Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/21/25: Dems Humiliated On TikTok, Trump Pumps Meme Coin, Elon Salute Gesture Debate

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Dems humiliated on TikTok, Trump pumps meme coin, Elon awkward salute gesture debate.    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.

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. Let's talk about TikTok. This is big. I mean, this is just too perfect. I mean, I'll say this, I was prepared for this. I knew it was going to happen. I've made my peace with it now long ago. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is from Donald Trump two days ago before he took office. He says, I am asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark. I will issue an executive order on Monday, which has been issued, by the way, to extend the period of time. It's approximately 90 days before the law's prohibition takes effect so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. This order will also confirm there will be no liability for any company that helped keep

TikTok from going dark before any order. Americans deserve to see our exciting inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations. I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands, and allow it to stay up. Without U.S. approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions, maybe trillions. Therefore, my initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and or new owners, whereby a U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whoever purchased we choose. Is this like TikTok's like the new NPR?

I mean, I don't think nobody really knows what is meant by this, including probably Donald Trump. But, you know, if we're going to have state ownership of media, there are models that can be successful that provide editorial independence. You know, we could buy up TikTok. We could buy Twitter. We could buy Facebook, you know, have them run by an independent consortium, have independent funding sources. Take the profit motive out of it, Sagar. This is the type of idea I can get on board with. Yeah. Something tells me that's not what he has in mind. What could possibly go wrong with all of that? Here's the thing about the whole TikTok thing.

Basically, Trump was pro-banning TikTok. It's like Bitcoin. Pro-banning Bitcoin, pro-banning TikTok. Leaves for four years. Remember what I said about being gone for four years? Well, what happened in four years? TikTok became massively more popular. I think it doubled its users.

An ex-engineer on the platform actually revealed 170 million people log on to the app, I think, once a month. And I think 90 or 100 million are spending an average of 53 minutes per day on TikTok. Is this just in America? Yeah, no, in the United States. Yeah, in the US. That's one third of the US population. And probably, God, I'm terrible at math, maybe like 40, 50% of the U.S. adult population just for context. So you can see here what it means and how much time people are spending on TikTok. It's not just the kids anymore. No, it's everybody.

I mean, I was on the metro today and some guy was scrolling TikTok right next to me. And I was like, oh, how did you download that? You know, I was asking him. I was like, how does it work now? He's like, oh, yeah, dude, it went off. He had no idea what it was. He was like, oh, yeah, it went off. And then it came back. I was just so excited. It was

interesting. So the TLDR of all of it is it's a mess because the law that banned TikTok was supposed to go into effect on January 19th. That law would impose ruinous fines on Apple, Oracle, and all other US providers of any services to TikTok. Now, the thing is, is that for the Apple and all these other companies to believe this executive order is lawful, which I don't believe it's lawful at all, is to believe that they will not go through with the imposition of the fine. Now, what Tom Cotton, who is, I think, chairman or one of the high-ranking members on the Intelligence Committee in the Senate has said, is like, no, no executive order delaying action is legal and will face scrutiny and could impose backfines on these companies. That's part of why I'm still not 100% sure the way that it's working with the App Store, with Oracle, and all these others. I know Oracle has

resumed service in terms of its ability to scroll. I think it was working if you have the app pre-installed, but I'm still not sure if it's on the App Store right now. Same with the Play Store for Google, for these people. These companies are in complete legal limbo. And the real thing that actually kind of ties Trump's hands is you can do as many executive orders as you want, but this is an act of Congress at the end of the day. And so the ability for trade organizations, even Facebook, honestly, anybody, to be able to file suit against them and actually have the court system impose this block is very possible. I think what's clear to me is that Trump only cares about being popular. And he knows TikTok is massively popular and that he himself is massively popular on TikTok. And so because of all of that, his sole goal is to try and save the program or save the company, but also use some geopolitics in terms of his negotiations with China to get it done.

So that's something that I've seen happen with him in the past. He's reportedly spoke with President Xi or Premier Xi in China. They talked about TikTok. I think he's going to be going to China probably in the next couple of months. That's apparently one of the first trips that he wants to make as president to discuss the issue so he could pursue a forced sale. And it could be like some sort of negotiation. It is just objectively crazy, though, for the U.S. government to own 50 percent of TikTok. It's like and by the way, I mean, you know, would it be a victory for the pro-Palestinian side? We're like, well, we saved TikTok, but now the government has control. Now the government owns 50 percent.

Yeah, what do you guys, listen, Gaza people, what do you think is going to happen if the government owns 50 percent of that? You know, good luck with your BLM and trans and Gaza stuff under the Donald Trump administration, or if J.D. Vance wins the presidency next time. What's the first thing I would turn off if you didn't want something in your culture to be happening? That's the immediate thing. So I don't think it'd be the best solution, but you guys do what you want if you're spending 53 minutes a day on that. Well, I mean, we already have the model of that, which is Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter. It would look very much like that, you know, where certain things are very much prioritized and certain things are very much deranked and actively censored, including, you know, a lot of pro-Palestinian phrases and content, et cetera. So, yeah, I mean, the whole thing is just, what do you even say about it?

Like, looking at it from the Democratic perspective, like, these people are total and complete, pathetic, embarrassing morons. Morons. You couldn't predict that this would be wildly unpopular. So Trump is the person who really, in his first term, towards the end of his first term, he starts pushing this. He issued some other executive order. It gets struck down. It doesn't happen. Blah, blah, blah.

But he starts pushing it. Democrats are such idiots that, you know, the polling starts to move on this where there was some nominal majority, theoretically, in favor of a TikTok ban. And they're like, oh, I guess we better get on board with this. I guess we better pass the law. So they pass it. Joe Biden signs it into law. And then here, you know, in the waning days of the Biden administration, they're freaking out like, oh, my God, I can't believe we did this. Like, we don't want this to happen. No, this shouldn't go away, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, what is wrong with you? You couldn't predict the way this was gonna play out. And also, by the way, do you have a single principle that you actually care about and are willing to stand by? Because polls can move around, you know? You could actually just have a value.

You could actually just have a principle that you care about. And whether it's in favor of TikTok or against TikTok, you could just stand by that thing and argue for that thing. But no, no, they're just like blown around in the winds of wherever public opinion happens to be and basically led around by the nose by Republicans. I mean, Trump leads them into this thing and then Trump leads them out of this thing.

And they have no ability to set the messaging or the agenda themselves. It's so utterly pathetic that it is completely insane. That's, you know, I also think it's a crisis of competence. So the law passed and the Biden administration basically didn't do anything about brokering for sale. I mean, if you were being real, the way to save it and for the Democrats to get credit, they could have gotten credit from the national security hawks and from the voters for saving TikTok. You pass the bill, Biden should get to China, right? He didn't have anything else going on, right? He literally wasn't even running for president. He should have flown to China, sat down with Xi Jinping, brokered some sort of deal or sale or whatever. There are multiple willing buyers here. We have a shit ton of leverage on

China if we want it to be. And then they could have saved it and they could have had it. And instead, they kind of just bumbled their way in to a de facto ban. I mean, it was hilarious, too, where, I mean, how long have we been covering this story? I actually, I know, in terms of my monologues, from 2019. But in recent months, we're like, hey, the deadline's on January 19th. Looks like nothing's going to happen. And then you would see, like, Chuck Schumer the day before be like, well, we're going to try and delay it. It's like, dude, you're a lawmaker.

