Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/4/25: Trump Threatens NYC Voters Over Zohran, Saagar Rips Boomers Avoiding Taxes

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss all the elections in the US today, Trump threatens NYC voters, Saagar rips boomers avoiding taxes. Logan Phillips: https://www.racetothewh.com/   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.

This is an I-Heart podcast. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years, until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season, ad-free,

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podcast about a string of mysterious suicides at a Missouri University, and the fraternity brother tied to them all, Brandon Grossheim. The lawsuit says Grosheim was one of the last people to see each victim before their deaths. Was he profoundly unlucky, or was something much darker at play? Listen to The Peacemaker podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, Sager 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 breakingpoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. It is Election Day, 2025. Lots of interesting races to dive into with our friend Logan Phillips, also taking a look at the New York City mayoral race. Trump is intervening in a big way. Lots of questions about what all of this means for the future of the Democratic Party. So, of course, fascinating one to watch there. We also have some new dire warnings coming from the CEOs of Kraft Heinz and also Chipotle about consumer spending. as AI increasingly dominates the economy that will flow right into a segment on AI. Elon Musk is saying that no one's going to work in the future. So is that the future you guys are excited about? Is that in fact what's coming?

We will take a look at the indications. Prince Andrew officially stripped of all of his titles and some new revelations coming out there with regard to his connections to Jeffrey Epstein. And we are digging into Trump's pardon of CZ, founder of Binance. Emily and I talked about this previously. but Trump got asked about it on 60 minutes and claims, eh, he doesn't really know anything about the guy. He doesn't have any idea what's going on. So pretty revelatory there in and of itself. Yeah, that's right. Before we get to that, thank you to everybody who's been subscribing, breaking points.com.

Especially on election night, it means a lot. We're going to be doing a stream later tonight. So we're going to put that graphic up here on the screen. We will have a live coverage of the elections in Virginia, in New Jersey, and New York City. Ryan and Griffin will be on the ground there to bring us all of the exclusive stuff that they can get from the Zoran Mamdani H.Q. And also just to see what the vibe is and whether he will break the coveted 50%. That is indeed a big question I think of tonight. They'll be in New York. I will be at home holding down the fort and, you know, parsing of their election results. Dave Weigel is going to join us. And Emily, I think, is actually going to be at a winsome Sears victory. Yeah. Party. We'll just call it a party. Party. Yeah. So we'll get the, you know,

the vibe from Republicans as well. One more thing before we bring in our guests. Dick Cheney is dead at age, what, 83? 84. Yeah. So that's about all we have to say about that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, they say if you have nothing nice to say,

they just don't say anything at all. So there you go. Okay, let's get to the show. All right, guys, we are joined in studio today by our great friend Logan Phillips from Race to the White House to break down the big races that are happening today. Great to see you, Logan. Hey, great to be here.

It's good to see, man. It's been a year. It's been a crazy year. What a year. It feels like it's been a day. in my personal opinion, but in any case, let's go ahead and take a listen to Harry Enten did a breakdown of the big races and where the polling stands and we can get into your analysis out of that. Democrats lead all the key races. You go to New Jersey governor. That's really the only

close one. Mikey Sherrill, the Democrat, up by six points. Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, up by Talons, Aramondani, up by 16 points in New York City. The bottom line is this. Yes, there are ideological differences between the Democrats, but the key comment. component is they are all going after Donald Trump and all the Democrats lead from New Jersey to Virginia to New York City. They all lead the Republican and independent opponents. Donald Trump is a huge, huge drag in all of these races. Look at his net popularity reigns in New Jersey. He's 11 points underwater. Virginia, 14 points underwater. Not much of a big surprise in New York. He's 35 points underwater. And I will note nationally in my aggregate of polls, he's about 13 points underwater. And our CNN poll, he's way below that, which looks a lot of like New Jersey, a lot like Virginia. So these races, in my minds, could be huge bellwethers going into next year to understanding how Donald Trump is impacting these races. Look at what has happened when Democrats sweep New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia governor. They won the U.S. House the next year five out of five times in the last 90 years. You go all the way back to the

FDR administration. So the bottom line is this. When Democrats do well in these off-year elections, when they sweep New Jersey, Virginia, and New York City, historically speaking, that means they go on to win the U.S. House of Representatives the next time around. So reacting to that, you know, the sort of broad national scene, is your assessment line up with Harry Entens? Do you see Trump as being a major factor in all of these races as well? Yeah, Donald Trump's definitely a major factor, and he's at the low point of his popularity in his first year of the second term, which is bad timing for Republicans. That being said, we'll disagree with Harry, is how much we can take those combinations because Virginia used to be a very red state for a big slice over those years. At times, New Jersey was a red state, too.

And so that combination was probably a lot more powerful in the past and it is right now. May not have the same predictive power now that it used to. Right, because Virginia is just a blue state. It's more about the question of margin. I mean, I guess New Jersey... Virginia does have a Republican governor... Yeah, but it's definitely... But even that, it's like a little...

It's a little weird, right? I mean, okay, let's get into some of your projections. So we have A2, please, let's put the New Jersey governor's race. To me, maybe the most interesting one. So you have Mikey Sherrill with some 92% chance of winning Chittarelli at 8% and a projected margin of victory of around 6. I do believe the RCP polling average is only around 3%. And there's been some, Logan, that have shown some closer races, like maybe like 1% or so for Chittarelli. And, you know, allegedly according to some of their own internal polling, they even have a potential chance of being up by one.

and it could indeed be close. What are the dynamics of this race that make it the so-called closest race, I think, of tonight? There's a tendency among northeast voters in New England, but also carries over to New Jersey, where if it's the right kind of Republican, you're going to see a lot of voters that are going to cross over. Seatrelli, even though he's been linking with Trump

a lot more this time, is a lot more moderate, and he's a really good campaigner. It's why he managed to do so well last time and overperform expectations. So, see a Treli's probably putting a race in play that with a weaker Republican, especially one that might have been more closely linked to Donald Trump's brand, it might not be in play at all.

But it's still just really tough to win a blue-leaning state, even if it's gotten more competitive lately, in a midterm of Republican president, especially one that's unpopular. Yeah. Yeah, let's put up the A3, guys. If you have just the New Jersey ones, or we can cycle through all of them.

But these are the polymarket odds of, you know, for each of these races, New York City mayor will race, you know, Zoron is it. 91%. Go to Jersey. I personally think Cuomo is probably a little overrated at 9%. at this point, but we'll see, put the next one up on the screen. We've got Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, basically a lock 99% chance according to, again, to Polly Market. And then the last one here,

New Jersey. Mikey Cheryl, though, I mean, even though we've had polling that's pretty close, and Republicans seem to feel at least somewhat bullish on this race, she's still got an 87% chance of victory, according to Polly Market anyway, according to what the odds are. So what are people seeing that are making them feel so confident that she's likely to prevail ultimately. Yeah, well, I think part of it's just the history of the state. There's only been one time in like the last 30, 40, 50 years where it didn't vote against the party that was in power. Again, you know, so New Jersey and Virginia just have this strong tendency. And it just doesn't feel like with Donald Trump, who was such a polarizing president at such a polarizing time,

that this is the time when New Jersey is going to break away from that pattern. That makes sense. I think that that broadly just seems to be the general. general bet. And so, like you said, with the margins, I think here are more what's interesting. Let's put your Virginia prediction, the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial race you have from your own polling model. Here we have some 98.7% chance, according to your model of a Spanberger win with a 1.3% chance of win some Sears. I guess the more interesting question then is the projected margin of victory. Your projected lead is some 10.1%. How would that align? historically, is that a blowout in historical terms for the gubernatorial race? I guess the

similar one that we could compare to is 2017, the Ed Gillespie race, I think, what was it, Ralph Northam, right? And that was kind of a precursor to the 2018 Democratic victory. What do you think? Yeah, well, there's contrast between New Jersey, right? New Jersey, you have two candidates that look highly competent that both parties are investing heavily in. I think Republicans feel that there are odds in New Jersey, I mean, in Virginia are kind of a long shot. The candidate that's been pretty unpopular. It's been tarnished by your past statements and aggressive ads. The Democrats, heavily out fundraising here. And honestly, above all else, I think what made Virginia so hard for Republicans to win is there have been so many jobs that have been lost

in Virginia that if you're in Northern Virginia, either you lost your job, one of your friends lost your job or one of your friends' friends lost your job, right? And right now, you know probably 15, 20 people who are furloughed. Exactly. Yeah, the shutdown does not help that case. The shutdown is not good, I think, for the Northern Virginians. Yeah, so that's not going to affect in the mindset of everyone in the state, but it's going to heavily affect a huge part of the state that has a very large population, places where Glenn Yonkin did much better than expected four years ago. And so they're going to swing hard, likely back in the other direction. That's very true. I think it's an important point. So, like, where I live in Alexandria,

Virginia, you know, traditionally a very, very blues place. But, I mean, you know, Glenn Yonkin won like 30% of the vote there, which I know it's not a lot. But for us, that's crazy. Right. That's absolutely crazy. This time around, you don't see. anything. I remember the Yonken election. You actually saw Yonkin signs. I haven't seen any wins some serious. Nothing. Spanberger. Ads are everywhere, absolutely blanketing the entire area, similarly to kind of what you're saying. So what margin of victory would be an overperformance do you think for Abigail Spanberger today? So you have her at 10%. But what would send a statement? Sheans of winning by like 14 plus, I think would be a big statement win. Yeah. I think I was looking

it up. Ralph Northam won by roughly 10. It was like just under 10, I think. And so people are looking at that as kind of like a marker, you know, if she's able to beat that. That would be the strongest performance for a Democrat in kind of like recent years. So I think that's what a lot of people are looking out. What about down ballot in Virginia? I know the attorney general has been embroiled in controversy because of these violent text messages that were released. That seems to be the race, at least the statewide race, that's the closest. You know, what do you see for the lieutenant governor and the attorney general races here?

