Wall Street Journal story, by the way, immediately, you know, the Vance team has to come out and be like, this is not true, all of that.

I think that's what it was designed for. Like, the more that I thought about it, I'm like, oh, this has been designed to actually box out opponents and to make it so that you can, more difficult internally. And, you know, oh, then you have to suck up maybe to the boss to prove that you're truly loyal to him. Look at what happened to Tulsi Gabbard. Do you want to be Tulsi? Who DNI stood for Do Not Invite to the Venice Way?

I mean, that's humiliating. I mean, by the way, she should resign, like if that's actually true. You have been openly defencrated on the national stage. Yeah. You were in, on the beach, you know, doing a yoga pose when the U.S. military was taking out Maduro. They don't respect you. They don't care about your views. You have to do something.

I mean, she has to resign also if she had a shred of integrity. I mean, just imagine, like, selling your entire soul just to be, have DNA, Stanford do not advise is just the most humiliating thing. But to your point, you know, about the shaping of the information space and all of the manipulating of Trump, Mark Levin has been posting very hard. Here's something that he said last night. He said, I am convinced the president will act decisively and strongly and militarily as he has threatened for days because he knows what we all know.

That is, if that regime survives, it will be the greatest missed opportunity against terrorism and an avowed terror state ever. Diplomacy and negotiations are ridiculous words in the context of what's happening in Iran and what's happening to those brave people. And to me, the most important line in all of that is where Levin says Trump will act as he has threatened for days

because he wants to underscore that if you walk away from this, then you look like you're weak, right? You've committed to this. You're committed to the intersection. There's no backing out now. you know, you've got to go or else you're going to look weak. And that is the thing that Trump hates the most. Any appearance of fragility, any appearance of weakness. And so since he has laid down

this, you know, red line about the treatment of the protesters. And clearly there are some protesters who are getting killed here. This is forcing him into, you know, corners that you got to act now. You said you're going to act. You have to act now in order to put action with your words and not be one These weak presidents like Barack Obama who says things and then allows people to walk all over you. Yeah, that's what they've said over and over again. This is exactly what happened with Venezuela. One of the reasons why we... I mean, let's all take a step back here and not forget.

The deal that we have right now with Venezuela was offered on the table by Maduro. The reason why we had to go and kidnap Maduro is because the administration set a red line in the sand and said we can never have Maduro. It was completely arbitrary. It was set by the administration. Same thing here is you get manipulated... I'm not manipulative. Look, Trump is the president, right? Like, he came in and he said, I don't want, you know, the regime needs to fall or shouldn't shoot any protesters or whatever. They'll show them some number. Who knows the accuracy of said number? I'm not going to deny

people who have been killed. I'm saying, look at the CIA. Like, do they really have a good idea of the number of people who are getting killed in Iran? Like, be serious. Look at their entire past history and their ability to judge events truly on the ground. Like, it's not good. And you could present, you know, with medium confidence, something. Secretary of State, Rubio, who's advocated multiple times for regime change in Iran. Lindsay Graham and others say, you said that you were going to do

this. That's the easiest way to play into it. And then next thing you know, look at our amazing United States military, Mr. President. They can easily accomplish this, this, this, and this. And then you never know. And this is the exact problem of events like Midnight Hammer and of the Venezuela operation. It convinces you that you are capable of doing something, which

was highly targeted and had very small and a narrow defined mission set and then open up some massive can of worms. And then you own it, you know, completely. Yeah. It may even look fine. Remember Libya? Libya looked fine for like six months.

Yeah. I was like, oh, you know, it's not so bad. Chris, what was his name? I'm totally blanking, our ambassador who was killed. You know, and then all of a sudden, 9-11, Benghazi and all. You're like, whoa, like Al-Qaeda and all. And then three years later, ISIS is in charge of the entire city of Benghazi, literally. Yeah. Can we guys pull E6, if it's possible? Because I do think this is relevant to what you were talking about, about the info that is being shared about, I mean, Trump believes the things that he wants to believe. And so you had Polly Market tweet this out.

Yes. Where they said, breaking, Iranian regime security forces have lost nearly all control of Iran's capital city, second largest city, and fifth largest city. Okay, that is not true. Like, there is not. no indicate, yes, there's an internet black, it's hard to know. There is no indication that that is accurate whatsoever. But I mean, Don Jr. is on the board of Polly Market. Like, they're closely tied to the Trump administration. It would not surprise me at all if this is the sort of stuff that he's being shown, that he is being fed, and that he is believing, or at least, you know, thinking that there's some truth to and giving, you know, giving comfort to this idea that the regime is already crumbling. All you have to do is like push with, you know, push with. your pinky and the whole thing is going to come falling down and then it's going to be,

you know, you're going to be hero again and mission accomplished. The other thing is I was listening to Glenn yesterday on with Aaron Bassani over at Navarra Media. And he was making a point about Trump's psychology where it really seems like he takes like personal pride in these operations. Of course. Like it was him. Yes. You know, he pointed to the fact that when he was doing his like congratulations speech to Netanyahu. He called Netanyahu a war hero. Now, of course, I mean, he's a war criminal, but usually that's reserved for people

who actually, like, bravely fought and did a thing in the battle space. But he sees himself in that same way that if, you know, you have a special forces operation that's successful or a bombing campaign that's successful, that that success redounds to him and contributes to his own, like, sense of vitality and strength and projection of strength. And so I do think that that is part of

the calculus here is it just feels good to him when he can say go and without any checks from Congress, with having to consult anyone, not having to deliberate with literally anyone, including his own vice president, he can just say go and this major world shaking event will occur. That plays right into his psychology, which is why he's always very, you know, It's very easy to manipulate him in the direction of these bombing campaigns. That's why he's bombed, what, seven countries at this point, because it's very enticing to him, and he can be persuasive. He wants to be persuaded.

