Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/14/26: Elizabeth Warren Slams Abundance Bros, Thomas Massie On Iran, Venezuela And Epstein

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

Ryan and Emily discuss Elizabeth Warren slams abundance bros, Thomas Massie on Iran, Venezuela, Clinton, and Epstein.   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. Guaranteed Human. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high. And the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right.

Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on. And the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him?

I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam, available now. for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wally. And I'm Hurricane Dabolu. It's a new year. And on the podcast's Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be.

I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent Media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right

that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. This week, Senator Elizabeth Warren delivered a major speech, urging Democrats to start taking on the oligarchs

as part of their midterm messaging and their agenda going forward, catching strays along the way with some elements of what is known as the abundance movement. Let's throw up this post from Doug Farrar, Elizabeth Warren said in her speech, When this agenda is about making government more effective, Count Me In. Instead, abundance has become a rallying cry for wealthy donors and other corporate Dems who are putting big-time muscle

behind making Dems more favorable to big business. Senator Elizabeth Warren is joining us now. Senator Warren, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. It's good to be with you. So you name-checked Reed Hoffman, among others, in this speech, Reid Hoffman, one of his responses to Doug Farrar here was, I agree with Senator Warren that today's economy is not working for most people. I want to fix this by growing the economy.

She wants to grow regulation. Her politics shrinks the tent. We need a bigger, smarter coalition that can beat Trump and deliver. What's your response to billionaire Reid Hoffman here? Well, let's just put ourselves back a little over a year ago. When we're in the middle of a presidential race, and what is the number one agenda that we've got to drive and talk about? And it's affordability for families. Donald Trump is out there saying every single day, I will lower cost for American families on day one, on day one. Those were his words, a simple, direct, straightforward message. And Reid Hoffman donate $7 million to Kamala Harris.

campaign. Good, thank you. And then spends a huge part of her very truncated campaign, hectoring her to fire Lena Khan. Now, the relevance of that, a lot of people might say, what's that got to do with anything? Lena Con was the head of the FTC, and the FTC was kind of the tip on the spear of whatever was getting done in a Democratic administration to bring down costs. She was the one who was fighting the fight to get, click to cancel. She was the one who was fighting the fight to get rid of the non-compete clauses. She was the one breaking up the giant corporations. She was the one carrying forward that agenda and really giving us proof points that there were things that could be done and Democrats weren't out there fighting for them.

And what's Reed Hoffman doing? He's saying, if you want to be my candidate, you've got a promise to fire her. Now, look, at the end of the day, to her credit, Kamala Harris did not fire or promise to fire Lena Khan if she was elected. On the other hand, she didn't promise not to fire Lena Khan if she was elected. And furthermore, Harris does this whole agenda. rightly about prices, price gouging, and the corporatists come in and get her to narrow that agenda down, this according to a story in the New York Times. That story runs on the front page of the New York

Times. It becomes a story all across the country just a few weeks before the election at literally the same time that Donald Trump is still out there saying, I will lower costs on a day one. So to me, this is the perfect setup about what is it as Democrats we want to do going forward? Do we want to say as Democrats? Sure, we're for lowering costs, but let's just nibble around the edges. Let's not do things that are hard, would be unattractive to Reed Hoffman and to the billionaires of the world. No, let's just take a very soft approach. to this, or are we going to be the party that says, damn, we can see what is wrong. This economic game is rigged, and we've got good concrete proposals to fight back, and we've got

the courage to fight it. In other words, Democratic Party has a choice to make. We can follow an agenda that is comfortable for a handful of billionaires, or we can follow an agenda that actually works for tens of millions of working people. And for me, you want to win elections, then by golly, instead of choosing the billionaires, how about if we choose real people? And part of Donald Trump's political genius, obviously, was recognizing there was an opening for this for populism, rhetorically, on the Republican side. And you spoke to President Trump. Speaking of Lena Kahn, I mean, Steve Bannon, someone who's pretty prominent in Trump world,

refers to himself as a conservative. So, Senator, could you tell us more? about the conversation you had with Donald Trump this week. We can put your post from X up on the screen about it. You said, and this part of it struck me. You said, I told them that Congress can pass legislation to cap credit card rates if he will actually fight for it. And that word, actually, I wanted to see if you could give us more context for, was your sense when you discussed this with Donald Trump

that he was, quote, actually serious about fighting for it? Do you think you got through to him in any way or that maybe he already came to the conversation fully intending to go through with it? So let's do a little history on this story. Dating back years, I've talked about cap on credit card fees. I mean, way, way, way back. Remember that today Americans are paying about $150 billion a year in interest on credit cards. The giant banks are just rolling in the dough.

from what they pull in on credit card interest rates. About a year ago, Donald Trump pops up and says he's interested in putting a cap on credit card fees. Senator Hawley. So I immediately, remember that? And I immediately said, whoa, Simon, let's do this. And what do we hear from Donald Trump? After that, nothing. He did not lift a finger to try to get that done, didn't talk about it anymore, didn't push anybody to get anything done.