Like, how did you not even know this was happening? We're doing nothing behind the scenes. So I think there's a major competence of governance in terms of actually trying to execute the ban or even the forced sale. And also, yeah, it's like this weird, like, what are you guys trying to do here? And that's kind of what I'm, that's the thing. I'm still confused about why did you guys all vote for this in the past? That's, I don't even understand. And that's the thing. And it's such a core problem for the Democratic Party, which is that under neoliberalism, they outsourced any core values to basically

market logic. Right. And a corollary of that is this idea of popularism, which is just like, let's take a poll and see what thing polls the best. And that's what we'll run on. And that's where we'll be. And again, polls change people's opinions. Guess what? Republicans really successfully changed their opinions on immigration as one example, because they were willing to have, you know, something that they cared about and make the case for it over and over again. And Sagar, I know the reality also helped them make that case, but the point still stands. They were willing to have a fight, even on things that were unpopular and to move public opinion. If you have no values, nothing you're

willing to fight for, everything is finger in the wind, everything is market logic and testing it, then like, it's just, this is the sort of pathetic situation that you end up in. And you never are going to be the primary mover. You're always just going to be chasing your tail or chasing Trump's tail or reacting to what the Republicans are throwing at you and the way that they're shaping the culture. And so that's why this story is so important. I mean, it's important on its own right, because TikTok is such a massive platform and it is an influential part of the culture, etc. But it's also important because it is indicative of one of the core failures of the Democratic Party and failures of like really meeting the moment. And so, you know, for example, Trump's, we'll see how long Trump's, like, newfound relative popularity lasts,

where he was flirting with a majority approval rating, something he has never had before. And I genuinely think a lot of that is just this sense of, like, he makes decisions and he takes actions. And even if, you know, those are things that some of them I agree with or some of them I don't agree with, I'm talking about from like an average voter perspective, like at least he's taking action, he's making decisions and he's doing things. The Democrats never can make a decision. They never know what they stand for. They never are willing to just say like, yeah, I'm going to make that thing happen. That thing is important. I'm going to make it happen right now. There's always got to be 12 committees or a parliamentarian that says I can't do it or whatever.

And so, you know, I feel like all of that is sort of tangled up in this TikTok story and just illustrates their utter patheticness and why they are now in minority and just lost the popular vote to friggin Donald J. Trump. Yeah, I think that's all well said. I see it a lot, not only with the TikTok issue, but in terms of how they're dealing with Trump. I really think that they were just so unprepared for the collapse and lack of the resistance, and they just don't know what to do now for what it looks like. And all of the sensible things that they would want to do would be so detrimental to the Democratic Party establishment that they just don't know how to deal with it. I mean, the good billionaire thing is the best example where they're like, okay, so what are we doing here? I don't know people who don't get that reference. Ken Martin, who is the leading candidate for the DNC, new DNC chair, got asked about taking money from

billionaires. He's like, well, of course, we're gonna take money from good billionaires and just not the bad billionaires. And of course, his definition of good billionaire is someone who gives money in the Democratic Party. And it's like, you know, maybe just having our country run by billionaires is bad. Whether you think they're good or bad billionaires,

maybe that's just a bad thing that you should consistently stand against. But that would require having a principle and actually caring about things. And it would, to your point, would be incredibly detrimental to the existing Democratic leadership, whose primary skill is sucking up to rich people and raising a lot of money from them. What I have noticed most about many people who are new Republicans in the last four years, specifically new vibey-based Trump supporters, is if you ask them about hypocrisy, whatever, they're going to be like, look, I don't even disagree with you. But, and what are they going to list? I don't like George Soros,

or I don't like Mark Zuckerberg before his previous turn. They're like, I've lived under oligarchic, democratic, liberal, cultural, elite rule now, and I hate it. And so I'm just going to go with the other option. I don't even particularly like the other option that much. In a lot of ways, the Flight 93 election was 2025. It was not 2016. Maybe we should debate that at some point with a lot of other people. But in terms of the way people felt, they genuinely felt as if there was no escape from the crisis of competence, of chaos, insanity, pressure, culture, whatever, all came together in terms of Trump because of who he is at a showman level, his ability to convey the message of I'm just going to do what I want, I'm willing to hit the red button and I'm going to vote for Trump. And I've been grappling with like how did this happen over the last four years? And it's interesting because I think what it comes back to is an indictment of liberal cultural elite rule. And so much of it, when you're faced with,

because we're about to talk about meme coin, that's why it's a good transition, is really, it really just comes down to, they're like, okay, but Bill Gates, you know, blah, blah, blah. And there's just not enough people who have been involved at the highest levels of democratic politics to call that out

or establish any credibility on the issue that they're like, screw you, eat shit. I'm not going to listen to somebody, you know, who took money from George or posing with Alex Soros and posing with Mark Zuckerberg and all these other people, you know, four years ago. I don't want to hear it from you, right? And so then the issue becomes a non, and that's exactly how bipartisan, what is it, the bigotry of low expectations, that's what's effectively now happening to American politics, is that people have so little faith that the other side is going to do anything, even remotely principled, that they say, screw it, I'm just going to pick the person who I think will get a little bit of what I want done. And I totally under, I did that. I don't like this position, but what

irrational actor in a bad model. Now, how you fix that, I have no idea. Okay. You're talking to the wrong guy. But I do think that that feeling is so important for especially a lot of this new bro sphere and others is they just feel so beaten down by a lot of the democratic institutions and others that they just feel like as if they have no choice but to have a total escape. And that's a very hard problem to solve. You know, my view is effectively that after the Iraq war and the financial collapse, like that sort of like twin blow, the neoliberal order was basically done. Now, this is not the way that any normal person

would articulate it, but it's like the system as it exists. Like this is bankrupt. This has failed. This is not delivering for me in any sort of a meaningful way. We got to do something different. And so you have these twin rival movements

that, you know, arise. You've got the Bernie movement and you've got the Trump movement. And Democrats really had kind of a choice. They could have either focused their primary efforts on defeating Trumpism and, you know, making that the priority and using models from history of how we defeated, you know, fascism in the past and right-wing reactionary movements in the past, which was through the New Deal coalition, etc. Or Democratic elites could primarily train their fire on that Bernie Sanders grassroots movement so that they could maintain their grip on power within the Democratic Party. And that was goal number one. I'm not going to say they didn't want to defeat Trump. Of course they did. But that was

goal number one. There were even, there were New York Times articles about how they were, they were willing to risk, quote unquote, party damage to defeat Bernie Sanders movement. And with that as their primary goal, they were wildly successful, wildly successful. That's what the, and Ryan was tweeting about this this morning. That was what the identity politics invention from Hillary Clinton. That's what that was all about. That was about saying like, you all aren't even really progressive because you're not talking about intersectionalism and breaking up the big banks isn't going to end racism, blah, blah, blah. Very effective. OK. And also really annoying to the population and created a massive backlash to the Democratic Party. And number two, like,

Russiagate was also part of making sure that after Hillary Clinton was defeated, the most logical takeaway for people to have, you know, come to at that point was this lady who was like the queen of the neoliberals. This way of doing politics, this doesn't work to defeat Trump. This isn't the thing. Like we need to do something different. But instead of having that takeaway, they have the takeaway of Russia and collusion and the P-tape and Comey and whatever. Total distraction tactic from their manifest failures at that time. And, again, it worked. It worked for what their primary goal was. It works like a charm. Bill, you know, from my perspective, off-ramp from this moment where Trumpism is ascendant, dominant, no brakes on the car, maximalist approach to governance, which we're already seeing with, you know, pardoning all the J6 people and launching his own shit coins and just like blatant, brazen theft of tens of billions of dollars from his own supporters. that was back really in 2016 was where the road diverged. And then there was another bite at the

apple in 2020 with Bernieism again. But, you know, that kind of to me was when the course was ultimately set. So, you know, and the pieces you say are not, you know, that's another way of looking at that story, right? I don't think that those two things are like at odds with each other. But my own view of our recent history and how we ended up with this really, 2016 is kind of the pivot point where Democrats decide that rather than embracing their own left-wing response to Trumpism, they're going to try to hold on to this bankrupt, discredited ideology that is being rejected, just here but rejecting it around the world. Not only that but actively embracing pushing the culture and really making that the cornerstone of a lot of your argument against the right and basically making – And against the left.

