Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/17/24: Biden Houthi Strikes Backfire, Senate Rejects Bernie's Israel Bill, Shock Poll Shows Nikki Tied With Trump In NH, Texas Wars With Biden Admin After Migrant Drownings, Ukraine Gives Psychedelics To Troops, And New Report On Poorest Districts In The US

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Ryan and Emily discuss Biden's Houthi strikes backfiring as companies halt shipping in the Red Sea, Senate rejects Bernie's bill to investigate Israel human rights abuses, shocking poll shows Nikki Haley tied with Trump in New Hampshire, Texas wars with Biden admin over border security, Ukraine gives psychedelics to troops, and a new report shows the Freedom Caucus and The Squad represent the poorest districts in the nation.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/ Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Good morning and welcome to CounterPoints. How are you doing, Emily? I'm good. Cold, but good. So we've got the world on the cusp of World War III, and we've got big news out of all three branches of the federal government today. I also did a pre-interview yesterday with Guillaume Long, a former foreign minister of Ecuador, that will play either later today or later this week. But we're not going to be able to talk at length about the Supreme Court today, which is hearing a case that could upend basically everything. So tell us a little bit about that before we get into the rest. So Chevron deference is essentially what's on the table at the Supreme Court oral argument. That means basically the ability of the administrative state to administer state.

Right. Yeah. So the Supreme Court decided a long time ago that deference, if there is no clear direction from Congress, then the federal agencies have deference to essentially make their rules for how things run. So what's on the table, for example, in this case, is some herring fishermen off in New Jersey. There are federal mandates that say you have to pay for federal observers.

And they're challenging that because it's just a, I think it's an EPA. Either way, it's one of the cabinet agency's rules. They don't want to have to pay for the federal observers. So that's what's getting tangled up. There's something called major questions doctrine, which I know you know about. Made up doctrine, yeah. Also says that in, yeah, so, but this is not a major question is the point. And that's why it's made its way to the Supreme Court.

This is something that the Federalist Society has been like salivating over, maybe literally, for a very long time. I hope Chevron deference falls. I know Ryan and I disagree on that, but it does basically undo everything. I will say I've talked to lawyers, even like sort of federal society aligned conservative lawyers who actually don't think that if this is overturned, which given the makeup of the court, it looks like it will be overturned. We'll see more in the oral arguments today. I've talked to lawyers, though, who say basically it's not that big of a deal, that it's not the sort of one-two punch that conservatives think it is

if Chevron's overturned, because now there are so many different other machinations and things that are baked into the cake, essentially. I would just say be careful what you wish for, because the administrative state is what stitches together all of the laws. And if you get rid of those laws, you know who would love that? Plaintiff's lawyers. That's absolutely true. Because then they are completely unshackled, and they can sue the heck out of everybody. And monopolistic corporations. I mean, it's, yeah, it definitely, there's a lot on the table in the oral arguments today. So we'll be covering those in the future, for sure. The decision, of course, will come down in June.

Very end of the show, we're going to have Sam Godaldig, a Republican lobbyist, and Mike Williams, a Democratic lobbyist, with kind of what I think is going to be a fascinating conversation. You don't want to stick around for that. I've got an interesting story that I'll talk about later in the show, that Ukraine, the Ukrainian military is now using Ibogaine, an extremely powerful hallucinogen, in micro doses to treat both traumatic brain injury and also for battle readiness. This is new reporting I've got over in The Intercept. It's kind of Ukrainians on Ibogaine versus Russians on meth is how one of my sources described it. So that's where we are at this point with that one. Can't wait for that segment. It's

really interesting reporting. Ryan, we are talking about the Republican primary, a horrible dispute happening at the southern border with the Texas government, the federal government. We're going to talk about updates from Israel. Let's start, though, with the Houthis. Yeah. So the fresh, we can put this first element up, fresh U.S. airstrikes. This is the third launched against the Houthis coming at the same time as the United States is designating the Houthis as a terror organization, which we'll talk about later in this segment. There's this thinking among kind of American policymakers that all of the bombing of Yemen during the Obama administration didn't do it. All of the bombing of Yemen during the Trump administration through Saudi Arabia and the UAE, that didn't get the job done. And what we need now is just a little bit more bombing

of Yemen, and that's going to solve the crisis. Well, and you said something interesting there, which is a little bit more bombing, right? Because this is not into the- No, this is not Gaza level bombing. No. And so, yeah, exactly. So it's this, again, it's a tit for tat retaliation, basically, that, to your point, comes on the heels of years. And it's after October 7th now, so obviously things have changed a bit, but it's not an all-out full scale. And that's where it sort of becomes, again, we talked about this yesterday for the Biden administration. What is the end goal of the bombing?

Right, because a full-scale invasion of Yemen and occupation of Sana'a in order to stop attacks on the Red Sea is obviously not in the cards. No, nobody's even talking about it. And so if all the Houthis need is access to a couple of missiles and a couple of drones to continue to threaten shipping, no amount of bombing is going to stop that. In fact, it's absurd. Like the more, we could put up A3 real quickly, just jump to this one, and then we'll go back to A2. So Shell announced that it is shockingly suspending Red Sea shipments amid a war. So we are escalating a war, launching regular airstrikes, and expecting that somehow as a result of that, shipping companies

are going to be like, oh, cool. We're good now. As long as the war is hotter and wider, then yeah, we'll send our ships through here. When these shipping companies, they actually don't care that much. If they have to go around the horn of South Africa, they'll charge more. The people who get charged more on the other end are the ones that are going to start complaining. And also, obviously, all of the Israeli shipping companies in the ports that are now mostly idling and sitting empty, it's grinding significant elements of the Israeli economy to a halt as a result of this. The Journal notes around 12% of total global seaborne oil trade goes through the Red Sea. Right. Right. So that is eventually going

to drive up prices. And that's what the U.S. is responding to, which is why the U.S. called its operation Prosperity Guardian. Prosperity Guardian, yeah. They then subsequently said that they didn't need congressional authorization for airstrikes on Yemen because they were defensive in action. But defensive against what? It's defensive of the global economy, not of the United States. And you also can't, I've heard people say, well, they attacked one of the ships. Well, you're not allowed to introduce a ship into hostilities and then have that ship receive hostile fire and then say, okay, well, now we have to defend ourselves. Like, that's not an end run around Article 1 of the Constitution, which gives

Congress the authority to declare war. Yeah, I mean, absolutely not. Let's put A2 back up on the screen here. What you're going to see, Ryan, can you tell us actually a little bit about this? This is a response actually from the Houthis. And if you're listening to this podcast, what you're seeing is a literal Red Sea, an animation of a literal Red Sea, and ships burning in the sea and over sunset. You're also seeing a Houthi rebel who's gone majorly viral. The meme calls him Tim Houthi Chalamet, because it kind of looks like Timothy Chalamet actually, right? But tell like Timothee Chalamet, actually, right? But tell us what we're seeing from propaganda channels here. So the first thing is the Houthis have been very clear that they want this. Like, they are eager

to have the United States launching a handful of airstrikes at them, you know, because it is useful to them domestically and regionally. Validating. Yeah. Domestically, since the ceasefire with Saudi Arabia, that means the Yemeni public now has other demands of the government, their de facto government, that the situation improve. And that's kind of, for a lot of kind of rebel or revolutionary forces, that part of the process is less interesting than the actual fighting part. When you are at war with a hated rival, it's much easier to govern domestically. And so you've seen now the Yemeni public rally behind the Houthis in a way they hadn't since, say, the 2015, you know, 2016 era.

At the same time, regionally, polls among Palestinians and also around the Middle East are showing that the Houthis are now, like, by far the most popular kind of regional actors. So they have a lot of their own interests. And what's new about this, I can't remember this happening in a conflict before, is the way that the Western public is so readily able to identify with the people that are supposed to be the adversaries. You see it certainly in Gaza with all of these kind of Palestinian journalists becoming kind of influencer-level celebrities on Instagram and TikTok. And that allows the kind of Western public to identify personally with a lot of real people who are under attack. Now you've seen the Houthis take this really interesting social media strategy where they're engaging directly with an American audience. They will say, death to America, but you're cool.