Yeah, that's going to be decided probably by the reluctant Jay Jones Democratic voters. the ones who desperately don't want to vote for someone that says the things that he says, but also desperately don't want a Republican as Attorney General. Some of those voters will probably leave the ballot blank. Some of them will cross over. I suspect most of them will end up voting for Jay Jones. And I think this is part of being in such a polarized time that it's very easy to find an excuse to vote for someone that maybe isn't the best person to be in office. That maybe you're not in love with, but partisan feeling trumps whatever concerns you may have about that individual.

Let's put a 7 up on the screen. This is a map of the early turnout in Virginia thus far. The darker blue are the places that have seen a higher percentage come out to vote already. And, you know, if you have even a, you know, a basic grasp of Virginia geography, you can see Northern Virginia is turning out, Richmond and Richmond suburbs turning out, some in the Chesapeake Bay area, Norfolk area over in Roanoke as well. But, you know, those areas, the Richmond suburbs, Northern Virginia, those are the place. as Democrats want to come in strong. So far, it looks like, you know, that is panning out,

although, you know, it all comes down to who actually shows up on election day. I personally have not yet cast my ballot. I got to get on that time. Yeah, I need to do it today as well. Yeah, and I think above all, right, it's really hard to measure how much that turnout's going to help one side of the other just because we don't have a good model to do this based off the past because turnout dynamics have switched so much,

then Democrats are voting early and way higher numbers. However, like, I think you'd want to see something with that race in particular for Republicans that was saying this, is different than you expect because the expectations are really bad for them going into the race. See, yeah, I think that's the key is, as you said, and I'm glad you're giving the caveats. Early turnout models have basic, I wouldn't say bunk exactly, but they have really not been all that predictive over the last five years, especially with COVID. Can we put A6 on the screen? Crystal, you flagged this. This is from a Virginia analyst. And what he said, which is kind of

interesting, is that with early vote now, we have our first solid data. Democrats are overperforming previous numbers in urban, suburban, ex-urban, and rural precincts. Chances are very good. Dems will have their biggest margin win for Gov in modern VA history. This also means probably a comfortable win for Democrats in the LG race. The numbers indicate a favorable playing field for the AG, but the Dems, but not certainly a lock at all. Meanwhile, Democrats in the House are looking at a minimum six-peep pickup with double digits within reach. If we went by early mail-in voting, Democrats would win greater than a super majority in the House. Obviously, election day is more Republican-friendly, so that's why things will come back. He says, if you nailed me down to a

specific number, I would say 61-39, a 10-seat pickup there in Virginia. I mean, that does sound massive, right? Because it's historically kind of been 50-50 for what we've seen in the state. Yeah, well, these are the elections where you are able to pick up those big advantages. Yeah. Think about it this way, right? Like, it basically, whoever is the president is going to give the out-of-power party a huge edge relative to how they would normally do. And so this is kind of similar to Glenn Yonkin just winning the race and the State House being so close last time around is Democrats are going to similarly perform in a state that from the very beginning is now blue-leaning.

Let's take a look at the New Jersey turnout, even though we just said that the early turnout is not all that predictive. Listen, guys, it's all we got. Yeah, just everybody forgive us. Put 8-8 up on the screen. This is from an election analyst who has been taking a look at New Jersey. He says GOP hit 70% of their 24 in-person early numbers. in just two counties. Meanwhile, 14 out of 21 counties have Dem turnout greater than 70% of their

2024 in-person early numbers would seem to indicate, you know, again, in the early vote, Democrats are turning out at a higher percentage than Republicans. You know, Democrats also, their coalition has shifted much more towards the type of voters who vote in off-year elections, who vote in, you know, midterm elections, who are those reliable, if there's an election, they're showing up to cast their ballot. So that does tend to be a benefit as well in these, you know, odd year elections. Yeah, I mean, we've been seeing this in special elections to a crazy level, right? Yeah. If you were to see like how much each one of these individual districts vote Democrat or Republican on average, it would suggest a D plus 13 national environment. Wow. Right?

So, wow. You're talking about just with the special elections? For all the special elections we've had this year. That's crazy. Okay, so extrapolate that to the House. What does that mean? Well, if you do that in the House, I mean, oh my God, you're going to win the House and you've a shot at the Senate. Yeah. Probably win the Senate. Now, I don't think you're going to say that we can plug then into next year's election in 2026, but it's a really good sign for Democrats. It won't be as big as that, but it does suggest their energy is really high. And if you have another sign where if they overperform all their metrics in this election and win these races easily, well, talk a little bit more about that. How predictive are the margins in these, you know,

because Virginia and New Jersey are the only two states that do their full, you know, elections in these off years? How predictive has that been of, you know, national. performance in the past. It's a little helpful. It's a good general trajectory of this is better than expected, but don't read too much into it because voters' opinions do change over time and they have a year for things to feel differently. Yeah. Well, for example, I mean, Glenn Yonkin, one in Virginia, big upset, you know, pretty surprising for a lot of people, especially because the narrative had been basically like, oh, Virginia's just a blue state now. And then the midterm elections come around and Republicans dramatically underperform. So it didn't

end up being all that representative of what was going to happen a year from then. But also the special elections, if we stick on that in 2022, ahead of the 22 midterms, they were doing quite well, even though Red Wave was the narrative. I mean, we covered it here live. And it ended up being one of the most, you know, determinative factors in terms of looking instead of the polling was actually a lot of the actual votes that were cast

where there was huge democratic overperformance in some of those races. Yeah, and I think that 2022 is a perfect example because people's opinion changed. It changed after Roe v. Wade, All of a sudden, the special elections started going wildly different. Republicans are doing great at first. Yeah. I was just looking yesterday at these numbers.

I didn't pull this element, but I thought this was fascinating. So back in November of 2017 in Trump's first term, so the same time in Trump's first term, people had an overwhelmingly positive opinion of the economy. 68% said it was good. 30% said it was poor. And still in 2018, his party did not do well in the midterms. This time around, that same poll, those same numbers, 72% percent. percent of people say that the economy is poor, and only 28 percent say that it is good.

You know, how much has the economy—I know we talk about Trump is, like, looming large over these races, but how much also is, you know, affordability, cost of living, and just general economic sentiment being negative impacting these races as well? Yeah, I think there's a huge switch in terms of how people view Donald Trump. Last time, they didn't always like him as a person, but because they liked him on the economy, people stayed with him. This time around, it seems like it's almost reversed, that people who are with him like him anyway, but they have some concerns about how he's handling the economy.

That's smart. And it helps because you can so clearly link the tariffs to almost every American, including a huge slice of Republicans, disagree with, but he keeps going all in on. And I think there's something to watch in the future, right? The storyline, which is justifiably so, is that Donald Trump's supporters are going to stick with him no matter what. But there's a big slice of his voters when you ask them, like, not just do you approve or disapprove, but do you strongly or somewhat approve?

there's a huge slice over 20% that say they somewhat approve. So there's some soft support that if the economy really starts to struggle, that might actually abandon him. Well, I've made this point the entire time everyone says Trump supporter. It's like, well, there's a big difference between somebody's quote, a Trump supporter and self-identified MAGA. Somebody votes for Trump in the 2024 election, right? That's like what, tens of millions of people who are self-identified like Trump curious or voted for Trump, but they don't self-identify as MAGA in the race, which is literally the swing part of the election. that everyone's always talking about for independence,

like going into these types of elections who certainly might vote Democrat. Or they may just not turn out. I mean, that's what I think a lot of the story could be as well. Yeah, yeah, I think so too. I mean, the problem for Dems, right, is that they're not particularly popular either. Yeah, right.

So they have this amazing potential to pick up, especially all of these young voters that might have wandered away. But while they might not like what Republicans are doing, they only slightly like Democrats more. Yeah. So if they can change that, like they could potentially get a huge advantage with them again,

maybe it even endures, which is the trajectory they seemed to be on a few years ago. Yeah. But that's not going to happen automatically. Now, I don't know if you can do that in a midterm, but by 2028, that seems to me the most important thing for them to be able to take back the way. Right. To increase their own popularity. Well, and speaking of young voters, we're going to dig more into the dynamics in New York

City mayoral race in a bit and, you know, take a look at what this means for the future Democratic Party, Trump and are meeting all of that. But we can put A5 up on the screen because it certainly looks like Zoron is once. again, remaking the electorate in New York City and, you know, a much younger electorate than we've seen in the past. We saw this in the primary as well. So far, 18 to 29-year-olds have voted at a rate of 130% of what their turnout was back in 2021. So already, before election day comes, they have surpassed the, you know, the numbers that they put up in 2021 for the entire election. And you can kind of see, you know, as you get older, as the demographics get older,

they're voting at lower percentages compared to what they did in 2021. Now, again, election day will be ultimately determinative. But, you know, not a lot here to give hope to the Cuomo stands that there's going to be some, you know, shocking upset, some secret hidden Cuomo vote here at the end of the night, unless there's just way more 18 to 29-year-olds who are excited about the disgraced former governor than we really anticipate. Yeah, I think you're spot on when you said the 8% was a little too high for him. It's like free dollars for 92 cents. Yeah. I mean, you don't see, is there anything in the data there that would indicate anything weird happening?