I don't think that that's, yeah, I mean, I don't think that that's deniable in terms of his own impact. He also looks pretty, I mean, remember he would always mention post-Fenezuela, the Jimmy Carter operation. Like, he sees the decline of Carter's presidency as, I'm forgetting the exact eagle, something, where all of the special operators were killed and the mission to try and go to. save the American hostages at the Iranian embassy. So, like, this is somebody who, this is a media creature. He knows what plays well, right? And, like, of course, Midnight Hammer and the Venezuela operation are, I mean, look,

it'll probably be a movie, right? Like Zero Dark 30, obviously, lived on for years and the whole Bin Laden raid. There are people who are still making millions of dollars off of the Bill and Lawton raid. There's a reason for that because of the mythos and, you know, the special operations of what you're talking about. And he wants to play into that. but that, of course, ignores the infamy of Iraq, and the only lesson they seem to have taken away

is that explicit regime change or nation building itself is bad, not the military operation by itself. But that is why Libya is such an important example of you can still try to thread the needle and fail. You know, I was very gratified recently. Tommy Veter and the POTSafe, people who actually were literally behind Libya, came out and they're like, it was a disaster.

We were totally wrong. I was like, thank you. finally, you know, somebody needs to say it and acknowledge how bad of a situation that was. And that requires also the difficulty. You know, I'm watching, Dave Smith recently was criticizing, you know, he was like, come on, you know, after backing Israel, like, we're really all going to just be up in arms over Iran's, suppose, you know, killing civilians. He's like, it's a ridiculous pretext of intervention. And people immediately are like, you're defending the Iranian regime. It's like, why are we so reductive when it comes to that and just say, it's not about the regime.

It's about us. What's? And by the way, if you do care about them, it probably won't work out for them. There's no history to say, yeah, it's going to work out to their benefit. There's nothing that you can point to and say that this will be explicitly better for the people who are there on the ground if you do care about them. And then if you care about us and our own proven track record, I mean, what would your hitting rate be if you just simply bet against U.S. intervention over the course of a five-year period? And they're trying to judge everything based on three or four months. Just because Venezuela hasn't exploded, doesn't mean

it won't. It probably will. I would bet on it well. There's no chance that this is going to work. Certainly the idea that we're just going to use our like military leverage in order to control an entire country, very complicated country with a lot of ideological factions and a lot of armed guerrillas is, I think seems pretty fantastical. You know, the idea we're just going to, the Venezuelans are just going to accept us coming in and plundering their resources and they're going to have nothing to say about it. I mean, for a nationalist, he certainly doesn't seem to understand nationalism at all, that it can be a very strong animating force. It is, I mean, nationalism is really the core reason why these various imperial projects and

colonial projects from the past were shelved in favor of a different model of exerting control and influence around the globe. So, you know, already you've got reports that some of these, you know, Maduro-aligned or regime-aligned guerrilla forces are going out with guns and demanding to see people's phones and, you know, doing God-nose-what to them if they find that they were celebrating at all, the kidnapping operation of Maduro and the attacks on Venezuela. So you already see this possibility for destabilization. So, you know, to declare mission accomplished. I mean, I don't know how people didn't learn that lesson from history, that it's incredibly premature. And so in any case, you know, I do think that the Venezuela operation really gave Trump this unearned confidence that he could just play God in any country that he wants, which is why you see these, you know, increasing threats against Iran. You've got the Greenland situation, Colombia, Mexico, like just one country after another that is coming.

under threat because he really feels like he can just, you know, with the snap of his fingers, totally remake the global map and make everybody pay attention to him and fear him and do his bidding. Yeah, I think that is unfortunately accurate. Okay, let's get to Econ. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer,

the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wally. And I'm Hurricane de Bolu. It's a new year, and on the podcast's Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.

Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that, or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and to start doing that.

We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body in mind, inside and out, healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection. We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every January, we're encouraged to start over.

But what if this year is about slowing down and learning how to understand ourselves more deeply? What if this year is about giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help? I'm Mike Delarocha, host of Sacred Lessons. This is a podcast for men navigating stress, emotional health, fatherhood, identity, and the unspoken pressures were taught to carry alone. We talk honestly about mental health, about healing generational wounds, and about learning how to show up with more powerful.

presence and care. If you want a healthier relationship with yourself and the people you love, then Sacred Lessons is the podcast for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Dolorotcha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike DeLocha and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today. Turning now to the economy, some major moves by the Trump administration, maybe a little too late, but potentially trying to swing things before the terms. Let's put this up here on the screen. Hopefully, one of the more significant things. Senator Elizabeth Warren saying yesterday that this quote, this morning I gave a speech noting how Donald Trump is driving up costs for families, et cetera, et cetera. After my speech, the president called me,

and I delivered the same message on affordability to him directly. I told him Congress can pass legislation to cap credit card rates if he will actually fight for it. I also urged him to get House Republicans to pass a bipartisan act on housing, which passed the Senate with unanimous support, which would build more housing and lower costs, no more delays. It is time to deliver relief for American families. And so this has been kind of a dizzying thing, which has been happening behind the scenes, is a spate of executive orders and truths from the Trump administration, which are supporting a lot of these affordability measures, which we have long been supportive of here on the show. So for example, capping credit card interest rates. Actually today, he endorsed

the Credit Card Competition Act, which, by the way, would personally decimate me because it nukes the entire points industry. That's fine. I still support it, you know, because I understand it's usurist and it's bad. But this, from my friends in the Senate, they tell me, the banks have never lobbied harder against any single piece of legislation since Dodd-Frank, is that the Credit Card Competition Act, which effectively not only caps interest rates, but removes a lot of the points infrastructure and swipe fees, which obviously just print billions and billions and billions of dollars for them, is the one piece of legislation that they have targeted, specifically because they, I mean, look, at 29, 30, 40 percent interest now in some cases, you don't

have to be a genius at math to see how much money you can print off of all of these people who are desperate and who are in debt. This is exactly the type of stuff originally, which, you know, there were some promises and some vision, you know, let's say in terms of economic governance, let's say of the country, as things have gotten away from them over a year, you had the housing BlackRock order, then you had the defense contractor order. Now you have the credit card. Look, who knows, because you actually have to do something in the Senate to get something like this pass for it to really go through. But calling warrant, hey, good. There was another one about data centers, actually that just came out. He says, I have never want Americans to pay higher electricity bills