We do not consider you American. You're American, but the government does not represent your values. And they have been encouraged by a response from an American public. You've had a lot of people saying, thank you, Houthis, for standing up against what Israel is doing in Palestine. And they seem encouraged by that. This one seems to go a little bit off the rails because now you've got this American public

just going gaga over this super hot Houthi sailor. He even responded. And by the way, I mean, like all of that is just incredibly dangerous. And he's objectively hot though, right? I mean, he's hot. You're into Tim Houthi. Yeah, this guy's hot. Yeah. I mean, there's just a question about it. He's a good looking guy. Yeah, he's a very good looking guy. He's a good looking dude. Now, Newsweek called him, the Newsweek headline was hot Houthi pirate becomes online sensation. God, you're beautiful. I object to the pirate part because they are a de facto government carrying out a government policy. Whether you like the government policy or not or support it, don't support it, it's not piracy.

They're not grabbing ships and keeping the stuff and selling it. It's not extra governmental. Other than the fact that they are not the recognized government yet. But they are the recognized negotiating partner in governmental negotiations with Saudi Arabia, for instance. Actually, I haven't ever had to parse the definition of pirate quite like this. Right, yeah. Genuinely an interesting question.

Brand new. Genuinely an interesting question. But this is incredibly dangerous. I get it. I understand the social media back and forth. And in fact, Ryan, he responded. Yeah, he said he's on Twitter because a lot of the Houthis are on social media. And he wrote, this is rough Google translation, but he wrote, responding to the Newsweek article, I did not talk about beauty or anything else,

but our issue is Palestine. And this is not the time to talk about beauty or anything else, but our issue is Palestine, and this is not the time to talk about beauty. I hope that my message will reach you, a free Palestine, and we will ignite it against the Israeli aggression that violates human rights. I was going through the replies to that, and I saw a lot of people saying, you're so right, give me a call, let's talk about that. Give me a call. Call me, you're right. Yeah, DM for signal. Outrageous that people are objectifying you. Call me.

It sort of reminds me of when like a model tries to post a political opinion. And I'm not comparing him to a model because obviously he's a political actor and not a model. But it reminds me of that when people can't get past how hot the person delivering the political message is. You know, that happens to the best of us. So the United States, we can put up this next element, United States, a four, has designated this guy and everybody else associated with the Houthis as a foreign terrorist. Now, not organization. So this tweet that we have up there says, sources tell Fox, the Biden administration is expected to redesignate the Houthis as a terrorist organization after formally removing

the group from the FTO list in 2021. They're actually putting them on a slightly separate foreign terror list. They held a press call last night where they announced this decision. And basically, they're allowing 30 days. So it'll start from 30 days from today, they will get this foreign terror designation. The main kind of consequence of that decision will be that it will be very hard for the Saudi Yemeni peace talks to conclude because the number one thing That the Yemenis want out of the Saudi peace talks is their money back basically Saudi Arabia has had access To a lot of Yemeni money. They basically their bank accounts and they've seized it and And so Yemeni teachers, policemen, firefighters, public workers, and also soldiers

have not been paid. And so there have been for years now, and it has furthered this humanitarian crisis inside Yemen. And so the main demand has been, we want the money. For a while, the Saudis were saying, well, we'll pay some of the teachers, but we're not going to pay the police. And then eventually, okay, we'll pay the police, but we're not going to pay the police. And then eventually, okay, we'll pay the police, but we're not going to pay the soldiers. And then eventually, okay, we actually will pay the soldiers. Because the Houthis are like, no, we're the government. You're recognizing us as a government. You have to give us all of our money. If they're listed as a terror organization, they can't receive that money. At the same time, it will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. And there

was a really interesting kind of element of this when the U.S. announced it, where they said that they're taking unusual and almost unique precautions to try to prevent these sanctions that they're applying to hurt the Yemeni civilian population because they are so aware of the current crisis that the Yemeni civilians are operating in. But to me, that is a rare admission that sanctions actually do hurt the civilian population. Because normally the line from the State Department is sanctions only target the elites. They don't actually hurt people. But if they have to make kind of special carve-outs for this, why would it be the case that other sanctions in the past have been different?

Finally, and then it gets your response to this, the fact that it's taken 30 days, they said that's so that they can work out all of the logistics of this so it has the least amount of harm to Yemeni civilians. But the Houthis have said that the attacks will stop and the Red Sea traffic can flow when the Israel-Gaza war ends. The U.S. says it wants this war to end. So the fact that they're not even implementing these sanctions for another 30 days suggests the U.S. doesn't have any optimism that it's going to be able to get Israel to stop this assault. They should pressure, and actually I know we've talked before about how it's less clear-cut because even Hamas doesn't know, perhaps, where all the hostages are. The Houthis should, of course, if they want to stop the blockade, they should pressure Hamas to release the hostages, which would be a huge step towards peace. Which there is news on that. This morning,

I don't know if you saw this report, Qatar is very close to brokering another deal between Hamas and Israel. There was a small deal made that in exchange for more humanitarian aid getting into Gaza, that they're bringing medicine to the hostages. Like that's kind of one of the macabre deals that was just struck. A bargaining chip, yeah. And that's part of this latter deal toward a bigger kind of hostage release that could be coming very soon. But you're right that the Houthis, I mean, the Houthis are doing, the Houthis are trying to use what leverage they can to pressure Israel to end this. So, yeah, we'll see if this hostage deal comes through. The fighting that we're seeing last night and yesterday in southern Gaza, residents there are reporting it's like nothing they've seen the entire time. We've been hearing from Israel that they're moving soon to a lower phase of this conflict,

but the descriptions of the airstrikes coming out of southern Gaza from last night and this morning were extremely intense. Hamas's Telegram channel putting up lots of different reports of all sorts of battles throughout southern Gaza. BBC reporting that Israel is closing in on al-Nasr Hospital, which is one of the few hospitals in southern Gaza that remains kind of a refuge for probably thousands of people at this point. Israel also struck a Jordanian field hospital in Gaza. And so Jordan has now angrily responded to that, accusing Israel of violating the humanitarian law and laws of war. You can't strike another

country's field hospital. And threatening not military retaliation, but threatening political repercussions. And it's like, Jordan did not want to be in this situation. Like at the very beginning, Jordan was actually kind of sending supplies and such, like to, I don't want to talk about the Jews because I'll get it wrong, but there was, Jordan was kind of caught cooperating with Israel. And in response to that kind of signed on to the South African complaint, they had better relations. Now, Israel's like attacking their field hospital and they're denouncing them. It's like really spiraling. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1.

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Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, this is a good transition, actually, into something you've been reporting on a lot, which is the potential responses from Congress. And I was going to say members of the left in Congress, but actually Senator Rand Paul joined in a vote that happened just last night. We want to start, though, with a clip of Bernie Sanders kind of talking about it. And maybe, Ryan, you can set this up. Right. So this is Senator Bernie Sanders talking to Jake Tapper about a resolution

that he forced onto the Senate floor last night, that all it would have done is required the State Department to take 30 days and to study the question of whether or not Israel is violating human rights with U.S. weapons. We'll talk about how that vote went on the Senate floor first. But first, here's Bernie Sanders talking to Jake Tamper. The spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, responded to your plan saying, quote, we do not believe that this resolution is the right vehicle to address these issues. And we don't think now is the right time. The Israelis have indicated they are preparing to transition their operations to a much lower intensity. And we believe that that transition will be helpful both in terms of reducing civilian casualties,

as well as increasing humanitarian assistance, unquote. What do you say to that? I strongly disagree. Jake, we have got to, as Americans, take a very deep breath. What is going on in Gaza right now is a horrendous humanitarian catastrophe. We're looking at 23,000 people who have been killed. Almost 60,000 have been wounded. And two-thirds of the people who have been killed are women and children. You're looking at 70% of the housing units in Gaza that have been destroyed. Jake, if I use the word Dresden, Germany to you,

you think about the horrific destruction during World War II of that city. What is going on in Gaza now in three months is worse than what took place in Dresden over a two-year period. This is a catastrophe. And now, according to the United Nations, after you have 1.9 million people displaced from their homes, they don't have food, they don't have water, they don't have medical equipment, they don't have fuel, what you are looking at is imminent