Yeah, I'll give you one thing. I mean, I'm stretching here a little bit. There was a massive polling miss in the primary. Right. Mayer races are a little weird to pull. It's a three-way race. Yeah. So I feel like there's more room for things to go around. That being said, there's considerably more polls. It's not a primary anymore.

And, like, I'm just not seeing the signals. Cuomo clearly is not the same type of campaigner he was when he was running for governor. And Zoran is, I mean, the 130% is just incredible that he's able to do that before you. Also, in an era of negative polarization, if Donald Trump and Stephen Miller endorse you, how could that possibly be to your benefit? And Elon Musk, too, by the way. It's like, you know, just from a pure politic. point of view. I mean, look, I guess what Trump did okay in New York, in the state, not really

in the city, but he did okay, right, in New Jersey as well. I think he lost it by five points or so. There is the whole Staten Island, Long Island, conservative, you know, kind of Trump Republican, which is certainly like an understudied demographic, but, you know, broadly in terms of this election and considering who the electorate is, it doesn't seem like it would be all that helpful to try and drive your turnout. Yeah, I think it's clear that Cuomo didn't want this because Trump didn't make this announcement until the last night, even though he's been passionately following this race and talking about all the time.

So this suggests to me that he just couldn't help himself. It was just the night before and he just felt he had to get way in. Had to do something. Yeah, I don't think it's going to be helpful. Lastly, we can put A9 up on the screen here. This is Boltz magazine Break Sandwich. By the way, great coverage. They go in depth on like, if you are an election nerd, Boltz magazine, is.

where it's at because Daniel Nishanian goes into literally everything that's going to be on the ballot from the candidates to, you know, undercover races to ballot initiatives and all of that. And, you know, a few other things to highlight here. You've got some Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices that are up. I believe there's in Georgia utility commissioners are on the ballot. You've got mayoral races in Albuquerque, Detroit, Jersey City. Minneapolis is one that's kind of interesting. And Seattle, Of course, you also have that California ballot proposition to determine whether or not they're going to be able to redraw their maps. I mean, that one looks like a short thing as well. Any of the key races that you're taking a look at that you think would be interesting for people tonight today to follow?

I hate to disappoint you're such a vanilla answer, but you cover all the ones I'm following. Yeah. Well, there you go. Okay, but so just lay out the consequence. We talked about gerrymandering. Why does the Supreme Court case matter? The Pennsylvania Supreme Court one. I think it matters in part because that's how Democrats are able to ensure that they have, from their perspective, fair maps potentially in the future.

It's also a huge bell with their signal about how they might do in the next election. And also, this has become a recent advantage for Democrats post-Rovue 8, and especially all these Midwestern states that while they're really, really competitive are very, very pro-choice, that Democrats have been dominating a lot of these court cases. Well, it's not even just on abortion, but as I understand it, it's also election law because the high IQ version of the Stop to Steel move, but if there even is one, was focused on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and its decision to allow mail-in balloting extension. And so that seems to be kind of the flashpoint, I think, for election law, as it would be decided in some potential 2028 race. Yeah, I think you're right. I also think that for Republicans in Pennsylvania, they probably have forgotten about that. So it's not going to still be the rallying turnout.

message that will get them to care and go voting in my otherwise. I haven't seen much. Mastriano and all. It was a total disaster, right? And Josh Shapiro is like pretty popular governor. Well, the other, the Georgia Utility Commission, those are also state wide races. Yes, that was another sort of like indication of, I guess, excitement there. Last question for you.

You know, if you're Democrats and you're looking at these results, you're feeling pretty good that you're going to be able to prevail in New Jersey, in Virginia. You know, what kind of margins do you think is a benchmark where they can feel like, oh, man, we really, we really crushed it. we're in good shape right now. I think if you win by 10% in Virginia and 6% in New Jersey, you're feeling pretty good. Now, I know that kind of lines up of expectations, but honestly, those expectations are a good sign for the future. You want to be winning the races that you're supposed to win. Most midterms go the way of the party out of power,

and so carrying along that path is a good sign for them. All right, good flag. Thanks, Logan. Good to see you, man. Good to see you. Thank you. Great to see you guys. is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator

on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn, or any of that other stuff that y'all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up.

Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. We had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name, But what they find is not what they expected. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin.

They go, is this your daughter? I said yes. They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years. Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Michael Lewis here. My book, The Big Short, tells the story of the buildup and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely, but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened.

Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The big short story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm.fm. slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. So as we were saying, today is also Election Day in New York City. electoral election there, of course, hotly anticipated Zoran Mamdani, looking like he has a strong lead here going into election day. But we do have a last-minute intervention in the race

from the president of the United States who was basically threatening New Yorkers to vote against, to vote for Cuomo and vote against Zoran to avoid his retribution against the city. We can B4B up on the screen. This is Trump's truth that he put out yesterday evening. He says, if communist candidate Zoran Mamdani wins the election for mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I'll be contributing federal funds other than the very minimum as required to my beloved first home because of the fact that as a communist, this once great city has zero chance of success or even survival. It can only get worse with a communist at the helm.

I don't want to send as president good money after bad. It is my obligation to run the nation as my strong conviction that New York City will be a complete and total economic and social disaster should Momdani win. his principles have been tested for over a thousand years and never once have they been successful, I would much rather see a Democrat who has had a record of success win than a communist with no experience and a record of complete and total failure. He was nothing as an assemblyman ranked at the bottom of the class and as mayor potentially, again, the greatest city in the world, he has no chance to bring it back to its former glory. We must also remember this. A vote for

Curtis Lewa, who looks much better without the beret, is a vote for Mom Donnie. Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it. Mom, Donnie is not. So Andrew Cuomo on a local radio show was actually asked about Trump's support for his campaign. And he literally hangs up the phone in response to the question. This is before, guys.

Let's take a listen. Your boy was just on 60 minutes, Cuomo, saying that you're his guy. No. Trump said you're his candidate. If he had to pick a bad Democrat or what do you say or a communist? Or a communist he's picking you.

Hello? I think that he was, they cut him off. I think he had to that he had to wrap. You just get, oh. I really wanted to hear that answer. That's what I was going to ask you.

Pretty wild to just hang up to not have a response to what is an incredibly obvious question that you're going to get asked by anybody, you know, radio or political media in this final stretch. And he also tweeted out yesterday, Andrew Colmo did. If you want President Trump to try to take over the city, National Guard on Streets, choking federal funding, vote for Zoran because Trump just said he will be coming and this poser Zoran won't be able to stop him. This is a fact. The next mayor has to be able to get us more, not ensure our demise. I'm the only person in this race who can do that. So basically acting like a mob boss here, like threatening the city. If you don't, Trump's saying, you know, if you don't vote the way

I want you to, then I'm going to, there's going to be held to pay. And Cuomo just playing right into that. Say, hey, look, Trump's threatening you guys. You're going to just, you know, you got to go with me or else there's going to be all these horrific consequences brought to you by the president of the United States in the city. Yeah, this is the, this is the Argentina strategy of telling voters that if you want your money, I actually did not realize this, just looked it up. Some 8.3% of the total New York City federal budget actually relies on federal funds that is slated to drop to some $7 billion this year because of some pandemic-related stuff, which is winding down.

They say, though, that the federal government provides a suite of New York City funding from residents, agencies, nonprofits, public housing, health care providers, over $100 billion in federal flooding flows to the city of New York almost every year, which again, I had no idea. I guess it kind of makes sense. It is the largest city in the state or sorry, in the country. I guess the question comes down to how these New York City voters are going to respond. I mean, this is one where I have been mystified by the Republican response. It's like they don't understand negative polarization.

