Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/12/22 - Twitter Files, Elon vs Fauci, Rail Strike EO, SBF Dodges, Qatar Reporter Death, Year of Media Failure, JFK Files

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss the new chapters of the Twitter Files, Elon's attacks on Fauci, Rail Strike executive order, SBF new interviews, Reporter Dying in Qatar, The Year of Media, and the JFK files.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it means the absolute world to have your support. What are you waiting for? Become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Nice to be back in the studio. We had a wonderful time on the road, though. Thank you to New York and Boston and everybody who came out. It was great. And we'll be posting some of those clips, so whether you're premium, that's already the full thing live from Boston, but we're going to post some of the clips later on as well, so make sure you stay tuned for that. Okay, in the show today, we got a whole bunch of Twitter stuff, new threads that came out, Boston, but we're going to post some of the clips later on as well. So make sure you stay tuned for that. Okay. In the show today, we got a whole bunch of Twitter stuff, new threads that came out,

new Elon Musk tweets, new media reaction. We also have something that is just breaking really this morning. Apparently Dave Chappelle brought Elon onto stage in San Francisco. It didn't go all that well. We have some exclusive video. Well, it's not exclusive to us, but some interesting video from inside the room. So we'll show you that. We also have some updates on that situation with the railroad workers. There is still a chance for Joe Biden to sign an executive order to give these workers the paid sick days that they deserve, as all workers do.

So we will talk to you about that. We also have some updates on our friend Sam Bankman-Fried and whether or not he will be testifying here in D.C., potentially even this week. We also have some crazy things, horrific, tragic things that are going on at the World Cup. We've now had two journalists die suddenly, unexpected young guys. One of them, you all might remember, we covered this here. He had been turned away and actually detained for trying to wear a rainbow shirt into the World Cup. He ended up, like I said, dying suddenly. So we'll tell you everything that we know about that. But let's go ahead and jump in. We don't have any live shows to promote anymore for the moment.

I don't have to say it anymore. It's nice. So we'll get right into what's going on with Twitter. Okay, let's start with the Twitter file. So the latest that we have here were two drops since Thursday, both from Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberger, who works currently with Barry Weiss's The Free Press. We wanted to start and focus really in on the Matt Taibbi thread,

and in particular what I believe to be the most significant story that's come out really of the Twitter file so far. Let's put it up there on the Matt Taibbi thread, and in particular, what I believe to be the most significant story that's come out really of the Twitter files so far. Let's put it up there on the screen. What was essentially revealed is that Yoel Roth, the former head of trust and safety, indicated in screenshots from Slack messages that he was having weekly confabs with federal law enforcement agencies, specifically the FBI, the DHS, and the Department of Justice. And in at least one known instance, let's put A4 up on the screen there, guys, the next one. What's very important is that in this one instance, we know that the FBI was actually sending reports about a pair of tweets to Twitter specifically asking for them to be taken down. Now, the tweets in question, they certainly were

bullshit. I mean, they were about some fake mail-in ballot claims from the 2020 election. However, and I think that this underscores the point, it is not the job of the FBI actually to police misinformation on Twitter or elsewhere. And they were clearly flagging tweets in a well established Operation Crystal with weekly meetings with Yoel Roth and with the head of Twitter, CEOs, and others that indicate then a pattern of trying to prepare the environment to get them to take down anything that they wanted. Now, remember also, this fits very neatly with the Mark Zuckerberg comments on Joe Rogan, in which he said that, well, the FBI came to us, they told us some sort of like hack operation was coming. We thought that's what the Hunter Biden story was. We waited a couple of days. And then frankly, almost in even more pernicious way,

they just simply made it impossible to find on their platform while you could still technically click the link. They didn't go as far as Twitter. But when you put, I think, those two things together, look, did we know it? Yeah, we knew it. But to see it in stark writing, weekly messages, in which he even alludes to his quote, like secret meetings, like very special meetings, almost as if it's a joke. Actually, it's not a joke. And basically confirms something that we all knew, but now we have the proof right there in the pudding. And look, I mean, I think that's the biggest takeaway from the Twitter files yet. I 100% agree with that. Yeah, he jokes about his like, he's like, I'm in favor of calendar transparency.

But he doesn't want to put on his calendar literally every week meeting with the FBI again for the 100th time. I really want you all, however you feel about these Twitter files, however you feel about Elon Musk, however you feel about Joe Biden or Hunter Biden or Donald Trump or the deep state or any of this, I really want you to put aside your sort of ideological inclinations and imagine it's whatever president or whatever party you hate the most? Who's in power? And the nefarious connection between the FBI and these social media companies that have so much power, and there is no transparency around how any of this is done. This is the first real, like, sort of real-time glimpse

we've gotten into how all of these things ultimately operate. So, you know, there's been a lot of debate about, like, oh, well, they've shown a lot of right-time glimpse, we've gotten into how all of these things ultimately operate. So, you know, there's been a lot of debate about like, oh, well, they've shown a lot of right-wing examples, not a lot of left-wing examples. To me, it really doesn't matter which ideological inclination is being censored. What matters is that this power exists, it's wholly unchecked, and it can be wielded against anyone, any idea, any organization at any time. And that's the thing as Americans, regardless of what your ideology is, that's the thing that you should be deeply, deeply concerned about. Yeah, and then also remember, I mean, I think what really underscores this is to take it out of the Twitter files themselves and look at the most recent example, the story that Ken Klippenstein broke here on our show about the truth cops, about the Department of Homeland Security flagging things as misinformation that include the withdrawal from Afghanistan as quote unquote misinformation. Look, and I also, here's another Twitter file I'm waiting for.

Okay, deplatforming the president. I get it. I think it was very important. I want to know a lot about COVID, about the initial lab leak blocks that were happening, who flagged that, what the ongoing meetings were between Dr. Fauci, the CDC, and others. Also, it turns out that Fauci's daughter actually worked for Twitter at a time during the pandemic. That's interesting. I didn't actually know that. Would have been an interesting act of journalism for somebody to flag that for us. We only know it because he was deposed in a lawsuit.