I mean, look, I'm personally enjoying it, right? Like I've hated this shit from the beginning. It's literally the only reason that that's what turned me to right-wing politics was a rejection of what I thought was like cultural, liberal overreach. And so to see so much of the population completely blackpilled on any credibility of the media, on a lot of cultural like left-wing shibboleths and things that we weren't even allowed to say over the last eight years. Or you could say it, but you're going to have problems and all that. I'm enjoying, I'm really, really enjoying that. I do, I'm curious too, to see how much of that is all Trump needs to do in some cases is not even do anything. As long as the economy is fine, and as long as a lot of this bullshit is not in our culture, I think a lot of people might think that he's very successful.

I just know so many people who are so disaffected and so repulsed by these like commanding heights of culture and other that just the victory of Trump himself was enough. I've been going back and doing some more reading about the Reagan era, very similar, actually. If you go back and you look at one of the reasons why Ronald Reagan was part of the reason why the 80s was looked as like a way to save yourself from the horrible, like consternation of the 1970s and all of that was a very similar period of like inflation, chaos of foreign policy issues, but also just like crazy shit going on in terms of like movements on the street from the new left and the fall of the Vietnam activism. And I mean, even on the right, we don't talk about and look at some of the big like right

wing, the Goldwaterism and stuff like that, that Reagan was able to resurrect the John Birch Society. I mean, these were huge, huge debates in the country at the time. Reagan was able to use this like showman aspect of command in power where, look, he's an actor, right? Yeah, he was a governor, but he had some beliefs, but at the end of the day, he didn't do a lot. But by doing that, just by kind of existing and by being this showman, this cheerleader of the United States against Soviet communism, he really was able to achieve like a massive approval rating and real vibe shift in the country. I have huge criticisms of the Reagan presidency. But I like to study. I'm like, why are people popular in their time?

I think Trump will be a huge beneficiary of a similar movement. Maybe. I don't know. I already see signs of tremendous over—pardon me, the J6 people. That's not popular. It's really unpopular. I don't think people will care. The meme coin shit, really unpopular. So I think— See, I will disagree. It's possible. But I think you're likely to see a backlash against him. I mean, I think there's also going to be a backlash against the, you know, more like aggressive and like visibly cruel immigration crackdown. I think it's also, I don't think there's any guarantees about where the

economy is going to be either. I think there's, you know, very possible that we have like an AI or crypto bubble that completely bursts. So a lot of question marks about how this is all going to go for him. I mean, look, again, possible. But I think it's more likely that you're going to get some level of backlash to, because they are reading a mandate that is much broader than what voters actually handed them. And that leads to a lot of political. It only depends on which. I don't disagree. I made that point yesterday, right? In terms of overreach and what all of that stuff look like. But I'll tell you why I disagree on the Jan 6 stuff. This is a settled question. And in terms of what I mean by that is that the January 6th,

Americans heard more about January 6th and Donald Trump for a four-year straight period than any other issue about Donald Trump. He still won the popular vote and he won his own party. The idea that there would be some backlash to Donald Trump doing what he basically said he was going to do, at least, you know, maybe it's a little bit more than what people expected. He was going to pardon people, like beating up police officers. He didn't really say anything. That's what a lot of people forget. J.D. may have said something. Right. Republicans may have said something. That's what a lot of people forget. J.D. may have said something. Right.

Republicans may have said something. That was not, I think, clear to people. But listen, and people vote on a range of issues. So the fact that Trump still gets elected by a point and a half doesn't mean that they were like, actually, January 6th was fine. Okay, but at this point, Trump doesn't need to run for re-election.

No, I know. He's going to do it on day one, and people will forget about it in one week. One of the reasons why— But these things build, right? What I'm saying is it's a sign of the overreach. It's a sign of a— But I haven't seen any backlash.

—maximalist—this happened like last night at 9 p.m. That's my point. I mean, okay, but the travel ban— It's a sign of the maximalist approach to governance that vastly overreads the mandate that he actually received from voters. So, you know, I think these things build on each other, right? I think part of Trump, why he was able to succeed this time is that there was sort of rose-colored glasses because he had been out of power for four years and people didn't really remember how chaotic it was and all of the worst things that they didn't like

about him. But this was one of the things that they liked that they were the most upset about. And it is a big part of the reason why Republicans in particular in 2022 did so poorly, all the Republicans that were associated with. So to your point, he doesn't have to run for reelection, but some Republicans going to have to. And not all of them are as actually none of them are as like uniquely charismatic and magically politically skilled as Donald Trump is. Yeah, look, I don't disagree. But I think it's day one. One of the things that they're doing is flood the zone strategy is to embrace the vibe shift is to do basically whatever they can at the height of their powers and try not to do anything too unpopular. So far, I think they've succeeded.

I mean, in terms of a lot of these executive orders, yeah, they're going to bitch and moan on CNN about January 6th. People just don't care. I really believe that people do not care about the pardon, or if they do, they forget about it in a week, okay? The stuff that sticks with people is both a long-term vibe. So in terms of overreach, what would that look like? It would look like foreign chaos. It would look like major inflation. Remember, Americans stuck with Biden for what, seven months, eight months? In the first eight months, there was high inflation at that time. They were like, hey, do something about this. Do something about this. And it was only after a while when he didn't do anything about it, they were like, okay, now we're going to turn on you. It takes a while.

So these things need to bleed. You're talking about immigration. I mean, first of all, as we said, there's a huge reality change. Also, if you look at the New York Times polling on this issue, shocking in terms of the mass majority support for deportation. There's actually a huge support for mass deportation. What I mean by that is mass deportation of all illegal immigrants, the plus 12 issue from the New York Times. Now, to your point, am I going to take that to the bank, right? I'm not stupid. I know how the media and how people are going to receive the reality of it. I know exactly what it looks like. I don't think most people do. So we'll see. It probably could change. But the fact that it's almost a 70 plus percent issue on deporting at least all of the

people who are here illegally under the Biden administration is crazy. And that shows you the change in the status quo. As long as it is executed, I think somewhat competently, I think he will be more popular for it. The only way it goes south is, well, actually, this is an interesting question too. I'm not so sure if it can go south in the same way. The trust in media has now gone down so much in the last eight years, the same conditions for the outrage over the travel ban and for deportation or closing the border. I don't know if that mechanism still exists in the same way. I could be totally wrong, but I do not see the same organic level of pushback. You know, if you scroll, my barometer is like normal friends' Instagram

stories. I'm not seeing the same stuff about racism, sexism, coming to the Women's March, can't believe he did this. I mean, you know, you remember, people were showing up at Dulles Airport, lawyers, to try and help people to go through the travel ban. I don't see any of that happening. I don't see, you know, Catholic charities and others organizing to try and help Guatemalans across the border. Like all this infrastructure, ACLU, right, raised a billion dollars over the Trump administration. They can file and fight. Show me your 1099.