It's like you people are not popular in the city of New York. And if anything, by the way, I think they're giving Zoron a lot of cover. Remember when we were always talking about sanctions? You know, one of the things that we could say for Venezuela, for Iran, and for many other opponents of the United States. Whenever things go badly, what do they say? It's America's fault because they've sanctioned us. So let's say a lot of the Zoran programs don't work out, fail, and he's not able to accomplish him,

which I think is the most modal scenario. Well, in that, what can you be like, oh, it's Trump's fault? I can actually resuscitate his own popularity. So if things go to complete shit in the city, which, look, if you cut 8.3% of the federal, of the budget, let's say you even cut half of that. and you have a significant funding shortfall and you see problems start to manifest, Republicans would be like, oh, that's on Zoran Mamdani, but he can just easily say, no, that's on Donald Trump and actually make it so that nobody will ever really know a lot of Democratic voters in particular

will also just say, yeah, Trump is the one who declared war on him. So I think they're actually saving him politically, making it so that there's no real test of anything that he's going to be able to do, and they're handing him like some great gift. In particular, also just politically, like Stephen Miller, you know, endorsed Andrew Cuomo yesterday. In what world do you think that that is politically smart, right? Like, if you wanted Cuomo to win, I would do something along the lines of saying, I'm the most scared of Andrew Cuomo, right? I would make it so that because you want people who don't like you to negatively polarize

and actually vote for the person who is perceived as your biggest enemy. I just don't get it. I mean, the thing is here, there's nothing Trump can do to change New Yorkers. minds at this point. You know, I mean, if he'd stayed quiet, that would probably be a little better for Cuomo, but it's not like that was going to rescue him. He tried to intervene and get Curtis Sliwa out of the race, all the billionaires. I mean, it's wild to watch all of these billioners just out in the open, like, we cannot accept the democratic result here. We must intervene. We will spend whatever it takes to make sure that our guy is propped up and becomes mayor

in New York City. And ultimately, I mean, look, the votes aren't cast, you know, the votes aren't in yet, so we don't want to be too premature here, but certainly looks like all of those efforts war for not. I mean, it does bear remarking on how insane and how truly like unprecedented it is for the president of the United States to threaten a city with consequence. All the New Yorkers know, like, we're not talking about threatening Zoron. I think Saugra's right that in some ways this will be beneficial to Zoran and his popularity in the city. You're not threatening Zoron. You are threatening the like the lives and the livelihoods of New York City residents. These are people you are supposed to as president of the United States. You are supposed to represent

them. A lot of them voted for you, right? You didn't win the city of New York, but you actually did better than previous Republicans had in the past. Zoran launched his campaign going out and talking to residents who were saying, yeah, I voted for Trump because I thought that he would do better on the economy. I thought he'd bring cost of living down, et cetera. I mean, that informed a lot of how Zoran actually structured his campaign. So not only do you have Trump threatening the city, you have Andy Ogles and some other Republican representatives in the House threatening to try to keep Zoran from taking office. saying there's some 14th Amendment way

that could allow Congress to block New Yorkers being able to pick the candidate of their choice. You have Randy Fine and others who are threatening to denaturalize him and deport him to Uganda, again, just because they don't like him and they don't like his politics. And a lot of this comes down to Israel,

by the way, certainly for Randy Fine, it comes down to Israel. Just complete and utter insanity. Like, New Yorkers are allowed to elect the mayor that they want to elect and they shouldn't be faced with retribution from the president of the United States. So completely wild, I think you're right on the, even on the political impact short term.

I, you know, I lived in New York for five years. I have a little bit of a, I'm married to a New York City residence, but a New Yorker. So I have a sense of the New York vibe. And they're going to say, fuck you. Like, you don't want me to vote for Zoron. I'm voting for him even harder now. Like, I'm showing up early to vote for this guy, you know, again and twice on Sunday. They are going to do whatever they can to, you know, to tell Trump, like, screw you.

You don't get some mess in the affairs of our city. So it's, you know, it's grotesque the way this guy operates. And it is truly a break from the way we've seen anyone. I mean, I can't think of a single, can you historical precedent for like I'm going to come in, I'm going to threaten to withdraw funding and send in likely federal mass agents into your streets to wreak havoc and cause chaos if you don't vote the way that I want you to vote. Well, I don't think that's a Zoron thing. I think that we're going to do that regardless. But, you know, in terms of, I'm trying to think, I guess.

Ford telling the city to drop dead. That was in the 1970s. That was more of a budget. But that was he wasn't going to rescue them from bankruptcy. Yeah, it was like, I'm trying to, I have to rack my brain. It's been a while. It's not exactly usually said this explicitly, although I guess it does technically take some precedence.

I mean, look, I just continue to sit on the politics of it. I just think it's incredibly stupid because I think one of the things is, as you and I know, New York City is going to be one of the most closely watched places in the entire country now for any signs of potential. failure. But if you give them the excuse that it's because the feds screwed it up, I mean, that's basically on you. On the point about ice and all that, though, I mean, don't you think they've already been doing ice raids in New York City? Like, I don't know why it would be any potentially different. They did it in Chicago. They did it in Los Angeles. They've done Seattle.

I mean, there's a recent one here in Houston. I mean, it's, I don't think that really has much to do with Zora. I mean, maybe, you know, and potentially to invite a fight with NYPD and his own political commissionership. But I mean, that's, that one I would say is probably more to the benefit of the Republicans at least politically to pick a fight there. So I don't know. I don't know how this is all going to work out. All I know is what I've been told. And that's a half truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved. a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

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Or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. We had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. But what they find is not what they expected. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. They go, is this your daughter? I said yes. They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years. Caught between a federal investigation

and the violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Stang on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. I'm I Belongoria and I'm Maite Gomez-Guan.

And on our podcast, Hungry for History, we mix two of our favorite things, food and history. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells and they called these Ostercon to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster. No way. Bring back the Ostercon. And because we've got a very mikasa esucise. Lucasa kind of vibe on our show, friends always stopped by. Pretty much every entry into this side of the planet was through the Gulf of Mexico. No, the America.

No, the America. The Gulf of Mexico, continue to be it forever and ever, it blows me away how progressive Mexico was in this moment. They had land reform. They had labor rights. They had education rights. Mustard seeds were so valuable to the ancient Egyptians that they used to place them in their tombs for the afterlife.

Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At the same time, we could put B1 up on the screen. This is how Zoran was closing on his campaign while Andrew Cuomo was threatening New Yorkers. Here you have Zoran walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and, you know, out of the clubs dancing with everybody and being out and about with taxi drivers and really just trying to be, you know, in the streets with the people. At the same time, you had Hakeem Jeffries, you know, continuing to be asked about Zoran

and whether he sees him as the future of the party. Hakeem Jeffries did very belatedly and very begrudgingly endorse Zoran in this race and get behind him once the writing was on the wall and it was absolutely inevitable. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what Hakeem Jeffries had to say. This is B2 about Zoran and the future of the party. Do you see Mom Donnie is the future of the Democratic Party? No, I think the future of the Democratic Party is going to fall as far as we're concerned relative to the House Democratic Caucus and members who are doing a great work all across the country as it relates to our need to both take back control of the House. But in doing so, make sure that we're communicating to the American people.

like, we understand you deserve better than the country that you have received. This guy is just so lame. He's just so bad at this. Yeah, but the sad thing is, you know, he's going to be the major beneficiary of a lot of this because it'll look like the midterm, I mean, unless there's some anti-Hakim Jeffries movement in the House of Representatives amongst the Democrats, and they actually would pick a new leader, which I obviously think that they should. I don't think they will, though.

He unfortunately does, I think he's going to get away with this. I don't know if Schumer will because he could have a primary challenge against him. And he may also just may not run again for re-election. Oh, you know, signs currently point in that direction. But Jeffries, I mean, there's no organic movement against him. And I honestly think he's going to get away with it. You don't think there's an organic movement against him? Against Hakeem Jeffries?

Yeah, there definitely is. I mean, he may even have a primary challenge against him for his own seat. Yeah, sure. In the House. Well, I was talking about in the House caucus right now. There's not a single organized, like, anti-Jeffries movement. Obviously, look, you're right, this can change. I mean, I think the base is very disappointed with him.

And I think there will be a lot of pressure on Democrats to choose someone different for leadership. And you'll also have these primaries playing out where I do think some incumbents will probably, you know, I think you're going to have some dumb tea party vibes and some incumbents taken out and new renegades coming in who will be like, I'm so fucking Lutley not am I voting for Hakeem Jeffries or in the Senate? Am I going to vote for, you know, Chuck Schumer? I hope to see it. I would love to see it. I do think that his position, both as a member of Congress, but also as leader of the Democratic Party, given how lame he's been and how trashed the Democratic brand is and how disgusted the Democratic base is with him and how poorly he's been able to stand up in Trump 2.0, I definitely think that his, not that there's any guarantees, but I definitely think that his leadership is at risk here. And the way he's played the Zora on. thing has been pathetic. And I mean, that actually in and of itself tells you something about his concerns because part of why he didn't want to endorse Zoran appears to have been that

he wanted to get a guarantee from Zoran that he would not back a primary challenger to Hakeem Jeffries. And as far as we know, he never secured that commitment from Zoran. But it tells he's looking over his shoulder, you know, towards the left of the party too and worried that he could be taken out in a primary challenge, which I do think is a distinct possibility. Abigail Spanberger was also asked about Zoran and, you know, Spanberger is the consummate, like, centrist national security dem of Rahm Emanuel's dreams, former CIA, blah, blah, blah, you know, after Trump gets elected, she did a lot of like, oh, this is all the left's fault. So we can put this next element up on the screen to see her reaction. So Ken Klippenstein tweeted this out and said Abigail Spamberger takes a swipe at Mom Donnie when she got asked about, about him and his impact, she said, maybe he should be a Democrat, which I don't even know what she means by that. Like, he literally won the Democratic primary.

So, lady, what are you talking about? In any case, acknowledging when pressed that Mamdani is, in fact, the Democratic nominee, Spamberger said that for all the talk, including from within the DSA itself, about the DSA's growing power, she doesn't see democratic socialism on the rise. She argues there's a level of dishonesty in some of the big promises Mamdani is making that She's worries could hurt Democrats with voters long term, saying the reason she doesn't have a Mamdani-style proposal for government-run grocery stores is because I couldn't ever pass it. People do want us to be aspirational and dream big.