So, hmm, that's actually, there's a lot happening here. And then furthermore, from the misinformation piece that Ken Klippenstein put out, it shows you also that they were flagging things which were directly bad politically for the Biden administration. Right. Like not just Afghanistan,

but any sort of, not even questioning on the election, on Biden and criticism of him himself, flagging that to these social media companies. And we know in this instance that Twitter was in some cases flagging and taking things down on behalf of the DOJ and the FBI. I also think a lot of this, Crystal, stems back to the war on terror. And I think all of us have to be honest, me specifically. That's a great point. Look, I mean, I think a lot of us were okay with the idea that the FBI was working deeply with Twitter to take down ISIS. And everyone was like, oh, that's a good thing. We're taking down these tweets. Well, it started to get real sketchy in 2016, 2017, when we were straight up going after American citizens and the FBI was basically working with them to essentially entrap them and put them in prison. Most people were fine with that,

but people like Glenn and many other civil libertarians were like, you don't understand the apparatus which is being built here. And I think many of us need to admit that what happened there, while it seemed comfortable, those people and the illegal infrastructure that was set up against them, that has now come to be expanded in a way that nobody predicted. Yeah. I think there were a lot of people, and I will include myself in this, who felt very uncomfortable with that power that was being claimed by the executive branch under the Bush administration and felt a lot more comfy with it under Obama because I liked him better. And so I felt like, oh, well, this isn't as bad. And you sort of forget that they still

retained those powers. I mean, think about Obama and the drone strike list and all of those things. So this really isn't a partisan story because every president that we have had has basically claimed these powers and used them for their own benefit. So, again, to use another sort of like counter example, these examples, yes, they focus on censorship predominantly of right-wing accounts, which, again, I think you should care about because you should know that this power can be wielded against anyone at any time. But imagine what Trump could have done with these sorts of powers during the George Floyd protests and riots. And we know that there was, and this is again reporting from Ken Klippenstein, we know there was an effort within the deep state to sort of track and surveil Antifa activists. There were some takedowns of those accounts on Twitter as well. So again,

if you don't find the examples of Libs of TikTok or whatever compelling, think about these powers being used by someone like Donald Trump that, you know, is untrustworthy in terms of his sort of authoritarian tendencies and what someone with those inclinations could also do against their own ideological foes. You know, some of the reporting suggests that, again, this sort of like deep state apparatus, who they're going to go after, who they're going to track, who they're going to surveil, who they're going to consider enemies. Some of that started to be set up under Trump. And then the Biden administration takes it and turns it towards the people that they see as political

adversaries. That's why I think it's so important to take the ideology out of this and recognize that this sort of power, total lack of transparency, it really is an authoritarian type of system. And this evil collaboration between the government and these social media tech companies that have so much power in terms of our entire democratic infrastructure, everybody should be really troubled by this part. And I do think that this is, you know, the most important piece that we've seen come out of it. It is confirming what the little glimpses that we've already gotten of the way that this collaboration happens. We already know that these tech companies also collaborate with other governments like Israel, for example. Israel's

very active at flagging Palestinian activists that they think are out of bounds and need to be censored or taken down as well. So it really is an issue for us going forward as a society. There's just no doubt about it. Let that be the takeaway. And look, it also shows you this is going on at all the other social media companies. The only reason we know is because Elon spent 44 billion dollars of his own money and apparently doesn't care necessarily about recouping that investment, although we'll see how that goes. And that actually brings us to the next part. So part two here. Let's start. Let's put it up there on the screen. Elon is making some big changes

over at the Twitter platform. He says, yes, it is true. Twitter is set to increase characters from 280 to 4,000. Now, I went ahead and checked. It's not a typo. Not 280 to 400, 280 to 4,000. And I got to say, I think this may be the most colossal mistake, Crystal, that he has made yet. Because what did we learn with Trump over at Truth Social? Actually, the character limit was good for him. Trump's rambling truths, which go on and on, are awful. They're too long. The concise, edited nature of the short bites, there is something to that format, which I will not dispute, does not necessarily, quote, add to better and healthier discourse.

But in terms of being punchy, in terms of making a point, in terms of editing down what you're trying to say, I have always found it actually to be quite useful because if you can't make a point like that, it's not really necessarily one that's going to resonate with the public. Well, and you can always do a thread. Yes. Like, if you want to go beyond the character, if you really have something that needs to,

I mean, like these frickin' Twitter file threads, like, you can go and you can do your 30-tweet thread if you really feel like it, but yeah, there's, listen, this is what makes Twitter Twitter. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you can change it, you can make it 4,000 words. And you can still call it Twitter. But the central innovation of this platform was the character limits. That's the whole thing that made it really different. I even liked 140.

I liked back when it was 140, when it was half. Really? Yeah, I thought it was good. I sort of like the 280, to be honest with you. But, I mean, 4,000 is like, I mean, we could post our entire, like, multiple monologues on there. It's ridiculous. Like, it becomes, there is a space for obviously longer form writing. That's what say Substack is for. It's called a blog. Example,

yeah, or a blog. So I just feel like, I mean, it might make the discourse less sort of snarky and mean and ugly. Maybe, I don't know. It's hard to say without actually trying it out. But it's just, it won't really be Twitter anymore. Yeah, I agree. It's basically the death of the central innovation of the platform. And on top of that, the head of Twitter product, let's put this up there on the screen. Today, this underscored all the Twitter files. Let's not forget the entire Twitter blue saga. So, Esther Crawford says, quote, on Monday, which is today,

we are bringing back the ability to subscribe to Twitter blue. It'll be $8 a month on the web and $11 a month on the iOS. Well, that's basically passing on the Apple tax to the consumer. We have added a review step before applying the blue checkmark to an account as one of our new steps to combat impersonation, which is against Twitter rules. You will start seeing gold checkmarks in your timeline. Those are indicators for businesses. Soon afterwards, you're going to see gray check marks, which are for government and multilateral accounts. Big thanks to the blue team for all of your hard work.

So I guess, look, I'm conflicted on this one. I don't like the fact that they're passing on the Apple tax to the consumer, $11 a month on iOS. Basically making it, passing it on as kind of a screw you to Apple, which highlights the fact that they take 30%. But beyond that, look, Twitter blue verification itself has always been about verifying the actual information on the platform. So while sure, I guess it's good that businesses can't be impersonated, what about people? And I don't even care about myself, but there's a lot of other people whose musings are noteworthy. Elon himself, remember whenever he tweeted about trying to take Tesla private and the stock went haywire?

There's a lot of accounts like that. So how are you going to trust Jeff Bezos or any other market movers whether they're going to actually pay for the blue check or not, plot twist, I don't think Bezos will be paying for it. Also, whenever you look further, the gray check marks for government and multilateral accounts, that one's not bad. I think that one is good because that, but again, they're still then in the context of verifying and trying to indicate some sort of status to government and multilateral accounts, which is good, right? Like you definitely want those to have some. But it just highlights, like, trying to create a scheme across all different ones, I just don't think it's the right move.

Well, there's two different potential goals here. One is moneymaking. Yeah. And the other is actually making the platform better. And I think more verification would be better. Yes. Obviously, the first rollout of this had much less verification. I mean, I personally really enjoyed the parody.

It was fun. Businesses in particular, that was fun for a time. The Eli Lilly incident comes to mind. But, you know, I don't know that they're doing this in the way to really better the platform. It seems more like a money-making scheme. We'll see how the rollout goes. We'll see if they have real verification this time. I mean, the way to do this, if you actually wanted to make the platform better, would be to extend free verification to a broader group of people. So it's not just like the special whoever's

who get the blue check marks, but anyone can go through a process to basically get verified. I am who I say I am. That would be inherently a good thing. The other question is, you know, what else do you get for that $8? Does that mean that your tweets are going to be surfaced or your replies are going to be surfaced more? They're going to be favored by the algorithm. That's, again, putting your thumb on the scale in terms of, quote unquote, free speech. It's the antithesis of free speech. It's literally paying to have your speech elevated. So I still have a lot of questions. And also, as of this morning, I mean, I'm looking looking I'm looking at the Twitter blue Twitter account I don't see any indication this is actually rule down today so far it's early in the day we'll see so I await uh the execution of how

this all works but remain highly skeptical yeah lots of questions again look uh we'll see if it actually comes out in terms of verifying the actual information on the platform. That's the value of Twitter. That's why everybody uses it. That's why they look for it and all of that. So anything that diminishes that, it's not the best. And I'm actually fine with verifying people who don't quote-unquote meet Twitter standards. But I do think there has to be some sort of scheme to make sure that public and noteworthy figures, not just businesses and governments, we can actually trust that their accounts are their accounts.