So when I gave this speech There was a Q&A afterwards and the question about credit card fees came up and I said exactly that That sure Donald Trump says he wants to do this But he hadn't done a damn thing So finished the speech I talked about a bunch of other things about cost

Get the car phone rings I don't recognize a number But it's a 202 and I thought Maybe somebody heard the speech And I answered the phone And it actually is the president of the United States, says, yes, that he wants to do credit card into a cap on credit card interest rates. And here's my view on this. I tried to make as clear as I can, this is entirely possible.

I mean, wow, the Republicans in the House and Senate will do whatever Donald Trump wants. Haven't we already seen that? They will do it when they think it's a good idea. They will do it when they think it's a bad idea. If Donald Trump wants something done, the one action that Republicans in the House and the Senate know how to take is to bow down. That's it. So I said, you can really get this done.

And then I said, and while I've got you, how about we also bring down the cost of housing? And the problem here is you've all seen how housing costs just keep going up and up and up. The reason for that is because we don't have enough supply. We need about three million more homes in America, urban, rural, first-time homebuyers, renters, seniors, people with disabilities. We need more and more and more. So I worked with Tim Scott, who is the Republican, who's the chair of the banking committee. I'm the ranking member. We have put together a bill, 40

proposals in it, and the one thing that unites them is they all push somewhat toward increasing supply. This is not a magic bullet, but it's a lot of small steps toward increasing supply, making permitting going faster,

EPA approvals. It's abundant. Yeah, it is. Manufactured housing, right, to get more supply. We got that bill through the committee and then through the United States Senate unanimously. So why is it not law?

Because Republicans in the House have hung it up and won't move it forward. So I said, Mr. President, while I have you, you want to reduce costs for American families, get the Republicans over in the House to turn this bill loose. You can sign it into law by the end of the day. Let's make this happen. And, you know, it's a good conversation, but talk is cheap. I'll be persuaded when we see real action because that's what families deserve. Did he commit to doing anything? Like, okay, I'll talk to Mike Johnson about either credit cards or... Look, I don't want to do the details of a private conversation. But he gave every indication that he wants to do something. But like I said, let's get it done. Let's get it done.

Now, there's been reporting that Mom Dani and Trump, after their kind of love fest that they had in the Oval Office, have become kind of text buddies since then. Did you save his number? Are you going to send him this YouTube link afterwards and be like, look, let's get this road to housing built through. Let's get the credit card caps done. I'm making clear the things that I want to get through because we need to lower costs for families. And look, Ryan, I appreciate this. We're going to go. back and forth, if we've got opportunities to lower costs right now, let's absolutely take them. But here's the part we have to remember. We're coming up to an election on November 5th. I actually started the speech by talking about everything that is broken right now. Everything that's broken in our economy plus the shooting in Minnesota and out of control ice, the invasion of Venezuela and the threats to Greenland, the threats to the Federal Reserve. just went every and said none of this would have happened if the Democrats hadn't been wiped out

in 2024. So what the speech was about is how we build a bigger tent, a durable tent, but a tent that's based on trust with working people, a tent that comes from the party, remember, Democrats who aren't just now, well, we're not as bad an alternative as the other guys. But we are actually the people who brought America, Social Security and minimum wage and the 40-hour work week and overtime and unemployment insurance and union rights and housing for returning veterans and housing for first-time homebuyers and Medicare and Medicaid and, of course, the Affordable Care Act. It's time for us to be strong. It's time for us to be bold, but right now is also the time to set the foundation that we're going to run on and to get out there and run on it.

So last week, I gave over $400,000 to 23 state Democratic parties and said, use this money to build your infrastructure. What were the 23 state Democratic parties? And said, use this money to build your infrastructure. What were the 23? They're all ones that have competitive house races, competitive Senate races, or a competitive governor's race. That's where the money went. And the state parties have said to me, this is fabulous. They can now use the money to hire some staff.

They can start bringing in volunteers right now. This is a job. You don't do that job in October and do it effectively. You do that job in January. So I want to say to anybody who listens to this, if you think that's the right approach, go to Elizabeth Warren.com, kick in 10 bucks, and we'll do some more of this to support our state parties so that we can be the party that really advances our agenda that not only is about the economics of the American family, helping families build some economic security, but also,

helping secure our democracy because we demonstrate that we can make government work, not for a handful of oil executives, and not for people who want to throw anyone out of the country who doesn't look like them. We can make this country work for working families. But that's the job the Democrats have got to take on now. Speaking of those executives, we got about one minute left, so I wanted to get a real quick answer to you this. The Road to Housing Act, which you talked about, had the support of all. a lot of the kind of abundance types. It does the thing that they want to do. Like, it cuts a lot of red tape, et cetera. So how do you distinguish quickly between the good abundance and Mamdani

has like seized that term too? Everybody wants abundance, more stuff? Great. How do you distinguish between that and using it as a cover for wealthy donors to drive their own agenda? Okay, so I'll try to do this fast. But look at something like the CFPB. We built it on an abundance principle before abundance was cool. And the idea was we scooped up all of these different regulations, put them all in one place, smooth them out, made them work, and collected over a billion dollars that was returned directly to families that have been cheated. That's efficiency as its best. But you've got to ask yourself, when you can't seem to fix that, what's gone wrong? Why is it? that we can do the same thing with filing your taxes.