They also don't want us to lie to them, she told CNN. When you have a party that makes promise after promise and then say, oh, we pass it in the house, it's not our fault. Vulnerable people believed you. Maybe he's going to get Albany on board with totally refinancing public transportation, but there's a lot of people who believe him. And so, I mean, this is kind of standard centrist ideology of like, well, big things aren't possible. So we shouldn't even put them out there.

We're going to nibble around the edges. And I just think, you know, this is a country that just elected Donald Trump, who was, you know, a bomb to the system. Like, that is the whole purpose of electing a Donald Trump is that people are discussing with it the way things are. They don't want you to just like manage the status quo and take around the edges. They want something that is more transformational. And so even if you feel like it's going to be a difficult fight or it may even be impossible, you have to at least offer people some sort of aspirational vision for how you're going to do more than just, you know, like palliative care and manage the decline of the empire at this point.

Well, part of the fight, which I think is always missed by a lot of people, is not all Democrats have to be the same. A Democrat who's going to win the Northern Virginia electorate should not look like Zoran Mamdani. And Zoran Mamdani or the New York City Democrat should obviously not be the person who it's going to be running, let's say, in the Midwest, right? That's why not all of these people can or should be the same. That's the entire point of living in a pretty diverse and very different country locally. You can nationally stand for semi-sort of principles. On the point about, like, promising things, I don't know. I mean, to be honest, I'm seeing a lot of opium that's being drank by, I think, a lot of the progressive left.

And I do think they're in for a rude awakening. I mean, the vast reality is that he does not have the significant amount of power to enact the most, you know, the biggest promises of his campaign. Like, even in terms of freezing the rent, you know, part of the cope is always like, well, he does, he's not going to freeze it for everybody. It's just going to be on rent-controlled apartments. It's like, yeah, well, unfortunately, because you don't, I mean, the system of New York is so governed by all of these various different councils, neighborhoods, and other, like,

NIMBY style stuff that's built into it, that the net result is probably going to be some sort of organic market increase in the rent. I don't even think it's necessarily his fault. The rent's been going up for every single year since that happened. But I don't think it's particularly a good look. Same, I mean, free buses and MTA, the vast majority of the funding from that comes from Albany and the upstate. Like, you know, why would they necessarily want to play ball? The feds are saying that they're going to cut the amount of city services to you. Like The truth is, is I think that the mayor in New York has the absolute most control and even then, not a ton when it comes to crime.

That's basically it. And, you know, in a lot of ways, like Eric Adams most well understood the job because it was schools and it was also kind of just being like a hype man for New York. Like, I'm not saying he's a good person, but like that's all he really focused his time doing was being a commercial salesman for the city. But yeah, I mean, I kind of think. I don't think New Yorkers would say he understood the job since he ended with the lowest approval rating of any mayor in history. Sure, but whenever it comes to, like, what do you

actually have power over? Picking up trash and crime policy? Like, that's basically it. Like, you don't, and schools, okay? I'll give them that. Which, by the way, Zoran wants to do away with some gifted and talented schools. I think the bet is that, like, you got a taste of the strategy when Hockel had to bend the need of Zoran and came to his rally and was met with chance of tax of rich. And Hockel is facing a primary. But she's the person who could actually do that. Hockel is facing a primary challenger from the left. So that's where the, you know, the hope that you can actually push Albany to enact the policies that yes, Doren would need, and able to deliver. Now, some of the things, I mean, the grocery stores, he will be able to deliver on.

And he's actually already to identify the funding, right? The rent freeze is, you know, something that like through the rent stabilization board, he should be able to accomplish now. They're trying to stack the board with opponents of it, et cetera. But, I mean, that is something else that is within the past. of the New York City mayor has been done in the past and should be something that he can accomplish. The child care is probably the biggest and most challenging one. That does require action from Albany. And so, yeah, that's part of why what happens in the election tonight, look, Zoran looks very certain to win. But his margin and how strong of a victory, that's where

those things start to matter. Because he needs not only to win, he needs to send a message that I have a powerful coalition behind me. And you, Kathy Hogle, are put on notice. that if you don't, you know, if you don't tax the rich and bend to our program, then you're going to face political challenges. We'll see. And that's, you know, I mean, we just talked about, like, Hakeem Jeffries, worrying. Very likely Richie Torres is going to face a primary challenger. You know, Dan Goldman, who's another one who wouldn't get behind Zoron, is, I mean,

that guy, Broadlander is going to challenge him, Broly, and he's going to have a very difficult time. I would love to see, Mr. Levi Strauss for. Yes, indeed. And, you know, the question there is only whether you have two progressives that split the vote. But I think if you get just Bradlander in against him, he's basically toast. So those all send a real, very strong message to cynical, political actors that you'd better work with these people and not be the roadblock to their ambitions. That's where the bet is. Now, is it easy.

No, of course, it's not easy. It's incredible. It's what he signed out for is incredibly difficult. I think your point about Trump in some ways, like kind of bailing him out and giving him excuses for, you know, things that we're not. things that won't go, because there will be things that don't go the way he wants them to go. There's no doubt about that. And so having a narrative about why it hasn't lived up to the aspirational promises that are being put out there on the campaign trail, I think that will be actually a significant

benefit to him as well, and it's a good point. Well, that's part of what's annoying is I don't think this guy's going to succeed. I mean, I hate to piss in everybody's cornflakes, but like New York State's legislature has the total, a total authority to raise taxes. Also, you know, this is part of the thing. I have a very limited experience with the state. of New York, but as I understand it, the tension between upstate and the city is like the central thing in Albany. And in particular, the New York State Legislature, because of the

representative system in the Senate and with the governor from where they are, they do not like to not just bail out the city per se, but they in particular don't want to be seen as acting entirely on their benefit. There's an entire like white working class constituency outside of the city of New York, which the state politicians, people like Chuck Schumer, Kathy Hochel, they don't spend most of their time in New York City. They spend it in Buffalo. or, I don't know, Plattsburgh or whatever, like way up in the north near the Canadian border. And the reason why is there's a ton of votes out there that have a very distinct set of, like, wants, circumstances, populations, just totally different, right?

These are, like, rural areas. And so they have competing interests a lot of times with the city. And there is kind of a rivalry within, again, I'm just relaying kind of what I understand, the people who have worked in New York state politics, like generally. So from that point of view, I mean, look, the net result is he has the most control over the cops. He has the most control over city services, over schools, and like, yeah, sure, I'm sure I can throw some culture war, you know, create a transgender transition fund, which, you know, I guess is democratically representative of that population, but for the New York City state

or for New York City, like generally, he can do some virtue signaling on ice, but he doesn't have a ton of power, like at the end of the day, with NYPD. And, yeah, I mean, you know, you can end gifted and talented. Congratulations to the Asians of the city of New York. Like, that seems to be it. Like, to be honest, I really don't see very much. Now, can he be a spokesperson and use it as a bully pulpit? Yeah, he absolutely can.

And that has power. How can we deny that? But, I mean, I don't know. I just think a lot of people in the city of New York, and I hate to be cynical, but listen, you know, I've seen too many people get their hopes up around certain types of politicians and only just to be crash and burn. Like, the truth is, is that we live in a deeply corrupt, entrenched system. New York State is probably one of the most corrupt states in the entire country.

the reality that you're going to raise tax, and particularly are going to lower rent in one of the most, like, cartel-controlled cities in the world where the global super elite rich all have been flocking to for the last 30 years, it's fantastical. I mean, even freezing rent control, again, the probably net market result is going to be a net result or net increase in rent generally in the city. You're also going to see you have huge tax problems in New York. You have a significant portion of the tax base, which is reliant. on the super rich, they're going to leave and you're going to find yourself in a huge budget shortfall. Like if you lose even 25 billionaires from the city, it's going to significantly hurt your coffers. I don't think it should be that way. I don't think they shouldn't have, I don't think you should have that sort of tax system. I've always warned that it's a huge problem. A lot of businesses and others, the city employers, like there's a reason that he's been cozying up to these people in some ways because he knows, like they can destroy your life. Like, all they have to do is pull 8, 10,000 employees out. You lose a huge portion of the tax base

the developers. I mean, this is just the reality, I think, of what it means. And I don't want to take anything away. I'm happy that people have some hope left in politics, but just seeing like seeing all of the different roadblocks that you face. I mean, think about this. If you got your hopes up about the president, that's the most powerful man in the world. And 90% of the time, they can't get shit done whenever it comes to what they want. And this is a local politician, you know, with no statutory authority, no veto capacity, no taxation, no foreign policy, Nothing. The alternative view, which is that Zoran has a much better relationship with Kathy Hockel than Bill

de Blasio had with Cuomo. Yeah. They hated each other. Cuomo, I mean, legendarily hated each other. And Cuomo did everything he could to fuck de Blasio. Everything he could. And de Blasio made a big promise in his campaign. He said, we're going to do universal preschool.

Big promise. And Cuomo tried to block him at every turn. And even with that incredibly aggressive adversarial relationship and a lot less of a mandate and a movement behind him and political power that Zoran has, he was able to do it. He was able to accomplish his goal. And now you do have universal pre-K in New York City. It's a fantastic success. It's been incredibly important. You know, it's one of the, like, most impressive things that a local city government has been able to accomplish in recent years.