because of data centers, therefore my administration is working with technology companies to secure their commitment to the American people. We will have much to announce. Microsoft, who my team has been working with, will make major changes beginning this week to ensure Americans don't pick up the tab for their power consumption in the form of paying higher utility bills. This is as major Wall Street Journal piece out just this morning about the spiking costs of utility. All of this is devil's in the details, right? So don't give flowers or props or anything before any of it happens. But I think this is a recognition of the growing problem that they had on affordability, especially post-Soron, and they're like, okay, we actually have to try and to do something about this. The bigger question

will be, as we all know, MAGA and Congress are slaves to the White House. There are the Duma. Well, treat them like it and force them to pass something, which is actually counter to their interest. So that is why, you know, look, I think it's good. It's in generally it's good. And in some cases, the executive, I mean, as we saw under Biden and previously. And with this, administration, you can use executive power for a lot of shit, as FDR proved to all of us. Recently, they had this thing with mortgages. Can we put that one up there? This is B2, where the Trump administration is going to buy some 200 billion in bonds to try and lower the mortgage rates, which actually worked, fell below 6% for the first time in years. This is exactly the type of stuff

where if you want higher numbers on economics, if you follow through and it actually shows up people's personal finances in November could make an impact. I personally think it might be a little bit too late just because of the entire first year of the administration, Doge, Medicaid, all this other stuff. And you try to do this at the end. But if you've done anything like this in day one, I mean, man, you could be 70% approval rate. Yeah. If you wanted to be. If you had let out of the gate, I mean, he signed a whole slew of executive orders to begin with. But, you know, a lot of those were more fulfilling the culture war, desires of the right, and then giving the away to tech billionaires. I mean, that was the thrust of a lot of the early executive orders.

You started with this instead when there's a lot of attention being paid to the media about, like, okay, what is this administration going to be? And where are they going to put their way? I think you would have a very different perception for the American people about what their priorities are. And even if, look, I'm, you know, I'm skeptical that any of these just if they do executive orders and aren't able to, like, really pass legislation through Congress, which the last Congress, like last year was like the least productive. year ever for Congress in history or something like that. They don't have a lot of attention to detail in terms of actually making legislative pushes. So, you know, I'm not convinced that any of these

are going to have significant impacts, but it matters a lot. It would have mattered in the beginning a lot to send that message of like, this is what we're focusing on. This is what we're prioritizing. You and I both noted also many of these issues are like directly out of go back and look at the many segments and focuses on the show, which is also. This White House is very online. Super online. As we all know. Yes. And let's say I often, you know, I don't use Twitter all that much anymore, but when I do, I try to for a purpose. And all of these issues, I have been beating the drum. Because I'm like, do something about it. I know you're all following. Yeah. You are looking at the discourse. So look, I'm skeptical. Will it actually happen? You know, there's been all this criticism I have of the AI moratorium and giving their dough. But can you imagine a world where this was February of 2025? That's a different reality. No doge in this. Doge coming in with the chainsaw, destroying Social Security, like running around like maniacs, you know, all of that. Instead, you do this.

And the other piece is that they, you know, so there's two things. I mean, number one, it does smell of desperation. There's just no doubt about it where they're looking at the numbers. They're looking at the results of the 2025 elections. They're like, holy shit, we've got a problem. Like, we have to do a lot of stuff and we have to do it now. And so, you know, at the end of last year, there had been promises from Trump and other administration officials like, you wait and see, we're going to do.

do all kinds of stuff on affordability, even as Trump was calling it a Democrat con job. But in any case, like, it appears that they got that political message of like, we are in big trouble if we don't do something. But they're also really sort of stepping on and bearing their own message here because this stuff is not getting talked about. I mean, even this is the sort of stuff that in another week or in another era, you and I would have done like a whole show on each of these individual issues. But we got to cover Iran. We got to cover Venezuela. We got to cover René Good getting killed in Minneapolis. You know, I mean, there's just so many.

And then, you know, are we going into Greenland? Are we, what are we doing with Columbia? All of these other things that are understandably going to dominate news coverage and really block out even the messaging value of these things, which is primarily what I think, you know, the value of them ultimately will be. I will say, you know, in terms of like the impact that they will have, probably the most positive impact that they will have is shifting the overta. window because it'll be very hard for, you know, if there's a future Democratic administration,

it would be very hard for Republicans, not that they won't do it, they certainly will. But to cry socialism when they're like, no, we're actually codifying the sort of things that Trump floated. So do you oppose Maga now? Do you oppose Trump? Because this is like, you know, some extension of his playbook. So I do think it shifts the public debate in a way that over time could be productive and beneficial. Absolutely. Yeah. Again, no one's not, most of this probably won't happen. Okay. There are deeply, as I just said, if you were to bet on the banks or on Trump, who would you usually bet on to prevail in the United States Senate? Where are we really going to get 60 odd votes to cap credit card interest rates? Probably not. But as you just said, there is an Overton window where you

can shift, where literally the leader of the Republican Party is saying we need to cap user as credit card interest rates. You can use that sometime in the future. And you can use it in the way that a lot of people currently doing these intramaga fights where they say stuff like, so are you saying you oppose President Trump, right? And same thing on private equity, buying single-family homes, now we have the credit card stuff,

we have the defense contractor. I mean, it's effectively nationalizing the defense contractor industry to come in and say, you can only pay a certain amount of, listen, I'm all for it, right? Good. I agree, yes. State is literally the only force

that can regulate all of this chaos and insanity. currently happening in our private capital markets. I would just say I wish we would do it to a lot more other sectors, including the technology sector or the financial sector, right? But I mean, the messaging problem that you're highlighting is also the fundamental issue with the administration is, I do think waiting a year, they let everything get. I mean, first of all, no Democrat, even if this is going to give you credit now at this point.