Come on, in most parts of the world, you can go online, you can look at something the government is laid out there, and you can file your taxes if they're not very complicated. But in America, even the most simple filing, often people got to spend two, 300 bucks, right, in order to be able to file their taxes. So I've been pushing for direct file, simple, efficient. And what happens?

The tax industry. The people who make money off the inefficiency, keep the inefficiency in place. And they fight for that inefficiency. So when the IRS finally did a terrific site for direct files so people could file for free. What happens? Donald Trump gets elected president and within just about a nanosecond, the tax industry that was a big contributor swoops right in and kills the whole thing. So my point here is sometimes government is inefficient,

just because the wheels fell off. Somebody got something, it's broken, nobody really intended it. It happens. But sometimes it's because corporations have figured out through capture. They get an inefficiency that helps them, an inefficiency that keeps prices to consumers high

and profits for the, corporations high. And my concern with abundance is, first of all, they're not acknowledging the corporate part of this nearly enough, but more to the point, folks like Reed Hoffman, use abundance as now a shield. So he wants to say to the American people, he wants to say, hey, listen, we got to let those data centers go forward. Excuse me, has anyone paid attention to what's happening on utility prices? And who's paying for building out those, utilities? No, abundance then is just being used like a Trojan horse to advance billionaire interests, corporate interests, and not pay attention to costs for American families. So I'm just saying,

Democrats want to win. We've got to put American families at the center of everything we do, not sand it down so that billionaires will be happy. Maybe someday we'll simplify the tax code. That would be nice. I appreciate it. Senator Elizabeth Warren, thank you so much for joining us. Up next, Representative Thomas Massey, who is less likely to get a phone call lately from Donald Trump than Elizabeth Warren. Stick around for that. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for having me. New Year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast. And every week, we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there.

If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wali. And I'm Hurricane de Bolo. It's a new year. And on the podcast's health stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be.

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

We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A new year doesn't mean erasing who you were. It means honoring what you've survived and choosing how you want to grow. It means giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help. I'm Mike Dolorotia, host of Sacred Lessons. This podcast is a space for men to talk openly about mental health, grief, relationships,

and the patterns we inherit, but don't have to repeat. Here, we slow down. We listen. We learn how vulnerability becomes strength and how healing happens in community, not in isolation. If you're ready to let go of what no longer serves you and step into the year with clarity, compassion, and purpose, sacred lessons is your companion. on your healing journey. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delo Rocha

on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Delocha and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today. We're really excited to be joined now by someone we've wanted to have on the show for a very long time that is Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky. We cover you all the time, sir. So thank you so much for being here in person.

Thank you. And as a reminder to everybody, make sure to give us a subscribe so these videos show up. You help our independent news show up in your news feed that is very, very helpful. Now, we want to start with news out of Iran. Why is it that these, quote, America First Republicans, quote, America First Republicans seem to be lining up for a kinetic attack in Iran over these desks of protesters, obviously tragic, but also clearly

being used as a pretext for another Middle East regime change operation? What is it that has so many Republicans? Once again, we're back in the Middle East. We're getting deja vu right now. What's going on with the Republican Party? Well, I mean, we didn't vote for regime change. We were promised we'd be done with all the meddling. Oh, you have to vote for war. That's how it works. Right.

Well, and what I mean is writ large of the population, you know, MAGA, we were promised there wouldn't be regime change. And if you go back in the president's own Twitter feed, you can find him criticizing the presidents before him and after him for engaging in regime. change. So it's just like the neocons have hijacked his foreign policy here in the first year. It's not even taken a few years to get there. Now, to your other point, we are supposed to vote on this in Congress, right? Like, we had this tortured legal scaffolding for Venezuela where they said, oh, the DOJ is just arresting Maduro on some machine gun charges, you know, for U.S. gun laws.

Well, he wasn't here in the U.S. with those guns. So that was- It also runs a military. Yeah, he does run it. I'm assuming if Donald Trump had a machine gun, that would be fine. He's the commander in chief, and shouldn't that be the same way with another head of state? In any case, it wasn't even a real arrest. It was a military action. And they were trying to say we had the military there to support the police of the DOJ who were arresting Maduro. And we're going to get some kind of tortured constitutional argument for why the president could do a strike on arrest. But even the War Powers Act says you can only engage in strikes if you're protecting our country from immediate threat. And then even then you have to come to Congress and get authorization pretty soon thereafter. So I've introduced Iran War Powers Resolution. I put it in a hopper this summer when things were heating up. Who could have foreseen?