I don't think that they're raising the same amounts of money this time. I just I think the country's changed. It's been eight years. The level of trust in the media and all the stuff on this issue is way down. The reality situation has changed. And another thing that I guess Trump and JD and all these other people deserve credit for is they have stuck to this argument now for a long time. And they've won, in my opinion. Now, the Democrats might be able to, you know, if we have maybe, I think the big overreach, like what you're talking about would be like a mass deportation of DACA, right? That's an issue,

which is definitely on the other side. But absent that, I don't really see it yet. But again, a lot of this is competence-based. It's worth remembering that at the height of the initial George Floyd protests in Minnesota, there was a significant majority in favor of protesters burning down a police station. Yeah, but again, they didn't know what that meant. But yeah, you're right.

Well, yeah. And that's my point is it's one thing to, in theory, support something when it sounds bloodless and painless. And you've been told that this will bring down prices for you and help deal with housing costs and labor. Sure. You know, you'll get better wages, blah, blah, blah. It's another thing to see the human reality of it and what that actually entails. And especially another thing when that human reality and cruelty ensues. And guess what? Your life isn't actually better. It didn't actually make your wages go up. It didn't actually make it so that housing was more affordable or that other core material problems you're struggling with in your life improve. And then you add to

that the fact that the tariffs are very likely. I mean, if he institutes anything like what he's talking about, the tariffs will be inflationary. And that he doesn't believe, he said this yesterday, he doesn't really believe that inflation was important to people. He said he thought it was overrated. He said it was second. He said he thought it was overrated as a problem. He might be right, though. So he's not taking seriously that the cost of living, I think cost of living is that because that gives him permission to pursue a terror strategy, which at least in the short term is almost certainly going to be inflationary. So, you know, you're right that I mean, I don't think if he just did the J6 thing and, you know, pardon them and then everything else people liked, like, no, that's indicative of a maximalist strategy to over-interpret the mandate and indulge his worst instincts and worst excesses.

And I think it's unlikely that over the long term it will ultimately be popular. But we're going to see. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're

unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fat phobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean. But the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne.

From Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down.

He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you, but then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We, you know, he drops this shit coin, Trump coin. Then the next day he drops a Melania shit coin. Or maybe she dropped it. We don't know yet, right? Whatever. It doesn't matter. I mean, he already, like, just the Melania, dropping the Melania coin totally undercut the Trump coin. So, all right, it dropped like, what, 40% instantly after the Melania thing

drops. I saw this morning, I don't know, I have to double check the numbers on this, but that the Melania coin was already down like 70% from its peak or something. So people who aren't crypto people understand, these meme coins, they don't exist. I mean, all it is is hype. It is a pure Ponzi scheme, at least with Bitcoin, which I'm also not a big fan of. But at least with Bitcoin, there's a story about a new technology and using it as actual currency, you know, for transactions, cross-national transactions and frictionless and not having to deal with government, blah, blah, blah. At least there's a story. With these, there's no even pretense that this adds anything valuable

or productive to the economy. It's just a total greater fool cash grab, meaning that you buy in with the hope and the assumption that there will be people dumber and more gullible than you who are gonna come in after you and push the price up so that you can be one of the winners. But I mean, by and large, these are just massive upward transfers of wealth. The Trump coin, 80% is held by insiders. The Melania coin, I saw 89% is held by a single

wallet. So those people are guaranteed to come out on the positive net winner side. And then all of the suckers who, not all, but many of the suckers who get pulled in after are the ones who will bear real cash losses from purchasing this entirely fake, invented bullshit thing. Yeah. And you know, I generally, as people know, I think it's bad. We have talked how many times on the show? Trump Hotel, Trump Super PAC saying he's going to challenge Stop the Steal. Yeah. Trump Birch. This is another level, though.

Crystal, you're right, but guess what? At a certain point, this gets, remember a conversation we had before the holiday when I was talking about sports gambling and how no matter how much information I or others put out there about people getting ripped off about sports gambling, that sports gambling becomes more popular in the United States, even though you're literally losing if you're placing gambles. At a certain point, people want to be

ripped off. And I just, I'm stopping feeling bad anymore. They want the fantasy of this. Then you suffer the consequences at this point. You guys voted for this. You guys don't care about this. Then fine, deal with it. I don't care about this. Then fine, like deal with it. I just don't, I don't feel bad anymore.

It's just such naked, I don't know. Yeah, and they like it. It seems like truly end-stage capitalism. Where, like I said, look, there's tons of fakery in the stock market, right? Like oftentimes stock prices are not really related to like the value of that company. And a lot of that is based on hype and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. At least there's a story about some product or service that is being offered that is some sort of a benefit to humanity. This is just pure theft, cash grab. And I mean, to me, it's wild that it's legal. It's wild that this is allowed at all, that you can just like

invent a fake thing and steal a bunch of people's money and it's perfectly fine. But this is allowed at all, that you can just like invent a fake thing and steal a bunch of people's money and it's perfectly fine. But this is, I mean, it's very similar to what the Hawk Tua chick, Haley, it's the same shit that this lady did. And so now, you know, again, anybody who doesn't have an issue with this on the Republican side, like I don't want to hear about your Hunter Biden corruption, James Biden corruption, Nancy Pelosi inside. It is that is pennies compared to what we're talking about here. Trump, what? I mean, he massively inflated his own net worth. He is now predominantly his wealth is from this freaking crypto. That's part of why it's absurd is that it's going to collapse.

So everyone's like, oh, Trump is worth 25 billion. It's like, no, he's worth, I don't know, whatever the post-crash price will be, which will be like 0.1 cent. So, yes, I guess technically on paper he's worth $25 billion or whatever. Yeah, on paper, the bulk of his wealth is now in the stupid Trump coin. I will also say a lot of this is Don Jr. and Eric, too, who are actually the ones behind it. I think it's called like World Liberty Financial. I don't know what to say. Like I said to you, I think people are enjoying getting ripped off at a certain point. By the way, if you're invested in Trump coin, you're a fucking idiot. All right,

let's just say it. Can we all be honest? If you're going online and you're buying this graph, you're a moron. And a lot of the people who do invest in this stuff do so specifically for speculative purposes to try and get in on the idiots who will buy it. I just no long, I feel exhausted by the conversation now, frankly, just because it's so obvious to me now in the more socially libertarian, isolated America, this is unironically what people want. And at a certain point, why try and protect people from what they want? Like, they want to gamble. They want to play the lottery. They want to buy Trump coin because they think it's funny or, you know,

or ticket to wealth. What are we supposed to do whenever, look, the argument against Trump has been made. The corruption argument has happened. It's been plastered all over the news. People don't give a shit. So it's like what I was telling you previously. They think that the Democratic Party is so equally corrupt that their guy is corrupt, but he does this stuff that they like. I don't think it's a good thing, but that's what they think. They have no problem. And so it's a hypocrisy race to the bottom. And when they hear people who are Democrats, Chris Murphy, I saw, and others are criticizing this. It's like, dude, they're just going to point to your photo with Alex Soros and they're going to say you're equally corrupt.

You're not even wrong, absolutely, on absolute terms. What's Pelosi worth on paper? $100 million, something like that? I mean, Hunter getting some board seat or whatever. $600 grand. It's nothing. Nothing compared to this. In absolute terms. So I just, the thing I'm saying, Sagar, is first of all, number one,

I don't think that, like, I can't just throw my hands up because I think these things are, I think corruption is actually really important and, you know. But they don't. that, like, I can't just throw my hands up because I think these things are, I think corruption is actually really important. But they don't. They control the country. Like, you obviously do, too. You did a whole long monologue about your problems with online gambling. And you may acknowledge, like, okay, politically, like, I'm in the minority here. But that didn't stop you from feeling like it was important.