You're in Biden territory, period. Like in the way that Republicans truly hated Biden, that's how the Dems feel. No matter what, you could, you could give them all $5,000 checks. I still think they wouldn't do anything for you, you know, at this point, seriously. And the news value, as you just said, I mean, every story you just listed is actually more important because you want to like, well, that has a more reality of actually happening. These are potential overton window.

It's like, you know, you kind of robbed yourself of that ability. Yeah. And then finally, as we learned under Biden, because they did similar desperate measures when they were underwater. It didn't work. You know, by November, even when inflation was like kind of ticking down. A little bit, nope. The first year was really what stuck in everybody's mind. This is a cancer always on presidents.

You really only have like three or four months to really do something. And Doge defined everything. I would say truly, you know, like the honeymoon to the extent that it even existed, Liberation Day, people were like, I'm done. Like, I really believe that. Well, and I think you're right about that. I think the tariffs are the most economically disastrous just from political perspective move that, I mean, it's hard to think of something that immediately turned because Trump's whole brand was being good on the economy.

That flipped on a dime after Liberation Day. And I don't think that I don't think he will recover from that. I don't think that the brand will recover from that ultimately. And so, you know, it's also like what we said with Biden, you've got a reality problem. Like some messaging, executive orders or whatever that people feel like, okay, sure, are not going to help you pay the bills at the end of the month if you don't see real and concrete action and a sustained. focus. We can put, you know, just a few indications of that reality problem up on the screen here. Let's put B3 up on the screen. I thought this was pretty significant just to understand the trend and the dynamic. I think a lot of this has to do with AI. So U.S. workers just received 53.8% of GDP in the third quarter. This is from an account called Hedgey markets, by the way, that I'm reading from. The lowest share since the government started tracking this in 1947. That's down from 54.6 the quarter before and well below the 55.6% average from the 2020s. At the same time, corporate profit margins

are hitting some of their strongest levels in decades. So again, continuation of a trend in which any sort of productivity gains that are coming into play from AI, like American workers are not benefiting from that. It's just corporate profit margins, which are expanding. And so, you know, people can see the way the economy has become so incredibly slanted. Let's put the next piece up on the screen, which again goes to this same exact issue. You have a massive youth underemployment issue. Let me go ahead and get the specific numbers here. So you've got youth unemployment on pace to reach a 10-year high.

Over 15% of 16 to 24-year-olds are unemployed. And I saw another stat that some, I think, it's 43% of college grads are under-employed, meaning you graduate and you're not working in, you know, the field that you studied, you're not fully, you know, you're not working full-time. you are underemployed based on your education and based on full-time working hours. That is an absolute crisis.

So, and again, you know, AI plays into a good piece of this. And then I can put this last piece up on the screen. This is never a good sign when gold is smashing new records. You know, the markets did not crash yesterday after the whole fight with Jerome Powell and the criminal accusations against him in the way that, frankly, I would have anticipated. I think in part because they saw the statements from Tom Tillerson later in the day, Lisa Murkowski saying, like, we're not going to be down for what the president wants to do here. But in any case, we've had gold prices, which is the ultimate, you know, flight to safety, even above and beyond at this point, U.S. Treasuries, which people are increasingly nervous about, gold smashing new record at $4,600. So we did get inflation numbers this morning that were fairly good.

They came in a little bit lower than expected. So, you know, I do want to put that out there. But in terms of how people are feeling about their job prospects, their future, where things are going, it is very, very bad. And so, you know, I think the administration sees that. They're trying to do something. But to your point, I mean, you said too little too late, and I think that probably is. Yeah, you need a whole of government approach from the beginning that's concerted. And it's serious.

I mean, that's the major problem. And they're also schizophrenic. They're like, oh, well, right now the S&P is up on the year, right? It's up by 1.4% or whatever since January. It's like, okay, well, as I've said a million times, the S&P was up like 60% if you look overall Biden. So what? Who cares?

It means nothing. Just like with foreign policy, he wants those mission accomplished moments on economics as well. And that's just not the way that this works. It's not how it works. Remember, he had previously said in his Bessent and everybody was running around talking about, oh, everybody's going to get this $2,000 dividend from the tariff. blah, blah, blah. Trump got asked about it recently and was like, I don't know what you're talking about. He's like, I don't remember saying that. It's like, I mean, you know, the, like the attention

span of a goldfish. So will he have the stick to itness to like work with Elizabeth Warren and do some bipartisan thing to actually cap credit card interest rates? Like, maybe, I don't know, maybe, or maybe they just take it and run with it. And it's something that he doesn't really have to put his hands on and it makes its way through. But yeah, long term thinking and, sticking to, you know, really paying attention to the details is not really the thing that he's been about in the past. Not yet. And that's why, you know, it'd be fair to, uh, to criticize. I, hope to see it. I do. You know, at the very least, you know, who knows, get some writer in a bill, get a couple votes. Who knows which way 2026 will go in the Senate, right? We're going to talk

about that just here in a second. It could happen. It's definitely could happen. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York

since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wally. And I'm Hurricane DeBolu. It's a new year, and on the podcast, Podcasts health stuff for resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be.

I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body in mind, inside and out, healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection.

We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every January, we're encouraged to start over. But what if this year is about slowing down and learning how to understand ourselves more deeply? What if this year is about giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help? I'm Mike De La Rocha, host of Sacred Lessons. This is a podcast for men navigating stress, emotional health, fatherhood, identity,

and the unspoken pressures were taught to carry alone. We talk honestly about mental health, about healing generational wounds, and about learning how to show up with more presence and care. If you want a healthier relationship with yourself and the people you love, then Sacred Lessons is the podcast for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Dolorotcha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Delocha and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today.

All right, let's get to influencers. Yeah, so this is a wild story. A lot of this has been reported out before, but the Wall Street, first of all, it's a Wall Street Journal, so, you know, just something the premature of such a prestige brand matters. And also it puts together a lot of pieces. Let's go ahead and put this tear sheet up on the screen. And I do want to give them their flowers for reporting this out, because I think this is incredibly important.