Who could have foreseen we would do this in anticipation of something like this. So it may be time to call that to the floor and force a vote on it. Now, what happens inevitably is you have people who don't want to vote for it, looking for any excuse to vote against it. And they'll say, well, we're not actually there right now. So this is premature, Congress from Nassie. That's what I heard on the Venezuelan War Powers Resolution that we did in December. It's just the boats.

We don't have boots on the ground. And so we're bringing that one back up for a vote here very soon, the Venezuela War Powers Resolution, they can't say it's premature now. Now they may say, oh, we're already done. We're not going to do any more. AUMF. Once again, AUMF, they'll use, right? Well, another, another good point, though. The Iraq, both Iraq wars and the engagement in Afghanistan, those were all voted on by Congress. Those were all authorized by Congress. So even though those were AUMFs and not declarations of war, there should have been declarations of war, limited in scope and geography, they were not.

But at least Congress voted to do that stuff. And here's what's ironic. I think right now the president could get Congress, a majority in Congress in the House and the Senate, to vote for this. I wouldn't vote for it, but I think he could get the vote. It's just the executive branch doesn't even want to concede anymore that the Constitution says it's Congress's role to decide when to initiate things like this. If you ask the public why Trump is doing a lot of this stuff, what we hear a lot from people is, oh, he's just just trying to distract from Epstein. So let's put the first element up on the screen. You and Representative Rokana really pushed through the legislation that requires the DOJ to release the Epstein files.

You've now sought a special master to oversee the release of the Epstein files. A federal judge ordered a briefing on, quote, whether the court has the authority to rule upon or take action to bring about. DOJ's compliance with the act. The court fight is coming to the Southern District of New York. So thousands of records were released as a result of the legislation that you guys put forward, I think, in eight different tranches so far. National security continues to be strong. Yes, here we are. The regime has not fallen here in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of files are yet to be released. So what, like, that's a clear violation of the statute and the law.

how are we going to get them? And how many more wars are we going to have before? I call these weapons of mass distraction from the Epstein files, and they're going off every week, all these weapons of mass distraction. Whether that's the intent of this activity abroad or not, it is the effect of it, which is to take the eye off of this ball. And it's to take the eye off the fact that Pambandi is violating the law. She missed the December 19th.

deadline. She missed the deadline 15 days after that where they had to justify redactions and give Congress a list of politicians who were involved in the Epstein files. So they've missed two deadlines. But I'm concerned more about what they're redacting and what they're withholding than I am about these deadlines. And that's why we've asked this judge to appoint a special master. This is the judge that was over the Jelaine Maxwell case. And what we noticed is that he's still engaged in a dialogue with Pam Bondi regarding the release of these files. And so what we did is we submitted an amici to the court, like a friend of the court, hey, here's a suggestion, if you want to take it or not. The judge is asking us to, within a week, and also asking the DOJ

within a week, to say, really, does Rocana and Thomas Massey have any standing here? And so that's, that's an interesting question, whether we do or not. But I do think that the judge is empowered to opine, and even to appoint a special master on his own, on whether the DOJ is actually following the law. Our problem is they've sent a letter to Congress saying, we're going to ignore parts of your law because we think prior law supersedes it, but that's not the way this works. When Congress passes a new law, it supersedes the old law. So some of the things that they're citing in order to justify their reductions, they're saying, well, the Privacy Act says that, you know, we have to protect the privacy of individuals.

But our bill specifically says you can't redact material to prevent embarrassment and other things. And then the other thing that are redacting for is they're saying, well, the FOIA standards, which is Freedom of Information Act standards, allow us to redact to protect our internal deliberations. Here's the problem. Our bill is not a FOIA request. Our bill is a law that the president himself signed. And the other thing is we say specifically in our bill, you have to release internal communications involving decisions about whether to indict or not.

And so they're way off on their legal reasoning. The thing is, it's might makes right. They're doing this. They're disobeying the law because I think they're trying to test and see if there's any way it can be enforced. And so we're doing the most polite thing possible. We're just asking a judge to oversee this. And then we could ratchet that up as we go along.

We can find them in contempt. We could, if we can get a majority of Congress to rule, we could say they're an inherent contempt, which allows us to collect a fine or even to arrest people at the DOJ. We could do an impeachment of PAM bonding. That is a longer process because it would have to pass the Senate. Right. So there are, and then we can, there could be civil litigation in courts that could also get to this. What's clear, though, is somebody's got to make the AG follow the law.

And I would like to remind them, anybody at the DOJ who's watching this show right now, this isn't a subpoena. It's a law. And so it doesn't expire at the end of this Congress. So a future attorney general can prosecute anybody who's involved in disobeying this law. Yeah, I was actually just going to ask about that. What mechanism might exist to hold them accountable if, If, for example, they are just making mass redactions or holding things for national security purposes, anything that falls under that umbrella, potentially it would just be the political system that an opposition party would come into power and prosecute Pam Bondi or others

at the DOJ? It could do that. Yeah, I mean, the next administration could come in and prosecute them. The reason that typically hasn't happened in the past is because Congress, like it's an oversight committee or the Judiciary Committee issues a subpoena, somebody doesn't show up, and then from the DOJ. The Clinton's, for example. Yeah, the Clintons, for example.

