Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/7/25: Republicans Cope, Airlines Shutdown, Ritchie Torres Challenger & MORE!

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Krystal, Ryan, Emily and Griffin discuss Republicans coping after Zohran's win, airlines shutdown, Ritchie Torres faces primary challenger and more.   Ryan Fundraiser: https://givebutter.com/lq4hWJ?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email Michael Blake: https://blakefornyc.com/ Griffin: https://x.com/griffinpdavis To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. On an all-new episode of I-Hart Radio's Las Culturistas, Jennifer Lawrence is dishing. Jennifer Lawrence. Let's go! From her hilariously awkward run-ins with A-Lister's. I don't know what I was expecting, but he was just like, nice to meet you.

To her unfiltered take on beauty treatments. I'm so upset I think the Botox before that. And a jaw-dropping reveal you won't see coming. I don't know if I can announce this, but I'm just going to. Open your free IHeard Radio. app, search loss cultureista, and listen to the full podcast now. On the podcast health stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. I'm Dr. Priyanko Wally, a double board certified physician.

And I'm Hurricane de Bolo, a comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. And on our show, we're talking about health in a different way, like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Listen to health stuff on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And she said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the central Texas planes, teens are dying.

Suicides that don't make sense. Strange accidents and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad, Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to Paper Ghosts, the Texas Teen Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Good morning, everybody. Happy Friday. How's everybody doing? Hey, guys.

Hello, hello. Good. How are you guys? I think we're about to hear how Ryan's doing, actually. Yeah, indeed. Well, first of all, Ryan, did you recover from you've had a pretty intense. intense week going to Zorantz thing and then making it back for your son's birthday and all that. He's crazy. Right. It's crazy. I'm tired. Put in my veins. I'm feeling good. Yeah. It's like it's an invigorating week is what it is. There you go. Did you, did you microdose through it? I didn't, I didn't even have to microdose through it. Also, I always remind myself that it's not really work. It's just, I just, I really like get to do stuff I enjoy doing and get to be at, like, historic events. like people who are actually doing work and waking up like before the sun sun is up, out the door before the sun is up or like working on.

Well, we call that breaking points. That's true. But still, that's only a couple hours. They're doing that and it's like eight, 10, 12 hours and then another job. So like that's the those are people who work. I don't even think of it as work. People who know Kyle know that it's impossible to like get him out of the house to do basically anything. But even he, watching the Zoran victory party videos, was like, damn, we should have gone.

I was like, you say that now. There's no way I could have convinced you to go in advance. I saw the funniest post in response to Kyle's victory post where he was playing music and smoking a cigar. Someone tweeted it was like, damn, when did Kyle become Dominican? I know. He was proud of that. He was like, did you see this one? So good.

Anyway, yeah, should we jump in? Ryan, you've got an update for all of us. Dropside is being sued and in the UK where the libel laws are insane. So you want to give us the tea here of what's going on? Yeah, and this is also invigorating in a way because this is this comes with the territory of doing investigative journalism. And actually, we're not technically being sued. The writer Owen Jones, who wrote the piece for us as being sued. And that's because of the complications of, of UK libel law, they can go directly after him.

But we are, we are defending the case. The reason we're talking about it now is that some of the documents became public recently and the telegraph reported about the case. Otherwise, we were just fighting this behind the scenes. But we've already racked up roughly like $40,000 in legal bills and are barely in the beginning stages of it. It's like, it's utterly insane how expensive this stuff is. but we are 100% standing behind the story

and we're planning to defend it in court. So we set up a legal fund that people can support overnight. We set it up yesterday overnight. People have given so far more than $50,000. Wow. So that's more than our bills so far. Now the bills are going to continue to rack up. If we win a full victory,

there is a real expectation that we could actually recoup all those costs and that the BBC editor who's suing us would have to pay for our legal costs and I do expect that that's likely to happen. But in the meantime, we have to, you know, the lawyers keep sending invoices. That's amazing. We have to keep paying them.

So thank you to everybody who gave overnight. We can put the link, I guess, in the description. You can find it on my pin tweet. And the more we have, then the more it sends a signal to plaintiffs in general. Like if you come after us, like we will defend ourselves and we have a community of readers who will help us defend ourselves.

We have libel insurance, but there's a significant deductible that you have to hit. Anybody who's in journalism or understands the idea of insurance, like that's how that works. So we're nowhere near the deductible yet. And, you know, every dollar you have to spend on that,

it takes away from the journalism. So any help is, you know, deeply appreciated. And we do expect that we're going to win this. This is an important piece, too. I remember when this came out, in-depth investigation into a systemic bias at the BBC in their Israel coverage. And so, you know, I understand why they were upset by it, but you were saying they haven't really alleged that you got anything wrong.

And I know you guys 100% stand by the reporting. Right. They say that our kind of conclusions are wrong, but they don't allege any errors, in fact. Like, UK law is very strange. Like, what do you mean? Has it always been like that, Ryan? Because essentially they're alleging that you hurt his feelings, right? It's one of the reasons that I am such a strident defender of the First Amendment.

Like the First Amendment is actually meaningful. It actually matters. And the UK doesn't have one and they deeply suffer for it. Chris and I were just talking about we don't quite understand how they have this coexisting of this rabid tabloid culture where they just recklessly publish all sorts of nonsense. Yet also these bizarre libel laws, it's not clear how those two things coexist together. If anybody understands that, maybe, like, you know, elucidate that in the comments for us. Because it's really weird. It's like, because this is a fact check piece.

This is a piece we took very seriously. There's, you know, it's accurate as, you know, we stand behind it. And yet we're still, you know, getting drained of all this money to defend it in court. Where in the U.S. a suit like this would be like, no, you don't have any case here. Go. Yeah. My theory about that is always that it's the way that people get around the laws is by burying things in crazy sourcing. So you get someone in the royal family, like associated with the royal family, tell you something crazy and then attribute it to a source. And that's how they tap. I don't know. That's my best theory. But I was going to say right. And also, people should realize if you, you don't want to set a precedent in the wrong direction either because with small indie media booming right now, the process can be the punishment. So if you start filing a bunch of lawsuits, and people don't have money to defend themselves because lawsuits are extremely expensive

and CNN and NBC, they have, you know, all of the resources in the world, bus lawyers that are on their staff, it's different than if you're just going after the indie publications who can be bankrupted just by the process. Right. That's a great point. If powerful people or powerful interests think that they can shut down independent media

by just lobbying a bunch of lawsuits at them, then they're going to keep doing that. So if you give on that, then they're just going to keep going. But if you defend yourself and it actually ends up costing them, then they're going to think twice the next time they think about going after this outlet or any other independent outlet. We're like, oh, wait, they have a huge audience that is going to support them if we come after them. So we have to then factor that in to our calculation of whether or not we want to launch this suit.

All right. So we're going to keep that link in there. Let's keep funding DropSight because, like Ryan said, DropSight is the tip of the spear against the BBC censorship regime. And against many other things, by the way, I think people know at this point how truly, and I mean, if we don't have DropSight doing this reporting during the course of this genocide, there's just so many stories that would never have brought to light. And I don't even think I have to say that.

I think people just know that that's obviously the case at this point. So heartening to see people backing you up with their dollars and showing. how much they support the work that you guys do. Yeah, I appreciate you all. Yep. I will be making a sizable $20 donation at the end of the show. Okay, so we have a big show. We have a lot to get to.