No, of course. You make the argument, which is my position here as well. Yeah. But it's also, like, you know, again, if you don't have any smoke for Trump on, don't tell me about Pelosi's and say, you don't care. You actually don't care. And you are just a total partisan hack. If you have no smoke for Trump on this, but the only corruption you see is on the Democratic side, because in that hypocrisy race to the bottom, let me tell you, buddy, he just won because no one, show me another instance

where a politician has managed to grift tens of billions of dollars off their own, primarily their own supporters through something that is just completely fake. Completely fake. I mean, again, assuming he actually is able to realize any of these gains. I would be-

He's gonna be able to realize some of them. I would bet at best he can realize like maybe 50 million. Look, I'm not putting it down, but 50 million. That's an insane amount of money. Yeah, sure, but it's not 25 billion. Look, I'm not defending it. What I'm just saying is it's very clear that the way that this has all played out, like Dave Portnoy buying Trump coin, pumping Trump coin, right?

People getting in on this. I saw a lot of this during the whole Robin Hood, you know, GME thing. And now you really see it. And really what you see it today is just gambling. People single game parlays. And their willingness and want, they want more gambling products. They love to be ripped off. It's the most remarkable thing in the world.

And I just feel- They love the promise of the possibility of what it could, they want to buy into like, you know, fortune favors the brave. And there are enough examples of random people who place the crypto bet at the right time that they're like, that could be me. That could be me. And lacking better, in some instances, lacking better prospects or any other real pathway to that sort of like luxury lifestyle or even being able to just like make it and have a normal middle class lifestyle. Yeah, they're going to chase, they're going to be susceptible to chasing hands like this. I just, I don't know how Yes and no. I just I don't know how a society survive. Truly, I don't know how a society survives where it is illegal to just make up money with the explicit purpose of robbing people.

I mean, that's what this is. Like it is. It is a pure Ponzi scheme. At least the Amway people like sell some shit. Right. This doesn't even have that. Like it doesn't even have the pretense of of that it's just invented and this is like this is a core part of the economy like

i just no it's not a core part of the economy that's not increasingly like no no it's less than one percent of overall this is but this is like a central also um promise of the trump administration is like moving more in the direction. Let's have the Bitcoin crypto reserve. I don't know. I just, to me, it's such a sign. I mean, first of all, just the brazenness of Trump, right? Yeah, and he is getting away with it.

I know. He gets away with everything. That's my point. He's gotten away with everything. People don't care. I don't know what to say. The greatness of Trump and also just like yesterday, the 1900s and the way that you had literal like robber barons and other people who would be in power, both politically and then also similarly either involved in big business or price discrimination, etc. It's just a natural

extension of an extremely low trust society. That's what we're in. You know, if people are trying to parse the differences of like, oh, but Pelosi and all that is bad. Oh, but Trump is bad. And when neither have any credibility on the issue, they, again, they just choose like the lesser of two evils. I really do. I saw someone tweet this and I think this is right. I think Citizens United really was like the beginning of the end of any semblance of democracy. Because I do think like, you know, effectively capitalism and democracy, very difficult for the two to coexist, very difficult. If it's going to work, you're going to have to have some strict controls on money and politics. And not only do we not have strict control, we basically have no controls on

money and politics effectively, effectively. And yeah, so I mean, that's what you're going to end up with is a bunch of oligarchs who run the government, get what they want, and, you know, get taxpayer goodies and get the decisions on AI and crypto and whatever that's going to further enrich them. And screw over working people because they won't have the ability to join labor unions or organize or fight back against the AI that's going to come and take their jobs. Like, that is the natural endpoint of the system that we set up. And that, to your point, Sagar, that both parties have at this point, like, wholly embraced. But what I can't move away from is that's what people want. Majority of people, or not majority, a huge portion of households who are union voted for Trump. It's just like, okay, well, you know, don't complain. I don't know what to say.

Like, they like him. They don't care about the NLRB or whatever. They think it's like bureaucratic bullshit. And then Trump will just, you know, he'll change everything up. But it's not like their other option was really great. No, sure. I mean, Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate, stood for nothing, and barely lost. I wouldn't say barely. A point and a half.

I mean, you lose all seven swing states. Yes, a point and a half, you lost all seven seven swing states and importantly even within that point and a half the democratic the demographic movement is deeply important for what the future of that looks like no doubt and who's left in if it continues in that direction yeah nothing is you know nothing in politics is permanent etc etc but really what we are looking at is the new birth of socially libertarian America. This is what it looks like. This is the snake oil salesman era of the early 1900s. And I think the Trump, again, if you want to change that, you have to think about why is it so popular? I will never understand it. Why people put their money on FanDuel or, and look, $5, $10 is not what we're all worried about here. We're

talking about people who are gambling away their life savings. Or if, yeah, if you put your life savings in Trump, this is where the bootstrap part of me comes in. I don't know. You deserve it. I don't know what, like, that's an IQ test. That's social Darwinianism at a certain point. And what we have gotten to is a society that venerates and wants this get rich quick and all of this. Now, there's a lot of reasons for that. A lot of people in power are responsible. But let's also not let people off the hook. Sure.

They like it. And I don't know what to say. In a country which loves weed and porn and gambling and, you know, is constantly searching for get-rich-quick stuff. And they make fun of people like Dave Ramsey and others who tell them to save their money and put it in the freaking S&P 500. And they're like, oh, that's boomer shit. Even though that's like the greatest return that you probably could have ever asked for compared to the idiot stuff that you're doing. I mean, like, people have a choice. Their individual responsibility and wishes are a thing. This is what they want. I don't want to deny people individual agency for their decisions, but when you have a mass societal trend, then you have to ask what are the underlying economic, social, political conditions

that are leading to that trend because they don't just come out of nowhere. And my contention would be that in an era of mass inequality, the likes of which we have never seen in human history, where the price of goods that are required in order to obtain just a basic middle class basic middle-class life have been going up and up and up for decades. And, you know, also there's a lot of cultural trends. I mean, you do see, like, the valorization of the businessman who breaks the rules but gets away with it and gets rich and gets the girl and whatever. Like, there's those social cultural trends as well. But yeah, that leads a lot of people to be very susceptible to mythology about, you know, whether it's how Trump is going to save them and they put all their trust in him.

And that's part of, you know, that parlays right into this crypto theft heist scheme. Or if it's trust in like, this is my shot. This is my lotto ticket to be able to make it to the good life. I don't disagree necessarily. I just sometimes have to like truly, I mean, I think about this with weed. I think about this with porn. I think about this with gambling. These are massively popular services.

I could show people all the social research in the world that will show this is so bad for you. If you live your life the opposite to this, you will be better off. They don't want to do it. They like it. It's like, look, we're not a dictatorship. You can't control people. And, yes, there's a lot of people who, what, there's a lot of, you know, economic reasons, et cetera, and all that. But a lot of it is cultural.

A lot of it is familial. And I think we're gone. I mean, I think we've long past moved what that even looks like in terms of what that everything will look like for a fix. I don't think Donald Trump is going to fix it. I don't even think it's literally possible. I think maybe he could usher in an age where we ask bigger questions in a society. Maybe more of you will be able to grapple with bigger questions and other stuff and with media and the new environment. But, you know, in the interim, there's just a, there's, this is the, you know, the, this is the celebration. And, you know, it's just funny.

Every time I talk about gambling or whatever, oh, you're a narc, you're a nerd, weed, same thing, porn, you know, they start laughing when you talk about all these things. And they will fight to the death for their right to consume the things that are bad for them. And, you know, look at prohibition. Prohibition was a good idea. Sorry, it's true. People were drunk and they were beating their wives and the women are the ones who wanted it. And then they got it overturned because they just want to be drunk all the time. It's like, okay, you know, at a certain point you just got to give people what they want.