As people who care a lot about the media, click care a lot about the integrity of the media and that whole landscape, this is an absolute cancer. Wall Street Journal says Washington's new lobbyist paid online influencers with feud rules. They go on to detail a variety of right-wing influencers who are taking money from a variety of interest, some of them just directly from foreign governments, in order to push either the corporate or that government's line. So let me read you the opening sort of graphs here to give you the anecdote they start with. Last summer, Donald Trump's 28-year-old former campaign aide, Alex Broussawitz, had some new advice for the president,

reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, soccer. Nearly 70% of Republican voters support Trump on this. No-brainer, he said to more than 640,000 followers on X. What Brousowitz left out of that post, a political action committee funded by legal marijuana's biggest players had just paid him $300,000. Goes on to say Trump's return to the White House has transformed the federal government

and upended the business of lobbying, creating a new class of Washington operatives that blur the lines between consulting, advocacy, and journalism. So, you know, on the first Trump administration, the understanding was basically if you wanted to get the message to the president, you go on Fox News, right? That's if you can't get like directly in face-to-face, and sometimes even if you can get directly face-to-face, that he would listen more attentively to things he saw in televised format than in a direct meeting. There's still some truth to that. And there's still truth to that. Yeah, with, I think more so, and you can tell me if this is your impression as well, with the people who are in the Trump administration who are so incredibly online,

that they are very susceptible to messaging from a variety of influencers and seeing like what goes viral on X. Yes. And then when they see that, they take that and run with it and put it to the president. Hey, look, this is really super popular. Let's do it. So there is a whole industry that has sprung up around paying these influence. influencers, and they do not disclose where the money comes from. I mean, I have an issue with the money to start with, but then it's not in, like, there is no indication that this is a paid

advertisement, that this content is anything other than this creator's own brilliant, independent ideas. And it's incredibly, incredibly corrosive, it's dystopian, and it, there has to be, at some point, I know it's not going to happen under this image, there has to be a crackdown on this show. But there already, is a law, like FARA. It exists. You have to register. It's just that nobody complies with the law. And we have a screenshot of some of these. We can go through them.

Let's put them up here on the screen just to show you. Here they highlighted one Rob Smith. A veteran gay pro-Trump commentator. Instagram of a photo beaming next to Serena Williams. Quote, TBH, I had zero clue. Doha was such a cultural hub. He wrote in the caption. Yeah.

As somebody used to live in Doha, it's not a cultural hub. After they paid him to go on this very glamorous trip. and be whined and d'i'ed. Oh my god, Doha's so amazing. Yeah, I'm sure it's amazing. Yeah, ask some of the laborers there, how much of a cultural hub it is for them. Let's go to the next one, shall we? Here they say, Sinclair, who is 29, received $67,500 from the Maha pack to host videos about issues of interest to the RFK Jr., organizations, financial disclosures. Quote, creators have the attention right now. In 2026, I believe attention is going to be the currency of power. Let's go to the next one, shall we?

Influencer Deborah Lee launched to internet fame after a video. Here's the other thing I know I'm old. I literally don't even know any of these people are. She is at various times acted as advisor to government officials, including to Mike Johnson, questioning administration officials at the White House briefing and been paid to promote everything from the solar industry to the prediction market, CalShe. She's a frequent Fox News commentator and has appeared there as a brand voice for parlor social media site.

I believe this is the lady who said she has so many different. of these deals that is just hard for her to even keep up with them. Hard for her to even keep track of all of the special interests that are paying her for her opinion. I'm in the wrong business, man. All right, let's go to the next one, shall we? After billionaire Jared Isaacson saw the administration blew up, he hosted independent MAGA commentators like Benny Johnson and Nick Sorter at his poor private Montana hangar where he keeps a fleet of fighter jets. And while his allies pushed for Mdbri nominated, he gave them rides in the jet and a twilight. He gave them rides in the jet and a tour of his private Star Wars-themed canteena bar that overlooks the planes, quote, it was one of the

best days of my life. The influencer said in a video he posted online, and then others then advocated for his re-nomination. This one is a little bit more of just classic whining and dining, although who knows if money did change hands. But this is exactly what you're saying. Like, if you have normal social media influencers, which are out there right now, you generally, because the FTC after they crack down under the Biden administration, they have to put the hashtag ad whenever they're promoting a product. I do think that there should be the same standard. Even just ethics, I mean, as people know, sometimes it's embarrassing. But if I know somebody who we're covering, I just say it because it would be 10 times worse if later on, you know, the

appearance of like trying to neutrally analyze somebody. And then there's a photo or something that came out. You have to just be upfront about it. Be like, yeah, listen, full disclosure. Know this person, right? No one for X money or. Again, it's embarrassing sometimes. Sometimes it's not a great look or whatever. But sometimes, you know, I go to a dinner or whatever. Like you meet this person and you're just like, look, you know, again, I know who this person is. And it's not usually to your benefit necessarily.

But in the long run, you have to be able to let people make up their minds for yourself and couch your analysis if you do know someone personally. And that's just like knowing someone. This is being paid. And I don't know. But I mean, the danger of what I have come to this general. conclusion as of recently is the public actually doesn't care. And that is deeply disconcerting. Because I actually believed for a long time, not only just disclosure, but in general,

trying to be nuanced or, you know, independent or like free thinking or any of that would be rewarded both by the marketplace and in the long run. But look at the most popular people today and the people making generational wealth off of, you know, what we do here, literally getting paid people openly just like propaganda, lying. Many of them are genuinely retarded, and it's like nobody cares. They're getting rewarded for it. I talked about this, what was it?