Same thing that you said, which is whenever you're preferencing replies, then by definition you're kind of enacting a shadow ban type regime. So that doesn't read as free or fair speech either. And actually, I really dispute a lot of the whole freedom of reach stuff. I'm for freedom of reach. I think the algorithm should be completely fair to everybody.

Agree, agree. Because then there's no manipulation. And whenever you have it, as long as it's consistent with the First Amendment, everybody can be reasonably, everybody can be reasonably trust that when you send a tweet or I send a tweet, that they are treated exactly the same.

Yes. That's what actual engagement on a real town square, that's what it would look like, right? Yes, yes, I totally agree. And that's one piece that to me is notably absent from the Twitter Files revelations is there's nothing in here about the way the algorithm operates,

which types of accounts, which types of content, elevates, how it's making these decisions, what the overall impact on the platform has been. I think that is almost as important. I mean, it is to be as important as anything else. And maybe I'm particularly sensitive to it because YouTube is so algorithmically driven at this point that you really see on a day-to-day basis how, you know, they can make anything just arbitrarily super successful and get million plus views. They can crush anything and suppress it. And you have no way of really knowing. You can look at some of your backend stats and say like, well, why is the click-through rate so high and the view count so low? And you can sort of like piece together that the algorithm just screwed you over for

whatever reason. But there continues to be zero transparency around any of how this operates. And I agree with you, Sagar. The freedom of reach stuff is incredibly, incredibly pernicious. I mean, that amounts to a shadow ban as well, where, yeah, if certain types of content is propped up and put in front of a bunch of people, of course, it's going to go further than if you're just like not displaying people's replies, if you're not displaying their tweets when you have that algorithmically driven feed. That's as much of a problem to me as anything else. Totally agree. All right, finally, this happened late last night.

Dave Chappelle, performing at the Chase Center in San Francisco, decides to bring Elon Musk on stage. Let's just say the results were unexpected for Mr. Musk. Let's take a listen. Cheers and booze, I say. We're expecting this, we are. It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience. Oof, that a vicious booing. Also, just so you know, the original account that tweeted out that video was deleted off of Twitter. Nobody knows why.

We'll see as to whether Musk himself is a little bit sensitive about that. I mean, look, it probably sucks to get booed by thousands of people. That said, I don't really know why it would have been a good idea for him to go on stage in San Francisco. Like we're talking here about, okay, first of all, who can afford to go to a Dave Chappelle in downtown San Francisco? Obviously only probably rich tech people in San Francisco. And those people are probably friends. Dave was really onto something when he was like, maybe some of the people you fired are here in the audience. Maybe not them specifically, but maybe some of their friends actually were in the audience. So it was a mistake to think that he is the San Francisco hero. I think if he'd gone

up in, what, Miami or, you know, any, like, not even, like, red state, like, half and half type place, I mean, he probably would have been fired, but it was a big mistake. Maybe. I mean, this was going to be definitely the toughest audience because it is not far-fetched to think that there were literally people in the audience that he fired. I mean, it's not crazy to think that whatsoever. I was looking because I saw some polling maybe like a week or two ago. His approval rating used to be really, really high with the American public. And now, I mean, it has plummeted, fallen off a cliff in terms of personal popularity. And I also just saw this morning, actually, Tesla as a company, their approval rating has now dipped into negative territory for the first time.

So I don't know if he realizes the way that the public is perceiving him right now and just how, like, erratic and all over the place his management style has been. I mean, whatever you think of him and his politics, the terrible decision making, Twitter blew, the rollout of that was a disaster. The way all of this has been going is just sort of like all over the place. It has also taken some of the shine off the idea that he's this, you know, world historic genius and he's this brilliant mastermind when all the decision-making seems so messy and chaotic ultimately. Honestly, I think it's really sad. I mean, like the idea that Tesla's negative approval would go – I mean, look, also, it's probably too hard right now to buy a Tesla anyway in terms of delivery. So maybe it's a good thing for would-be. But, you know, taking an ad on an electric car company, which basically changed the game, like that's a huge mistake.

That said, like he is the CEO of Tesla and CEO of SpaceX. And the last thing you actually want to do is politicize electric cars. That was one of the things that really bothered me about the Inflation Reduction Act. When everybody started attacking, for example, like the Ford F-150 Lightning. I'm like, yo, we're in Gen 1 here. Like, this is the frontier of the electric truck. I'm not saying it's great that, you know, the miles is like 80 miles or whatever whenever you put a real load. But it's, you know, the first...

It's not what it is. Something like that. It's not great. That said, look, Model T wasn't a great car. Or if you go back and if you look at some of the original Rolls Royces from like 1910 and what you had to do with the hand spinning and even some of the electric, it was bad. It took a long time for us to get to the point where we are now. So I just, let's not culture war and politicize breakthrough technology which could genuinely change.

And even today, I mean, look around. How many Teslas and electric cars do you see out there? There's a lot that are on the road. That's a real victory. That's a breakthrough. Not even on climate. Like in terms of our reliance on foreign oil and even like our own domestic energy production. Let's keep these things separate.

But a lot of the public doesn't want to. Elon could do himself a lot more favors on that. I agree. No, for real. And that is one area where he needs to be really careful, which is my fear is that he will tarnish his genuine like engineering legacy. Because, you know, there's a great book. It's a 2017 Elon Musk biography. It's well written because it's before he was political in any way. It's the actual story of PayPal, of SpaceX, of Tesla.

These are remarkable engineering feats of which nobody ever expected to actually happen. He's the first person to create a genuine rocket competitor to the Boeing and Northrop. I forget exactly what it was. This is a monopoly that used to exist in the space. We've reduced the price of satellites. Like so much actual good that has been done on that front and, you know, not even ruining his legacy, but changing his legacy into something else like that can have major detrimental effects on his other, not only sources of wealth, but like really the genuine good that

he has done in the sphere of engineering. Personally, I am just irritated because I want them to focus less time on like trolling on Twitter and more time on making it so that I can get internet at my house. That's my personal beef. Oh, that's the other one. Starlink.

Get on top of Starlink for the East Coast. It's long overdue. Make it so I can record segments in my house and then I will, you know, I will overlook some other things, although I will still be a critic. So speaking of Elon boomer posting, just posting outside of the normal, let's go to the next part here, the Fauci one. Elon, out of the blue, almost a year late to the cycle, let's put this on the screen, tweets out, quote, my pronouns are prosecute slash Fauci.