So if de Blasio can pull that off with, again, much less of a mandate, much less of the sort of like political power and movement that he can wield. He didn't have any ability to threaten primary challenges against anyone. No one was looking over their shoulder because Bill de Blasio was going to endorse against them. And you had Cuomo who was just like a legendary asshole trying to stand in his way. If he can pull that off, then yeah, I think Zoran can pull some things off as well. Then here's the question. Did he get any real benefit from that? Everyone hated Bill de Blasio.

And the problem in New York City is it's an expensive shithole. But soccer, the residents in New York City did get universal pre-K. Okay, but they didn't appreciate it all that much. Bill de Blasio was not, you know, particularly popular. But this program has been extremely impactful. So Zoran, I think, has a lot more going for him than de Blasio does. And we're going to see. You know, that's, like I said, the real question for him is going to be how big of a mandate does he have tonight?

How much does he transform the electorate? You know, and what does that mean for, you know, a. youthful energy around him and his administration, how's he able to govern? And is he able to apply pressure to Kathy Hockel, to Albany? And are, you know, is he able to sort of set the agenda in a sense where people's political benefit is to work with him rather than try to stop him? And to my mind, you already have seen that. I mean, even the fact Hakeem Jeffries felt the need that he had to endorse him is very telling. Kathy Hokel being at the rally with Bernie and AOC. Very telling. So, you know, it's definitely going to be difficult. You are absolutely

right about that. But I have much more hope than you do that he's going to be able to accomplish some key parts of his promises. And I don't think voters are stupid. Like, I don't think that they believe anyone politician is just going to, like, wave a magic wand and make everything perfect in the city. But they want to see you out there fighting for the things that you claim to believe in and that you stood under. Well, I guess my worry is that a lot of these young people part of the reason they're dissolutioned with the system and that they think that a lot of this stuff is going to work because they actually do think that he can do them. I mean, he's not dishonest, I guess, by saying he wants to do them. I believe him in what he wants to do, but I think

they're incredibly naive as to the level of corruption and systems of politics and, like, how the balances in our system make it nearly impossible for a local politician to be able to deliver any of them, even the pre-K thing. Like New York is not better. because of it, is it? I mean, otherwise people would be super happy and be like, oh, what a great place to raise a family. No, it's a horrible place to raise a family. That's why a huge number of people who have kids left the city because they're like, this is a disaster after 2020. If universal pre-K was so attractive for children and for families in the city of New York, and you have a net increase. Instead, you've had a net decrease of the level of people with

children. New York is basically a playground for the rich. Their entire tax base revolves around it. Well, that is actually the promise of Zoron is, you're right. New York City has has been run largely, especially by Giuliani and Bloomberg and Eric Adams as a playground for the – that has been who the policy has been catered towards. And so that is – the true promise of Zoran's campaign is what if we actually ran the city for its, like, working class residents? What if we actually oriented policy to try to make it so that families can live here and they can survive and it's not so expensive that they – you know, that they can't

continue to stay in the city because, you know, there's all this talk about, oh, rich people are going to flee the city, which I don't believe, by the way. But in any case, the people who have been actually leaving the city are its working class residents. Like those are the people who are actually fleeing the city and the city cannot survive without them. Like it will be a hollowed out husk without people, you know, working middle class people able to live and thrive in the city.

And so that is truly actually the most difficult thing for him to accomplish is to reorient the city around the needs of, you know, the workers who actually make it run. I just, again, I don't see how it literally is impossible, considering the way that their progressive tax system is structured in the state of New York. The entire thing revolves around big businesses and extremely wealthy people putting up with 50%, 60% net tax in order to, you know, go to carbon at night, which, look, I think it's a degenerate and a stupid lifestyle, but you guys do what you want to do. You live there. My only point is just that the net benefit, you know, let's say, of trying to orient around working class residents would require a top

down reformation of their entire financing structure. Like, there is a reason that New York is the playground for the rich because of the businesses and others that attract them. Like, if you want to try and have some redistributive policy, people are going to make individual choice. I'm not defending it. I think it's a horrible system. But I think that to reform that system, again, it wouldn't even just take the state.

I think that would have to be national policy considering where things are today. Like the net way that has been designed, I would say what? since the 1980s, since Rudy Giuliani and all them came in was let's make it a playground for Wall Street and let's make it so that we can tax, you know, a certain percentage of all of these global super elites that love to hang out here. And that's effectively like where the city has gone, which I think is bad. You know, I don't think it's a good thing for the people who live there, but I almost think it's at a point now where if by trying to accomplish any of this, I mean, let me ask you this. What is success for Zoran? Like, what is it? To me, it would be,

he needs to be popular at the end of his term. And two, let's say, if we take him at his word, then the city actually does need to be affordable for the normal, let's say, let's call it 100,000 for a middle class worker. I just don't think, I think there is literally no way that that's going to happen. I think that is probably setting the bar too high. I think that he's popular and that he accomplishes, you know, let's say three out of five of his key goals.

You know, affordable child care being, I think, the most transformational one. So, you know, if he's able to freeze the rent on rent control departments and he's able to do the free buses. I mean, the grocery stores are going to happen. This is my thing with the rent control. How can, why is that a win so that people who get rent control? Because they promised it. Okay, great. But if everybody else's rent has to go up as a result of that, I'd be pissed off.

These people are playing $4,800 a month for a two-bedroom apartment. His policy, though, is, like, that's like the catchiest part. But he has a whole housing policy that's very abundance pilled by the way. Yeah, but I mean, what's the reality of it happening? Zero. And so, you know, there's a lot more to what he's, you know, what he wants to do on housing than just freezing the rent. But yeah, for those people who are in those apartments, that's going to make a big difference. And there are a lot of people who are in those in those apartments. For those 8 million people who aren't in those apartments and their rent is probably going to grow up as a result of this policy.

So are you basically arguing like you shouldn't try, you shouldn't promise anything. Like, why bother? Because that's what it feels like your problem. I mean, if anyone has a chance of success, it's this guy who comes down a note. who's got a clear vision, clear promises he made to people that people like New Yorkers are excited about and who has the force of a political movement behind him to put pressure on the political powers to be to actually effectuate that outcome. Like, if anyone has a chance of success, it's him.

No, is it easy? No. But yeah, I do believe in a politics where you try to do things and make people's lives better. And I think it's sad to just have a nileous view of like, well, it's not going to fucking work anyway, so why bother getting people's so upset? Well, I get, no, I mean, I just think it's more about, look, if you live through Obama, I don't know how you can't be, you know, where I am right now in terms, especially with this stuff.

So where are you, though? What do you mean for with Zoron or with promises? Like, you just think people shouldn't campaign on doing positive things? Like, what is your position here? Well, what did we talk about yesterday with voters? I mean, just a lot of voters are just literally just huffing a bunch of bullshit. Like, they have no idea the reality of the city and the state that they actually live in. And so, yeah, I think they're in first.

a very rude awakening. I think that New York will be vastly more expensive in five years, not necessarily as a result of Zoron, but just organically. And that's probably going to be a net failure. And if you live through that and you vote for that, that will continue down, you know, a dark path. You can fight for it if you like. So then what, yeah, so what are the politics that you would support in that case then? For Zoron, is that what you're saying? Yeah. Like, if you don't think that politician should be trying to improve, like, making promises about, here's my plan to improve people's lives. If you think that's like getting people's hopes up, like what kind of politics do you support?

No, I support realistic politics in local state and local and state elections in particular because that's part of what I'm saying is like the reality of affordable New York is something that you actually just don't have control over. And it's one of those where I think you could run for it as president. I think you should. You have a much, much better chance and it's much more statutory authority power to actually get a lot of that stuff done. That's kind of what I'm pointing at.

But I mean, we identified five things that are doable, difficult. sure, but doable. So what's wrong with that? I just said with freezing rent. I mean, you're running on affordability. You're not actually going to address the market rent system of New York. You actually don't even have the power because of the ability with the boards and all those are currently being stacked. So look, look, it's up to you. If you want to vote for them and you want to go through that, like, that's on you. You can have it if you would like, but it's just, I don't know. I want people's eyes to be open. I mean, I just see the, I don't know. I think it's

funny, I'm going to see it reverse. He set out five, not like easy, slam dunk, but five things that are actually concrete and achievable. So it seems like the opposite of the like pie in the sky, we're going to have a socialist utopia thing that you're... I've never said that he's promising pie in the sky. That's what I'm saying is that even the stuff that he's trying to promise, I mean, even talked about taxation. You literally have no statutory authority to tax anybody, literally zero. You can make a recommendation, you know, if you want to, but you do nothing in terms of taxes. You pick up the trash, you run the schools, you run the cops, and yes, you can occasionally like stack various boards which vote for, you know, based on corrupt interests as to whether