I forget which scandal, which it was. And I was like, you know, why bother checking the facts? It's actually to your benefit when you don't. It's like these people are 10 times more popular, 10 times more rewarded, literally ascending to the high. of power. Some of them don't know the word of benevolent, okay? I'm like, okay. Why read a fucking book? And the whole country is like dancing to his student right now. Why read a book? I'm serious. Like at this point, what is even the point in this, this like endeavor when it is very

clear, you know, we're going to cover an NFL story somewhat, hopefully on Thursday, to this regard, where everyone's praising this lady for going to a press conference and just being like, oh, coach, you're so amazing. And the public is on this lady's side. And the journalists who are like, hey, you're supposed to ask a question are apparently the villains. I never thought I'd be defending a bunch of establishment journalists or something. But I'm like, this is where the country's headed. People don't care. What I would say is that, you know, we do just fine here. Yeah, sure. We are in a good living. Right. And we get to sleep at night. So I, you know, I appreciate that. And you do see some of these, like, you know, the people who just go all in on like the partisan

propaganda, which in order to get these deals and make sure you're still on the good side of the Trump administration, you cannot deviate from them. You've got to be, you know, on message, 100% of the time. And it does have a shelf life, right? We've seen people flame out before. I also point to, Kyle was telling me about this yesterday. You know, Bill Burr had really built this brand around like his credibility and his willingness to call out powerful forces and whatever. When he took that Saudi money, his, he has had a massive fallout. Really? So for months, apparently his comment section is filled with people who are just still

disgusted with him. Really? His views have completely tanked. And it's, you know, I mean, when's the last time we saw Bill Burr? Yeah, it's been a while. Clip in the while that we were like, oh, that's interesting. Let's play it on the show. Yeah, he really, that really sort of nuked him.

And I think the thing for him is that he really did hold himself out as having the sort of values that you and I try to uphold here. And then when he did something that was so at odds against that in the perception of his audience, they were like, okay, we don't trust you anymore. I mean, I guess the difference is that these people really never help themselves out as a beacon of integrity. So they can just cash in and no one cares. When people don't even pretend and just openly are like, yep, like this is what I do,

they are dramatically rewarded for it. And it's like not just, and the thing is, it's one thing. to be worshipped by elements of power. People in power always love, people who are willing to be propagandistic. But what happened to the people who supposedly... I mean, look, I've read a lot. Maybe, you know, the yellow journalism air

is starting to make a lot more sense whenever I think back to it. But, you know, there was some general expectation, I thought, at least. You know, now currently, because what was the... Why did the mainstream media's credibility fall apart? Like, you know, Iraq, lying... Yeah.

And because they were seen as like partisan outlets, you know. Openly ignoring certain sets of facts, which are inconvenient to a narrative, picking and choosing, obviously ideological. And yet you see the worst, in my opinion, the worst of them be recreated and then actually become more popular and supposedly trusted. It's crazy. Yeah. Well, the question is how long is that job?

Because my personal opinion is that, you know, you're in sort of a transitional phase. Yes, this was always my theory too. You know, people are excited about the genuine promise and possibility of independent media in the way that we are as well and should be, and haven't really caught up with that it can actually go even worse than mainstream media because at least with the legacy media, there are some still like journalistic norms and standards and processes in place. And there's some arm's length distance between the host and the people who are selling the ads or whatever. That does not exist in independent media. It certainly doesn't exist in like, you know, random TikTok influencers or whatever.

And so it will take a while for people to catch up to that reality, but they're going to catch up to that reality. That is my belief. We would be remiss. I think there was one more slide in that C2 slideshow. Well, I just, I know this is one that people will be definitely interested in. In September, newly formed firm called Bridges Partners registered as a foreign agent for the government of Israel and disclosed plans for a $900,000 influencer program dubbed Esther Project.

Now, Quincy Institute, Responsible Statecraft. What's their blog called? Responsible Statecraft. They were the ones that initially broke this story. So again, this isn't brand new news. But I think there's something hopeful here, Sagar, because Israel's paying big bucks to a whole suite of influencers. We don't know exactly who they are, which ones are getting their $7,000 per post or whatever. But we know they're out there, for sure. And is it working? No, it's not working. You know, Israel's, look, in terms of the death and destruction, they've been able to, you know, to continue to commit in Gaza and in the West Bank, and they're backing from the Trump administration, that has been very successful. But in terms of public opinion, it's been a disaster. I mean,

they've completely lost Democrats, they've lost independents, they've lost young Republicans, and that bleeding just continues. So in that way, it is sort of hopeful because you do have this very concerted, very sophisticated propaganda effort, paid propaganda effort coming from the Israeli government, and people are seeing right through it. So, you know, in that way, I find that that, I find that to be sort of encouraging that there are some antibodies against the stuff. Yeah, you can't buy your way out of all of it, but you apparently can buy your way a decent amount. Yeah. And I think that's where... If you're committing a live genocide on our feeds, you're probably not going to be able to $7,000 paid influencer.

I have never believed that's why the weed thing is a perfect example, right? It's one of the, nobody was really paying attention to it. It was like kind of a side issue. This is why, you know, you've had, I mean, I covered the whole weed story here. Even if you support it, like the way that it all went down is that a literal weed CEO went to the office, the Oval Office, and convinced Trump on the spot to do this. Like, that's literally how it happened. Somebody who had a direct financial interest and then called Mike Johnson and he put her on speakerphone. literally put her on speakerphone and was like, why don't you explain to Mike Johnson why this is a good

idea? That's insane. Okay? Like, that's completely insane. And that's, this is a person who stood to make billions of dollars as a result of this decision. Oh, and lo and behold, there was a massive pump in the stock price as a, oh, shocker, right? And so this is why they pay Alex Broussowitz. In some of, like, in these side areas, like maha, or remember the whole Laura Lumer thing with Venae Prasad? Yeah. Where, you know, attack, it was over a drug. Like, it was over a drug, which he held up, because it was killing children. You know, that was the reason. why it didn't get, that was the reason why... Was that Alzheimer's shot? No, it was

some rare disease drug. Oh, that's why it was so crazy that that's what it was about. It was one specific company who got held up and then Rick Santorum and Laura Lumer and all these other people started getting involved because they're literally getting paid, or at least in Santorum's case, don't know about Lumer. There was some suspicion