But the harder case is when you have somebody at the DOJ who's thumbing their nose at Congress. So you refer contempt to the DOJ and the DOJ says, you know, we don't think we're going to find ourselves in contempt, so they never act upon it. And it's a time bomb with a fuse that defuses itself at the end of a Congress because subpoenas expire, if they were issued by one Congress, they don't carry into the next Congress. This is a law that doesn't go to the end of Congress. It goes forever. Like literally, if somebody doesn't comply, I even hate to say this. It's just a thought exercise.

Ten years from now, the Attorney General who finds an Epstein file is compelled to release it. Right. Over at DropSite News, we've done some reporting based on the documents that you've guys have forced into the public as well as some from the inbox of Ehud Barak, former prime minister and tell official in Israel, which shows very clearly that whatever else Epstein was doing, definitely at times he was working with Israeli government officials in the interests of the Israeli government. So people can make of that whatever they want. What have you encountered about that relationship as you've kind of pushed for the release of these documents? And as APAC and billionaire money pours into your race, which you've handled one re-election, you're popular in your district

time after time, seems like there's a target on your back for a reason. Yeah, it's either a really small world or these, I'm a, I'm a coincident theorist now, not a conspiracy theorist. I'm observing coincidences, like for instance, one of the three billionaires funding the race against me is in Epstein's Black Book. Now, that came out many years ago. It's, Which one was that? It's not an indictment. John Paulson. Okay.

And these are the three billionaires, you know, one's Miriam Adelson, one's Paul Singer. They're all connected very deeply to Israel, as was Epstein. And in the case of John Paulson, he shows up in the black book of Epstein. And again, I would say that's not an indictment. There are probably lots of people who Epstein had their personal cell numbers and may have had legitimate conversations about a scholarship or something. But that's the kind of connections that we're seeing here. And, you know, Ehud Barak, for instance, we know he met with Epstein at least three dozen times. And it may have overlapped with when he was actually an official working for

Israel. I can confirm that. Okay, good. Defense minister. He was formerly prime minister and then defense minister. I submitted to the record in a congressional hearing with Cash Patel right there in front of us, five documents that establish a connection between Epstein and intelligence agencies. Quotes from his security guard, for instance, the meetings with Ehud Barak. The fact that Epstein met with our own acting director of CIA, I believe, then became. later became the director, there's strong connections there. And the bill that Rokana and I released has been criticized for saying that you can redact to protect national security.

And so they might, for instance, try to redact his connection to the CIA. The problem is they need to say when they're redacting for national security, they still need to release those documents and have the redactions. That's the other thing about these redactions. They're just putting black on everything. They're not putting why they've redacted it. You know, okay, we're trying to protect a victim here, or maybe we're trying to protect a billionaire from embarrassment in this case.

Was it true, by the way, that the reason they screwed up the redactions on the last tranche was that Doge made them get rid of their Adobe Pro account? Did you hear that theory? Because if you don't have Adobe Pro, you're going to have to do the sloppy method, which you can just copy-paste and break through it. People were able to jailbreak all these files. You know, I don't think we defunded their... Actually, that would be kind of a double win for you because you were very supportive of that.

I'm just mad. It was disclosed that you could unredact these things fairly soon. I was hoping they would release more of these things that all you had to do was... Right, I know. We should have kept that... Keep it quiet. ...into a notepad. Let them do it.

You know, maybe their Adobe Photoshop Pro license lapsed. I don't know. But I'm pretty sure they got plenty of Sharpie markers over there. They could have printed this stuff. out and did a Sharpie and then scanned it back in. I'm glad they did it the way they did. I just wish there was more stuff we could unredact. And eventually, I think we will. New year, new goals. And in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the how to money podcast. And every week, we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's

going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money. We're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to how to money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wally. And I'm Hurricane de Bolu. It's a new year. And on the podcast's health stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health, which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight.

You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body in mind, inside and out, healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection. We just want to connect with you. other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.

Listen on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every January, we're encouraged to start over. But what if this year is about slowing down and learning how to understand ourselves more deeply? What if this year is about giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help? I'm Mike Delarocha, host of Sacred Lessons. This is a podcast for men navigating stress, emotional health, fatherhood, identity, and the unspoken pressures were taught to carry alone. We talk honestly about mental health, about healing generational wounds,

and about learning how to show up with more presence and care. If you want a healthier relationship with yourself and the people you love, then Sacred Lessons is the point. podcast for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Dolorotcha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike DeLaurocha and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today. Now, your weapons of mass distraction point would be turned around by you. In fact, the entire predicate for your primary opponent's campaign is that you yourself are a distraction from the MAGA agenda. And as a libertarian, something you've had to think about your entire career is that