We're going to try to fly through a lot of topics. We've got election stuff. We have more shutdown stuff happening with the airlines closing flights. And we have Michael Blake. He's a former DNC vice chair, I believe. And he just announced. And he just announced, we met him at the, at the Zoran event, but he just announced a primary run

against Richie Torres, so we'll be speaking to him a little bit later in the show. But first, we want to go to Emily. Emily, it was a big election this a few days ago. What day is it? I guess it was this week still. It was revolutionary, you know, an underdog came from behind, challenged the entire system. I, of course, I'm talking about Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. Yeah. Emily, what do you make of it because you left the live stream early? Any big reactions from you before we get to some of the Cope? The margins were just, I mean, you guys, your guys' analysis, I think is what I shared. The margins were higher than what Republicans expected in Virginia and New Jersey. And just before we went to air, I was reading political playbook this morning. And Mikey Cheryl has a quote in it where she says, if I'm talking to you about abortion and you can't pay your rent, then.

we're not having a conversation. I'm paraphrasing her, but that's the gist of what she said to political playbook. And I feel is that even the sort of Spamberger, Mikey Cheryl types, have kind of unlocked the key to finally, after 10 years, actually challenging MAGA on some of those actual questions that people go to sleep with and wake up in the middle of the night with. And that's a, I think, a revelation. It shouldn't have been that hard, I guess. But I think that's where we're, I think that's how Zoron beat Andrew Cuomo.

And in the meantime, what we've seen is Republican reaction being, well, we have a little bit of a copulation. That's what we're calling it, Griffin, a copulation. This is Representative Lisa McLean on CNN explaining what happened on Tuesday to Jake Tapper. The politics of this for a second, because, you know, President Trump told, Republicans earlier this morning, according to a source talking to CNN, the Republicans are getting killed politically on the shutdown. And if you look at what happened last night, it is hard to say that there is anything in the election results. And I'm looking at not just like I get it, New Jersey is a Democratic state, but looking at Republican counties, looking at Republican sheriffs

that lost their jobs, it's hard to see anything last night that was an endorsement of what the Republican Party is doing right now. Yeah, well, let me give you the other side of that of that story is voter turnout from republicans was not high not not high at all but i think part of that reason is because republicans for the most part are happy with what's happening the borders closed crime is down in play inflation under biden used to be nine percent it's now down to three percent interest rates are down mortgages down let me i know let me just finish let me just give you the let me just give you the other side i shop at the same grocery store as everybody else does.

So is there more work that needs to be done? Absolutely there is. That's why in the working family's tax cut, we did just that. So, Emily, the take is that people are too happy that the key to an election to feed is happiness. Too happy to vote for Winston-Rle Sears, obviously. Like, because she's saying Republican turnout is low, but that's, I mean, this was part of what J.D. Vance wrote the next morning as well, that low propensity, the Republican base is now the low propensity base and more needs to be done. I actually think that's true. I mean, anytime you have midterm cycles or off

your cycles, then yes, you need to be focused on mobilizing your own voters, especially if they tend to be low propensity voters. But in a place like New Jersey, where Donald Trump was actually close to Kamala Harris, like the margin was closer than people realized, what we're looking at is the Republican Party losing swing voters. And that's... I mean, the margin for Mikey Schell, I think, ended up being about 13 points, about 15 for Spamberger, double-digit wins in states where you couldn't... Frickin J. Jones out before Comal Harris. Yeah, there you go. And it's where you could...

And the lady, the lady who leaked the text, the Republican lady who leaked the text, lost her seat. I can even notice that. I mean, that's the most dark, woke moment I've ever heard in my entire life, which is so true. but, you know, I mean, I sort of... What was the relationship between those two that they were sending these kind of texts? That's what I wonder that was, right? Where are the investigative reporters?

I never understood that. Speaking of the UK tabloids, where is the Richmond tabloid that's going to like on earth? Richmond. What's going on? What's going on with these two? I'll ask that guy, Ben Tribut, not Larry Sabato, if he can dig into that one.

I bet they all know, like, I bet they all have some rumors going around, but they... Well, it's probably why she was like reluctant to release, because, you know, normally, first of all, why are you texting Republican that stuff? Why are texting anyone that stuff, but especially Republican, you know? Why would you put that down in writing? That's like your dark thought you put it in the back of your head.

They both married. What's the situation here? I don't know. And the other thing that I saw is I don't, this person he was talking about that he was going to had the two bullets for, this is like a totally unremarkable state legislator. Like, I have no idea what this person did to whatever. I mean, when I first saw the story, I was like, oh, that's probably like the text, they're probably blowing it out of proportion. And then I read the text and I was like, holy hell.

Yeah. And I mean, it is like, on the one hand, Emily, I think you're right that Zoran really led the way with the affordability message and Democrats saw how powerful that is. Now they're not going to embrace all of the Zoran policies, but they were like, oh, this guy's onto something. He's on to something so much that he was able to go from zero percent in the polls to really like defeating by a landslide. this political Zion with all the dollars behind him, not to mention other, you know, Brad Lander and Scott Stringer and Ryan, you were pointing this down, other like significant progressive figures in the city. This stuff is potent. I do think that they leaned into that messaging. I also think that it really, Democrats were ready to vote for anyone with AD by their names. It did not

matter. Where your ideal, what your messaging was, where you were ideologically, whether you'd threaten to murder your political opponent and their children didn't matter. They were going to vote for you. And, you know, it was certainly, look, the turnout thing is trite and cliche to say. But there were also, I think it was the New York Times did an analysis, there were also some Trump voters who switched sides. Yeah, definitely. I believe won like 9% of the people who self-identified, you know, told pollsters that they were Trump voters. And that may sound like a small number. But when you're talking about, you know, midterm elect, when you're talking about the next election, that level of a switch from one party to the other.

is actually massive. And then obviously you saw huge swings in demographics that Republicans have been really proud of picking up gains in, Latinos in particular, young men in particular. Demographic groups, by the way, that they have based their gerrymandered maps on holding on to some portion of, really putting into jeopardy their plans to redraw things

in a way that are going to be more beneficial to them. And so, I mean, I'm generally curious from you, Emily, like, I know what J.D. Vans is saying publicly, like, oh, this is no big deal. These were blue states. I don't believe for a second that he thinks that. You can't lose by 20 points in two statewide races in Georgia and think that this was like one-off, nothing to see here or lose your super majority in Mississippi and be like, oh, this was just some blue state stuff. Nothing. You know, don't worry about it. So privately, what are people saying? Privately, what are people thinking about what happened here and like how. or if they're going to adjust in any sort of way? Well, I think, so Vivek Ramoswami had probably the most, I think, popular response, as odd as that may be to say. And it was echoed by Vance in his own post where eventually Ramoswami and Vance just

converged on the same message, which is that you have to focus on affordability and cost of living. Then Donald Trump came out and said the same thing. He's like, I have this new word, affordability later in the day. And so forget about affordability. Yeah, yeah. People, I mean, long lost word. It's like, what did he, he calls, there's like, what does he say?

Like, refrigerators at some time. Groceries. Groceries is the other one. Word he loves. Yeah. It's a beautiful word. People forget about that word. Yeah.

But so I think people are, and it's insane again, but I think it's especially been, I know Chris, Chris, also want to talk about the Heritage Foundation stuff, but I think it's especially been the contrast between the entire professional right in Washington, D.C., focusing relentlessly on leaks coming out of a think tank while you get creamed in a midterm election cycle where I'm pulling up the data here like independence swung big in a lot of these key races towards Democrats. And that was not the case in 2024. So when you see numbers like that and you look at what the right has been focused on the last couple of weeks, it puts it in pretty stark relief. And so, I mean, it's like, I feel like it's pretty obvious, but then these professional

people should not need reminders that normal human beings have to pay their bills. But it's one of those lessons. You would think the Republicans might have learned from 10 years of Donald Trump. Sorry, my phone just run off, but have not. I would submit that the problem isn't so much the debate over like McFuentes and Israel and whatever. It's the fact that there's a question of whether Nazis are allowed in the coalition and the way that extremist policies and ideologies are expressed from the top of the party and the way that that is incredibly repellent to a lot of normal people. I mean, Stephen Miller is on the other side of the quote-unquote Jewish question, but this is the guy who's leading all the immigration. They just did some like, we're only taking white refugees thing.