He replied this morning, quote, truth resonates. Again, totally unprompted. Also followed up with, this is a true top-tier boomer meme. Let's go to the next one here. From Lord of the Rings, just one more lockdown, my king. Fauci whispering into the cursed king

whose mind has been taken over. There actually is quite a bit there. Again, though, literally a year late to the cycle. You know, the funny thing is, though, is so many people also cannot resist taking the bait. Like, he's clearly trolling. And yet, the freakout on this Fauci tweet, and also on criticizing Yoel Roth, which I'll get to in a little bit. I have never. It's like it broke. He broke people's brains almost secondary to the way Trump did. For example, let's put this up there. Dr. Peter Hotez, who some of you might have remembered from the Joe Rogan podcast. Dr. Fauci has done nothing wrong except served our nation. In the meantime, Mr. Musco, you know 200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives from COVID

due to this kind of anti-science rhetoric and disinformation. It's not anti-science or disinformation to say you should prosecute Fauci. That's actually a misusing of Samus. He also says, Elon, I am asking you to take down this tweet. The sanctimony, man. Again, like, who are you? Criticize the tweet, whatever. Second, I found Yoel Roth, who, again, we will all remember the former trust safety head.

He actually, after he quit Elon Musk's Twitter, did interviews where he defended taking down the Hunter Biden laptop story, defended banning the Babylon Bee. Basically has been a complete front man for the entire censorship regime. So there's like a back and forth going on. Elon tweets a segment of his thesis from his PhD where, and look, some people are saying it's misquoted out of context. It is misquoted. Okay, listen, go ahead and finish and then I'll tell you my response. Because this is what I'm going to defend Yoel Roth on, unfortunately. So Yoel, in his senior, or sorry, his PhD thesis was, I guess, arguing in a broader context around when and how teenagers should appear on the gay app Grindr. Now you can dispute, all right. Okay, here's what it said. It says on Grindr, there are teenagers. And this is an issue because this is like, you know, Grindr is oftentimes about queer hookups.

Yeah. And so he's saying that more effective than trying to ban them from the platform, which isn't going to work, what you need to do is figure out another way for them to be safely on the platform, which in my view, there is nothing wrong with saying. Somebody else also grabbed some old tweet of his where, again, he said he linked to an article arguing that there is no instance in which high school students can consent to sex with a teacher. And he basically agreed with that, but they took it out of context and made it seem like he was questioning, like, oh, maybe students can. So, listen, Yoel Roth was a completely ideological actor. Yes.

I mean, that's the other thing that comes out in the Twitter files is like, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of dysfunction. It's one-off decision-making. Most people in any organization don't really want to make decisions because they don't want to be on this hot seat. You had Vijay Aghati and Yoel Roth, who were ideological actors. They grabbed the reins. Jack was like an absentee boss and they just did whatever the hell they wanted to do. And they came up with justifications after the fact. I mean, that's the thing with like the Trump stuff. They wanted to ban him and they came up

with justifications after the fact to make it so that they could justify it, even as they acknowledge like this is not how we're treating other world leaders. So I criticize Joel Roth for that. I don't know why you're trying to make this, like, whole, like, pretend like he's some groomer weirdo, like, on that stuff point. So I have an issue with that part of it. Criticize Joel Roth. I just did it.

He totally deserves that scrutiny for his ideological acting at Twitter. This stuff is, like, gross nonsense in my opinion. Anyway, Bloomberg came out and put it up there on the screen. And I just found this remarkable for the way that this was phrased. This is from Dana Hall, who is actually the Bloomberg reporter covering Tesla and SpaceX in San Francisco. She says, quote, I was not planning to work this Saturday, but Elon Musk's attacks on Yoel cannot be ignored. Almost as if it's like a strange personal crusade. And look, I mean, you can give your pushback, Crystal.

I thought it was a little weird what he wrote there. That said, I don't understand. And, you know, you criticize it or you're defending it on the substance, there seems to be this deep personal connection between the Silicon Valley reporters, the tech press, and the former Twitter censors, Vijaya Gade and Yoel. And I found this out the hard way. Remember back whenever I tweeted my criticism of Vijaya and Elon replied and the Washington Post basically accused me of inciting racist attacks against her, emailing James, our former producer, at 2 a.m. in the morning and being like, why exactly did he tweet this? What was he hoping to accomplish?

All of this completely BS attacks. And I said it was off the record, so I won't go into the full specifics of my conversation with that reporter. But it was generally implied that there was a relationship between the reporter and between Vijay Agade. And I was like, oh, that's what this is all about. I pissed off you because you're her friend. Right.

And it's like you're attacking me and Elon because you're personal friends with this lady. Again, I won't give you the exact specifics, but that was the general contours of what happened whenever I was yelling at her for basically smearing me. Listen, for this particular article, I'm going to say I don't have a problem with it because of the context that I just explained, but your point stands. And no one should be surprised that the journalists covering the tech sector are cozy with some of the top

officials in the tech sector because that's the of the top officials in the tech sector, because that's the way all of journalism apparently works at this point. You know, it's about your access. It's about your coziness. It's about your ability to get into these circles and network in them. That's how you get elevated in terms of your career prospects, not from holding them to account, but from like holding their hands. That's basically the way that you get ahead in these industries. You see the same thing with Sam Bankman Freed, right? I mean, the way that, you know, they felt like they were buddies with him and they got him and he was the like cool kid of crypto.

And so none of the scrutiny that he deserved ultimately was there. And you also have to say like, you know, a lot of the reporters covering this beat, they are ideologically insane because they're journalists. They are ideologically in favor of censorship. So they don't see what Yoel Roth and Vijay Aghati were doing as problematic at all. They see them as like heroes in this story. And so of course, they wouldn't apply a critical lens because in their view, they're doing the right thing. No, I think you're right. There's clearly like a weird high school element to this, but the reason it matters

is these people are all very powerful. And look, I got my criticisms of the political press. Even they would be humiliated to act the way that some of these tech journalists are. I think it's crazy. Like watching Kara Swisher and some of these other Bloomberg, Washington Post lady who attacked me,

like they're basically using their, I mean, here's what I would say. The Bloomberg White House team, I know they would never have to act this way with the Biden team. There is something uniquely bad about the Taylor Lorenzes, the Ben Collins, the Brandy, whatever her name is over at NBC News, plus the tech journos where they are so ideologically committed to the entire idea of censorship and misinformation and defending those people at all costs, I find it insane because they really don't realize how powerful that they actually are. Okay, that's a conversation around the media. But let's get back to what Elon was actually talking about with Fauci. Because Fauci, as we've said, is retiring. This is actually his

last month. And he went out with a real bang in the New York Times, put it up there on the screen. He says, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a message to the next generation of scientists. I will just highlight what's not in the message. Gain of function, anything about funding or researching dangerous viruses in labs, anything about lab leak, anything about being truthful with the American people. I read the entire thing. It is really just like a hagiography to himself, which shows you how much of an egotist he is about his long career fighting HIV AIDS. Oh, by the way, which there's a lot of criticism about the way that he handled HIV AIDS and the whole, what was it, AZT, some of the initial clinical trials and essentially some of the policies that he greenlit also at the time.