threats to personal freedom and liberty and constitutional order come from both the left and the right. Yes. So when we faced such an authoritarian, Ryan will disagree with me on this, but an authoritarian threat to speech and personal liberty from the Biden era left, a lot of people on the right said it's just important to go pedal to the medal for Donald Trump, let Mike Johnson cook. How are you thinking about these things now? Do you feel like you've done more, obviously you feel like you've done more good than harm. But what do you think about the people who say Thomas Massey has done more harm than good to the cause of personal liberty? Well, first of all, I vote with my party 91% of the time. And in the 9% I don't, they're taken up for predifiles, starting a new war

or bankrupting the country. Now, so there's this- None of those things are MAGA? None of those things are MAGA. It's not the MAGA that I signed up for, not the president that I endorsed, not his mission. I did endorse Donald Trump before, you know, the November election, which was a big step. He and I talked on the phone about that endorsement. He was very thankful for it. I told him I was doing it because I thought there were still a lot of libertarians and independence on the fence. And he agreed. He was so excited about my endorsement. I said, well, how do I get this endorsement out there? And he said, oh, just tweet it. I'll retweet you. We put on true social. I get it out there for you. And then he's like, the libertarians love me.

They all applauded for me at the convention. And anyways, he, it wasn't, I do believe it was consequential. At least he thought it was consequential enough to put it on his own social media. So it's, you know, I speak at rallies? I did not. Oh, okay. I just called him up on the phone and he took my call. He says, hello, this is Donald.

And, you know, and I said, it was a very interesting phone call. But eventually we got to the point of interest. Did he have a number at the time, or did he just answer a two-o-old? It's not a two-o-year-old. He was on a plane to go-tape Joe Rogan, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't answer random calls. I think I'm in there under Sharp Cookie, Tough Cookie. Yeah. Because every time he answers, he goes, oh, you're a sharp cookie.

You went to MIT. I was just going to say, buddy. You know my uncle. Professor John G. Trump taught it in MIT, 41 years. It's a record. I've got the best genetics. So, and I've heard that like every time. So I think in his phone it says sharp cookie or something. And also tough cookie. Yeah. But now it says, what does he call you now? Oh, gosh, the litany of adjectives. I went from a third-rate grandstander to he endorsed me after that. After 2020, he endorsed me at 2022. It called me a first-rate defender of the Constitution. Now I'm back to

third-rate grandstander. Low life. What was the latest thing? Was it Epstein? Like, what was the break for him? Yeah. I wonder if he's got a, if like there's some secret project that's a time machine over at the White House and they let him turn the knobs and look into the future. And he sees that I do something great to his detriment. And so now every morning he wakes up trying to out how to derail me from my path. Obviously, I'm being facetious here. I don't know what it is. It's, I don't, you know, he came to our GOP conference at the beginning of this session

of Congress in January and mentioned me three or four times. At the Kennedy Center? Yeah. So you were there for that. Trump Kennedy Center. Right, the Trump Kennedy Center. I was not there, but my friends all came up to me who were there and said, he mentioned you like four or five times, not by name.

each time, but it was clear he was speaking about. Here's, but to the main point, there's this narrative, people are trying to say, I've stopped an agenda. Right. I didn't stop the big, beautiful bill. I didn't stop all these CRs, which are basically the Biden budgets. Which Mike Johnson said we wouldn't be governing by CR. Right.

I haven't stopped anything yet. And the only thing where I've really changed the course of Congress, this Congress, is to get the Epstein-Files Transparency Act passed. I have forced some transparency on them. And I think that's what they dislike when they have to vote on whether to go to war or not. And then on some of the amendments, like I'm going to offer amendments to defund things that, you know, allegedly, here's part of the cognitive dissonance, I think, over at the White House. There's all this fraud in these programs like refugee resettlement programs, the daycare programs. the White House has tried to withhold funding from five different states at least, and a judge said you can't do that.

And they're complaining that the judge said, you know, this judge, he's got too much power. The reason the judge can do that, can say that is President Trump signed the bill that said he would give the money. And Republicans wrote the checks to give the money. Once you pass a spending bill, it's a law. And so you have to follow the law. They have an opportunity that Republicans do, and this president does, by January 30th, to put those guardrails in. If they want to withhold money or put guardrails around things to keep fraud from happening, there's a bill coming up this week and next week to do that. And so somebody needs to not sign the bill.

That would be the president if it perpetuates the fraud. I'll be interested to see how that goes. Can't wait for the National Endowment for Democracy to get another 300 million, as you've been pointing out, that's in the minibus. I'm going to predict it does. I'm going to predict they don't stop that, even though they complain about it and it's a tool for intervention overseas. It's a tool for the CIA. And it's a lot of money going overseas. I don't think that's going to make America great again. My final question for you is actually back when you did an interview with my colleagues at me at the Washington Examiner in like 2017, and I wrote a story afterwards about something so interesting you said, is that back in 2012 and you'd been campaigning with Ron Paul and Rand Paul, you thought everyone was super excited. You know where I'm going with us.