It also, we don't have to fight about prohibition today, but, you know, I mean, it led to a massive increase in crime and organized gang. Well, there's also

the Great Depression. People conveniently leave that out of the story. True, true. Yeah, like in terms of where a lot of the crime and all that came from. One of the main reasons

they brought it back is because they needed tax revenue, ironically. That tracks. Yeah, when we think about it, with all of the stuff that's super popular today, and look at male culture, look at what young people, dudes, and all of that are looking at. I think there's a lot of economic reasons for it, but I also think there's a huge cultural component to all of this.

And the more I see of how it is not only dominated, but has become overwhelmingly popular, the less optimistic I am that anything is ever going to change. Do you need anything? Oh, yeah. If you guys could bring me some water whenever. Control room. Can we get water in here, please? But we can go ahead and fight about Elon now if you'd like. Oh, okay. All right, sure. Let me finish this coffee then. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left.

In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment

and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911.

Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister.

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

So a huge controversy broke out yesterday over whether or not Elon Musk did a Nazi salute, like a whole Heil Hitler situation, during one of his speeches. The explanations, we'll show you the video. Before I give you the explanations, and Sagar will give you his explanation, I want you guys to be able to see the video for yourselves. And then we can discuss. And I just want to say thank you for making it

happen. Thank you. So that's it. So immediately people were like, that looks like a Nazi salute. You don't think so. Okay. If every time someone raises their hand like that, is it a Nazi salute? It comes down to intention.

Yes. Do we believe that Elon Musk is a literal Nazi who is intentionally Sieg Heilig? Or do we have a high-functioning autistic weirdo who, if you watch the full video, is spastically dancing like this on stage and unable to control all of his movements and also did some weird, like, my heart is with you type gesture?

Which of those two things do you think is more accurate? I don't think it takes a genius to figure this out. So that's why the controversy over this is so, it's so 2017 to me. It's like whenever this was supposed to be racist. Do you remember that? And people were like, oh, this is racist. Okay, go ahead and screen grab it. Call me a racist.

I don't fucking care. This stuff is stupid. It's 2025. We've been through all of this. I find this whole thing exhausting. I would be. Are we saying Elon is a Nazi? Yeah.

But, I mean, I would be more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt if he didn't. My Twitter timeline after he took over is like, and I think you would agree, filled with literal Nazis who he occasionally, not that infrequently, makes a point of agreeing with and elevating, backs the AFD in Germany. AFD is not Nazi. It's a legitimate. So are you saying all the people who voted for AFD are Nazis in Germany? I'm just saying, Sagar, in terms of plausible deniability, that is the most reactionary party in Germany. Part of it, a wing of it, is actually banned

because of their extremism tied to neo-Nazi movement. That's also because they have insane laws on the books in Germany. So when you talk about, you say, okay, it comes down to intent. True. What I'm offering is that there is enough evidence of this white South African who is very comfortable and very comfortable, obviously, elevating Nazis on Twitter. Very comfortable using a lot of the rhetoric about birth rates and population decline and invasion, et cetera, et cetera. And that, you know, is a backer of the furthest right, most reactionary parties in Germany itself that, you know, look, the people who think that this was a Nazi salute are pretty

much everybody left of center and actual Nazis also were like, that's our guy. Okay, go for it. I just can't believe, I just can't believe that, you know, I'm supposed to believe that the smartest man on the planet, this brilliant genius, doesn't know what he's doing in this situation? Like, come on. Yeah, but don't we also know he's a fucking idiot at times? And just like anybody moving around

does weird, socially awkward stuff, like maybe a guy named Elon who's acted like this for his entire life. If he hadn't dabbled in Nazi ideology, I would be more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt. You can't say talking about birth rates is Nazi ideology. And then the other thing is— And why is a guy who's a Nazi advocating for more unrestricted H-1B Indian visas at his company?

That's like pretty—right? So that kind of conflicts a little bit with racialist ideology. This just gets to the whole election. Everybody's tried this shit before. Nazism, birth rates, if you care about immigration, it's been totally rejected at the ballot box. People who are predominantly black and Hispanic are the majority. New entrance to the Trump coalition specifically on behalf of this. Terms have meaning.

Elon is not, look, and people here know, I'm not some Elon fanboy. I hate community notes. Twitter has gotten way more annoying ever since we used it. The reason why I think Nazis get elevated on your Twitter feed is because the algorithm is designed to piss you off. To elevate Nazis. Yeah, and you know what I get, too, on mine? I get a bunch of shithead leftists who are constantly bitching about race or whatever. Because that's what makes me mad.

Or trans bullshit. That's what I'm trying to say. So, like, saying the right-wing reactionary party, AFD believes in less immigration for Germany, that's not Nazi. Talking about birth rates, that's not Nazi. Saying that people who care about those issues are Nazi-adjacent is the same thing as tagging people like you who have your beliefs and saying it's communist.

Ludicrous. That's not communism to believe in a fire department. Oh, that's collectivism, which is part of Karl Marx. Again, these terms are clear, delineated. People naturally understand that when we say Nazi has a very specific connotation, meaning, intent, belief, policy, do we really believe that Elon has that? There is no evidence for it unless you seek that interpretation I just made about drawing any sort of like socialist or any sort of democratic socialist belief and saying you're full-blown Marxist. I mean, you know, we don't talk like that here. Why does it apply to Nazism? Well, I mean, it sure looks like a Nazi salute.

And he's dabbled in Nazi ideology. But what does that mean? What does Nazi ideology mean? He's very much more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, if not for that, and the fact that he did it twice, and the fact that a bunch of Nazis think that it was a Nazi salute. What does Nazi ideology has Elon propose? Saying that we have to care about birth rates and we want less immigration? That's not a Nazi policy. That's actually an overwhelming policy.

All this conversation about, yeah, birth rate and civilization decline and invasions and, you know, racializing crime, all of these things are adjacent. But that's like saying democratic socialism is Marxism. Is that adjacent to communism? Obviously, yeah, kind of. I think this man knows what he's doing. No, I don't. I absolutely think this man knows what he's doing. And so, you know, look, do I think that people are going to care? Do I think it is, does feel sort of like, you know, 2017-ish

and like kind of cringe or whatever? Yeah. But guess what? Sometimes things that are popular are bad. Sometimes things that are popular are like actually genuinely evil. And that is not going to stop me from speaking out against things that I think are wrong and extremism that I think has been welcomed back into political discourse. And yeah, I do think AFD is an extremist party. I think his backing of that, I mean, his dabbling in the UK political situation, like he's going further than Nigel Farage even is willing to go in terms of, you know, backing Tommy Robinson, who was an explicit racist Islamophobe who was in prison for like, you know, like horrifically smearing this teenage kid and lying about him. And so, yeah,

I don't think it's crazy to think that, like, this is a signal that he's throwing out there and giving himself enough plausible deniability. I think that is what's going on. I just think it's saluted. I honestly think that's ridiculous. Like, to say that is an intentional Zieg Heil salute. I mean, by the way, has this been beneficial

to the Trump movement or Elon Musk or Tesla or even his other companies? I mean, I think the guy is just spastic and weird. Anybody I know who's ever met Elon tells me the same. You're not buying the Roman salute coat? No, no, no. I was going to say Roman salute.