But secondary, he does not address even once the criticism of himself and also his conflation of himself with science, which was perhaps the greatest blow to the scientific method and to science and the scientific establishment itself in modern history. I mean, Vinay Prasad is highlighted here. Many of the missteps and the mistakes of the vaccination campaign are already killing polio vaccination campaigns for children. You can expect measles to go through the roof after this. A lot of people are going to have a hell of a lot more questions around child immunizations. They are going to not trust any sort of a... Okay, let me ask you this.

If they came out and said, you need to wear a mask again tomorrow, which actually the CDC has come out and said, and is recommending masks during holiday travel in the year 2022. When you see that and nobody abides by it, you've actually diminished your own ability to influence public opinion. And I think he was at the center of it. You always talk about those interviews that he gave where he talked about how he would change his scientific facts and benchmarks based on what he thought public opinion was. Yes. Yeah. I mean, there's one line in here

that really stood out to me. He says that such truths about viruses may be uncomfortable or politically inconvenient because extraordinary things can happen when science and politics work hand in hand. I was like, this one you can still sustain it. I can imagine you saying, well, I don't know that he deserves to be prosecuted. I don't know that, you know, just pinning all the blame on this one man, that seems a little unhinged. Like, yes, I think there is some Fauci derangement syndrome. But I was actually, I was just talking to a friend of mine who's a nurse practitioner over the weekend who is a liberal. And she was telling me how damaging it was,

especially at the beginning of the pandemic, the straight out lies that were going out from the government about how many test kits were available. I mean, those, and that was a huge, massive, embarrassing failure at the beginning of this pandemic where other, you know, much less developed, much less wealthy nations were able to get their acts together on testing long before we did. And the government's trying to cover it up. Oh, all the test kits are out. No, no, they weren't. Obviously, the like just obvious lies about masking that were the beginning of the pandemic. I just don't know how you can look at

these things. The herd immunity coverage where, you know, the oh, the percentage was constantly changing again based on what and Fauci admitted this, what he thought the public could handle at the time. This to me, public health and politics shouldn't be working hand in hand, at least in the person of one individual. And he seemed to be trying to massage the information or outright lie based on what he thought the public could deal with.

That is not your job. Your job is to tell us what the facts are, even if they're bad, even if they're bad, even if they're difficult, even if you're worried about how the American people will ultimately receive it. And so at this late stage in the game, given everything that we know, given his own admissions of the way that he operated in this pandemic, I don't know how you run a piece like this without any edits, any criticism, anything other than this just sort of glowing portrait that he paints of himself. Yeah, it really is outrageous. And, you know, look, let's put the next one up there on the screen.

Republicans say that they're going to investigate Dr. Fauci. We'll see. He's a slippery little guy. Whenever we were off, Crystal, Emily and Ryan did a great job of covering his deposition. And I just want to read you again what he said whenever he was asked about gain-of-function research. Quote, gain-of-function is a very potentially misleading terminology. And one of the reasons why years ago we made the determination it would be much better to define the guardrails of experiments that would require additional oversight. And we did away because it is very confusing and misleading. And he, again, in this whole exchange,

plays all these word games to deny funding gain-of-function research by just changing the definition of gain-of-function research. We have the documents. You funded it. No ifs, ands, or buts. You have funded research at the Wuhan lab and used your position under the Trump administration to reverse

the previous ban on doing so. Then after all this, you still gave money to the same organization, which funded that Wuhan lab for bat coronavirus research in 2022, of which we have documented and shown on the show public record from actual, public record from actual government documents showing the actual amount of funds being dispersed by the National Institute of Health. We have watched the full scale corruption of the science industry. I think he's done a tremendous amount of damage on this front. And you don't have to like Trump to agree with anything that I'm saying. Just ask actual nurses as you did. Ask actual doctors. They will tell you about where current public trust is in science. And it's not people like us who are criticizing him.

It's not our fault that it got there. He was the person who was in charge. He made himself a lightning rod. He's proven lies now to the American public in several times. And look, I think he'll get away with it. I don't think he will ever have any real reckoning. That said, I hope we get more of these types of depositions and or other things. Yeah. I mean, I would like there to be a serious investigation of the failures in this pandemic,

of how we ended up with this pandemic, of where our research dollars are going towards in terms of preventing a future pandemic. I would like to see a serious bipartisan government effort to accomplish that. I don't have a lot of hope that's what we're ultimately going to get. Yeah, absolutely. We have a few updates on the averted rail strike situation. So just, I'm sure you guys probably recall, but railroad workers, very unhappy with the working conditions that they have been laboring under with basically no paid sick leave or real time off. And so they were ready to strike because of the Railway Labor Act. Ultimately, Congress,

at the behest of Biden, was able to come in and cram down this deal that a majority of the workers voted against, that had been struck between the rail bosses and the union leaders. So I won't go into all the nitty gritty of how that went down, but basically, end of story, this deal that has one extra day, one day of paid sick leave gets crammed down on them, and that is where we stand. However, that doesn't have to be the end of the story. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So this is from Common Dreams. They said Biden is being urged to sign an executive order which would guarantee rail workers paid sick leave. Now, here's the mechanics of this. Back under Obama, Obama actually signed an

executive order that would mandate at least seven, which was the number of days that these workers were asking for as well, paid sick days for employees of federal contractors. Now that should apply to rail workers because all of these rail freight companies are in fact federal contractors. However, when Obama signed this executive order, for some unknown reason, he included a specific exclusion clause for rail workers. But there is zero reason why President Biden could not sign the exact same executive order, which would be a good thing, you know, putting the rail workers aside, mandating at least seven paid sick days and not to have the exclusion for rail workers this

time around. And in fact, urged and encouraged by the unions themselves, Bernie, let's go and put this next piece up on the screen, is leading 72 House and Senate Democrats in urging President Biden to sign an executive order that would do exactly that. So this was their plan after the attempt to get sick days added through the legislative process after that failed. This is now the new push from union leaders. And I just don't see any way, like what excuse can you make for not doing this? The legal precedent already exists. So it's not even a stretch of your legal authorities. It's the exact same executive order of that Obama sign. All you have to do is get rid of that exclusion clause for real workers.

And there you go. You have at least somewhat of a win for these workers when, you know, President Biden claims to be Mr. Labor, claims to be the most pro-labor president in history. You got a chance. Prove that you actually care about these human beings and that you didn't just, you know, sell them down the river at the first possible chance. Throw the next one up there on the screen, because this is important. The issue is that these people are federal contractors, and that is why we have the authority. I actually fully support the whole using government policy against federal contractors to try and compel behavior because they can choose not to do business with

the government if they want, and yet they aren't. And here, what Ryan really outlaid is that the way that many of these private companies have leveraged their private status to boost profits, take government, and then also use their influence to go after the GOP. And what Ryan reveals is that railroad workers were on track to get the 10, 11 Senate Republican votes for sick days. However, after the Chamber of Commerce came out and said that it would, quote, score the vote, four of the hard yes votes evaporated and they only got six on the day of the vote.