I'm super excited about like libertarian ideas. And you found out ultimately that they were just looking for the craziest son of a bitch in the race. Yeah. Are you now the craziest son of the bitch, son of a bitch in the race? Are you going to win by being more MAGA than MAGA? Well, I mean, I did apply that, that name to myself back then even. I said that when they elected Ron Paul and Rand Paul and myself, I thought they were, the Republican Party was going more libertarian, more constitutional. And then I saw Donald Trump get in a race and take the same base that we had.

And then I realized at that point, they had not been voting for the libertarian or the constitutionalists. They were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race. Disruptor. The disruptor. And, you know, it's a, I use that as a term of endearment, by the way. Yeah, of course. Same. I think I'm the only sane Republican in the race right now, or the only one that's forming an opinion that sometimes deviates from the group think.

The sanest, son of a bitch. Probably. It looks crazy up here, but back home, I don't think it looks crazy when you say, I don't think we should increase spending. I don't think we should topple governments overseas. I don't think we should be covering up for this pedophile ring. is that crazy? If that's all crazy, then I'm crazy. How's the polling look? Like, have you done any or is there public polling? You didn't see Donald Trump's tweets? No, I missed that. He says, he's reported three times on the polling. At one point, I was at 6%, but I'm back up to 9%. Okay. I've hovered around 8%. And 50% jump. Yeah, and the president's tweets, the reality is, I am winning back in the district. And even when you inform, and the race hasn't heated up, I've got a

primary on May 19th. Okay. Even though they spent two million dollars disparaging my name, they haven't really spent any money promoting my opponents. He has zero name ID. So when we poll it, and we pulled it in September and December, and we put him on the ballot both times, I beat him by a large margin. If you go in and tell the people, oh, but Trump has endorsed him and look at how it changes, I'm still winning the race, even with the Trump endorsement. So we'll see. There's going to be a lot of money spent, I think... There already has been a stunning amount against you. Yeah, there's been $2 million spent almost 10 months before the race against me.

There's been a million dollars spent for me. I've spent half a million dollars on TV and ads from my own campaign funds. But I've got $2 million in the bank. Every time Donald Trump tweets against me, I raise another $80,000 on average. And those are people mostly who support Trump. Well, one of the billionaires against you, Singer, stands to make billions from the Venezuela invasion, so he can carve off a little piece for that. It's just a return on investment for him. I mean, he bought Sitgo, which was the nationalized Venezuelan oil company that sells gasoline in the United States. He bought them for pennies on the dollar in a forced auction sale of them, even though there was a higher bidder.

Right. So that's kind of interesting. Yeah. And he does. He goes and buys bad debt and bad, you know. know, hard luck cases, and then... Uses the government. Uses the government to force, to compel other governments to pay the loans or to make him

whole, and that's what's happened here. And they're not even hiding it. He did this with Argentina. He did it with Puerto Rico. He's trying to do it with Fannie and Freddie, or was trying to do it with Fannie. Yeah, the White House is not even hiding it. We've been gas-let this whole time. It started out, oh, it's about fentanyl.

And fentanyl's a weapon of mass destruction. And we're just blowing up the boats. And then, oh, actually, they don't send us fentanyl. They send us cocaine. All right, well, but at least we're just blowing up boats. We're not going on the mainland. Oh, actually, it's about the oil because these are narco-terrorists. And this is the most preposterous thing that they get away with,

is saying that the oil funds the drug trade. I'm pretty sure if there's one industry that doesn't need or receive subsidies, it's cocaine. Yes, I think they're doing okay. I think they're doing just fine. Maybe a little help from the DEA. Yeah, the CIA might help finance some of it every now and then, but they don't need oil money to sell cocaine, but that's how they tried to get to the oil. But now, I mean, give them credit for committing candor, which is, it's usually a crime up here to commit candor. But the president is committing it.

He's admitting this was an attack, not an arrest. And he's saying, we're taking their oil, and I'll take as much of it as I want, and I'll sell it for any price I want. and he will eventually, he's going to make his big donors whole like Paul Singer, who bought the troubled asset known as Sitco. New Year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt, and I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast, and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there.

If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, We're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wali. And I'm Hurricane de Bolu. It's a new year. And on the podcast's health stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be.

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

We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A new year doesn't mean erasing who you were. It means honoring what you've survived and choosing how you want to grow. It means giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help. I'm Mike Dolorotia, host of Sacred Lessons.

This podcast is a space for men to talk openly. about mental health, grief, relationships, and the patterns we inherit, but don't have to repeat. Here, we slow down, we listen, we learn how vulnerability becomes strength and how healing happens in community, not in isolation. If you're ready to let go of what no longer serves you and step into the year with clarity, compassion, and purpose, Sacred Lessons is your companion on your healing journey. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delo Rocha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Deloucha and start listening on the free IHeart radio app today.

Let's end on this newsy bit here. We have Mike Johnson saying yesterday we don't have to roll the full clip, but he said he was asked by CNN's Banerajou about the Clinton's announcing. I don't think he has an earpiece. The congressman doesn't have an earpiece, but that's okay. I can read lips. Well, he knows what he said, right? Okay, well, let's go ahead. We'll roll F1.