You've got the mass bags in the street. The, you know, now the Kavanaugh stops where you can just overtly racially profile. Every day there's new stories coming out about how Greg Vovino lied in court, how they're tear gassing two-year-olds, you know, how they're bragging about how their marksmanship after they shoot an American citizen five times in the back. And so what I said is, you know, I think people actually will put up with a lot of authoritarianism, but only if they're getting some shit out of it, not just for the sake of sadism. Like, we're not all psychoterrorists like Stephen Miller. Um, so, you know, if it was making the trains run on time and people's rents were coming down, whatever, then I think, yeah, people will be like, well, it's not great, but what are you going to do? The way that they do with, let's say, Bekelly, right, where they had a massive crime problem and his, I don't think that I would never support his policies, but they genuinely brought the crime down. People like, yeah, what are you going to do? Here you have an administration where their authoritarianism is making things more lawless, injecting more chaos, more criminality into their streets and their communities. And at the same time,

They're cozyed up to a bunch of oligarchs, giving away giant tax cuts to the rich, your rent is going up, your groceries are going up, your energy bills are going up, which, by the way, is related to giving the store away to the oligarchs who are putting these data centers into your town. And what are you doing? You're throwing yourself great Gatsby parties and building yourself an elaborate, gilded, multi-hundred million dollar ballroom, which seems to be the thing you actually care about versus anything else that's going on in the world. So, um, you know, I think voters are getting the message like, oh, you were lying when you claimed you cared about me in my life. You were lying when you said that you cared about the affordability crisis. That was just political language meant to sucker me into voting for you. And so if you're a Democrat, like all the, you know, the mass thugs in the street and all of that, hyper-energizes you. If you're independent, you're appalled at that. And you are very disappointed and unhappy with the state of the economy, which some 70 plus percent of voters say is poor. And if you're a Republican, you're like pretty depressed because, you know, there were some, look, you said you were

going to release the Epstein vows. You didn't do that. You said you were, you know, you said you're going to be looking out for me. I'm not feeling that great. And I'm not ready to vote for Abigail Spanberger, but maybe I'm just not going to have time on that day to get out and vote. So to me, it's not a mystery of what went wrong here. But, you know, I feel, and Saga kind of raised this point. I feel a little bit like when Democrats would start to say like, oh, we got to re-message, we got to talk more about this. We got to talk more about that. It's like, no, you don't need to talk more about affordability. You actually need to deliver for it. Like, you have a reality problem. And unless you're going to do a total 180 on, you know, pull the National Guard out of the cities, pull the mass thugs out of

the streets, really do some unorthodox things for Republicans that are going to change people's material conditions like immediately, you are in for a massive reckoning come 2026. And I think that cake in a lot of, look, a lot of things can happen. But in a lot of ways, that cake is pretty much baked. I'll toss it to Ryan and Griffin after that. I mean, I think the fact that they don't even talk about it. And they're like looking back and realizing that the president spent the last year roughly focused on foreign policy. Obviously, they had their one big, beautiful bill. But they're looking back and saying in the last three months, like, why was nobody talking about this. And I think with that Mikey Cheryl quote, you can interchange a lot of things from

abortion. You could put in talking about Israel, talking about, you know, whatever else Trump has talked about and many different, the White House, like getting rid of the East Room, right? Yeah. I mean, all the ads in Virginia, a big proportion of the Republican ads in Virginia were about transgender issues, you know, and yeah, people are like, yeah, maybe I don't agree with her, but you know what, I'm struggling down here and I'm not voting for another Republican right now. Yeah, and that's, I post about this after this is like, you, it's not like capital P, capital W peak woke anymore

when Yon came in and was able to talk about a lot of these things. The future politics doesn't look like 2021, and that should have been fairly obvious. What, if you want to talk about those things, if you want to, first of all, you have to be careful to actually talk about what matters to people and if you insist on talking about them, because those things do matter to some people, to many people, then you should tie it back into the conversation about like elites.

Bernie does this all the time about elite distractions. But you could go further. These are the same people sewing discord in your school district that are also bankrupting you and making your life miserable in a myriad different ways. But Republicans don't believe that. And centrist Democrats certainly don't believe that. But yeah, I think they do need to deliver. and you're actually the one constantly bringing it up, you know?

You'd be like, my opponent's obsessed with this thing that I just cannot stop talking about 24-7 and have spent millions and millions of dollars on and she's not saying anything about, you know, harder to make that. Yeah, Spamberger didn't talk about it. Right, right. And that's the difference between 2024 and 2025 is Spanberger's not talking about it.

Yeah, and real quick, because I know we've got to move because we've got Blake coming pretty soon. A couple of things that she said, she said grocery prices are down. That's not true. grocery prices are up. She said energy prices are down. I think gas prices are down about 10 cents a gallon since Trump took over, but electricity prices are absolutely through the roof. And she said mortgage rates are down, which is true. Mortgage rates when Trump came in were close to

seven. Now, I think today they're at around 6.2. It's still, but that's still way, way above what people want and need to be able to unlock the housing market. And the way that he has brought down rates so far is to destroy the economy. Like, to produce, you know, we're seeing like record amounts of layoffs. Somebody said more, more firings this last month than since 2020 to 2003. We don't have the data on it because the government's shut down. But when the new data comes in, it's probably going to be shocking. And that that deterioration of the economy has finally sparked the Fed to reduce interest rates,

which flows into mortgage rates. So it's like, okay, good job getting, you know, mortgage rates. it's down by like, you know, 60 basis points, but at the cost of like a deteriorating economy. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally,

a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane de Bolo, a comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health, but also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes.

In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world. Like, your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but like you don't even know. You don't know. You don't know.

It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in. Listen to Health Stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And she said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the central Texas plains, teens are dying. Suicides that don't make sense. Strange accidents and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad.

drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to paper ghosts, the Texas teen murders, on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Smith. This is Jacob Goldstein. And we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst.

people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever. There's a lot of mavericks in that story. We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not. not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses,

along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked, like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to business history on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Speaking of the economy, go for it. I was going to say, I'd like to play the Steve Bannon sought if we've got that. We'll do that and then we'll get to airlines. Yeah. And then because, yeah, while you're pulling that up, I can just update people a little bit on the airlines piece, though, because as the shutdown, you know, continues on. And Democrats, I think, feel pretty vindicated in their position. And given the electoral rump that they were able to pull off this week, meanwhile, you have 42 million people who don't have, are not receiving food stamp benefits on which they rely. You have a federal judge who first. ordered the Trump administration, hey, you do have emergency funds. You have to tap. Trump administration, as they frequently do, we're like, oh, yeah, we'll try and we're getting around to

and blah, blah, blah. Court came and said, no, you have till this Friday to pay on 100% of the benefits that are owed. Now the Trump administration is appealing that. So people continue to go without this food benefits. And, you know, you're starting to see the stories of I had to go dumpster diving in the Walmart parking lot to be able to feed myself and my family. You know, I I have to pick. Do I put the dollar 50 I have in my back bank account towards half a gallon of gas to, you know, to go to the food bank or to go to the store or, you know, if I have to go to work, like I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do. So I'm already, because it's not like the food stamp benefits are super luxurious to start with. By the end of the month, they're gone and you're waiting for that next tranche to hit. And so, you know, people really feeling the pain there. And now we already have. a lot of chaos in the air because there's been every day you see ground stop here, ground stop there, ground stop wherever because air traffic controllers are not getting paid. I saw somebody share online like the zero dollar pay stub that they receive for working as an air traffic controller.

And now the government is going to enforce a 10% cut on all airline flights to deal with the fact that, you know, you still are shut down and people aren't getting paid. And so people are not showing up to work and they're taking their leave, et cetera, not to mention, like, these are the kind of jobs where you really want people to be, like, locked in and not having to worry about. Am I going to be able to, like, pay my health insurance premium and make my rent this month? So, you know, as we had into Thanksgiving here, people with no food stamp benefits. And looking at the air travel situation, which is already a nightmare and wondering if their holiday plans are even remotely possible.

at this point. I feel like, you know, we're already at the place where these things are becoming incredibly painful. Let's hear a little bit from the airlines. Let's put this all into context. The U.S. handles about 45,000 flights a day. A 10% reduction of that is worse than the worst cancellation day of the past year every day until the shutdown ends. So this is not a small tweak. Aviations, a multi-billion dollar industry. And when you slow the system, you slow, commerce, air travel, supply chains, deliveries nationwide. The clock is really ticking now.