to green light certain projects or not. So if he's able to accomplish a majority of the, the five key promises that he made, would you see that as success? Absolutely. Yes. I absolutely would. I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think he isn't even a chance in hell of even maybe like one out of five. And I do think that running on affordability and ultimately noting that it will Probably, I mean, does anybody disagree with me that New York's will probably be more expensive in five years today, even if he is mayor? Like, does anyone disagree with that? Well, then, you know, you're kind of selling a false bill of goods here. And I think that the reality, it's like you pointed to universal pre-K, like, there's a lot of multifactorial things that go into making the place extremely expensive. No one person has any real power over that. It's a broad system thing. I guess the point could be, this is a signal to the system that people are not, that's a little different. Like, I don't think people, well, just yesterday you were saying that. I don't think people. I don't think people. I don't think people. I don't think people. we should blame voters. I think a lot of them are stupid. I don't think we should think that voters believe he can just magically transform everything. I think that they believe that, you know what, if we have someone who in general is trying to orient policy more towards our needs, that's going to be to our benefit. I think they believe, hey, if we had access to free public transportation, that would be helpful, right? If we had affordable affordable child care, that would be helpful. If we, you know, and they like the idea of an optimistic politics that, experiments with things like, okay, we're going to, you know, the grocery store, no one's going to, like, transform everything. But, hey, let's try some things and try to make life a little bit better for

people in the city. I think that's the idea. I don't think anyone's like, you know, he's going to fix the cost of living crisis and it's going to be, you know, it's going to be miraculous and I'm going to have an apartment for $800 a month or whatever. Like, I don't think anyone, I don't think anyone really believes that, but he's made a series of concrete promises. And so we'll be able to assess whether or not he's able to achieve them or how close he comes to being able to achieve those concrete promises. You may be right. My fear is that with Obama, I mean, look, I was young when Obama was elected, I actually thought

that they would solve the financial crisis. I thought that the wars would end. It was a huge mistake, right, to believe any of that. And a lot of my current orientation is built on that. And then, by the way, in my adult life, had multiple campaigns, including in which you knew the people in power and you believed some of those people, and then they fucked you whenever they came into power. If you live through that, I don't know.

look, that's my own orientation. You're catching me at a unique moment of time. But like any time that I've even, you know, had an inkling, even with a ton of realism and all of that to see the falsehoods and the fakery that you end up getting, it's a difficult pill to swallow. And I guess that's just where I'm coming from. And I do think that a lot of those 18 to 29-year-olds have not been burned yet in that type of system. And considering where the Obama generation went from 2008, for a lot of people were my age and your age as well, who lived through that, that level of, that level of lack of delivery and of failure left like a searing, searing thing at the heart of a lot of the way that we look at politics. And that is how I view Zoran Mamdani. And I think a lot of the people who support

him are, I think they believe him. Like, I think you're wrong. I think a lot of them actually believe that the rent is going to go down. I think a lot of them actually believe that he will have the ability to have, I mean, how many people in the city of New York are sitting around talking about MTA funding. Like, it's just not a lot of people. How many people even know that, you know, the various boards and other people that set the which projects get to be greenlit and the stories and, I mean, I could go on forever. Do you know about the scaffolding thing in the city of New York and the scaffolding cartel?

Like, most people just accept it. They're like, oh, that's ugly. We just walk underneath. They have no idea the various, you know, Byzantine regular. Something else who are on a set that is going to try to tackle? Yes, I know. It's funny. I remember looking at that.

I'm like, yeah, good fucking luck, man. I mean, the scaffolding cartel in the city of New York alone is one of those where that has been a problem for like 30 years, unsolvable. Do I think that he's going to do it? No, I don't. I think they're probably still going to be scaffolding there. Like, there's all these various things from the way. The city is designed to basically protect itself from Zoron. I think in general, the financial system broadly of that entire place is designed, again, to protect itself from any sort of democratic input.

I don't think that's good and I think it's bad. I don't think that it could really be reformed until it's really. at the federal level. Like, there's such a level of incentive and all that built in to keeping these types of places the way that they are, that anyone like local mayor, even though we may want to believe that, I just, I don't see the evidence for it. Like, yeah, I think New York is going to be more expensive, whether or is elected or not. And if anything, I think Trump is bailing him out, because I don't think he'll deliver on basically much. Yes, if he accomplishes even three out of the five, I'll be honestly stunned. I would say he was one of the most successful

New York City politicians literally ever. But the days of... like even if we judge the great mayors or okay fine not the great mayors maybe in our view but the good mayors in the voters view is always what it just comes down to crime that's what they're like oh he lowered the crime rate he cleaned up the city they don't ever say really ever much about anything else like it doesn't you you only have a significant amount that you can actually control and to be clear president is very different but in a lot of ways the same dynamics I'm talking about they exist at every level of the political spectrum and that's not to poison the well, I guess. I just want people's eyes to be open for the reality of what you're,

not even what you're signing up for, but of what it even means to really participate like at a local level. You don't have nearly as much control as you think you do. And I think it's sad. I wish you had more. I don't. Don't hope people. Don't, don't, don't, uh, don't believe in anything. Don't hope that anything's possible. You can believe, you can believe, you can believe, you can believe what you want, whether you will get any of what you want. I, I'm not so sure about that. Or if you do, it'll be very, very unique circumstances. All I know is what I've been told, and that to have truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County,

Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls, came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling.

I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said it. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people.

and small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Iba Longoria. And I'm Maite Gomez-Juan.

And on our podcast, Hungry for History, We mix two of our favorite things, food and history. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells, and they called these Ostercon, to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster. No way. Bring back the Ostercon. And because we've got a very Mikaasa esucasa kind of vibe on our show, friends always stop by. Pretty much every entry into this site.

of the planet was through the Gulf of Mexico. No, of America. No, the Gulf of Mexico. Continuano are being so forever and ever. It blows me away how progressive Mexico was in this moment. They had land reform. They had labor rights. They had education rights.

Mustard seeds were so valuable to the ancient Egyptians that they used to place them in their tombs for the afterlife. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Lewis here. My book The Big Short tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception.

It was like feeding the monster, said Isman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short Story, what it means when people start betting against the market,

and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable, insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. You want a good transition as to why I'm talking about the stuff and the people who rule us and the level of systems and the baked in assumptions that make it so that your life isn't going to be affordable? Let me all enlighten you about a little thing that's going on in my home state of Texas. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. This is like the hidden gerontocracy that rules all of us. So the Texas voters today

will take to their ballot boxes to vote on a little proposition. Now, that proposition is worded in such a way for property tax relief. Now, who could be against property tax relief, right? Nobody likes paying property taxes. It's horrible. Everybody wants to vote to cut them. But here's the little thing that they decided to, you know, hide inside of it. What they decided to hide is that actually what a lot of Texas voters are almost certainly to green light is something called the Texas older adult homestead exemption, which would not only will the state pick up the tab for homeowners under age of 65, but those 65 and older would gain an extra benefit if the new property tax bills are approved by the voters.

The current homestead exemption would be increased from a current homestead exemption for those 65 or older is 110,000. That's already an increase from 50,000 two years ago. The exemption would then jump to 160,000 and a total of 200,000 combined with a new thing. What that means is that you get to write off a significant portion of your overall property value whenever it comes to your actual property tax. Two million Texas state residents would actually be affected by this. And what it would also do is cut the school taxes that people who are 65 and up would pay by up to 50%. So the way that this is worded is basically, and by the way, again, I'm under no illusions.

This shit's going to pass 100%. Because everybody doesn't want to pay property tax. Well, and this gets to what we were talking about earlier, what most people in Texas love is usually like, oh, we have no income tax. Well, okay, that's great. But it means a property tax is going to finance the vast majority of local services. Well, who wants to pay for those local services? Well, the people who benefit from those local services, let's say emergency services and others, and they're all financed and this is a little reductive,

but elderly people, by and large, you know, consume a large amount of those services. But what they have decided to do is to rig the property tax system such that they will get their school taxes cut. And the justification is that they don't have children in schools anymore, so they should not have to pay for it. Now, let's all just sit with that, is that even though older people in the past had to pay for their children's schools, their decision is that because they don't use the schools,

they shouldn't have to pay for them anymore. And what the net result means is that people who are younger who don't get a property tax homestead exemption, even though their property values are also exploding, not only will have to pay property tax, they will have to shift the burden of school taxes onto them. This is the type of hidden nonsense, which makes it so that being young and having a family in this country becomes unaffordable. And these are the types of people who vote. And it's like I'm so enraged by it because I'm watching this happen in every state across the country.

New York State, by the way, very similar homestead exemption. This elderly exemption tax is built on this idea of so-called fixed income. And the theory behind it is that people who are on Social Security should not be, quote, forced out of their homes. Now, first of all, they get a cost of living adjustment from the Social Security Administration of inflation. That's number one. Number two is, at the end of the day, who is the state supposed to serve? What is Texas so proud of all of these millions of people moving from across the country for affordable housing to send their children to school? They're now going to have to be stuck with more of a bill because these elderly people don't want to pay for their children's school. We all live in a society. And just by the way, in terms of this whole like, well, we don't use the schools so we shouldn't have to pay for them. I'm not morbidly obese. I don't go on dialysis. One percent of the whole federal budget is for dialysis. I am not a medicare. recipient, a Social Security recipient. I don't get any sort of exemption. I can't opt out.