starvation. Children are starving to death. So my view has been from the beginning, Israel has a right to respond to this horrific terrorist attack from Hamas. But you do not have a right to go to war against an entire people, women and children. So Ryan, that was, to your point, before Congress actually voted on this. What can you tell us about what was on the table as they went to vote yesterday, late last night, actually? Right. And also, so the UN, to back up what Bernie Sanders is saying about starvation, UN special rapporteur put out a joint statement yesterday saying, currently every single person in Gaza is hungry. A quarter of the population

are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water and famine is imminent. And so they put it on the, they put it, were you surprised to see Rand Paul? I wasn't. No, not at all. And actually I wasn't surprised specifically because when we had our discussion with him, what was that about a month ago now, maybe a little longer than a month ago, I felt like he was really engaging with the questions that you were tossing at him. He was pretty critical and willing to to be thinking pretty openly about this. Right. And I feel like he's generally one of the standouts in the Republican Party when it comes to looking at our Middle Eastern policy and all of that. So not entirely surprising, although given how intense the sort of party line has been in the last couple of months

on this one, I mean, vote your conscience. It's impressive always. So there were about 11 people whose consciences told them to vote with Bernie Sanders. See if we can put the next element up there. LaFonza Butler, the new senator from California. Martin Heinrich, Mazie Hirono, Ben Ray Lujan, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, Rand Paul, Bernie, of course, Chris Van Hollen, Elizabeth Warren, Peter Welch. Chris Van Hollen, probably the most important vote there because he and Chris Murphy are kind of collectively the two most respected Democrats in the Senate at the State Department. Like if you're a State Department official, you want the approval and you kind of fear the disapproval of both Murphy and Van Hollen. And so to have Van Hollen

vote for that will be noticed in Foggy Bottom. Van Hollen and Merkley both just were at the RAFA border crossing in Gaza. Van Hollen and Merkley both came were at the Rafah border crossing in Gaza. Van Hollen came back, Van Hollen and Merkley both came back incensed at what they had seen there and said that, you know, Israel is deliberately withholding, you know, humanitarian aid and sparking what the UN is describing as famine conditions. So the vote was 72 to 11. And Ryan, I think that means- Where's everybody else? I was just going to say. Not there? Because there was Democrats who everybody else? I was just going to say. A bunch of Republicans not there? Because there—was it Democrats who missed it?

I can look, but— That's an interesting question. A bunch of Republicans had missed a couple other votes. This happened at 8 p.m. last night, so on a Tuesday night. And so 72 to 11, it's a pretty resounding no. And again, the element we just tied up on the screen was a tweet. And the way that it was put there is the Senate just voted 72-11 to kill Senator Sanders' resolution to have the State

Department report Israel's human rights abuses against Palestinians. And Ryan, though, what you're saying is that it's a little different even than that. It's a little softer even than that. It's not so much a report Israel's human rights abuses. It's report on potential. It's investigate. Yeah. Are they doing anything wrong? Kirby's response is interesting. He's saying, we don't need to do this because Israel has assured us that at some point in the near future, it's going to slow down its attack. But back in Israel, the politicians are saying the opposite. They're saying that this isn't stopping.

And the only reason it would stop is if the United States kind of used its leverage to pressure it to stop. And I think that in the long run, this is not going to be beneficial to Israel either. And its friends and allies who kind of enabled it in this moment are not doing Israel a favor. Now, tell us about this Haaretz report. We can put this up on the screen. This is the first paragraph of the report. The Jewish Culture Department of the Ministry of Education has walked back its agreement to help fund an annual Shavuot event that took place in 2023, organized by the Medina Regional Council due to Israeli-era broadcast journalist Lucy Arisha's participation as the event's host. I am in shock, she told Haaretz. It's so hurtful to me, especially at the time we find ourselves in right now. After October 7th, there's no other word for

it except racism and sullying my good name. What's going on here, Ryan? There is a racist bloc that has significant power inside the Israeli government at this point. When we say that this is the most far-right Israeli government in Israeli history, it's not hyperbole. The Israeli government itself would say that that is the case. And there is a faction within that coalition that believes things that here in the United States are just abhorrent and repellent, such as a woman who represents mixed marriage cannot represent Jewish culture, according to this element of the ministry.

As the spotlight shines on some of these practices, because the world is now paying so much close attention, the claim that Israel often uses in its defense that it is this beacon of democracy, it's the only democracy in the Middle East, begins to fall apart. Because if you're the only democracy in the Middle East, what is this? We do not associate this type of state action with democracy. And they're saying, okay, regarding the event, appears that there was a failure in communication between the director and the supervisor because it's going full bureaucracy. Because the publication went to the group without receiving the approval of the supervisor. According to the procedures, the activity can't be approved.

So we'll see how that unfolds going forward. Hopefully the attention gets them to backtrack on this. suspicions and yes, racism that exists and proceed in sort of seemingly democratic, banal machinations like hosting a speaker at a government event. I mean, this is a very interesting sort of flare up, I think, culturally. Yeah. And we also wanted to play this clip from the European Parliament from an Irish member of Parliament yesterday, who, you know, she's a controversial figure within the European Parliament. And I think, but this clip of her denouncing both Biden and Israel has gone wildly viral. Despite the catastrophic debt toll it has inflicted, Israel is losing, on the ground and in the court of public opinion. There's no way that this ends, that doesn't leave Israel a pariah state

with occupation and apartheid on borrowed time, and they know it. So they're doing everything they can, desperate acts of aggression to provoke a wider conflict with Lebanon, with Iran, with anybody to draw in the US, to save them from the consequences of their own actions. And as Yemen shows, Butcher Biden is reporting for duty. With Europe's fraught genocide by his side, they are the ones who have enabled the continuation of Israeli terror. Without them, it would already be over. So take note, Butcher Biden. The ancestors of the Ireland that you claim to be from disown you. Keep our country out of your mouth. And as for von der Leyen and genocidal Germany, with your words and deeds supporting Israel in the ICJ, not in our name. The people

of Europe stand with Palestine and with South Africa. Particularly harsh words for Biden, Ryan, given that when Biden visited the Middle East as president, he specifically said that he can empathize with the plight of the Palestinians because he is Irish. Mm-hmm. He's very proud of his Irish heritage. Right after he won the election, a BBC reporter shouted out to him, President Biden, BBC, BBC. And he turned around and he's like, BBC? I'm Irish. I'm not talking to the BBC.

He was steeped in this tradition. He once, in a speech, said that he was told that one of his ancestors was in the Molly Maguires, which is like this kind of mining kind of terror group. Right. And he said later they heard that that was not true, and he said they were all disappointed because they wished it was true because the Molly Maguires are total folk heroes among kind of Irish Catholics in Pennsylvania and in that region where he's from. So yeah, to have him called Butcher Biden, which is a very Irish kind of phrasing,

and denounced in those strong terms, you know, probably lands even if it's not from, you know, the very top of the Irish government. Going after Germany too there. Also quite nervous. She doesn't spare anybody in general. No. The harsh words all around. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush.

What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content,

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone

Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into,

call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's move on to New Hampshire, actually, Ryan,

because the entire country has moved on to New Hampshire. I remember Nikki Haley when she was speaking on Tuesday night or Monday night, whenever the caucuses were, it's all a big blur in an election year. Monday night, she said, I love you, Iowa, but now we're going on to New Hampshire. It's just so typical. Been fun. I'll never be in this state again. Yeah, like don't make me do this, please. We can go ahead and put the first element up on the screen. This is a poll from the American Research Group that was conducted between January 12th and 15th.

So January 12th and 15th, right before the caucuses. So Nikki Haley came in third, obviously, in the caucuses. This is of New Hampshire Republican primary voters. They have her tied with Donald Trump at 40%. So Haley 40%, Trump 40%, DeSantis all the way down at 4%. Notably, Vivek Ramaswamy is at 4%. So you can maybe expect that Trump has a little bit of a boost over that 40%. Maybe it's not quite so tied now that Vivek has dropped out of the race. And in fact, he is in New Hampshire, uh, stumping for Trump as well. I think we, uh, maybe even have video of Vivek in New Hampshire that we can play because they're

sort of whispering in each other's ears really beautifully. Do we have that guys? Thank you. Wow. That's how was that? Pretty good, right? That was pretty good. And he's a fantastic guy. And he's really, he's got something that's very special because he started off with a Zippo and he's got, he ended up very strong. He did a great job.