of that, but in Santorum's case, like, literally getting paid by the drug companies. Yeah. But that's actually where it's more pernicious because that's like actual pay-to-play, you know, political influence slash lobbying. And in a lot of these like more side areas, yes, you can't buy your way out of Israel. But all, you know, these little things, which are tens of millions of dollars to a single company, 300,000, is nothing if a single regulatory decision, Polymarket,

why do you think they're sponsoring all of these people? It all, it, all of it came down to the CFTC and the SEC, who was going to regulate. A single regulatory decision worth billions. Wouldn't you spend 10 million? You know, you could spend 100 million if you're going to make billions of dollars. off of a single thing. That's why they do it. Well, speaking of things that, you know, are very dark and depressing to me, you have Dan Bonjino, fresh out of the FBI, back to his podcast career. And I am actually shocked because I thought that even the MAGA base was like, this guy really screwed up and we don't trust him anymore. I don't know. Looks like they're right back, you know, right back to trusting him, wanting to watch

his content, whatever. He now, now that he's not, no longer in any sort of position of power, And now that he's not at the FBI, now he's just back in his podcast year, now he's going to reveal all the secrets and expose all the people and do all the things. Let's go ahead and take a listen to C3. When I come back, if it's going to be, you know, endless complaining, then just don't watch. This show is it's okay. Like, this is a constitutional republic. You're not obligated to listen to my show.

The thing about black pill is where everything sucks all the time. It's like, well, we're demanding accountability. Great, so am I. You're endlessly complaining about things you don't know, even don't know anything about. That's all you do. Like he'll shut down the border, 10 people across the month. Why wasn't it zero? Okay, well, can you just acknowledge going from a million to 10 is a big deal?

There's a cost to that. You can't let this negative vibe constantly set in. That doesn't mean healthy debates about policy are not welcome. Debating policies are fine. But the black pill complaining and whining all the time at the administration. It's just like, man, what team are you on? You don't have to watch. It's okay.

There's a door, you know, go find another freaking exits. I don't really give a shit. I'm not here for anybody's money or anything like that. I'm too old for that shit. Not here for anybody's money. But the next one up on the screen, he says, it's been a busy year. So much to talk about when I returned to the podcast,

live on Rumble on February 2nd at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. So in any case, he is, you know, now that he's back in the podcast chair, he can do all the things that he had promised he would do when it was at FBI, apparently. And, you know, everyone can just stop complaining and taking the black pill and reminding him that he was part of the,

Epstein-Files cover-up. But that's kind of a good example of what I'm talking about. I mean, you have somebody here who literally was in a position of power, did literally nothing, and it's apparently going to be well. It's crazy. It's part of a cover-up. No, part of the episode, which he purported. Like, imagine if I went into government after everything I've said about weed and gambling, and I was complicit in, like, legalizing weed and giving a license to, and then I came back here and I was like, by the way, it was in my phone. I mean, come on. Like, you know, it would be crazy. You're like responsible for making it like the U.S. Treasury brought to you by.

Cali, and I was like, actually, Fan Diwali, we're gonna, you know, literally directly working behind the scenes or was part of a meeting to like legalize sports gambling in the entire nation and then came back and I was like, oh, and fuck you for black, I believe. Yes, for you for complaining. But that's my point.

It's like, there's no price. It's so crazy just to watch in real time. You know, hopefully, you know, karma and all that, but like, I don't know, I don't know. I just watched the popularity. and all and no, there's no, I mean, you have that whole story about, you know, people getting paid a hundred grand, a video or whatever, nothing happens. Everybody just moves on. It's like the team sport thing.

There's no standards. You know, the stuff we would rip the legacy media for, literally rip them whenever they would do correctly, right? Whenever we would see somebody do a shoddy job. And then you do somebody just to do one of the dumbest jobs in like modern political journalism. And it's like, oh, give them them the Pulitzer Prize. It's crazy, right? Like, I think I'm, this is a therapy session for me. It is.

I feel like I'm going nuts. And you just see it all go, you know, 50, 25 million views. It's whatever. All right. Let's go to 2020. Yeah. So this is a significant potentially development. Let's put D1 up on the screen.

The reason that this is worth flagging is because party identification was a major indicator in the Biden era that Republicans were really on the upswing. And so you can see for, you know, the, there in 2020. As Trump's campaigning, you had Republican Party identification beating Democratic Party identification. That was really a new development. Now that trend has reversed. And you've got Democratic Party identification at 48 percent. Republican Party identification has fallen to 40 percent. Significant swing year over year. You know, last year. So Q4 of 2024, that measure was R plus four. Q4 of 2025. It was D plus eight. So that's a net 12 point swing towards.

Democrats. And kind of remarkable thing to happen at a time when, you know, the Democratic Party is extremely unpopular, like reaching lows of popularity. And a lot of that is, of course, Republicans hate the Democratic Party, but there's a lot of sense of fecklessness coming from Democratic Party leadership. But even as that brand is obviously incredibly tarnished and people are disgusted with the way that leadership has conducted themselves, you still have people who, you still have people who are feeling like, okay, but I'd rather identify with them than what I see happening in Trump's America. And at the same time, you've got, the House is almost lost already. I mean, it's such a narrow margin at this point that Mike Johnson barely, barely by the skin of his teeth,

holds on to a majority. It looks very much like Democrats are poised to take back the House in the midterm elections. But the Senate always seemed like a much bigger stretch. Now, you have a have the Senate also coming into play. And so that's why this development is really significant. Put D2 up on the screen. So former representative Mary Paltola of Alaska is jumping into the Alaska Senate race. I do not pretend to understand the politics of Alaska. I don't understand them at all. But I do know Mary Paltola is popular in Alaska. And I believe this is a congressional seat where you actually represent the whole state because it's a relatively small population. So you are as a Congress member representing the entire state. We can put D4 up on the screen to show you some of the

initial polling about this matchup between Mary Peltola and Dan Sullivan, who's the incumbent, has it Peltola up a point, obviously within the margin of error here. This was from back in October, so we haven't had a new poll to update us on exactly where things stand. But this means that this Senate seat is actually in play. Let's go ahead and take a listen to D3 to get a of how Mary Peltola is positioning ourselves. I'm Mary Peltola, and I'd like to share why I've made the decision to run for U.S. Senate. I grew up on the Cascokum River,