Never in modern U.S. aviation history has the federal government done an across-the-board cut of flight capacity like this. And now it seems that passengers are going to be the one paying for it. Yeah, I'm going to a conference in Lisbon on Sunday night. And so I don't think they're canceling the transatlantic flights for like economic and geopolitical reasons. But who knows? We'll see. Maybe. Yeah, we'll get there for security early. You're supposed to fill in for me on Wednesday, but maybe I'll, maybe I'll actually be there. Maybe you'll be around. And it's just the idea that everyone is going to see this and blame Democrats when Republicans are in power.

It just, I mean, like, I understand Democrats are the ones withholding their votes. I get that. But I think what Trump has realized, just since the elections, if these leaks are to be believed, is that they're the ones that are in power. and people are pointing the fingers at them. So when Sean Duffy is the one who's the head of transportation and has to go out and talk about this, they're like, oh, this is the Trump guy, right? Like, that's just the association people make it in their minds. This is the Trump administration who's telling us about these shutdowns

and it all goes back to them. Yeah. Well, Trump has been saying, you know, energy costs are down, which we have a clip of right here. Huge of true. This is his pivot to affordability. Let's take a listen. Talk about the cost of Thanksgiving and the cost of living through Thanksgiving and enjoying Thanksgiving for Joe Biden, 25% more than it is for me.

At a later time, our energy costs are way down, our groceries are way down, everything is way down, and the press doesn't report it. The press reports whatever the con people say, you know, I called the Democrats con men and women. All right. So, Crystal, you have been debunked. Actually, everything is cheap and everything's down. Well, I did see there was a community note, which are getting, I think, rare at this point. But on this clip of the president, apparently the Walmart basket of goods he's talking about contains like eight fewer items than it did last year. And they swapped in like the Walmart brand for the brand names or whatever. So we're not comparing apples to apples here. Not that any of you needed me to tell you that because you all exist and presumably eat food. and purchase it at some store somewhere. And so have some awareness of what the prices are doing right now, which is really the problem. Like, you know, I think we're not getting economic data from the government because of the shutdown. Even before that, there was a question of whether we're getting data at all or accurate data.

I think there was a sense from the Trump administration that if they just fudge the numbers, that they'd be able to lie to people about what was going on with the economy. That is not going to work because people have their own direct, tangible experience of what's in my bank account. Can I afford the things that I could afford previously? Am I making it to the end of the month? Do I have sufficient money for rent? Can I ever dream of owning a home or paying my health insurance premium? You know, so I don't need like a government statistician to tell me how things are going for me economically in my own life.

Go ahead, Ryan. No, I was just saying exactly right. Trump's consolidation of the media is like, obviously that's helpful to him. But controlling CBS news is only going to get you so far. because exactly like people live in the world they go to the grocery store they see what a bag cost they know what it used to cost they see their checking account they see they they know what they used to have at the end of the month and now what they now have at the end of the month and you know nothing barry wise tells them is going to change that so you can only you can only go so far with

the you know the control of the media yeah that's that's totally true so i don't know i mean Ryan do you think i saw before the election there was some sense of democrats being like like, oh, maybe we'll take a deal. Then I saw there was, you know, Bernie Sanders was trying to rev up all the troops. Like, you know, you got to stand strong at this point. I saw an Axios article that was like Democratic members of the House and activists are telling leadership there will be held to pay from the base if you guys cave at this point. So where do you think, you know, things stand in terms of how Democrats are thinking about this? I think I think Republicans are also, and curious for Emily's take on this, very much.

motivated in the Senate to get a deal because Trump is putting enormous pressure on them to get rid of the filibuster. They don't want to get rid of the filibuster. They probably don't even have the votes to get rid of the filibuster. And so in order to get rid of that pressure, they need to get out of this shutdown. So, you know, they're talking about Democrats want to vote. They're like, just give us a vote. We're like, we're not demanding the subsidies. Like, just give us a vote on the subsidies. And we expect that if you put it on the floor, it will pass. And then we open the government back up. So that, I feel like Democrats are dug in on that, on that point. Which means, I mean, so Republicans are never going to do that because it forces them to look

like they're voting against the subsidies. It was actually, I don't know if it was Hakeem Jeffrey's idea. It seems like a Schumer idea to me. But that's quite a, quite a clever trap. But what that will do is force Republicans to come to the table and give a little bit of something to get out of that public relations nightmare. Now, the substance of it is obviously a nightmare for everybody who's about to see a massive spike and is already seeing the massive spike. But that's how Dems are negotiating by putting Republicans in a little bit of a PR pickle by making them vote on it. So that means Republicans are going to have to, in all likelihood, give something. And that's what Trump has been absolutely resistant to doing. And if the midterm or the off-year elections kind of broke his resolve on that question, seeing what happened just basically across the board with some running up the margins, maybe that's the sign that you, John Thune and Mike Johnson need to actually go to the table and have serious conversations about what policies there's give and take on. Yeah. Well, and part of the reason why Republicans are very adamant about not. getting rid of the filibuster is I think it's starting to set in for them that they are not going to always be in power, that some of the wilder things that are being done by the Trump administration, they're starting to imagine. What if President AOC had those powers? What could she,

not that she would, because I don't know, Democrats don't seem to use power in the same way Republicans did, but it's also a different day. You just had, you know, normally liberal voters vote for a guy who threatened a murder his opponent, political opponent. So it's a It's a different vibe out there than it used to be. We're no longer doing the like you go low, we go high thing. That's that's out the window. So, you know, with the like the Supreme Court and the tariffs, right, they were floating, okay, well, could a future president declare a climate change emergency? I saw some reporting about Republicans privately being like, you know, if Biden had sent, let's say, Illinois National Guard troops into my state of Arkansas or Oklahoma or whatever, we would have lost our damn minds. Not so sure about, this precedent. And, you know, it's the same thing with the filibuster where they're like, okay, if we get rid of that, they could add senators from D.C. They could add senators from Puerto Rico. They could, you know, they could add ceases Supreme Court or at least term limit or age limit. The Supreme Court, these things would be much more on the table and would change

some of the balance that right now is, you know, in favor because of Republicans' rural dominance is kind of electorally favorable towards Republicans. So, um, In that vein, there was a clip from, the clip from Steve Bannon that I've been itching to get to where he told my audience like, hey, listen, if they win the midterms, some of us, including me, are going to jail. Let's go ahead and take a listen to the way that he frames this. And I will tell you right now, as God is my witness, if we lose the midterms and we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison, myself included. they're not going to stop they're getting more and more and more radical and we have to counter that and what do we have to counter it with we have to counter it with more action more intense action more urgency we're burning daylight if you look across every aspect of this we have to codify

what president trump is done by executive order right we have we have to codify it some tepid If he's worried, Republicans who don't. We've got our blood covered. We're not, we're not letting the, we're not letting the AOC regime put Steve Bannon in jail. Look, we have, we got you, man. Don't worry. I am not aware of any recent Steve Bannon crimes.

I mean, he did already go to prison for some things. You know, we had the whole build the wall, fraud, whatever. I'm not aware of any new Steve Bannon crimes. I do have some other people in mind who are committing crimes. I don't think Stephen Miller should feel comfortable with his, you know, ongoing freedom in a few. I think some of these things will be litmus tests in a Democratic primary. I don't think he's wrong about that. But they're, you know, their sense accurate or not, right? Because again, I don't see Democrats using power in the same way that Republicans do.

Their sense, whether that is accurate or not, that this is existential. I'm sure Emily is going to color the, you know, their approach to politics and the way that they, you know, conduct themselves from here on out. Well, yeah, I mean, I think it already is. I agree. Yeah, I think Bannon went to prison for defying a subpoena, congressional subpoena. It was almost unprecedented. It may have literally been unprecedented. Maybe it happened one other time, Ryan, you would know this.