I was actually surprised when he called because he was doing well. And it's an honor to have his endorsement. He's going to be working with us and he'll be working with us for a long time. So after getting about 7.7% in Iowa, Vivek obviously dropped out, endorsed Donald Trump. He is now stumping for Donald Trump. He was drawing some pretty big crowds in Iowa, I think in part because whatever you think of the guy, he's a compelling speaker. He makes a very entertaining and energetic case for Donald Trump. So maybe a little bit of a weapon there.

But Nikki Haley is pretty close to Donald Trump. And when I say pretty close, I mean, relatively in the RCP polling average. So that poll has them actually tied. But in the RCP average going into the Iowa caucuses in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley was still down double digits to Donald Trump. And so we're still- The tie pole is a big outlier. It's a big, big outlier. And if she was trying to get a bump going into New Hampshire, she probably would have had to do better than third place, right? Because the third place surge isn't going to do much for you. She is at, I think she's at like 29 in the RCP average.

Latest year, I think that last one gave her a little bump. So now they have her at Trump 44.5%, Haley 31.3%. She's still technically double digits down in the polling average. So there's an outlier poll showing her there. The path, even if she wins New Hampshire, is, I mean, you really have to squint to see the path for her, even if she wins New Hampshire. She is leaning on this next generation, new generation of leadership. When Dana Bash pressed her on the E. Jean Carroll defamation damages case that was happening in New York yesterday, Nikki Haley had an interesting response. Let's play that. This is element two in this block. He's already been found liable for defaming E. Jean Carroll,

who accused him of raping her 30 years ago. A jury found him liable for sexual abuse. And this trial that he's attending today is about damages that he must pay her. You're the only woman in this race. How do you feel about your party's front runner being held liable for sexual abuse? I mean, first of all, I haven't paid attention to his cases and I'm not a lawyer. All I know is that he's innocent until proven guilty. And when he's proven guilty and he's sitting in a courtroom, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You've got investigations on Trump and Biden. A lot of people, forgive me, but a lot of people in the Republican Party blow it all off and say that it's all a witch hunt. Because I think some of the cases have been political.

This one I haven't looked at, but look, if he's found guilty, then he needs to pay the price. He needs to do what he's supposed to. Every one of these cases, they need to be heard out. He needs to defend himself. If he is found guilty, he's going to pay the price. If he's supposed to. Every one of these cases, they need to be heard out. He needs to defend himself. If he is found guilty, he's gonna pay the price. If he's not found guilty, then we move forward. What I will tell you is I'm focused on the economy, the border and education and getting our country back on track. If he's sitting in a courtroom, that goes back to what I'm saying. We can't continue to be distracted. We can't continue to be in chaos. We have a country to save. So for some context on that case that was just mentioned, here's from NBC News. They say testimony will begin Wednesday. So today in E. Jean Carroll's damages trial, so that's the

testimony is what is beginning today, against Donald Trump with the writer on the witness stand and the former president who was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her expected to be in the courtroom. That decision came down several months ago. Carroll 80 will tell the New York federal court jury in the defamation case how her life turned upside down after Trump, then the president, repeatedly slammed her publicly after she first came forward in 2019 with allegations that he sexually assaulted her in a dressing room in a Manhattan department store in 1996. We don't have to debate the merits of the E. Jean Carroll case. We've covered this before. I honestly don't find that case particularly credible. She was, though, he was found liable for the allegations in New York. So that's why they're now talking about

the damages. And the fun detail, like he already got hit with damages. Yeah. This case comes from what he said after that. After that. So, and immediately when I saw him defaming her again, I was like, you can't do this. You just got slammed for this. I mean, he can do it if he wants to pay. And she immediately sued him again. And this time they didn't have a trial. Because they're like, we already adjudicated the facts of the case.

You said this again and worse stuff. So now you're going to pay again. So yeah, he can keep doing it. It you're going to pay again. So yeah, he can keep doing it. It's just going to cost him judgment after judgment after judgment. So this brings us to Nikki Haley's point. She pivoted as Dana Bash was pushing her. Nikki Haley pivoted and said, listen, I haven't been paying attention to it, but this is what I'm talking about with all of the cases. She's actually, I think, going in the opposite direction of where the vast majority of Republican voters want her to talk about, which is if you look at, everyone except for Nikki Haley, basically, but if you look at, you know, over the course of the

last year, as the indictments against Donald Trump have stacked up, I think it was you, Ryan, who said it looks like a crocodile when you look at the polling with DeSantis in particular, Trump's polling keeps going up because the more oxygen that these cases are getting, the more Republican voters, I'm not talking about everybody, but the more Republican voters say he's got to be the one. He's the one that's being targeted by the political establishment, which we all agree sucks. So he has to be the one to carry the torch going forward.

And Nikki Haley is really making the opposite argument. And perhaps that's because it's really her only opening politically. She has to then appeal. If he's at, and this is true, in the RCP average, he's around 60%. Donald Trump is. And all of the other candidates, I think Nikki Haley's around 12%. DeSantis is around 10% in the RCP national polling average. Of course, that was from before Iowa, but still that's a huge, huge margin for Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis

voters, people that Nikki Haley is going to want to pick up to make up that about 10 point difference roughly that she has in New Hampshire right now with Donald Trump, those are not the voters that want her to be attacking Trump for being attacked with lawfare. And again, whatever you think of all of these cases, I do think some of them are more serious than others, whatever you think of that though, Republican voters are sick of it. But they're not sick of it to the extent that they're going to say, hey lady from the Boeing board who sucked up to Donald Trump for a really long time,

then decided, eh, you kind of had different opinions on him. And now you're attacking him for being attacked. I'm not sure that's the winning message Nikki Haley needs to cobble together the math for the coalition. But is there one? Like, it doesn't seem like there is a message or a coalition that is bigger than the MAGA coalition behind Trump. Yeah, I think that's the biggest problem. I think of the Republican electorate, about 30%, I would say are hardcore, always Trump, as I think DeSantis has described them in the past. So with that always Trump voting bloc and all of the attention on the indictments,

yeah, the more and more I think about it, there really was no room. And obviously, we have the benefit of hindsight now that there's a year and all of these indictments in the rearview mirror to look back when DeSantis and Haley and Tim Scott were launching their campaigns and Mike Pence were launching their campaigns and say, in retrospect, there wasn't going to be a lot of oxygen for anybody else. I think that was pretty evident while it was happening. But now it's just abundantly clear that when you stack together the always Trump voters with the people who are watching what's happening in the indictments, you know, it's, I don't know what the path ever would have been realistically.

David Axelrod just said, the Republican Party is steaming toward nominating a candidate for president who is facing four criminal indictments, including one for plotting to overturn a free and fair election. He very well could be a convicted felon by the Republican convention in July, and he could win. All true facts. You know, I saw a lot of people having those sort of moments after the Iowa caucus, and he sort of cleaned up, like Beth Moore, who's controversial in evangelical circles, was saying, you know, we really need to come to terms with Trumpism. It's like, we needed to do that eight years ago. If you didn't do that over the last eight years, and it speaks actually to, I think, one of the biggest problems is here. I think it was one of

the biggest problems for Nikki Haley. I think it was one of the biggest problems for DeSantis is that they, like a lot of the left, instead of kind of grappling with Trumpism head on, meeting Trump voters where they are, they try to kind of have it both ways. They tried to say, listen, like, especially Haley and Santa's like, listen, Trump did some good things. But at the end of the day, you know, he's just a distraction. He's just, you know, wild, whatever it is. But voters like that. Not every voter likes that, but enough voters like that. And the other thing, and this is the last thing I'll say on this, is even if they're ambivalent on the mean tweets

and whatever else, they really, really hate the political establishment. So if you're juxtaposing mean tweets with Nikki Haley, people are going to choose the mean tweets if Nikki Haley's answer is ambivalence on some of these major questions. Like she got into that really interesting spat with Ron DeSantis on welfare reform. She got into a really interesting spat on girls sports, all of these different things. Or I think it was actually on locker rooms and bathrooms in some of the debates. So if it's sort of like milkquetoast elite ambivalence versus mean tweets, Republican voters, enough Republican voters, in fact, a majority of Republican voters are going to go with the mean tweets. All right, well, they've got their man then.