If they'd gotten 10 or 11 votes, Crystal, they would have actually passed the sick leave measure. And so the railroad companies, which again, make billions of dollars and billions and more in profits in the last 10 years, and who have basically bought the congressional system, use the Chamber of Commerce as their lobbying organization to protect their profits. And it's all really a corrupt scheme because the Republicans could not afford, or in their minds could not afford, getting a bad vote scored by the Chamber of Commerce. It's like it all rolls together. And I think it's why it's important to lay out the exact context here. It shows you how powerful the Chamber of Commerce

continues to be. It shows you how powerful capital in general continues to be. Any sort of like pro-worker rhetoric aside, losing Man union leaders and in particular, this one sort of like militant caucus of rank and file workers, what they were pushing for in terms of what they wanted legislators to ultimately do. And also the deep, deep and very justified sense of betrayal of Biden and the Democrats, because, again, they heard the rhetoric about most pro-labor president in history. There's a reason why they waited until Biden was in the White House to really make this move and push for more.

And ultimately, you know, they ended up with this presidential emergency board proposal, which was total shit. Then they end up with this negotiation between Pete Buttigieg and Marty Walsh, his labor secretary and the union leaders and the rail bosses, which was only a moderate incremental improvement. And they said they kind of knew from the beginning that they were ultimately going to get a deal crammed down on them from Congress because of the Railway Labor Act and the way that hands so much power ultimately to the rail bosses, the way it really strips them of any sort of ultimate leverage. But they thought maybe with Biden and the Democrats, they could get

a bit more than what they were ultimately able to achieve here. And there were also a lot of questions over whether the vote on paid sick days that went through that passed the House and then got a majority votes in the Senate but failed because of the filibuster in the Senate, whether this was just a show vote or whether they really thought that maybe this had a chance to get through. And according to Ryan's reporting, you know, there was some indication that they might actually be able to get there. Now, I think they knew it was a Hail Mary. I think they knew their goose was kind of cooked at that point because Biden decided to side with the rail bosses in such a heavy-handed manner. But they really thought they had a realistic shot at this. And now, like I said, to start the block, the real play here is to try to pressure Biden to sign this executive order, which there is just literally no reason

not to do it other than just caving to corporate interests. If you pulled this, if you pulled the American people on this, seven paid sick days for federal employees of federal contractors, what would it pull at? 70 percent? 80 percent? I mean, it would be overwhelming. This is the most basic of worker rights that should be in place for every single worker in the country. So if he doesn't do this, I mean, it's just already such a betrayal. And this is ultimately completely pathetic. And it is just straight up discrimination against the rail workers because it's specifically excluded by law, which it should not be as a total carve out to the companies. And again, the companies, they can do business elsewhere. They don't have to do business with the federal government, but they make billions in federal

government contracts. There you go. Federal policy should be that you can't get a contract unless you abide by X, Y, and Z work conditions. It doesn't sound that crazy to me. Not at all. And this is a man who promised on the campaign trail that he would not give federal contracts to union busters. So he used that rhetoric on the trail of using the federal government power of the purse in order to make sure that companies were doing the basics and doing right by their workers. So here's an opportunity to prove you actually mean it, Joe Biden. And also just as another side note, I think we're going to talk to Levermore about this because they broke the story over on their site.

But one of the big rail freight companies, like immediately after this deal was cr is owned by Warren Buffett, that they are raking in while they deny their workers the very basics of paid sick leave. Yeah, I completely agree. All right, guys, another big thing that's happening here in D.C. this week is it looks like Sam Bankman-Fried may testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee, at least in some sort of a potentially limited way tomorrow. So we'll be watching for how all of that goes down. But let me give you the back and forth here that led to this, because it is kind of interesting. Go ahead and put this up on the screen from CNBC. So the chair of the House Financial Services Committee is one Maxine Waters, who has been pictured arms, you know, around Sam Bankman-Fried.

Hand in hand. There's a video of her like blowing him a kiss. They were obviously very cozy. She had originally, according to this report from CNBC, told Democrats on that committee that she doesn't plan to subpoena former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, to testify at the hearing tomorrow about the crypto exchange's rapid demise. She informed committee members of that decision at a private meeting, and she said she wants committee staff to try to persuade Bankman-Fried to voluntarily testify. So she does this. She puts out this very nice, like, we really appreciate the way you've been transparent,

how you've been talking publicly about what happened at FTX. Can you please, pretty please, come and testify? Obviously, those were not her exact words. His initial response was basically like, yeah, no. He said, once I've finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain. I'm not sure that will happen by the 13th, but when it does, I will testify. However, let's put this next piece up on the screen from the New York Times. In an early morning post on Twitter on Friday, he said he will now appear on Tuesday before the House Committee on Financial Services, and it's going to focus on the sudden collapse, obviously, of FTX, the crypto exchange that he founded. There's a separate question as to whether or not he's going to testify in front of the Senate,

the affiliated committee on the Senate that is led by Sherrod Brown. He said in a letter that if the cryptocurrency trader was unwilling to speak to the committee, he was prepared to issue a subpoena to compel his testimony. Obviously, this all really matters because Sam Bankman Freed has been on this whole media publicity weird tour, some of which we have covered. And actually, by the time this posts, he may have done another interview with Unusual Whales, which we'll be watching very closely if it does, in fact, happen. But when you testify in front of Congress, that's a different deal in terms of the legal implications. So that's why this is so significant.

Yeah, exactly. And that's the this is so significant. Yeah, exactly. And that's the point. He's willing to do interviews with anybody, except whenever – he's a little squirrely whenever you're testifying under oath. And what you say, look, I think we're probably going to get a lot of I wasn't aware, I don't recall. He seems to be the master of that. And every single one of the interviews that he's given so far, except for a few, he really hasn't been caught on many of his lies. And I don't personally trust Maxine Waters, especially like why even rule the testimony out or the subpoena out in the first place? He obviously should be subpoenaed. That way they get to set the conditions and it's not

voluntary. There's a lot of questions that still remain, and whether he's even actually going to show up, we don't know. He says that he is set to testify at the House hearing. Again, though, he declined the banking hearing because he said he would be tired or it would be too much work, which is obviously ludicrous. And don't forget, at the banking hearings in the Senate, they get a lot more time. There's not a lot of time at these House hearings whenever they ask questions. It's only a few minutes. At the Senate hearings, their committee hearings, they have much more leeway in order to not only ask more questions, but they can actually do more follow-up. So I think there's a strategic reason, as he doesn't have any real allies on the Senate Banking Committee, or at least not the head of the Senate Banking Committee in the way that he does with the House.