But it was, I mean, after that, it changed the way a lot of people saw these things. Actually, I doubt that Stephen Miller is fully comfortable. I'm sure he understands that there could be, you know, significant legal challenges or whatever mounted by Democrats when they're back. in power. And a lot of this, I mean, Biden declared an emergency to do student loan relief. And honestly, nobody really cared. Like, that wasn't a major issue that the public backlash was crazy over. And partially the reason that a fairly career moderate establishment guy like Joe Biden did that is because Donald Trump violated lots of norms. And again, nobody cares seems to care. Maybe the one norm that there's been significant backlash to is lawfare against Trump.

I think the public had a reaction to that that was overwhelmingly negative. But otherwise, something Ryan said, I don't know, six months ago, just like stays with me and haunts me. It's like you don't want to be the type of country where anybody who runs for office does so with the expectation that they could go to prison. Because the incentive structure is just a disaster in that case. And it just creates a total rot that we've always been priding ourselves. So we've always prided ourselves in sort of having a system that's better than that. And the system depends on the people. And that's where things are looking.

I have a question to Ryan on that. That doesn't make sense to me? Because doesn't that just give people that like you, once you get into office, you can commit any crime? Isn't like so many of our problems built around the fact that none of these people go away? like the there's no elite accountability you can be true the architects of like the iraq war like everything like all these people are around so like what do we do about that both things are true if you accept like that you know there are some norms that are that we abide and like let's say we don't torture people

and that when Obama comes in he launches an investigation into torture and did people break the law when it comes to torture uh and if the public broadly across the board accepts that that behavior was outside of the norms of what we allow, then that does not create a precedent that everybody then assumes if they lose office that they're going to go to prison. Because there are a lot of countries where that is just an accepted kind of part of cost of doing business. I'm going to get into politics. And I know at some point I'm going to get thrown out of office and I'm going to go to prison. And then I'll probably get out of prison. Like basically every prime minister in Pakistan has gone to prison at some point. And then

oftentimes comes back and becomes a prime minister again. It happens. current one in fact um but if you start prosecuting people for things that are within the norms that's when just because they're your opponent that's when it creates this unwillingness then to to cede power and you don't get prosecutions for like well i don't know war crimes like crimes against humanity you get ham sandwich prosecutions where it's like cooked up stuff like this mortgage broad nonsense where like it's clearly lich james has like a second home where her niece lives in it. And the Trump administration jins up this fake prosecution to say, oh, it's like, this is actually a rental property. And she claimed it as primary. It's like rental,

who's the renter? There's no renter. It's her niece. I get, I get it for the fake crimes. But like, so are we saying that Stephen Miller shouldn't like go to jail for his crimes? So that's that's why I'm saying that you have to have full public buy in to go after people for crimes they committed while in office like nix like nixon like let's say he wasn't pardoned the public was bought in on prosecutions because what he did was assumed to be outside the bounds of what was acceptable the public was outraged about the pardon yeah and people were okay that nobody's above the law and so if you if if you get the public's buy-in in both both parties then you can do it and you don't create a cycle of everybody just throwing each other in prison.

So that's that's the distinction there. Doesn't mean you can't have accountability. It just means if you throw everyone in prison for being on the other side, then you really undermine the ability of the elections to actually see a real peaceful transfer of power. So you can break a law, but you need a popular mandate. So people can break the law, but you need like a popular mandate to break the law. Yeah, like let's say, yeah, let's say Biden went through, like, Supreme Court's like, no, you can't do the debt cancellation, which they told him. And he's like, no, you're wrong.

I can do that. Like, I disagree. And he just does it. Yeah. And the public is like, good. Yeah, F the Supreme Court on this. Like, who's the Supreme Court to come in? They're wrong.

And then the public's with you, then you don't lock Biden up for that. But this is why Bannon is scared because Bannon went to prison for a, fairly norm-breaking prosecution over subpoena defiance. And nobody cared, right? Like, the Wright cared, of course. Like, hardcore and MAGA absolutely cared. But the media didn't come to his defense. The, I mean, but it is also, Emily, I mean, let's not downplay what he did either. They wanted him to testify. And he was just like, fuck you. And like, that also doesn't allow your system to function. Like, if people, if Congress, you know, has a subpoena power and power to investigate and they're going through, you know, the proper procedure and you're

subpoenaed and you're just like, no, I'm not going to do it. And if you're doing that on principle, that's normal. Like, you can't, we can't operate this way, right? And I think there's, Ryan, you raise this possibility. Like, that may be what we're facing. If, if when Democrats take control of the House, for example, you could see, you know, a lot more of that where they in theory have some power. But if it's, if people just refuse to, you know, refuse to, you know, refuse to submit to the subpoenas, the administration refuses to comply, then you're at the mercy of, you know, whatever judicial process to say, like, no, actually, they do have this power and you

have to comply. So I just think when it happens in one direction, oh, sorry, right. I just say when it happens in one direction, that's where Bannon's like, people don't care. People like, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. But what's another, I mean, what's another equivalent? A Comey, right? Like, we were arguing about Comey the other week. Comey is an example.

I mean, it's different, slightly different crime, but I mean, it's kind of similar setting. Comey didn't commit, I mean, I think the, I think the Comey prosecution is total and complete bullshit, and that's not to say I'm a Comey fan. But like, give me an equivalent situation. There may be one. I'm not saying that there's not. I'm just not aware of an equivalent situation where you had a Democrat who was subpoenaed to, you know, testify before Congress. And they're just like not doing, no, I'm not going to do it. So it has happened before. It's definitely happened before where other people have done it. But going to prison, let's see. I'm looking at, I'm grocking it.

right now not really i think a lot of it came from like uh cold war wargate days yeah it's it looks like the last one before bannon was like in the mid 80s um and it happens to journalists like journalists like journalists get subpoenaed for their sources and journalists refused to give the sources judy miller yes she went to prison again this is not like that's you know that's not the same either because that's like a principle but it shows didn't want to say anything that was inconvenient for trump you know yeah Yeah. But the point is it's not unprecedented to go to prison for refusing a subpoena.

Yeah. So, yeah. So your point is even journalists who have like a good reason to refuse it, have still been imprisoned for it. Right. And that was a really awkward time for people because Judy was, you know, one of the most discredited reporters out there. But you still had to stand by the principle that protecting your sources, even if they're awful. like yeah even if you're like

to small art of prison yes yeah other examples like Eric Holder Lois Lerner those are good examples but also

Carl Rove um that's one of the things Ollie North was pardoned for and Elliot Abrams was pardoned for actually I'm going deep now

that's going to but anyway um yeah it's it's a bad situation um so it's bleak it's bleak

it's bleak it's bleak it's bleak On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I have scurvy at 3 a.m? On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way.

It's not only about what we can do to improve our health. But also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world that, like, your mangoes are fine because

mangoes are incredible, but like, you don't even know. You don't know. You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in. Listen to Health Stuff on the IHeart Radio. Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And she said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night.

Along the Central Texas Plains, teens are dying, suicides that don't make sense, strange accidents, and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to Paper Ghosts, the Texas Teen Murders, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Smith. This is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money.

And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, How Southwest Airlines Use Cheap Seats and Free Whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The Most Texas Story ever.

There's a lot of Mavericks in that story. We're going to have Mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business genius. along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked.

Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. All right. Joining us now is Michael Blake, former mayoral candidate, former vice chair of the DNC, former assemblyman from the Bronx, who has launched this week a primary challenge to representative Richie Torres. Michael, thanks for joining us. Great to be with you. How are we doing today? We're all doing good.

You're joining us from Puerto Rico, I understand, which it seems like everyone in the New York echelon is there. Mamdani, I've seen a bunch of other people are in Puerto Rico. What is, what's going on there? Like, why did everybody decamp? Kathy Hochel. Kathy Hochel. I mean, the elected officials that care about New Yorker here,

which is why Richie Torres is not. And so we are here at the Somos Conference. It is one of three major political events that happened for New York throughout the course of the year. And when you think about the Bronx and you think about New York, Puerto Rico is obviously intertwined. And so just yesterday I was able to go spend some time with Power for Puerto Rico, local nonprofit, doing incredible things. Today I'm leading a session around democracy and the community. And if you care about New York, you care about Puerto Rico. And if you care about the Bronx, you care about Puerto Rico, which is exactly why I'm running for Congress because you need to have

someone who's actually going to fight for the people in the Bronx and Ritchie Torres once again is absent. Griffin, can you yeah, can you queue up his Michael's launch video so we can all get a taste of that? Everybody watch closely because there's a bit of a cameo from some folks that you might know here.