Are you not voting in the Republican primary? I'm voting in that primary. Best of luck. Oh, for people who are voting the New Hampshire primary, have you seen this? So there is a kind of an anti-war kind of groundswell that is urging people who are voting in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire. The Democratic primary is going to be competitive. They're telling people, vote right in ceasefire. Don't vote for Dean Phillips, don't vote for Marianne Williams, and don't write in Cenk, but vote, write in ceasefire. And that they think if enough people can write in ceasefire against Joe Biden, that that will at least kind of show how much kind of public opposition there is to it.

I don't know if there's time for that to catch on among kind of rank and file voters. But there's an effort underway. And, you know, if it goes viral, you know, I could see it catching on. Well, and speaking of milquetoast ambivalence, centrist ambivalence, I think Dean Phillips has some really legitimate gripes with the DNC, is not going to be an attractive candidate, even though Bill Ackman just infused like a million dollars into his campaign. That said, because he now has money and attention from some people that have big platforms, this is definitely, like there will be more New Hampshire's for Democrats down the line. Now, New Hampshire doesn't have a lot of delegates and you're probably going to be- Actually zero because they're not supposed to be having their Democratic primary.

Yes. Like so DNC told them, this doesn't even count. It doesn't count, right. Right, so just go ahead, write in, cease fire. Who cares? Doesn't even count. It doesn't count. But I do think-

Can't throw away a vote you don't have. That's gonna, I mean, to some extent, it does seem like that sort of shadow race, the side race is picking up steam in a way that could be something Biden has to respond to at some point. He's smart politically not to respond to it now, but there's, something's happening. Something's brewing under the surface there.

I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter.

She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's talk about this scandal unfolding on the border.

What's going on there? Yeah, absolutely. So there's just horrible news and predictably horrible news, but we can put the first tear sheet up on the screen. This is from CNN. I'm gonna read a little bit from the article here. The drowning deaths of a woman and two children from Mexico near the U.S.-Mexico border have magnified the rift between Texas and federal officials over who has jurisdiction in that part of the Rio Grande area and how to tackle the migrant crisis.

The tragedy happened days after state authorities blocked the U.S. Border Patrol from accessing two and a half miles of the U.S.-Mexico border near Eagle Pass, Texas, which was recently the epicenter of the migrant crisis. That area includes Shelby Park, a city park on the Rio Grande that Texas authorities blocked off with fencing gates and razor wire, effectively denying access to federal border patrol agents. So that's what Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has been pushing for, is sort of heightened state control in the absence of federal action to sort of enforce

stricter policies on the sort of physical land, the territory, as migrants are making their way across the Rio Grande River over to the Texas side. And so what happened, oh my gosh, it's, Ryan, this story, I mean, it went viral right away. And then what we're going to talk about is that some different things, some nuance. The way it was originally framed was that the implication was that the Border Patrol were trying, would have been able to rescue this family, but the state troopers basically blocked them from getting there. One of the first things that immigrant advocates said when they saw that story circulating was,

that's odd because often Border Patrol is the one blocking activists who are trying to prevent people from drowning. Right. So now when all of a sudden did border patrol, you know, get, you know, so enthusiastic about trying to rescue people when in the past they've been in the way. Sometimes border patrol does rescue people and there are a lot of, you know, good brave people that work for them, but a lot of people who are also, you know, have participated in, you know, blocking access to people or knocking over water in the desert, you know, putting people at risk. So then we discover that it seems like the timeline doesn't line up.

Right. That the family had tragically drowned already. But that doesn't let anybody off the hook. So, and that's what we should get into here. So I'm now jumping back to an AP paragraph from January 14th, because I think it gives insight into what the story initially looked like. They reported, the U.S. Homeland Security Department said Saturday that Texas denied federal agents access to a stretch of border when they were trying to rescue three migrants who drowned. The federal government's account came hours after Henry Cuellar said the Texas Military Department and Texas National Guard, So just that first graph from the Associated Press mirrors the reporting that was happening over the weekend and into early this week when it says that Department of Homeland Security said

Saturday Texas denied federal agents access to a stretch of border when they were trying to rescue three migrants who drowned. What it looks like had happened is that the migrants drowned around 8 p.m. They didn't learn about it until 9 p.m. and then were denied access when they were trying to rescue additional migrants who survived. Right. So it's still not cool. And what I think is extremely disturbing about this whole story, and this is a new, again, I'm going back to the other AP story that's sort of reflecting on some of all of this after it has come down, is that there are lawsuits going back and forth between Texas and the Biden administration over who can do what at the border. Because Greg Abbott is saying, and listen, even Republicans have lots of debate over the

merits of Greg Abbott. There are a lot of conservatives who are not happy with Greg Abbott in Texas. There are a lot of people in general who are not happy with Greg Abbott in Texas. But the mass of human suffering that has poured into Texas and that is on the border is an incredible challenge for any governor, whether they're a Republican or a Democrat. And the Biden administration's policies, we've talked and debated this before, from my perspective, make this worse constantly by CBP1, for example, by getting rid of Romania, Mexico, by all of those different things. And again, I know we've debated those and probably disagree on some of this stuff. But the fact of the matter is, it's not crazy to look what the Biden administration has done and say this is creating a real problem for Texas. We agree. It's not a good situation on the border. It's not rational. It's not well organized. And it's dangerous. And that's exactly the point. It's leading to these

bureaucratic disputes that are putting people in danger. Because when you're reading the filings from the Department of Justice about how people were going to different, like people in the representatives of the bureaucracy, when people needed to be rescued because there's dispute over who can do what on that land. It was just appalling. Right. You don't have time to file a motion if somebody needs to be rescued quickly. My understanding, though, is that states have no role in immigration policy. So where does Abbott get off here? They're litigating that in the courts. And it's gone back and forth. Is there any legal argument other than we're going to do it and then fight it in the courts?

I mean. Yeah. I mean, I think that's what the argument is. And one of the things that people target is it's US v. Arizona. You remember the Jan Brewer SB 1070 case when then Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, people may or may not remember from the Obama era, sort of a figment of the Tea Party heyday. She passed a law called SB 1070 that was allowing, I think it was Arizona State Troopers, to basically ask people for their papers when they were pulled over for traffic stops. In Arizona, the Supreme Court overturned that. But a lot of states like Texas, under Republican leadership, think that set an unfortunate precedent now that they feel like

they're not getting enough support from Border Patrol and federal agencies as you have rampant cartel activity on their borders, human trafficking on their borders. And when I say human trafficking, I mean, actually, you know, basically every migrant who crosses has paid the cartels and that's all coming into Texas. Some people are coming into Texas with debts to the cartels. Actually, a lot of people are coming into Texas with debts to the cartels. There's just all kinds of abuse and human suffering, again, that we've talked about many times. But this is how Greg Abbott has handled it. We have a thought here from Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who was talking to Dana

Lash on her show. This is E3? Yeah. D3, sorry. We are using every tool that can be used from building a border wall to building these border barriers to passing this law that I signed that led to another lawsuit by the Biden administration where I signed a law making it illegal for somebody to enter Texas from another country. And they're subject to arrest and subject to deportation. And so we are deploying every tool and strategy that we possibly can. The only thing that we're not doing is we're not shooting people who come across the border, because of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder. Okay, so Greg Abbott. And let's make sure we understood him clearly at the end here. The only thing we're not doing is shooting people because

we would get charged with murder. We would get charged with murder. That's the reason why? That's it. That's the reason. That's the one. This went really viral in Texas media, and he's getting a ton of fire for it. Again, I think this is probably something- How has he responded to it? It basically exactly as you would expect and say, you know, I'm having this broader conversation about an invasion on the border. And, you know, that's what I was talking about. That was talking about, uh, you know, acts that, and again, what do you want me to say? I said, I wouldn't shoot that.