Sentin's defied the subpoena today. One, are you going to hold them in contempt? Two, should the Pustle Resight Committee also pursue Trump and get testimony from him with as much seal? Why would they need to? He had a vast relationship just like a question. President Trump is open, unending press conferences on a daily basis. Anybody can ask him anything. And he's addressed this issue ad nauseum.

The Clintons have not. And I think it's defiance of Congress to defy the subpoena. I mean, I think by definition, it's a consent of Congress. And we'll have to see how that plays out. So Mike Johnson, obviously, an attorney. And there he said it was by definition contempt of Congress. What he saw from the Clintons, we can put the next element up on the screen. This is, I'm sure you saw Congressman, the letter that the Clintons sent to Chairman James Comer yesterday saying they will not. comply with the Epstein subpoena. And man, this is getting into a position where you could see what happened to Steve Bannon potentially happened to the Clintons. Congressman, would you support the Clintons being prosecuted for contempt of Congress? Well, what they should do is they should just come to Congress and do what they all do and plead the fifth, right? You can do that, be done, and leave. Of course, you'll be asked. Multiple questions will be somewhat embarrassing. and then you leave, that would keep them out of jail.

Yeah, you, I mean, just as somebody, whether I was a Republican or not, if they are compelled by subpoena to come to Congress and they don't show up, there should be ramifications and they should be held in contempt. But this is the wrong way to get at the truth for these victims, right? This is theater. This is high theater. If Clinton is guilty, it'll be in the draft indictments that the DOJ possesses and haven't released. If Clinton is guilty, it'll be in the 302 forms that the FBI filled out after they interviewed Clinton's victims. Okay? That's all in the files if there's any evidence of it. And so

if they want to get at the Clintons, just release the files. I think the problem is they want to have a double standard. There are billionaires in there if they want to protect as well. And so, you know, they're over-redacting. Just release the files. We don't even really need him to show up to know that he's guilty if we've got a million documents which translate into four million pages of evidence. Let us have a look at that. Yeah, and we can post Hillary's like entire letter down in the description so that people can read their full defense because I can't really offer a very strong defense because, Steve Bannon was issued a lawful subpoena. He rejected it on principle. And he went to jail, defending the principal. And then when, I guess, he got 30 or 60 days or whatever he got, and then it was over. Like, you never have an Eric Hold on. We have, but we have subpoenas. Like, the Congress has the subpoena power and you got to come in. That's what I don't understand

why they won't just come in and do the Fifth Amendment thing. Like, that's an option. Like, hey, it might make right. They say it's about making a point. They're thumbing their nose. at the law, they're thumbing their nose at Congress. There need to be ramifications. They should be arrested if they won't show up. I think as soon as you get to the point of arrest, they would probably say, oh, actually, just kidding. We found some time on our calendar. We'll drop by. And, you know, typically what they'll do is try to dictate the terms of their appearance. So this is. They're not refusing it then. They're negotiating the... I think this is the beginning of a negotiation. Okay. But, you know, this is one of the

And as long as they make it past January of next year. Right. Exactly. They could outlast this if the Congress changes hands because that subpoena would expire on January 3rd of next year, which is when the new Congress starts. But again, it's all theater. Just release the daggone files. That's interesting to hear it from your perspective to say, like, you know, because you're on the opposite party. Of course, they should testify. But, right, if you're actually interested in light and transparency, you're not going to get it from just having a dog and pony show with Bill and Hillary Clinton. They'll just show up and plead the fifth.

But this is one of the criticisms of Pam Bondi. Conservatives are getting frustrated with her. There have been no arrests. There have been no Epstein-Files arrest. Do you remember one of the tools, one of the flares, they sent up to try and distract from my bill and maybe to justify extra redactions. She said, oh, we're opening the Epstein cases again. We've found new information to justify, you know, indictments and investigations. We haven't heard anything about that. My colleague from Kentucky

in the Senate, Senator Rand Paul, has referred Fauci for, you know, let him have a day in court, but he wants Fauci, you know, brought to justice. She's not doing anything there. It's not that she's being too partisan. She's just not really doing anything. Well, this is, I mean, sometimes we'll have to do a whole conversation about Maha because people haven't watched a documentary

about Congressman Massey living off the grid on his own house and the way that you've devised this brilliant ingenious system. They have to check that out. Also check out this swamp documentary. That's another good one. Yeah, we should get out there. So, Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me on.

I'm glad to discover you're in D.C. Just minutes away from my office. I've got to come back. We would love that. All right. And everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to today's edition of Breaking Points. As a reminder, it helps us so much. If you subscribe to the channel, that's what lets us do our independent news and keep it independent.

So please hit that subscribe button on your podcast app or on the channel. And we will be back here with more breaking points soon. Yeah, do that soon. Don't make us sell out. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices that are still high and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress.

That's right. Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to how to money on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your Podcasts. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York,

since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyankawali. And I'm Hurricane Dibolu. It's a new year. And on the podcast, Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early.

Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get. your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.