And as I was living in these slum conditions, the city was spending more than $100 million on a golf course. Richie Torres invested in weapon makers. Was just exposed for secretly investing in genocide. these things I'm seeing about Richie Torres. Since 2021, Richie Torres has represented New York's 15 congressional district, the poorest congressional

district in America. In 2025, Richie has nearly $15 million on hand, largely from APEC, while many of his constituents barely have $15 to get by. So he spent the last 15 days hearing from the people about why they are ready for a change. I saw Richie Torres on. I know he suffered, but what happens to you is you get on. It is so hard to keep your moral integrity once you start taking the money. Be profited from me.

He talks about that place far more often than he talks about the Bronx. You were criticized for Blackstone donation, the architects of the housing crisis. What a asshole? But you cannot be a representative in a school in New York and you talk like that. Richie Torres sucks. Not as always in Congress. Richie Torres cares more about Beebe than he cares about the Bronx. about A-Pact than it does about your academics.

So if you want to stay with someone who only wants to care about himself, or do you want to have someone in me and Michael Blake who actually wants to care for the people? I'm reimagining what the city can look like. I'm named after Jamaican prime ministers, Michael Manley, Alexander Bustibonte. We're up Crested and Burnside. Remember the days back in the day when you go to Woolworths and go shop, stay key, go kick it. Whose track record has spoken for itself for years. When we think about why elect me, think about cost of living,

and affordability. We can get people a better chance. Think about a new vision when it comes to education. I rolled out an extensive education plan. And lastly, show the vision of how we can bring real change to the district. So, Michael, I think the ad speaks for itself, the launch video speaks for itself in terms of the case against Richie Torres. I also will say, I don't know that our audience needs the case made against Richie Torres. I think they're all on board with, with, you know, wanting to see a change there.

But just give our audience a little bit of a sense of who you are. How'd you end up in this place, you know, your sort of political journey to this moment? This is home for me, Crystal. You know, I'm born and raised in the district. I grew up Creston and Burnside. I always tell people, you know, I'm a PS79, 118, deal with Clinton High School kid. My elementary school is the one that Jonathan Colesel wrote about in Savage inequalities. My high school is the one that has the largest alumni association in the world.

So James Baldwin County County, Colin Charlie Rangel. And we have, for decades, been the poorest congressional district. We're a place that's constantly disrespected. My family's from Jamaica. I'm actually going to be going down next week to go check on families in Jamaica and figure out how we mobilize in the community. My full name is, I'm named after Jamaican prime minister. So I always tease my mom that her and daddy are the reasons I am this, you know, that I am the epitome of a Jamaica stereotype of tree jobs. So I'm a preacher.

I'm a public servant and been a journalist. us. I'm doing this because we deserve better in the Bronx. I'm doing this because right now we have someone who is not focused on what's actually happening on the ground. We're actually not helping people buy wages. We have longer pantry lines. Chris Ryan, everybody, earlier this week, I was at a seven-day Venice church where there were more than 400 people standing in line at a weekly food pantry. So you have a scenario where we're not being helped, we're not being represented, and someone in Richie Torres who just doesn't give a damn about us. And when we think about the moment that's at stake right here, as we just saw with Zoran's win, well, I proudly

cross-endorse. We cross-induced each other in the mayoral primary. I said very clearly, if it's not me, it should be him because we were talking about the most important issue that people cared about, which is cost of living. And people are ready for a new generation of leadership and they're tired of these folks who don't give a damn about them and richie torres is that that's why i'm running by the way that yeah yeah uh for people watching the the book savage inequality is as a searing portrait of education the education crisis of the inequality uh in america uh that's amazing that you went to that school um people everybody should check that check that book out um i was there at the time he wrote about it brian james did you know him because

Didn't he teach at the school for a while? I knew I actually got to meet Jonathan afterwards. James Carter was my principal. And I said often principal Carter was, I think, the only black man I could remember in an education role until I got to college. Wow. Wow. So we want to talk about the Bronx soon. As your launch ad makes clear, like you're hitting him from.

both directions, saying that he's too focused on his support for Israel and not focused enough on the Bronx. What has been your own journey, you know, when it comes to support for Israel? My understanding, you correct me if I'm wrong, you took an APAC funded, you know, trip, which is the thing that, you know, most politicians are offered an APAC trip to Israel to get the propaganda version. When was that? What was that trip like? And what is your, you know, what is your journey been like on on the question of u.s relationship with israel absolutely like all things life is that journey and it has been that journey to see the truth so for context i was an obama staffer who came back to new york i got elected to office in 2014 in 2014 i took that trip i've been to

Israel twice. I went to Israel, APEC once, and I went with JCRC as well, Jewish Community Rural Council. And what you see very quickly is breathtaking in many ways of, yes, you can acknowledge and recognize the power and beauty that happens in all parts of our world. But I remember being a part of a meeting where an individual said apartheid is happening, and then the meeting was stopped. I recognize and saw the power of when you have someone who was from Ethiopia who talked about the recognition of Israel and that dynamic, I get that and I saw that.

I appreciated that. But Ryan, Crystal, everybody, the journey continued thereafter because you start to then realize slowly that you are being given a sigh that's not giving the full picture. 2017, I spoke at an APAC conference, and particularly it was around black and Jewish leaders coming together for that moment. And I said within one of those events, APAC had changed my life forever in that moment because, quite frankly, it allowed me to go to Israel, which I had never been before to see it, which I'm also an ordained reverend, which obviously adds to this dynamic. You know, I was able to baptize people in the river Jordan. I was able to pray at the Western Wall.

I was able to lead the sermon on the Mount. But as soon as we came off stage, Bibi Netanyahu was speaking virtually. And when the reference of President Obama was made, the room started to boot. And that's when you start to realize that you are being pushed a message from APEC that is not fully true and direct and sincere

about what is happening. Now, people will say to me, well, why did you continue to go to some of the meetings? Because, you know, at the end of the day, with any journey, you want to learn what's happening, but then you get to a point where you say enough is enough. And what has happened? What has happened is that you have an organization in APAC where just early this year was reported that 46% of their donors in Democratic primaries had also given to Republican races for the purpose of having a Republican-like Democrat in these races.

what has happened is that you have a genocide that is occurring and as a human being to ignore that and it's not just Michael Blake saying that that's the United Nations and so many others that are stating that you cannot ignore that. Let us also be very clear that to tell a black man who has endured racism and poverty and challenges who also preaches

that me being critical of a government does not make me anti-Israel. In the same way I've said folks, if you could criticize Donald Trump, that does not make you anti-American. And we have allowed right now this game where people are trying to push me into a box and push others into the box from what's actually true. So where we're at right here today is that that journey is a continual one. And unless you were with me where I prayed and cried with people because it was Jews,

Christian, and Muslims able to pray together, who at the same time have now elected a 34-year-old Muslim South Asian man as mayor, who at the same time can acknowledge the magnitude of it. And then lastly, on a final personal note, in terms of that journey, World Central Kitchen and Jose Andres, many people have seen as a dear friend, Jose has been a blessing to me. He brought World Central Kitchen to the Bronx during COVID, which I will all say that in 2020, when we were focusing on feeding families, Richie Torres focused on raising money. One of the people in We're in Such and Kitchen, Zuri, was one of the individuals that was killed by the attack that came from the Israeli government where they said, well, it wasn't our intention and that was not the case. And so when I ask people as to look at the breadth of it all, the journey has been very real for me.

It's one where you understand that information is being given to you that's not fully comprehensive. but we're at today is you can say at the same time that, yes, what Hamas did is inhumane and at the same time that Palestinians losing their lives because of a genocide is inhumane. You can say at the same time that we must end anti-Semitism while at the same time we've got to end Islamophobia and others who are unwilling to say that should not be in office.