I said, I wouldn't shoot that. Right. How much do you want from me? So again, I think the outrage is really unfortunate from the media here because I think there's something Bill Mellugian of Fox News said, there are people who are drowning every single day. You put up the Texas Tribune one because that goes with this, right? Yeah, here you can see this. This is for the Texas Tribune. This is Abbott's response. But, you know, again, this is people are drowning every single day in their efforts to cross the Rio Grande. Part of

Abbott's response actually was that nobody has ever drowned at a legal port of entry. So if you're crossing the Rio Grande, which I actually think it's probably lower numbers of illegal crossers who are swimming the river because there's so many legalized paths through CBP1 to come in and make a dubious asylum claim. And that's part of the problem with the Biden administration's policy is that it has this overly broad definition of asylum. Right. Why are people just not aware that they can just check in basically. It's like under the new policy, you turn yourself over and then after a while you're released with a court date basically. And the problem is there's still quotas and the quotas are different depending on where you are on the border and every single day

where you are on a border. Like I've seen a guy, like I was at a respite center once and watching this guy flip through WhatsApp messages on his phone with Border Patrol in the U.S. And this was in Reno, and he's just going through on his phone all the messages about who can come across on what day and how many people this day. Nobody day-to-day has any idea how many people are going to be able to get across and why. There's like no rhyme or reason to it other than what Border Patrol knows about, what DHS knows about. And it's incredibly confusing. So I think desperate people, I often wonder that too, like why not wait it out? But I think desperate people take desperate steps. They don't have the money. Cartels spread disinformation, but maybe they don't have the money to sit and wait for their CPP-1 appointment because there's a backlog on the appointments. So they can,

you know, pay less to cross, something to that extent. So it's just an abject disaster. And a lot of times what you've seen are actual members of the cartel swimming people halfway through the river and then sending them off. And so the idea that there would be some enforcement of cartel members who are breaching the border. I mean, I think Greg Abbott said something that sounded really callous and flippant. And that's a huge problem for Republicans when they talk about this issue, because I think the Biden administration is so clearly wrong on it. And so clearly wrong on it from the perspective of like human dignity and human suffering, that there's no need to be casual and flip in a way that

actually sounds like Republicans aren't taking seriously the moral high ground that they have on this issue. And not just Republicans, but anybody that looks at the Biden administration's policy and is like, this is a bureaucratic disaster that's putting lives on the line. Meanwhile, it seems like Republicans are going to end up rejecting any type of negotiated border or immigration deal in Congress. You put this last Bloomberg element up. Um, you've got, uh, Jim Jordan here saying that, uh, Speaker Mike Johnson is going to reject a Senate, a Senate border deal, even if a Senate, even if the Senate can get something through, you know, the cynical, uh, assessment that I've been making the whole time

has been that, uh, Republicans don't have an incentive to cut a deal with Democrats here because the crisis on the border is better politically than resolving it. And so they will use the argument that, well, we're not taking this bill that is 80 percent of what we want because we're going to wait until we're in full power and get 100% of what we want. But that argument is in many ways just a cover for being actually okay with it, with the crisis, so that they can use it. Now, Democrats, you know, it's not unique to Republicans. Democrats can operate just as cynically. I'm curious for your take if that's why you think this deal is falling apart or if it's – or what? Like why wouldn't Republicans take this moment where Biden is just trying to give away the store? I think it's not just Republicans. I think it's not just Democrats, I should say, that don't want to do anything about the border, to your point.

I think it's also Republicans that see the political benefit of it. But I think it's also Republicans that are fine with the unending flow of cheap labor into the country because to actually deal with this, you need to deal with asylum. And what the Biden administration is willing to do so far is not serious. It's saying things like, well, we're going to fund border patrol and things that make it really easy for Biden to go out in the campaign trail in 2024 and say, Republicans blocked this immigration effort that I made. I wanted to give Border Patrol more money and Republicans didn't want to do it. Because you can have all the money for Border Patrol in the world.

And again, if you are letting people make all of these appointments through CBP1, there's a huge CBP1 backlog. There's asylum adjudication backlogs. Because the definition of asylum is confusing, because the courts have these competing definitions that change all of the time, it's a huge issue with Title 42, then you can fund Border Patrol all you want. You can give them all the money in the world. You can have all your fun little lasers and Peter Thiel equipment on the border.

It's not going to matter unless you deal with asylum. So I think when you see the opposition from Freedom Caucus type of people, they're saying, listen, it's not serious. It's going to give Biden a talking point. When you see opposition from centrist type Republicans, I think it's less authentic. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season 2 of the

War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill, NHL enforcer Riley Cote, Marine Corps vet, MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working

and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country, begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

I've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on hell and gone murder line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother.

She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, well, let's turn to Ukraine and talk about a wild story that I've got over at the Intercept there. If you put up this first element here, basically the Ukrainian military is partnering with a founder of the Yippies for a Ibogaine research project. And

the research project is aimed at two separate things. One is the use of Ibogaine to treat traumatic brain injury, TBI, and separately, the use of Ibogaine at a microdose level for battle readiness, basically, and morale. And so let's run through these. How much do you know about Ibogaine? Just what I've heard from you. Okay. So Ibogaine is, derives from an African root and it is arguably the most potent hallucinogen you can think of that is long lasting. Similar to Ayahuasca in some ways in that it sends you into, I have never done Ibogaine. It sends you into this like dreamlike state for a deeply extended period of time. And is, nobody I think would describe it as an enjoyable, like these are like haunting, a haunting dreamlike state. It was used traditionally in African initiation ceremonies,

rite of passage ceremonies, and has developed into therapeutic uses, particularly for addiction. The most famous person to have benefited from it, Hunter Biden. It is illegal here in the United States. It's a Schedule I drug. Hunter Biden, in his memoir, talks about how he went to Mexico and got an Ibogaine treatment. And it seems to have been effective so far. Addiction battles are constant. Wasn't the man who was accused of and did attack Paul Pelosi mixed up in Ibogaine trade. There was some interesting involvement with Ibogaine with him. Because Ibogaine is so effective at helping people kick addiction, and because it's illegal, then now you have people who are trying to kind of black market use it in San Francisco, for instance.

So it's not clear exactly. People were saying, well, maybe he was on Ibogaine. And knowing a little bit about Ibogaine, like there's no way he was on Ibogaine. Too much energy. You can't, right, you're like flat on your back. You can't go assault anybody. I mean, I wouldn't say that with 100% certainty anything can happen. But for the most part, people are pretty immobilized.

There is a risk of. There is a cardiovascular risk associated with Ibogaine, and some people with substance use disorders who are trying to overcome them and who are in pretty weakened conditions have died from heart attacks or other cardiovascular issues. And so that's another reason that you want this to be done clinically and with support systems in place in case you do have some cardiovascular side effect. So there was recently in Nature Medicine actually a study showing that it was effective against traumatic brain injury. They used this Stanford-developed protocol that introduces magnesium with ibogaine to try to mitigate some of the cardiovascular issues. Okay, so that's the background here. So when it comes to battle readiness, militaries throughout history really have been giving soldiers stimulants um basically for you know

you know liquid courage uh a bunch of a bunch of whiskey a couple shots of whiskey right before people would go over the trenches up to the nazis um using meth basically like you know medical grade amphetamines um the united states has used you know plenty of methamphetamines as well with its soldiers. They're using that in Ukraine as well. The Russians are on this really kind of low-grade foul Syrian-produced meth. That sounds horrible. that causes like any amphetamine is not basically healthy for you, but the trashy ones, the dirty ones are much worse and cause premature aging, paranoia, psychosis, like all sorts of reasons that you would want some type of an alternative. If you can't have peace,