Well, and you also just wonder with these members of Congress, like, how sophisticated are they going to be in their understanding? How good are their questions going to be? How much do they really, like, just even comprehend what happened here and what, you know, they should be pressing on and should be asking? I just checked, did a cursory glance at the members of the House Financial Services Committee. It's unfortunate that Katie Porter isn't on there, because she's the one person that I feel like would actually do a good job. Like, I feel confident would do a good job in terms of questioning him. So we'll see. I think you're right. Just like in the interview with The New York Times that we covered where he was very

evasive and suddenly, oh, he didn't know that they had bought his parents a multi-multi-million dollar beach house and he didn't really know what Alameda was doing, and he just was barely aware that the company even existed, you'll get a lot of that deflection as well, no doubt about it. But it may still be revealing. You never know if he might slip up and let something out that he really shouldn't. We'll watch it closely. Indeed. All right, another thing we wanted to bring to you today,

since we've been covering some of what's going on at the World Cup is we now have had two separate journalists die, collapse, very, you know, kind of out of nowhere within 48 hours. So one of them you all may already be familiar with is a man named Grant Wall. Let's go ahead and put this first piece up on the screen. So this was his, I think, final Substack post or close to it. He's a well-known journalist in particular in the soccer world. He also was very well known for his writing about college basketball. He says, free to read what happened when Qatar World Cup security detained me for 25 minutes for wearing a t-shirt supporting LGBTQ rights. Forcibly took my phone and angrily demanded that I remove my t-shirt to enter the stadium. I refused. So sorry, this is in the last Substack post. This is, we covered this, where he was detained for wearing this rainbow t-shirt because obviously in Qatar, being gay or

expressing support for gay rights is not allowed. They haven't let the soccer players express anything like this. So they detained this journalist. This got national media attention. We covered it here as well. An extraordinary action. And his family really believes that this was ultimately foul play. His brother, who is gay, who he says is the reason why Grant was ultimately wearing the shirt, he believes that Grant was killed. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. My name is Eric Wall. I live in Seattle, Washington. I am Grant Wall's brother. I'm gay. I am the reason he wore the rainbow shirt to the World Cup. My brother was healthy. He told me he received death threats.

I do not believe my brother just died. I believe he was killed. And I just beg for any help. Horrible. So he says he didn't just die. He believes he was killed. You know, in addition to wearing the rainbow shirt, this is a journalist who was fearlessly critical of the Qatari government and also in particular their treatment of migrant workers. Go ahead and put this last piece up on the screen. This is one of the final substack posts here. Let me read a little bit of the beginning. He says, the Supreme Committee in charge of Qatar's World Cup does not care that a Filipino migrant worker died at Saudi Arabia's training resort during the group

stage. He suffered a fatal blow to the head during a fall in a forklift accident. Information that was kept under wraps until being broken by the athletics. Adam Crafton, and he goes on to be, you know, just very critical of the Qataris and their treatment of migrant workers. And this isn't the first post in this regard. So, no doubt that they were unhappy with what he was saying here. We have no evidence other than that sort of circumstantial evidence of foul play. I do also want to say that he was on a podcast that week and said that he had been sick. He'd had bronchitis, some sort of respiratory ailment. So could it have been, you know, complications from that? Ultimately, we don't know. But then the update this morning is that

a Qatari journalist, actually, Qatari photojournalist named Khalid al-Maslam, he also died. We know very little about the circumstances surrounding his death, but now you have two journalists within 48 hours who just dropped dead out of nowhere at the World Cup and a lot of people with a lot of questions. Yeah, with Grant, he said, I had three weeks of little sleep, high stress, lots of work. Can do that to you? It'd been a cold over the last 10 days, turned to something more severe. I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort. I went to the medical clinic at the main media center and they said I probably have bronchitis. They gave me a course of antibiotics. So look, I don't know. I mean,

he was sick. His brother has since now said, I can now update that Grant did go to the hospital in an ambulance. Colleagues followed him in an Uber. There was no available AED on site, though it sounds as though it may not have made a difference. If my understanding of the medical situation is correct, his body will come home tomorrow. There will be a proper autopsy here in the United States. The family will then release a statement after that. Regardless of the outcome, I have nothing to apologize for. Thoroughly corrupt people and organizations remain thoroughly corrupt. Organizations must always be held to scrutiny and account.

This World Cup never should have taken place where it did. So that is where Grant is, or that's where Eric is right now, as to whether he stands by his accusation of foul play or not, kind of up in the air, seems to accept some level of medical situation, but we don't know. And then when you couple it also with the second one, yeah, it's very strange about what's happening there. Although apparently there is a COVID outbreak in Doha. That's what a lot of people have been talking about online as well. Just obviously gathering people from across the world. Not a surprise. Could be.

Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Scary stuff. Very scary. You know, hearts go out, obviously, to the families of these two men with these sudden losses. And, you know, it just raised a lot of eyebrows when you had someone who was so prominent as a dissident journalist ultimately meeting such an untimely end. Yeah. Waiting for that autopsy. I think that will answer all the questions that we have.

All right, Tiger, what are you looking at? Well, one of the better parts of the holidays is that things start to slow down, inviting some reflection on the last year. As always with reflection, the question is, what do you do with that information? You can wallow, you can feel sorry, you can be despondent, or you can look at the hopeful highlights from the last year. Strung together a theme and then use it to help yourself in the coming months. So I thought for my first monologue back after our awesome live shows in Boston and New York, I would expand on a theme from those shows.

It's been a terrible year for media institutions and a great one for the independent-minded. I could, of course, talk about CNN Plus failing, how they just spent $300 million to shut down after two days, how their ratings are at an all-time low. But the way that you know they're really feeling the pain was the recent news that they're laying off 10% of their entire workforce, including many of their contributors and their low IQ talent, like Chris Sillissa. That admission by CNN CEO Chris Licht was very stark. The firings were happening to, quote, grow audiences for our core news programming and products. In and of itself, it's an amazing statement of failure. It's an admission that hiring brain-dead resistance liberals for CNN contributors and then former CIA operatives,

that they tanked the core brand established in the 80s and they have a huge hole to dig themselves out of now. But CNN aside, they are just a broader symptom of a disease, which is cable itself. Comcast, the parent company for NBCUniversal, which of course heads up NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC, also had major cuts to his business this year. The most famous casualty was Shep Smith from CNBC, of whom nobody cared about at all. And it showed that CNBC's foray into political news was also a huge dud. Again, the admission was stark. We have to move back to core programming. Why? Because the combined revolution of the internet and the total abolishment of journalistic standards has done untold damage to their overall hierarchy of

brands. As far as digital media startups, it was also a dismal year. The recount, which raised some $30 million in 2020, officially folded this month. Their pitch was they were going to be a punchy video news startup that speaks to millennials in the internet age. But they tried to do it by hiring people who were already beloved by legacy media. Barely anyone even noticed or cared when it folded. Vice News, once the hallmark of a generation, they are cutting costs by 15% laying off employees. The point is, legacy brands are suffering terribly, and the legacy-backed startups are failing. But out here in the internet sphere, it's a different story entirely. Just compare it to this week. Glenn Greenwell's got a new show on Rumble. It's debuting. Both Glenn and Matt Taibbi's sub-stacks

are two of the most popular in the entire country. And in fact, one of the major stories of this year just broke. Who broke it? Matt Taibbi at his substack, Barry Weiss and her independent team over at the Free Press. All independent media right now is actually thriving if you care to look for it. And it's not just anti-establishment forces. People forget, one of the top earners on political substack is resistance liberal professor Heather Cox Richardson, to which I'd say, great, I find it cringe, but as long as it's coming from a different source, I don't care. I want everyone to have a voice. The problem in the past is that not everybody did.