If we all want to talk, right? As an Indian, actually, you know, this is something that's always pissed me off is that Hitler appropriated various different symbols that have now become conflated with Nazism. So for example, many Hindus, a lot of white tourists, when they go to India, they're like, why are there so many Nazi swastikas over here? It's like, oh, turns out it's an ancient Hindu symbol. It's the other way. And the swastika

is, you know, something that has nothing to do with that in India. And in India, they're very able to say, yeah, actually, it's an ancient Hindu symbol. And yes, Nazis, you just, we're not just going to let people tar it. And we'll actually continue to paint it on temple yeah, actually it's an ancient Hindu symbol, and yes, Nazi's used it, so we're not just gonna let people tar it, and we'll actually continue to paint it on temple floors, put it all over, and we're just gonna continue. With the Roman salute, the quote unquote, Sieg Heil, was literally appropriated

from the ancient Roman salute, which is famous in many of these statues. Now, am I gonna go around Sieg Heil-ing or Roman saluting? No. Well, also, the Roman salute, apparently was not a real thing. It was like made-up movies and then adopted by fascists. That's right.

It was appropriated by fascist ideology in the early 1900s, specifically Mussolini, Oswald Mosley, and others, because they were trying, specifically Mussolini as well, to try and bring back this idea of like Romanism and greatness to the Italian empire, which also Hitler was greatly influenced by in the 1920s. But again, with Elon, with all of this, Nazism and calling someone a Nazi or even implying all this stuff around people is, in my opinion, a huge reason why the cultural left has so much less credibility and the media today. Like you have to ask people very basic questions

like I just did. Do you think this person is a Nazi? Like, I just, and look, maybe you do. I don't think that that's the case at all. And to get there, you have to do what, you know, all this mental gymnastics about adjacency, which I find just as annoying when right-wingers say this about any social democratic thing and say,

that's a literal Stalin-esque communism. I would say- It's the same thing. I think he and I think Trump are, like, I think this administration is a fascist administration. Like we've had, I mean, we've had this debate before, but if you look at the definition and especially with the merging of, you know, the richest man in the world and the business with the government. And, you know, I mean, we have a raft of executive orders that are enlisting the military in draconian border policies, like, you know, not to be whatever, but like you said, words do have meaning. And if you look through the definition, yeah, I think it fits. I think that, I do think that this is a fascist administration that at its core that is in power. I think Elon is obviously a key part of that.

So that's what I would say. I mean, I just think this will go on forever. But I mean, again, it's like it's deeply within the American context, which I don't think has always been quote-unquote fascist. The American context has flirted with fascism in the past. So I'm not saying it's not American. As long as that's being qualified, like that's fine. But it's like, again, like, terms, I think, are important.

And I also think they should be reserved for extraordinary things. So if we have Reichstag fires, false flags, militarization, end of government, and then the fusing of the economy and the state, then sure, I'll talk about fascism. Until that, as long as there's a court system and what, a Congress, which can frequently and often does change, and a democratic populace that frequently changes its mind and has the ability to have pushback, et cetera, like to say they're living in fascist countries is frankly insane. I mean, you can say that there's fascist tendencies or would want to be, you know, fine. I mean, I think all of those are okay, but- I think it would want to be, you know, fine. I mean, I think all of those are okay. I think it would want to be, and, you know, this is what I've expressed for a while, that I think this administration, because there are no real checks left,

because there are no real guardrails left, will be able to more fully exercise those tendencies this time around. And, you know, I think there's already some significant signs of that. Yeah. I mean, like, again, if we're using the idea of executive power or use of the military or whatever, if that's always fascist, then that erases the meaning. No, but if that's the tendency, then it erases the meaning of that. And then that means then that FDR, who often did many of the same things that Trump is currently doing, actually far more in terms of his executive power. Fascism is explicitly right-wing. No, not necessarily.

No. Well, Mussolini started out as a socialist. Any definition of fascism, any basic definition that you would look up online, one of the descriptors would be far right. Well, it's difficult, and that's more because of a connotative with the hitlerism if we actually look and study like the history of fascism in italy a lot of it started out as it was left wing that got fused with nationalism kind of beside the point the issue is not about right wing per se it's we're talking about tendencies like the reason why you're using the term is because of actions like military

or executive order. Those are standard executive powers under the American imperial presidency. Again, FDR would have been a... Ending birthright citizenship which is part of the Constitution is not a standard executive order. Okay, but if it gets struck down by the... Invoking the Foreign Enemies Act is that what it's called? Alien Enemies Act. Yeah, the

Alien Enemies Act, which is what was used to justify Japanese internment and has never been used in this context. Like that's not an ordinary executive order. So, you know, I mean, these and again, partly this will play on in terms of how far does Trump want to go? Because if some of these things do get struck down by the Supreme Court and which is no guarantee because the Supreme Court is more or less on his side at this point. And he's like, I don't care. I'm doing it anyway.

I have never seen no evidence of that. Don't you think that that's a possibility? If he does that, then that would be a – do I think it's a possibility? Honestly, no, especially on birthright citizens. Because when we talked about it earlier, you said you thought it was possible. No, the birthright citizens. I said, yeah, anything is possible. But, like, do I think that that's the most likely outcome?

Absolutely not. No. I mean, there's no evidence of that previously. Now, you know, this, I mean, even the whole Andrew Jackson thing, like we really think that's going to fly like today. So look, we're going to base it back in this. I have no idea also the political utility of this because Nazism itself, I think is commonly understood to mean what I think it means. And so when the term is misappropriated and applied, as it was to Donald Trump, and then rejected at the ballot box, it causes a loss of credibility in media and also makes it more difficult if you want to criticize actual Nazis about a lot of this stuff. So conflation makes it more difficult to have nuance or even interesting conversation around any of these issues. And I really think the

democratic socialist communist argument is the perfect one. Do you know how many people called FDR a communist back in his time? Do I think he's a communist? No. But the reason why was because they're like, oh, any sort of social government or any of that, even if it's supported by the people, is communist. Let me ask you this. So Trump calls people like Kamala Harris and whatever communists all the time. Yeah. All the time.

How many times have I said it's dumb? But do you think that has caused him a loss of credibility? Do you think that that's diminished his standing, blah, blah, blah? That's a good question. Actually, I mean, honestly, don't you think kind of has with a lot of people? Because we've talked a lot about this in the past. I seem to work for him pretty well, to be honest with you.

No, but we've talked in the past how they used to say that about Joe Biden, and most people didn't believe Joe Biden was a communist. I'm pretty sure he called Kamala a fascist and a communist. I don't know. But he called Biden. Republicans always call Democrats communists, and that's why I think the term doesn't have much meaning.

The thing is, like. There's so much smoke for people being like, Trump's a fascist, and here's why, and here's the reasons. But when he does it, and when Republicans constantly do it all the time, it's like, yeah, that's fine. That doesn't cause a loss of credibility. Right, but that doesn't mean you should play the same

game, though. I'm not playing the same game. Because when I, like, the idea that Kamala Harris is a communist is so preposterous. The, like, if you look at the definition of fascism, you know, far right, ultra nationals, militaristic, often aligned, directly like, you know, co-opting large parts of big business, I think there's a pretty reasonable case to be made. One may disagree and you are fair and it's perfectly fine for you to disagree, and we've had this disagreement before, et cetera, et cetera.

But I do feel the way you do of like, well, words have meaning, and this seems to fit to a T pretty close. I made an awkward movement. I mean, that's where I'm just, look. An awkward movement? Part of the reason why I feel and hate this whole conversation is it's so fucking stupid, in my opinion. Like, look, at the end of the day, I don't think most people think Elon is a Nazi.

So, you know, like, what are we doing here? We're analyzing the movement of Elon because he's like an autistic spastic weirdo? Like, if an autistic kid did that at a celebration for a school, what do you think we would all think? We're like, oh, you know, whatever. So it's like, it's ableist. I'm being ableist right now. I guess. Yeah, good question.

That's perfect. We should, no, Elon is neurodivergent. That's what all of you people are not. I'm sorry. His neurodivergence is not being appropriately applied to the context within all of this. I just don't see why it's so important. Well, the ADL agrees with you.