peace is a better alternative. But if you can't have peacease some other type of alternative to it, psilocybin is becoming mushrooms. I've become a convert to that. I used to think that because this stuff came out of Silicon Valley that it was fake and nonsense is something that tech pros just made up. It's now legal in Washington, D.C. Like there was a ballot initiative passed. You can walk into a store and buy like, you know, micro doses of shrooms and use them instead of coffee, for instance. So the proposal here from the Yippee co-founder, whose name is Dana Beal, and it's funded by John Lubecki, actually, partly funded it, who we've had on this show before, as well as MAPS, Rick Doblin, Multi-Association Disciplinary Psychedelic Studies, something like that. It's the biggest psychedelic research organization in the world. So they came

together. They're funding this project in Ukraine. So what they're saying is we will supply some Ukrainian troops with micro doses of Ibogaine for battle readiness, but then separately treat them for traumatic brain injury and see if we can replicate the results that they got in this Nature Medicine article. And I teased this quote at the beginning, but Dana Beal told me, we think that what we'll do is we'll get our side to live longer. It'll be the Ukrainians on Ibogaine versus the Russians on meth. That's an incredible quote. But it's still war, and it's still awful. But the hope is that Ibogaine doesn't lead to as many kind of long-term problems that people have. So I actually confirmed this

with the Ukrainian military. I talked to a military psychologist who was attached to the 57th Motor Infantry Brigade, Alexei Skirtov. And he said, we really need as much Ibogaine as possible. Even if the war ends now, we'll have too many Rambos to come back home from the front line. It'll be a much more serious problem than the USA faced when thousands of veterans came home from the Vietnam War. There also has been a lot of work with MDMA when it comes to post-traumatic stress syndrome. MAPS, Rick Doblin told me that because MDMA was flat out banned in Ukraine, they can't do any research projects there. Oh, really? So that's one reason that Ibogaine was more appealing. MAPS has funded a lot of projects in Israel, actually. Israel has been one of the leading kind of

places to deploy MDMA for PTSD among its troops there. And so you're seeing this kind of places to deploy MDMA for PTSD among its troops there. And so you're seeing this kind of this, you know, what rose in the 1960s with the kind of counterculture movement, which Dana Beale was a central player in, trying to bring about world peace. The kind of consolation prize is at least perhaps maybe the psychedelics can help people kind of clean up some of the psychic mess from our inability to end, to bring about world peace. Once you've wrested out of the hands of the CIA, maybe some good can come from all of it. The other thing to think about is Russia,

obviously, to your point about the Russians being on meth. I think it's called Captogen. What's it called? Off-brand meth. Captagon is what it's called. So we're at, what, hundreds of thousands, reporting at least hundreds of thousands of casualties between both sides here. And so Russian society reintegrating all of these deeply traumatized men who have just, again, they're literal trenches, like actual trench warfare, which is an incredibly traumatizing thing. So Ukraine reintegrating these men from a war that was instigated by Russia, important. Also, it's not good for anyone to have hundreds of thousands of deeply traumatized Ukrainian and Russian men reintegrating back into society after all of this and getting no help. Yeah, and it's also kind of appalling that the son of the president of the United States can get the benefit of this treatment.

Yes. But nobody else can. Right. And Lubecki and his organization have been, and others have been pushing to allow, you know, various psychedelic treatments, you know, at least for veterans to start with. But it's obscene that they have to, you know, travel from the United States to a foreign country to get the treatment that they need. Right. Yeah. And what paid tons of money, I'm sure, too.

Yeah. You're not going to get the VA to reimburse you for your trip to the Mexican clinic, for sure. Right. And all this came about in a wild way. Like, Beale was bringing Ibogaine to a Mexican clinic and was stopped there because DHS had flagged him because of some of his previous, like, cannabis convictions. And he said he couldn't get into Mexico as a result. They kicked him back to Spain where his flight had come from. And then he connected with Doblin and Lubecki, who then connected him with the Ukrainians. And the Ukrainians were like, yes, absolutely. Interesting. We would love to run a project on this. Interesting. And so he's like, all right. And so then he took a flight to Bucharest and a

bus into Kiev. And now we've got a project. Well, great reporting and good story to follow. Interesting story. Seriously. Our guest next, this is a segment that Ryan set up. Fascinating study on congressional districts. Two corporate lobbyists did a giant study on income and caucus representation. And so we're going to talk about, you know, which caucuses, liberal, moderate, conservative, black caucus, Hispanic caucus, progressive caucus, freedom caucus, represent the richest to the poorest types of people. And I think you might be surprised by some of the results, maybe not, but it's fascinating. It's a good teaser. So we'll be right back with that. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time.

Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man.

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and

private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're going to be talking about a new report out on congressional members of Congress and the kind of economic distribution of resources in the districts that they represent. We're joined by Mike Williams and Sam Geduldig of United by Interest. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you. Thanks for having us. Let me put this first element up on the screen. So this report that you guys put out goes through basically every member of Congress and all of the different caucuses and coalitions and tries to figure out which ones have the kind of highest average median income and which ones have the lowest average median income and draw some lessons out of that. So, and first of all, just to be clear here, you know, I have interest. This is you guys are you guys are Washington lobbyists, like you represent like court, mostly corporate clients who have business before Congress and are trying to figure out that, you know, the smartest ways to navigate Congress in their interests.

Is that an accurate description? What would you guys say it is that you do here? No, at its essence, yes, we are advocating on behalf of clients, and yes, they are corporate, but we are trying to take a different approach relative to your traditional lobbying firm. We're trying to find that middle ground. We're trying to find that commonality of interest between the two sides, right? And is there a way to have members to work cooperatively together? And what we have discerned is that there is, right? There is a commonality of interest between Republicans and Democrats,

particularly on the sort of opposing side of the more polarized segments of the political spectrum. Yeah, and Sam, let's get to the key finding of this report. What you found here, and to back up, as you guys say in your kind of memo that is attached to this, it is the kind of wealthier, liberal and moderate districts, swing districts, that get almost all of the kind of PAC money and political attention showered on them from K Street with the rest of the districts kind of ignored because they don't face competitive elections for the most part, or they face competitive primaries, but they don't face competitive partisan elections. But your most fascinating finding is that the two kind of

poorest caucuses in Congress are the anti-woke caucus and the congressional black caucus. Sam, can you talk a little bit about what you found here and whether it surprised you or not? I gotta be honest, it didn't surprise me. Mike and I have been going to meetings, fundraisers. I kind of consider the people that live in Washington, D.C. and make a living here for, you know, 10 plus years. Ryan, Emily, you guys are part of this thing. It's the political industrial complex. And we are all whether you hate it or love it,

you know, we're all part of it. We never leave. Members of Congress do. And there's a lot of anger thrown at Congress. You know, they don't get it Congress. They don't get it. They're immature. They're hostile. They're bomb throwers. You've heard all the names. The people that get to define those members of Congress is the political industrial complex. It's academia. It's think tanks. It's lobbyists. It's public affairs firms. It's law firms. It's journalists. It's cable news. And when we call these people these names, you know, kind of, it's almost like second nature anymore. In my opinion, it just reeks of class bias. We love to hate members of Congress from the poorest congressional districts.

We love to. And if we're not hating them, we're dismissing them as not important, not important to the debate, not important to the final end result product of whatever it is that needs to happen or shouldn't happen. And we just dismiss them so quickly. And in my opinion, when we do that, we're just dismissing the constituencies that live in those congressional districts. Often, almost 100% of the time, they're poorer than the median average of the United States. And to the other point here is the wealthier districts represent politicians that are kind of showered with love. They're responsible, reasonable, thoughtful, productive.

Those are the members from the wealthier districts. And to me, it just reeks of class bias. I know I'm not saying anything new to your, like, viewers, but to D.C., it's like someone needs to grab them by the, you know, the lapels and, like, you're classists. It's terrible. Like, wake up. Yeah, and so the average medium income you found,

I think it's so helpful to put numbers on this. The Problem Solvers Caucus, which considers itself bipartisan, the average medium income is $79,000 a year. Tuesday Group, so that's the Republicans, they're at $77,555 a year. My favorite here is the Civility and Respect Caucus. They're at $75,000 for their average median income. And what happens, it's a denigration on class basis of populism in the House of Representatives, which is supposed to represent the people that elect you into the office.