By the way, do you know how many childless people? I know I lived where I currently live now for years with no children and didn't use the schools. I still had to pay the school tax. Childless people all over the country have to pay school tax if they're under the age of 65. I just think it's totally absurd the way this is happening. And this is, again, a nationwide thing, which is gaining steam in particular in areas where a lot of young. younger people are moving. So let's put B8 please up on the screen because there's a similar measure down in Atlanta and Fulton County where they similarly want to do some sort of cap for property tax and schools specifically for people who are 65 and above. This, by the way,

is only an expansion of what is already the case in almost every state in the country, which is adopting these 65 plus property tax exemptions for people who are on so-called fixed income. And what it does is it locks elderly people into their homes. And you basically, are supercharging the whole nation as California, where when people in California, you know, they bought a house at 200,000, they lock the increase in the amount of their property tax such that they don't have to pay the actual market rate. But when they sell the house, the person who buys that house still has to pay the property tax of the newly assessed market value. And what it means is that boomers never leave a shit ton of housing stock.

So this is kind of what I'm talking about, but the hidden, you know, things underneath that make it completely unaffordable and that frankly like it's not even a political there's no politician that can just wave a wand and do away with it because here in tech in or in Texas where I'm from this is massively popular the way they phrase it is for elderly people most people are like I want property tax relief and they don't even look at it well they don't even understand what what the benefit like what the yeah you know the impetus behind it is what I would say is this is actually part of a political vision that is being effectuated which is there's a number of parts to this. I mean, number one, Republicans have long had a war on public education effectively.

And, you know, this is the push for vouchers and against teacher unions and all of, you know, you see lots of anti-teacher rhetoric coming from the right. And you long have. And so it's, you know, that's, that's one piece of this. Like the excuse to cut the budget for the schools is something that Republicans are always excited to take up. That's number one. Number two, you have in the type of voters you're talking about, they're very politically powerful because they vote. They vote. They contribute to politicians.

They do the volunteer work. They show up. And so, yes, they have amassed a large amount of political power. And so politicians very much cater to them. So then you have the long-term national bipartisan project of inserting sort of like this hyper-individualism. where it's everybody up by their bootstraps, every man for himself. And so it manifests in ways like this

where you said this comment about like they have to live in society. Like we all have to live in society. But they don't believe in society. But well, and that's the thing is that's, that is an ideology that has been perpetuated in this country for decades now of basically like who cares about society.

You get yours. And I think we're at the like extreme like tail end of that ideological project of where it feels like the economy is very uncertain. AI is coming. Climate crisis, like existential politics, all of these sort of, you know, all of these sort of crises that are mounting and right in front of our faces.

And so you have more and more people who are in a mentality of like, I'm just going to get mine. You see that all the way up to the White House, by the way of like, you know, I'm going to get mine with my crypto deals and building out my ballroom and doing whatever the hell I want while I can. So I think that ideology also infects the public and not to make too much of it, but is, you know,

this is like one small instance of the way that that plays out in the public policy. Let's see, I don't think it's small because Florida is about to try and abolish all property tax. That is the one of the oldest states in the country. Like, do we all understand that? Is that these places which are zero income tax are now going after property tax to make it so that all of the people who are young who move to those states for affordability get the entire tax burden shifted on to them? It's deeply regressive. It is not only deeply regressive. Think about this.

I mean, look, you know, I'm going to sound like an Uber lib now at this point. Who do you think is floating the state of Florida, literally, whenever it comes to hurricane relief, the federal government? Who pays the vast majority of the income for a lot of their residents, the federal government, and all of us via Social Security? Who's the one paying for all their health care? All of us, via Medicare. This is the stuff that drives me crazy. They have no, they have no qualms lobbying for their, you know, their tax-free social security, every tax benefit in the world. They are the wealthiest generation in the entire country.

They make it so they lock up the housing stock, you know, increase vastly the amount of wealth that they have, and then lobby to make it so they don't have to pay very much for any of it on a tax level and shift the burden to people with young children. All of society is basically structured this way. You know, I was talking recently about the health insurance thing, and the thing is, is if you look at the overall increase right now for not just Obamacare, but in general, is some 15%. Well, guess what?

You know, we are paying hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a month, the average person who has, let's say, two children. People on Medicare, you know, they're always complaining because they have to pay one or two hundred bucks a month. It's like, what a joke. And the theory is that, oh, that they paid into it. No, the vast majority of Medicare recipients

receive vastly more dollars from the federal government than they ever paid into the system. And I just think what it does is that they're privatized, they're basically, we have socialism for the old, and we have rugged individualism for the young. And they like it this way. This is part of the issue where the shifting tax burden and in terms of the cost of living crisis

is dramatically affecting family formation, marriage, the entire American dream. And at the very same time, the states which have the most elderly influence are actually making it to shift even more of the tax burden on the people who are younger. You even see it here in the federal government. Who got the best tax cut?

People who were old, Social Security. You know, there's no organized effort for anybody who's young. Like, I've been thinking about an AARP, one of the most, you know, successful lobbying organizations literally ever. And, of course, nobody can crosswise them as politicians. Why don't we have that for people who are like 35 and under? Like, why don't we even have, you know, any hell, like 65 and under? There's no, like, unity, or there's no unity, sympathy, or general consensus for a lot of people. So, I guess it's a long winded way of saying what you're, you know, backing up your point about society.

Like, people genuinely, especially the wealthiest and the elderly here, seem to actually believe that they made it on their own and not because of a variety of structural factors, which were societally based. And they're now telling the young people, screw you, like, make it on your own. And I think that's sick. If you have, if you, you know, give up on, like, living, we live in a society and we're kind of all in us together. I mean, the country literally doesn't work. I mean, even if you think about right now, we're talking about Trump is threatening New York City funny, right? Yeah.

Californians and New Yorkers are looking at how much they send to the federal government and how much they get back and are going, fuck you. Fuck you. I feel that way right now. We float the rest of the country. It's true. You know, you look at your Mississippi's and your Arkansas. It's like you're nothing without us, New York and California and, you know,

these blue states that have massive job creation and wealth and, like, send more tax revenue or net net. have, send more to the federal government than they're getting back. And so when that logic starts to take hold, you start to get, you know, I've seen people calling for, hey, you know what, we're not sending our tax revenue in the federal government. We will send it to a trust to be held. And then when you give us what we're supposed to get, then we'll send you the tax revenue. You know, that's the sort of thing that it leads to on a national level when you lose the idea of this is a society and we're all doing this thing together. And, you know,

there's been a lot of bricks laid on the path to that place. But Trump, as with many things, is accelerating in that direction when he's explicitly, he is explicitly withholding billions of dollars from states that he doesn't like the politics out. I mean, don't you feel that way? And it's openly threatening New York City right now because they're voting for someone that he doesn't like. I mean, don't you feel that way? I do. Like with this bailout to Argentina and every time we have to pay our quarterly taxes. I'm just like this makes me happy. It's one of those where look, you know, I don't want to fall victim to the same sense of the boomers. Like, but when you see what actually gets prioritized at the federal level, I just, I focus on the, on the property

tax thing. That is the one which has the most impact on your actual life is schools. If you're young, is schools. And the fact that these people want to opt out because they, quote, don't use it anymore. While at the same time, taking the socialized benefits, that all of us are paying into and floating them makes it's it's infuriating to a level that not nearly enough people have bought into and what's even worse is a lot of people are like oh well why would you ever want to tax anybody i'm like well do we have schools or not like we have to have a school you want to live in a society where people are just like completely uneducated and illiterate and only the the risk can send their kids to private schools and that's the society you want to

We've already lived in that society, and we all collectively decided we're not doing that anymore. And now there's like this new war basically to say that public education. And I'm not some free college guy, okay? That's about higher education. I'm talking about K through 12. Did we not all have some sort of a consensus whenever it came to that? And we have a lot of local input.

I think it's great that everybody fights about what's happening in schools. It's good. That because it means you care about your education. You should have a say. But the point actually comes back to the reason you have a say is because you pay into it. And then these people don't even want to pay for it because they're not. not using it. They want some a la carte system for it. And this is, the reason I'm raising the alarm is that as they amass more wealth, more political power, this is now happening in almost every

major state in the country. California has it for boomers. Now Texas is going to expand it. Florida literally wants to eliminate it. If you are under the age of 35, if you have children, you are the person who is massively going to see your property tax bill. It has to increase from somewhere. And in a lot of these case, in a lot of cases, they're making it so that the burden, and again, you're already paying extorbitant amounts for health care for basic costs of living. This is a singular part where public education, something we used to be able to rely on, is now actually going to be made more expensive for the actual families for people who are going to be the future, which I think is totally wrong.

The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years, until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. In sitcoms, when someone has a problem, they just blurt it out and move on. Well, I lost my job and my parakeet is missing.

How is your day? But the real world is different. Managing life's challenges can be overwhelming. So what do we do? We get support. The Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council have mental health resources available for you at loveyourmindtay.org.

That's loveyourmindtay.org. See how much further you can go when you take care of your mental health. Whenever I got through the window, I tried to pick him up and his body was stiff. I'm Ben Westoff, and this is The Peacemaker, a true crime podcast about a string of mysterious suicides at a Missouri university, and the fraternity brother tied to them all, Brandon Grossheim.

The lawsuit says Grossheim was one of the last people to see each victim before their deaths. Was he profoundly unlucky, or was something much darker at play? Listen to The Peacemaker Podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Thank you.