By the way, contrast to cable news, we didn't fire anyone this year. We hired more people. We added an entire new show. We increased our views, our business, and have major expansion plans thanks to the way that we fund our business. The point is, it's not just about what's going on here. It's a way bigger ecosystem, which you are all a part of. That's what excites me though. And it's not just news. It's legacy entertainment itself, which is really losing its grips on entertainment. The Walt Disney Company, Netflix, Paramount Global, other major players in legacy entertainment, they had a brutal year. Each is getting crushed by the

cost of streaming wars where one in 20 projects appears to actually be worth it and is actually good. But look to the frontiers of entertainment. You're seeing a whole new ecosystem emerge. What really struck me was actually a comedian, Mark Norman. He was speaking on the Joe Rogan podcast in a recent episode. They were musing about specials. He actually said, having put out a special on YouTube and one on Netflix, he would probably choose YouTube next because he didn't feel that enough people saw it on Netflix. Think about how crazy that is. Rogan himself has also discussed this possibility.

Instead of taking money up front from a streaming platform where the presumption was that people would see it, the assumption now is that if you put something out for free or if you use some sort of hybrid release model like Andrew Schultz did with his special, you will actually be bigger than ever. That is a titanic change in the comedy world. It didn't even exist five years ago. Many of the comedians I just mentioned are doing better than they ever have in their lives, while the broader entertainment business is crumbling. Why? Because those idiots are signing major deals with Barack Obama and Harry and Meghan,

only to find out nobody cares. The fact is, we're living through a moment where your eyes and ears are actually more powerful than the ideas of high-placed executives on what they think your eyes and ears should be attuned to. There are still many challenges ahead for the independent space, do not get me wrong. But take a look at the story I just sketched out and tell me that they're doing better today than ever before. And I take great joy in

that. And I hope it's going to be an even better one for everybody in 2023. I think it's interesting, Crystal, when you kind of string it together. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, the American people have been waiting nearly six decades for the truth about what happened to President John F. Kennedy on that fateful day in November 59 years ago. After all that time, under the weight of countless lies and cover-ups, the government has never been able to persuade the American people that they have actually gotten the whole

story. In fact, polls have consistently shown that majorities reject the official conclusion of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone on that day. Only around 30% right now believe that official government narrative, and at times that number has been as low as 10 percent. Well, this week, after years of obfuscation, we may get new stunning answers to some of the thorniest questions around this case. Thanks to a law passed unanimously by Congress back in 1992, President Biden is under a December 15th deadline to release thousands more long secret documents about the JFK assassination. So what could be released this week? Well, researchers at the Mary Farrell Foundation, the largest private repository of assassination records, they believe this release could include

what they describe as, quote, smoking gun evidence that the CIA not only knew and had closely tracked Lee Harvey Oswald, but that Oswald had been involved in a CIA operation prior to the assassination during his time with the Fair Play for Cuba organization. So here is Mary Farrell Foundation Vice President Jefferson Morley describing what could be revealed this week. But it is a representative sample. What the CIA is hiding is what they've always hidden, which is their sources and methods as relate to Lee Harvey Oswald. By sources and methods, I mean spy techniques, infiltration, deception, psychological warfare, wiretapping, and the like. That's been the story since 1963, but we can answer that question, what are they hiding, with more specificity now. And this is the result of a lot of work by me and other researchers associated with the

Mary Farrell Foundation. What the CIA is hiding is a covert operation that involved Lee Harvey Oswald, used him for intelligence purposes in the summer of 1963, three months before President Kennedy was killed. This is an extraordinarily serious claim, and it has profound implications for the official story. The CIA knew far more about the lone gunman than they are admitting even today. So this story deserves the closest possible scrutiny. That's why the Mary Farrell Foundation is bringing it to the attention of files related to the former head of the psychological warfare branch of the CIA in Miami would reveal details of this CIA operation involving Oswald. Specifically,

how the CIA intentionally engineered the legend of Oswald, communist Fidel Castro fan, which would become so crucial to pinning a motive on him as the lone killer. Remember, the official narrative was that Oswald was a notorious member of the Fair Play for Cuba committee and his hatred of JFK's anti-communist Cuba policy was the reason for his solo decision to murder the president. This public record of his pro-Castro radicalism would not exist were it not for publicized interactions with an anti-Castro organization, which was run by Joe Nides and the CIA. Now, we have already learned in previous releases that the Fair Play for Cuba committee itself

had been infiltrated by the CIA. So effectively, it took two CIA-involved Cuba organizations to create the public record of Oswald, communist sympathizer, which the media would be fed and run with as explanation for why he shot Kennedy. This obviously raises a whole lot of questions. We already know from prior releases that the CIA lied to the Warren Commission, the government's official fact-finding body, about how much they knew personally about Oswald. But if we learn this week that not only did they know who Oswald was and were they tracking him,

but that he was actively involved in a CIA operation, that would indeed be a bombshell revelation and a huge key in understanding what really happened on that day. What else might still be hidden? Well, the JFK Records Act of 1992 mandated that all of these files be released in 25 years' time, with few exceptions. In spite of that, an estimated 16,000 documents related to the killing are still being hidden by the government. After all these years, we deserve the full truth. And an overwhelming majority, 70% of Americans, want these records revealed now. Trump punted on his legal obligation under this law, and Biden has so far largely done the same.

Last year, he released an underwhelming limited batch of documents, but delayed a more fulsome release, blaming the delay on the COVID pandemic, a risible claim that led to the administration being sued by the Mary Farrell Foundation for failing to comply with the 92 law. Last year's memo, however, only bought Biden a year's time, and that year is up on Thursday of this week. Will he choose to continue the path of secrecy and lies, or will he finally give us the answers that we deserve? Here is Morley again on what it all means. Only full disclosure on December 15th can resolve this question. The joint ADs files constitute a

clear and simple test for President Biden's order. Will these 44 records be released next week? The Mary Farrell Foundation certainly hopes and expects that they will. We filed our lawsuit to complete the historical record of JFK's assassination as soon as possible. This story is just one example of why we took legal action. There's a lot of talk these days about conspiracy theories and misinformation and a lack of trust in government. But how can we possibly trust our government when the facts surrounding a critical turning point in American history continue to be concealed decades after the fact? The government is all out of excuses. If there is really nothing to hide, prove it. And Sagar, I just don't know at this point. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

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