And Mike, one question I had for you is you talked earlier about how the numbers, the sort of end goal as you guys are putting these numbers together is to see where there's perhaps points of agreement, consensus, cooperation. And what's interesting about that project is it kind of turns consensus in Washington on its head. Whenever there is bipartisanship and cooperation, it's typically coming out of the Problem Solvers Caucus, which just represents centrists that happen to come from the Democratic and Republican parties, but they're from wealthy districts and have a lot of their same takes on salt and all that good stuff.

So what would it look like actually to start targeting people, those coalitions that come from, you know, maybe it's anti-woke and congressional Black Caucus. Is there a way to find bipartisanship and cooperation among those different groups? You think so, right? I mean, we've had some projects in the past where we've actually gotten members of the Black Caucus and the Tri-Caucus, quite frankly, working cooperatively with Republicans once they're aware of the alignment relative to their constituencies. We did this report just so, and this is not the first version of this, right? So something, we have done something like this in the past where we've sort of demonstrated it, but not in the more, in the most sort of fulsome nature in which this report exists.

But we want to share this with those members because they express these frustrations, right? So on the right, Sammy gets it and he hears all of these things. I get it from the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus, the entire Tri-Caucus. And it's there, but they just don't understand what is behind it, right? Because they feel like they're representing their districts. They feel like they're expressing the views that their constituents express on a day-in, day-out basis, but they don't understand what that limiter is. And so I

think that this report represents the fact that you have more alignment than you think. And maybe if you take the politics out of it, the sort of raw, larger politics out of it, there are items that you can work on together. In the past, we've pushed funding mechanisms for infrastructure and transportation spending. And the methodology there was simply a sort of reallocation of, you know, sort of government resources that would benefit by and large. And, you know, we found a trillion dollars worth of potential funding that wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime. That was an idea that was you know quite frankly

well ahead of its time and essentially what we ended up with in the end was a mechanism that increased the federal deficit right and increase the the the the debt load in both the ira and the bipartisan infrastructure deal so that deal was not cut with the folks that we are talking about in this report that deal was cut without them it was cut by the folks that are in the middle who are in leadership who are making these determinations it's such a yeah I just wanted to add one more point, right? It's going to be interesting to see how that money is in fact allocated to these poor districts. And so far, the scorecard is not good. It's such a fascinating window into how Washington thinks when you understand the way that –

and the way that Sam was describing it, you know, the political industrial complex, basically producing an understanding among the public of who the people, who the adults are in the room, who the reasonable people are, and who the kind of crazies are. And then when you map that onto this income distribution, the classism behind it becomes just extraordinarily apparent. Because you also look at what you call the squad extended, nine members of kind of an extended squad. And they don't represent the poorest districts, but very close.

The numbers are almost equal to the Anti-Woke Cau and the congressional black caucus. And it, and it is, yeah, it is those people that are told kind of by the, the broader system here in Washington that you're the crazy ones and the people we need to listen to are the reasonable ones. And yeah, it was just so perfect to me that this bipartisan problem solvers caucus, which is a product of no labels, which is this dark money group. And when they do release donors, it's hedge fund folks, it's private equity types, it's billionaires, it's people who own baseball and football teams. And they're the ones who we're told we have to say, these are the ones who are kind of the upstanding members. But Sam, I'm curious, like,

why did we have to, why did you guys have to be the ones to kind of point this out? Like, I think a lot of viewers are gonna be like, well, we agree with all of this, but where are they coming from? Well, you know, Mike and I became business partners before Trump was inaugurated in 2016. And we knew the commonality between the Black Caucus and the Freedom Caucus or Anti-Woke Caucus. I mean, you go up there every day, you kind of get a feeling for who represents what. You know, and it's easy for the left to rip to shreds Marjorie Taylor Greene. It's easy for the right to rip to shreds, you know, AOC or some other Dem kind of lightning rod. Go to the district. Ask them to, you know, nominate a different politician and you're not

going to get a reasonable member that's going to join the Civility and Respect Caucus. It's just not going to happen. So in our view, it's a little bit like just gaslighting America. You know, we keep calling the politicians that they elect to represent them nuts, insane, terrorists, whatever the slander is. But you're really calling the people that live in the congressional district that name. And, you know, the poorer America gets after COVID, the wealthier are getting wealthier, the poor are getting poor, the middle class is wiped out. And if we keep calling the politicians of the people that elect them in these districts nuts, you're really just calling half of America nuts at this point. And, you know, Mike and I joined up together, talked about, you know, the similarities between the two caucuses.

And caucuses are important to lobbyists because they vote in blocks. So if you can get the entire black caucus to vote yes, you know, Nancy Pelosi or Hakeem Jeffries is going to take that very seriously. Just like, you know, Kevin McCarthy or Mike Johnson would take the Freedom Caucus or Anti-Woke Caucus voting in block. They take that extremely seriously. So if you can align the Anti-Woke Caucus and the Black Caucus on issues involving the terrible poverty, you know, we looked at a bunch of statistics too. Children living below the poverty line with food issues, military service, life expectancy, average income, unemployment. It's all terrible. The stats are exactly what you'd expect. The poorer districts have it worse. The wealthier districts have it better. We're not knocking the wealthier districts. It's just time to look at like who the poor,

the poorer districts are being represented by. Why are we calling them crazy? And how are we not figuring out a way to find some type of bipartisan win in this whole thing? And you're right, we do represent corporate interests. And a lot of the ideas that come out of, you know, the center are regressive in nature and they really hurt these districts. So Mike and I, you know, kind of became business partners with the idea that we could align black caucus members, anti-woke caucus members on the principle that, you know, you're both getting screwed. Your skin color is the only statistic that's different. Everything else is the same. You're living less long. You're less healthy. You're less wealthy. It's really tough in these districts. And it's time someone kind of paid attention to that,

I think. No, it reminds me of how John McCain famously derided the then Tea Party members as wacko birds. And the media absolutely loved that. And when we go back and look at the Tea Party era, we see that some of the denigration on a class basis of Tea Party activists gave way to Donald Trump. People were so sick of it. And to your guys' point, the less tolerance there is for dissent, the wilder that dissent is going to get. It's going to take all kinds of crazy forms that the media hates more and more and ratchets up tensions in the country without solving the very real problems that people are taking different sort of forms of expression to address. Yeah. And you'll often hear AOC in particular, but also some other members of the squad when they're getting criticized by fellow Democrats to say, look, what do you want me to

say? Like, I'm representing my district here. Yeah. Yeah. Like this, you don't like it? I'm sorry. Like this is like, and I, Sam, your point is a good one. If you get rid of them, who do you think is going to replace them? Somebody who's saying the same things or being even more aggressive about it. But anyway, it feels weird to say, but I wish you corporate lobbyists good luck in this project. No, thank you so much. It's such interesting research. It would be interesting to qualitatively map it onto or quantitatively map it on a media coverage, too, because I think you would find what we all know to be true.

Yeah, very interesting stuff. The political industrial complex. There you go. We'll put a link to the report in the show notes here so people can check it out. But Sam and Mike, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. All right. Well, that so much for joining us. Thank you. All right, well, that does it for us today on CounterPoints. Yeah, we'll see you guys next Wednesday then, I guess, right? Nothing special going on between now and then, right? No shows or anything.

Well, the Eagles aren't playing. They are definitely not. But the Packers will be. That was the easiest money anybody could have made. You keep saying that. I never bet against the Eagles, but it was such easy money. They were favored to win that game, which was utterly absurd. I think I would have taken the bucks even if they were giving 15 points. Such a principled stance, though,

to never bet against the Eagles. It's crazy. You can't do that. My dad does that sometimes, and I understand it because then he feels better. He hasn't done it in a long time. Actually, he did it pretty recently now that I think of it. But his rationale was then the pain of the loss is offset by the fact that you made a little money off of it. Well, feel free to bet on the Packers. There you go. It's a good bet right now. But there is, of course, results coming out of New Hampshire next week. So we will be all over that as well, heading into South Carolina.

And then Super Tuesday because, damn it, it's an election year. All right. All right. Well, we'll see you next week on CounterPoint. Make sure to like, subscribe, comment. We appreciate all of it. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder.

I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know. Some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7.

Because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.