One question I have from the ad, based on everything you just outlined. It seems to me a calculated strategy. When you mention Richie Torres and APAC, you tie that right back to what you discussed as your sort of central motive for running for office, which is affordability and cost of living. And I was just curious if that was intentional,

if that is part of how you see making this argument because it's easy, especially when you're in the online discourse to get down the rabbit hole of elite obsessions and having some of these fascinating conversations about history and all of that. But for a lot of average people, they're just trying to put food on the table. So was that a concerted strategy to tie these all together? And how do you see the connection between Torres being the kind of guy who takes money from APEC and is also maybe behind on economic

populism? That he's not focusing on the number one issue, which is cost of living. He's not focusing on how people need help. You know, look, I'm that kid that. I'm that kid that understands when we had to sell dinners on Saturday afternoon to pay rent, you know, that first year in the assembly when I slept on the couch because I couldn't afford the dynamic going back in Albany. Like the reality is people are struggling, even if they have multiple jobs. They are struggling. They're wondering how they're going to pay their bills. And I wanted to be very clear that his focus on APAC and supporting APAC as it is and continues to be is not having a focus on what the people need right now, which is better housing.

For example, Richie said himself that NYCEN, New York City Housing Authority, public housing is federal oversight. There was an explosion that happened at the Mitchell houses just recently. Richie also was the chair of housing in the city council. So when we think about the dynamic, it's been a continual failure of not fixing the problem when it comes to housing. When I talked, as I said in the ad, what would I do? and credit scores being used for housing applications

and have a local median income because airy meeting income is not working for us on the ground. So to your question, I'm able to say, let me focus on helping people when Richie has not been focused on helping the people. When we talk about what's going on as it relates to Puerto Rico, the need for self-determination,

he has not been focused on this. When we talk about what's going on in the Caribbean and Jamaica, immediately I said, how do we help our Jamaican, our Dominican, our Haitian communities all at the same time? When we talk about what's going on on education, where schools are wondering right now, how is it that we're going to be able to help these kids go to school and graduate from school? I wanted to be very clear that all of those things have gotten worse under Richie Torres. And Richie Torres has made a decision that his focus is not the people of the Bronx.

it has been to APEC. Michael, tell people a little bit about what would your specific policy priorities be, you know, are you a Medicare for all guy? Are you, you know, what are some of the things that you're really wanting to prioritize if you were elected to Congress? First, everything's going to be around cost of living and the economic issue. So, you know, I've talked about credit scores for housing have to end. It is a institutionally racist discriminatory policy that you're telling someone who pays, their rent on time, that pays their bills on time, that the reason why they are unable to get access to a new home is because of a credit score, because someone might have missed a bill by a

day, but they paid their rent. It makes no sense whatsoever. It's purely to block people out the game. When we think about local median income, area median income does not work. When you have Westchester County and other counties being a part of what's calculated for AMI in New York, it's making it more expensive for us to have a home in New York. These are federal policies that have local dynamics that I talked about in the previous race because they're all intertwined because it impacts us here in the city. When it comes to health care, we do need the Medicare for all. We do need to be very focused on how we're helping more people to have coverage

because what are we watching right now? We're watching every single day people genuinely wondering, will I be covered for my health care? I'm wondering, do I have money for prescription drugs? I'm wondering what happens for these bills. And so we have to be serious about this. As you all know, when I work President Obama and the Affordable Care Act, there are things we could have gone further and we should have gone further.

And this is the moment to do so right now. And I also thank Crystal to the question of, you know, where do we stand in this moment? Because you're going to have individuals that are going to try to paint me and paint anyone that is critical, understandably, of being anti of communities. What people are looking for is how do you communicate a vision where everybody can win and thrive? And I can't represent an area like the South Bronx in the 15th district without understanding that everybody has to have a voice.

Multiple times throughout the mayoral election, including the Thursday before the election, Richie Torres refused to endorse Zaharmam Dhani, specifically because he said of one community within the district, He stood by a man who had sexually assaulted women, stood by a man where thousands of people died during COVID, stood by a man who had done all those things. And so while there's also policy priorities that I've just laid out, Crystal, there's also just the humanity that you've got to have someone who's actually going to care for you and care for everybody and actually create a space that we can have some real conversation and not have someone Richard Torres who literally said when someone came up to him that he disagreed with to go fuck yourself. that's not what you need as a representative. I know that's surprised people that are reverber would cuss, but I am Jamaica from the Bronx, so you just got to be ready for that kind of thing.

Michael, can you talk a little bit about, my understanding is Richie's approval rating in the district's pretty favorable. And, you know, can you talk about the difference between perhaps how he's perceived in the Bronx versus his image nationally? Certainly. Well, I also would say favorability and job. performance are not all intertwined in terms of how someone can get elected or reelected, right? You had many people that had high favorability ratings who lost races itself, whether that be

Eric Cantor, whether that be Congressman Crowley and AOC. I mean, we have seen that. And when you have that communication to let people know about what has not been happening, they shift pretty quickly. Within the district, right? When you see the energy that has happened for us on the video where more than two million views have happened on it thus far, that's not. not just nationally, of course, that's all across the board. It's people feeling that he is not being a voice for them, that he's not helping him not representing them in a serious and continual way. Somebody can show up to your church.

They could show up to your community center. They could show up to your local school. But it doesn't mean they're actually fixing the problem. And what we will communicate is that you might like Richie Torres, because he might smile in your face and try to be kind to you. But he's actually not helping you and your life has not changed for the better.

And when you make that clear comparison, people understand that. Now, nationally, because people have been clearly watching and what has been going on consistently, I think we can see how people feel about Richie. They feel that this is a man who, by his own data,

thing the last was like 2,300 percent talked more about what was happening in another country than in his own community. People pay attention to that. And again, I want to keep being real clear to everybody listening because what you're going to have happening watching because what you're going to have happen is like, well, are we trying to pull people apart? No, I'm just trying to keep it real. Try to be real with you that at the end of the day, just because someone shows up when

it's convenient, doesn't mean that they're helping you. And, Krista, I'm going to make it real practical. Poorest congressional district in the country. People wondering if they're going to have food. People wondering how they're going to get groceries. People wonder how they're going to pay their bills. The man got $15 million. Why is he not using that money to help you?

Why is he not putting it towards community efforts immediately and consistently at a higher and continual degree? Now, he'll say, yes, I helped you. I got some federal funding here and there. but how you use this moment of leverage is real. And so people see him for who he is, which is why we have the energy that's happening right now. It's why we're going to start rolling out endorsements next week.

It's why we're going to be showing momentum consistently. It's the reason why we have had people of all different spectrums from across the district already saying we're ready. There was, Ryan, go for it. I got a question. Just real quick. Yeah, there was some real hope when he was elected in 2020 that as somebody who he grew up in public housing in the district, obviously like a very, very bright, like, hyper intelligent guy, especially compared to, you know, the rest of Congress, which I, as somebody who's covered it for 20 years, I can tell you, it struggles down there. Man, that he would be.

That was a hate maker. You just gave Ryan to the rest of them. But I appreciate that, right? that he would that he'd be a a voice for the poor like that somebody who came up in the poorest district and is now representing it and was able to articulate a vision of

fighting back against against that that finally there'd be because so many of the poorest districts are represented by people who take corporate PAC money represented by people Republicans in the Freedom Caucus and they just they don't stand up for their district They stand up for the people that fund their campaigns. And that hope from Torres was dashed that, you know, because he, as you said, all he's talked about, you know, as far as the public understands is Israel.

And whether you agree with them or disagree with them on it, like, that's, what does that have to do with the Bronx? So if you were able to get in, like, how would you be that voice for the Bronx? Like, what are the issues that you would try to force into the national conversation that aren't there? Because these poorest districts in the country just generally, there's some exceptions, don't have representatives who speak on their behalf. Well, to that question, Ryan, let's start from even the visual behind you about the squad, right? Like, Richie is not only just demeaned what's been happening elsewhere. He's demeaned his own Democratic members who are not aligned with him, right? Consistently repeatedly, you know, the disrespect he's had towards.