salmon fishing with my father. Buzzy and I raised our seven kids in Alaska and spent long summer days at fish camp. Life is difficult here, and we know that we have to take care of each other. D.C. people were shocked that I prioritized going back to Alaska in July to help put up fish for our family,

but Alaska, understand. It's not just that politicians in D.C. don't care that we're paying $17 a gallon for milk in rural Alaska. They don't even believe us. They're more focused on their stock portfolios than our bank accounts. When they actually work together on something, it's usually to help themselves. Our delegation used to stand up to their party and put Alaska first. D.C. people will be pissed that I'm focusing on their self-dealing and sharing what I've seen firsthand. They're going to complain that I'm proposing term limits, but it's time. Systemic change is the only way to bring down grocery costs, save our fisheries, lower energy prices, and build new housing Alaskans can afford.

No one from the lower 48 is coming to save us. It's about time Alaskans teach the rest of the country what Alaska First and really America First looks like. Ask a first. There you go. Okay, I actually didn't believe that they're paying $17 for a gallon of milk. That's insane. Is that true? Which is like, they won't believe this. I was like, I don't believe it. There's no, I mean, it's possible, I guess. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's actually insane. Yeah. So anyway, the Senate math is as such, Democrats have to hold on to Georgia and Michigan are the two that are, you know, most sort of dicey for them to hold on to. If they're able to do that, then they have to win three more seats. The two most obvious places are North Carolina and Maine where they have. Also a strong candidate in North Carolina, the former governor Cooper, I can't remember his first name right now. Roy Cooper.

Yeah, Roy Cooper, who seems like, you know, I mean, people like him statewide. It's a difficult year for Republicans, whatever. That one seems very much in reach. Then you have Maine, which is Susan Collins, who may, she's making an announcement. It's not entirely clear she's even running for reelection. My personal opinion, Maine is lost for the Republicans. But I thought that in the past as well. I just think the partisanship at this point is going to be very difficult to whoever. But any case, North Carolina and Maine are definitely both in reach for Democrats. Then you need one more. And that's where it was always like, where else? You got Texas. I don't know about that. You got Nebraska where you've got Dan Osborne, who's running as an independent, but we'll probably caucus with Democrats, although I don't want to put words in his mouth. I don't know that he said that. But, you know, he would take out a Republican. So could be that. But that's very difficult to accomplish. You've got Iowa, which Iowa has been hit very hard by the Trump tariff policy. their economy is, you know, they're very upset with a lot of economic aspects. There's actually the Democratic gubernatorial candidate looks like he's got a really good shot. Is it possible? I don't know. Iowa is really pretty right at this point. So Alaska now appears to be their best hope for a third seat. And Ohio, I should throw in the mix as well where Sherrod Brown is running. Yes, of course.

And Sherrod Brown is, you know, the strongest candidate Democrats could possibly put forward. Again, Ohio, though, tough state at this point, and he's already lost once. So in any case, you know, Alaska really sort of puts things more in play for Democrats to be able to take the Senate than previously if Mary Peltol is able to pull that one off. It's, look, it's possible. Again, I don't know. She was able to, remember, don't they still use rank choice voting? They do. So that could throw, you know, things in the mix if you have a couple, right? And who knows the narrowing of the field and all of that. So it's theoretically possible. This is the same way that she was able to win. I would probably bet Ohio, Maine are much better pickups potentially for them. But you got to remember,

if this is 2010, and you were there, too, Crystal, like you were literally running for office, there were people who were winning for Republicans who had no business winning, like all over the country. And then two years prior to that in 2008 in a Democratic wave, you know, Obama won like North Carolina. Like you had districts. Yeah, right, exactly. There were, if I recall, there was like a Democratic who won like some place in. Louisiana or something. Like there were these crazy districts where you had people had no business being in the House and even in the Senate, you know, at that time. So it could happen. You know, anything can happen in a crazy wave type of election. We've seen it time and time again. So

this is why I wouldn't count out necessarily. I mean, it would be a huge coup for the Democrats to be able to have control of both houses. Oh, yeah. I mean, it would basically shut down Washington as we know it, as it is right now. I will just say those sort of like really unexpected things, usually happen at the Congress, like the House level versus the Senate just because there's more attention paid to the statewide Senate candidates. But if you do have a large Democratic wave election, you know, I think now you can credibly say that the Senate is in play between. So if you assume they hold on to what they got and they pick up Maine and North Carolina, and they need one more. And Ohio and Alaska both are not preposterous to imagine.

One more thing we wanted to update D5 here. Grand Platner has a new internal poll. that he gave to Zateo, has him up 15 points on Janet Mills, which is pretty wild. I mean, it's a sign of the times, right? This guy, Kyle and I talked to him last week, and he was saying again, like, guys, remember, last summer is when I launched it. Like, no one had ever heard of me before last summer. And now I'm thrust into this spotlight and, like, the level of momentum and the things that are happening, he can scarcely wrap his head around.

and he's up according to his poll and according to other polls we've seen too by double digits on the sitting governor of Maine who has the backing of the DSCC and Chuck Schumer and all of these sorts of people which we talked to Chris Van Hollen about him being upset about that yesterday too in the interview that Ryan and I did with him so it is going to be a very, very interesting year

in terms of politics and we're going to get a lot of indications of where things are headed. Internal poll, you never know, sometimes they're cope, you know. Usually it has some method. Maine is a hard place to poll, but, you know, tracks public with the actual, like, private ones that really matter. And in general, you know, I haven't seen any stuff to back up her campaign's legitimacy, like crowds or enthusiasm. There's none of the other accoutremaal that would, you know, show that you're actually running a winning campaign. Yeah. From her, at least, except, I guess,

Chuck Schumer right now, these, who I wouldn't even want their endorsement. No. If I were running a Democratic primary today. A decade ago, I was a decade ago, I was. was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster,

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