Well, that's because the ADL is currying favor with power, okay? That's a different story. The ADL, yeah, go ahead and put the ADL thing up because at least then we can end by both shitting on the ADL. They, you know, this is the group that if you do a rally chant that they don't like, it's a hate crime. If you wear a keffiyeh, it's an anti-Semitic attack.

I mean, we showed you, showed you the move. Sagar disagrees, it does look, many people are saying though, it does look like a SIG Heil, it does look like it. But the ADL, no smoke for Elon, of course. This is a delicate moment, it's a new day. So many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed and social media only adds to the anxiety.

It seems that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm. Not a Nazi salute. But again, we appreciate that people are on edge. In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let's hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead. I mean, currying favor with power, number one. Number two, I mean, Elon supports the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and that's probably their primary goal and concern. So if you're good on that, then you can do whatever

else, you know, you want, and you're pretty much going to be good to go with regard to the ADL. No one can accuse me of hypocrisy on the ADL issue. Ironically, if you recall, Elon was heavily against the ADL back in the day. But the ADL wants to keep and curry themselves up with power, with the Trump administration, with Elon. I think they correctly see this as like this, you know, kind of like Twitter type controversy media thing that doesn't have any actual influence or whatever, and they want to stay cozied up like Miriam Adelson is one of their biggest donors, right? And they want access and continued ability to influence U.S. censorship and power. And so within all of this context, it makes perfect sense.

And yes, I agree. They're total hypocrites because in the past, this is exactly the type of thing that they would have latched onto and they have frequently derided incorrectly. Well, if it was a college kid doing the same thing, you know, at a, you know, college kid with Asperger's doing the same thing. I agree with you. At a pro-Path sign protest. That's why I think both are bad.

They would, you know. I mean, there's plenty of screen grabs, Crystal, of people in Keffiyehs doing Z-Hiles. Like, should we take them seriously? Or do I correctly see, like, okay, yeah, there are some real anti-Semites who are probably doing this. The vast majority of people who I know who are pro-Palestine are not anti-Semitic. They're just horrified by the action. I think the same thing with Elon. That's what I'm trying to say.

I'm giving people the benefit of the doubt here. And not even a benefit of the doubt, but just parsing the overall thing and then trying to cast it correctly for what the core motivation is. Is this the core motivation for Donald Trump every day when he gets up to be a fascist Hitlerian dictator? No. Is this the core motivation for the people who support Elon or even Elon himself? Elon, all he cares about is making more money. That's not fascist. You know, if anything, it's as American tale as old as time is to try and to curry favor with the incoming administration. So anyway, I just, I really don't think that this does any service to good discourse, to politics. And I think most people who see this stuff rightfully think it's just so stupid bullshit. And I think it loses a lot of credibility, honestly.

Like the media, I saw CNN and others, like pushing, trying to turn this into a thing. Like it just feels exactly like so many of those Trump controversies, which pushed, actively pushed a lot of people away from the mainstream. You know, I would have agreed with, obviously, I do think he knew what he was doing here. So we'll put that to the side. I actually would have maybe agreed with that point previously. But then I'm like, well, the Republicans and Trump, like, they do that shit all the time. Call everybody fascist, send me the people, like, communist, blah, blah, blah. And it doesn't seem to have hurt them too much.

He said way more, like, extreme, insane things about Kamala Harris than she ever said about him. And her, like, when she made the case he was a fascist, which, by the way, is not just something I said. It's something that people like Mark Milley, who served with him, also said. Oh, yes. The esteemed General Milley. The reason. Yeah. Well, at least he was there to be like, let's not shoot protesters in the legs, which is also a behavior, I believe, of a fascist-inclined individual.

But in any case, that was the context in which that came up. And Trump has called her every name in the book. So the idea that, oh, you were too mean to him and that's why you didn't have crime, I just don't buy it. No, I don't think it's a mean thing. I just don't buy it. I just don't buy it. I just don't think that that's the lesson of this election when the guy who was the most obnoxious and the meanest

and the most divisive and the most playing to this like tribal in-group, out-group mentality, that's the guy that won. So I'm just not, you know, I'm not as persuaded by that point as I perhaps would have once been. I don't think that's a bad point.

I think the reason why it is hypocritical fundamentally is that right-wing culture kind of itself is basically right-wing culture and criticism of the mainstream is still seen as insurgent and thus is one where paying the price and the you know the checking action like what you're talking about uh is not one which is going to land similarly with that audience as opposed to when trump says so and so is a communist event and i mean look i mean how many times have i said here before i think calling people communists is stupid i think calling bernie a communist and all that is foolish and he should actually debate these things on their merits and actually dive into them. And that, you know, if we stoop to the, oh, this is Marxist, oh, this is socialist stuff, you actually lose any ability to win over somebody who was a Bernie Sanders voter. But you know what? Maybe you're right because Trump called Kamala and all of them communists and he won a ton of people over. And he won a lot of people over.

And he called her a fascist. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, all of these communists and he won a ton of people and he won a lot of people over and he called her a fascist I don't know I mean all of these things were said so I think it matters a lot about listen I mean Trump is also able to get away with things that people

other people aren't yes true but the thing Derek Thompson when we had him on said about how and wrote in his piece about how

Trump really capitalized on the social media, all tribe, no village dynamic, where everything is about just like tribal in-group, out-group signaling. And so it wasn't that he won in spite of calling Kamala a communist and a fascist and an enemy of the people or whatever. It's in part because of that. that he won in spite of calling Kamala a communist and a fascist and an enemy of the people or whatever. It's in part because of that. I think that that is, I think that's an important insight.

It's a bad insight. Like it's bad for politics and it's bad for the future, et cetera. But I, you know, I don't think that he's necessarily wrong about that, that he knows how politics is inherently divisive. And this is something Democrats are stupid and run away from, right? They are so afraid of conflict and whatever, like can't make a decision, blah, blah, blah. Trump sees this as a divisive conflict, and he is going to draw the lines of that divide, and aggressively so, and unrelentingly so. And so that's why, because he is the person who shaped that divide and drew the line and enforced it in the most aggressive, vigorous way you possibly could, he's the victor. And so, yeah, I think, you know, that doesn't mean that, like, it was the best argument for Kamala to make about, like,

fascism or whatever. But I think that central insight of, like, you have to have a divisive politics. You have to draw the divide in a way that is politically beneficial to you. I think Trump understands that in a way Democrats don't. Let's end on that because I totally agree with that. I think you're right. I think evidence has shown us the Nazi one doesn't really work. You got to find something else. You got to find something that hits with people. Maybe it will hit with people. I don't know. People could start actually turning against it. But I'm somewhat doubtful personally at this point, especially in this shitcoin illegal or pro-gambling era.

Anyways, that's a way longer conversation. Crystal, I enjoyed doing this stream. How long have we been going for? Two hours and 20 minutes? Yeah. I think that's pretty good. If you guys like it, thank you very much. You can sign up, Breaking Points premium subscriber

at breakingpoints.com. Maybe we'll do something like this again in the wild. We could do it. I mean. It's freewheeling. You got to ask about the Aussie open thing. I was like, you know, this is fun. And then here, you know, we're not worried about time and putting the show out or whatever.

True. I'm really actually enjoying it. We can just talk as much as we want. Just feel more free. And honestly, you know, I was watching some of the live numbers. It didn't really go down that much. We've been talking for 20 or 30 minutes so I was like hey

maybe it works yeah maybe we do it like once a week yeah well that's a lot okay maybe maybe we'll talk we have to figure out it's a totally different

business model too I have to think about all those things but anyway it was fun thank you guys interesting week and CounterPoints will be here for you tomorrow

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