AOC to Ilhan to Rashida and others. And as relates to even locally with the DSA, which he called a Mickey Mouse Club and a Mickey Mouse party, this is the rhetoric of Richie Torres that he regularly does. Going back to the 2020 race, and I do think this

is important because it's good context. I pretty much for about four to five weeks spent my time feeding people, getting out PPE, getting out mask, and helping people in the community. Richie was running a divisive campaign effectively saying that we should not let one other person in the race

because of their stances. And in particular, that was around, say that the homophobic is what his language was around Ruben Diaz, senior, right? That was Richie's argument on why he should get to Congress, fundamentally, right? And what has happened throughout? You have someone who stated that Governor Hokel is feckless and can deny her own abilities. But then he turned when he saw that Zoran had won the primary. This is a man who would cross-endors, Tish,

and then Zephyr Teach out, quite frankly, for his own political protection, right? This is a man that turned on city council when it comes to the right to NOAC around criminal justice. There's a man who was attacked women when it comes to those that have been a part of the Women's March. I'm saying that to say, for context, that Ritchie has been this

before he even got to Congress. And now people are seeing the consistency that he will throw you under the bus in a second for his own game. And so for now, let's elevate what I have done in New York with the My Brothers Keeper program where we're still the only state in the country

to have a funded program where black boys and brown boys, young men of color, can go to school and graduate from school. And it has now been expanded to our My Sisters Keeper program so that more of our students of color can go to school and graduate at a higher rate. Let's expand out a true

effort around local median income because clearly the poorest congressional districts, not just us, will be substantially able to benefit if the housing that you are getting is more affordable, right? Taking those kinds of steps will impact us in a very real way. And when we talk about hope, right, like, you know, I clearly I was in there, you know, yes, we can. The Hope Fund, that's the order we came out of with President Obama and that through line. We need to be able to believe in our people right now, right? None of us are perfect. There is no perfect candidate, right?

You're going to have people you disagree with. But I do believe that I can restore a vision of what's possible within the district. A district, by the way, that voted for. in the general election this past week, a district that is 41% black, 37% Latino, a district where my previous assembly district is 100% within the district. So people know our track record, and now is about telling the story of how we're going to help and fight for you and say that if you are ready to move on from Richie Torres, my name is Michael Blake, and I'm asking that you rock with me so we can go to Congress and

fight for you. I got another question, Michael, for you, something else that's affecting your community, which is ICE. The day after the election, Mayor Alex Zoran Mamdani said that he would warn ICE officers against breaking the law in his city. But then recently from the NY Daily News, there was this scoop that the NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch got a heads up from the Trump admin that ICE agents were about to conduct their aggressive Canal Street immigration raid. Do you think that Mayor Alex Zora Mondani should fire the NYP to commit to sure to someone that's going to better follow his policies of fighting ICE. And what would you do to support your community to defend them from ICE? So I'll separate, appreciate the question. So that's obviously for the

mayor elected to decide on if he keeps her or not, because it's not really a fire end. It's like he's going to be the man in charge on January 1 there. I think it's very concerning that a heads up was given that ICE was going to raid on Canal Street. And there was not real. protections that happen for folks. For anybody that doesn't understand New York City, Canal Street is effectively immigrant entrepreneurs, right? That's who's there. And as, you know, my son of immigrant, myself, my family's from Jamaica,

if you got a heads up that people are going to roll on Canal Street, you understand that a lot of people are going to get arrested and a lot is going to be destroyed, and now we'll have that PTSD sitting with them of that any moment will ICE come back here, right? So it's a problem. It's a deep problem that cannot be ignored. in any possible way. What would I do?

First, we got to be very clear that we designate our facilities, in particular our schools, our community centers, our places of worship as safe havens automatically so that it is very clear that ice is not permitted into those spaces. That is something that is not currently happening, which is kind of wild to think about that, right? It's a reason why so many of us who are preachers have to be thinking regularly about virtual,

sermons, because as we saw recently from National Latino Evangelicals, that they've had less people attending their services because they're afraid that ICE will show up there. Second is that we have to make sure that it is in multi-languages, access to lawyers that can represent you immediately, as well as the communication that is available, especially when you are dropping off your kids each another way. There was video that just came out just this morning of ICE detaining someone in a car while the man was holding on to his baby having a seizure and what was more important to them was to try to rip him away than his child being protected. Third and finally for now as it comes to this, we got to make sure that we're not

empowering and putting more money into NYPD surveillance efforts that would be helping ICE to attack our communities. And one of the many questions that has been lingering around Richie is his support around drones has been very nebulous at best. And if you are helping ICE to make it easier to grab our immigrants,

then you should not be representing our immigrants in the South Bronx. And as a son of immigrant myself, I actually going to say very, clearly, I know how the federal government should be working for us, and it is not right now because of Richie Toros. All right. Well, thank you very much, Michael.

Yeah, and if you can tell people where they can follow your campaign, how they can support you if they're interested. I hope everybody's interested after hearing us right now. Come on, not if right now. Come on, y'all. So go to Michael Blake for Congress, Michael Blake, F-O-R-Congress.com. Follow us on social. You'll see the handle, M.R. Mike Blake, you'll see the handle.

Blake for the Bronx. And we need you right now. Look, this is going to be a grassroots campaign. We need you to donate. We need you to knock on doors. Because a lot of people are going to be coming for us that don't want us to win. But the people have shown right now, the people are ready to win. So if you're ready and say, we deserve better for the Bronx, my name is Michael Blake. And I want to be a member of Congress and rock with us at Michael Blake for Congress.com. One last question before you go, because I think people will want to know how sharp a contrast we're talking about. Would you support a full weapons embargo on Israel? there should be i mean there we go like how can you i know we got to go i just like like how can you

i know we got to go i just like like how can you watch what's happening and be the same right now right and and again i think what is happening in this space is that there will be people who hear what i just said and say well you're anti-israel absolutely not it's not about being anti it's about I care for humanity, right? Yes, you deserve to have safety. Yes, you deserve the security. But if you're watching babies and families, every dollar we are spending on that, we are not spending on books in the Bronx. We are not spending on making sure people have food and get all the pantry lines. We're not spending on making sure you can actually pay your prescription drug bills. It's a question around priorities. And mine is the Bronx.

All right. Thank you, Michael. And we hope Breaking Points makes more cameos in your ads in the future. We're excited to see where our next clip appears. So thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you. Thank you. Take care. Thank you. All right. We are going to switch it over to the premium half now, folks. So if you want to sign up for membership, breaking points.com. It helps us do our journalism. It helps support us when we're under all sorts of attacks like Ryan's BBC attack and more. Well, we're about to get to drop site reporting in the premium half. So that's more Jeffrey Epstein. Robstein, Dropstein. Dropstein news. Jeffrey Dropstein. Jeffrey Dropstein.

I like it. Yes, the Dropstein news is coming. Yeah, it is. In Israel news, by the way. So it's got all the things. We'll see you on the other side of that. If you want to sign up for a membership, you can go to the description here or in the pin comment of this video, breaking points.

You can sign up for a monthly or a yearly membership, get access to our full uncut ad-free shows and the ability to ask us questions, which we'll be answering in the second half. We'll see you all there. On an all-new episode of iHeartRadios Las Culturistas, Jennifer Lawrence is dishing. Jennifer Lawrence. Let's go! Let's go! From her hilariously awkward run-ins with A-lister's. I don't know what I was expecting, but he was just like, nice to meet you.

To her unfiltered take on beauty treatments. I'm so upset I think the Botox before that. And a jaw-dropping reveal you won't see coming. I don't know if I can announce this, but I'm just going to. Open your free IHeard radio app. Search Loss, Cultureista. And listen to the full podcast now. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night.

I'm Dr. Priyankawali, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I Have Scurvy at 3am? And on our show, we're talking about health in a different way, like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely.

Listen to health stuff on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the central Texas plains, teens are dying, suicides that don't make sense, strange accidents, and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to paper ghosts, the Texas teen murders, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast.