Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/17/25: Unemployment Spikes, GOP Flails On Healthcare, Trump Demands Venezuelan Oil and Land

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Ryan and Emily discuss unemployment spiking, GOP flails on healthcare policy, Trump demands Venezuela oil. Brian Blase: https://x.com/brian_blase?s=20    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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All right, good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. How you doing? Good. This Christmas set actually always gives me a flashback. I always feel like I have a flashback to you arguing with Ted Cruz on the Christmas set. Oh, that's right. Yeah, and CNN was running the video. Yeah, it was on the Christmas set. So I'm always like expecting Ted Cruz to... We should have worn our Breaking Points Christmas sweaters. I actually thought about that.

Which you can get in our store down there. There's still some available? Go check out the merch store. They're pretty great. Everybody loves them. We should have worn them. Something in front of the tree for everyone. Yes.

At Aura breakingpoints.com subscription. Yes, indeed. Maybe you can get a year of Friday show second halves for Christmas, for someone you love, because those Friday shows second halves, they get wild. Although, based on the new jobs report, which we'll be talking about at the top of the show, you probably can't. Things are getting dark.

Also talking, speaking of the amount of money you're spending on health care, you probably can't. We'll be talking about that for our second episode. Although there's some good news in the fact that Republicans are completely collapsing and that might lead them to actually pass the Democratic legislation. We'll see. If you're in Venezuela, you absolutely can't because we're putting Venezuela under a complete and total naval siege. We'll talk about that. Yeah, Trump put out of it. Wild Truth Social just last night, so we'll break that down, too.

Susie Wiles, we'll talk about the Republican response to her incredible, just vomiting of her thoughts to the Vanity Fair. Day two of Susie Gate, it is here. We're loving every second of it. The New York Times had a fascinating, for many different reasons, story on Jeffrey Epstein yesterday. We will talk about what was in it and most importantly what was not in it. Barry Weiss, meanwhile, is, you know, she ran her Saturday Night Town Hall with Erica Kirk, huge get, very difficult to get Erica Kirk an exclusive because she's usually on other networks. So it's hard to, like, actually schedule that. Between Fox and a podcast. Yeah, the numbers are out and it was terrible. Could have been better. It could have been better. Yeah, it was very bad. We'll have some updates on the Brown University shooting as well as. A nuclear scientist, even beyond a nuclear scientist, he was doing stuff that I can't even begin to try to explain, was assassinated at his home.

So we either have one or two killers still in the loose in the Northeast. I'm not sure which of those two scenarios is actually more frightening. The public now, rather than the FBI, has been falsely accusing people of being involved with the brown shooting. We'll talk about all of that. And the weather is improving in Gaza, but we're going to talk about what the floods did and a new drop site report on what the Israeli destruction of all the sewage treatment and trash collection has done to just day-to-day life in Gaza. Well, let's get to a big show today. So we'll start now with these new job numbers. We got new jobs data yesterday. And actually, before we even dive too deep into that, the basic news is that about 64,000 jobs, were added in November that was higher than what many people expected. But the unemployment rate also rose in November. That's the gist of it.

We're going to break down those numbers in more detail. But first, let's dive on into Fox News for a sample of how they covered where the economy is right now. People are sick of waiting in terms of the jobs since Liberation Day, which is when most people look at is when things kind of start taking a turn for the worse. We've only added 17,000 jobs on a monthly basis. There are over 700,000 Americans who are unemployed today versus this time last year. That's a huge number.

Unemployment for young Americans is over 10%. If you took out health care sector hiring would be negative. So if you're familiar with Fox, of course, that was Jessica Tarlov, who is a Democrat, not surprising, but spot the lie. And those numbers, we can put the CBS tear sheet up on the screen here. Employers across the U.S. added 64,000 jobs in November, beating economists forecast, new government data shows. even as new October figures revealed a loss of 105,000 jobs, a sign the labor market remains under pressure. The unemployment rate in November rose to 4.6%. That is the highest level since September 2021. They also go on to note that it's a picture of the labor market after the six-week

blackout and official data caused by the recent government shutdown. That's true, Brian. This is the first information we are getting here. The data suggests CBS continues that employers and industries ranging from manufacturing and hospitality are hitting the pause button on hiring amid concerns about economic growth and tariff costs, according to some economists. Quick reaction to that first run. Yeah, what seems to be going on here, and this probably comports with your own experience, people aren't leaving their jobs voluntarily. They're holding on to jobs, even if they hate them. They're not moving around and getting wage increases like they were during the pandemic and towards the end of, or towards the end of the pandemic.

But companies are not creating any new positions. And when somebody leaves, they don't fill that person. And so that's why you see that unemployment number going up and to the right, which is not how you want it to go. Okay. So let's then dive here into Kevin Hassett talking about the economy. This was from Face the Nation. Margaret Brennan in this clip is pushing Hassett. on surveys of CEOs about employment.

So could the situation get worse? Let's go ahead and roll the clip. I want to ask you about the Fed decision. The Federal Open Market Committee said job gains have slowed this year. We also saw a survey from the Business Roundtable. I'm sure you saw it. They asked CEOs what they expect to happen. And they anticipate employment will decrease in 2026 rather than increase.

Are you concerned about a hiring slowdown? The same Fed said that they were more bullish on growth for next year, right? And so I think that we're at a... But on the jobs picture. But on the jobs picture, you know, we're going to get the data next week. And so maybe next Sunday I'll come back and we'll talk about it because we've got two months of data coming out on Tuesday. And we'll get a clearer picture because right now we just have some very difficult to pin down surveys. Like the gold standard for this will be really the household survey, which we don't even get for October.

But these were CEOs. They're the people who would be doing the hiring, right? And they're saying we're not doing it. But they don't have the broad perspective that we'll get when we get the big data. release next week. And you trust that big data? I trust the household survey, especially. And sadly, we won't have one for October, but we're going to get one for November. And that's going to be really important for thinking about where the job market is. Okay, and we can actually put the next element up on the screen as well. This is showing unemployment increasing over time since

November 2023. So this is from Mike Kanskahl. He is the Senior Director of Policy and Research at the economic security project, and he's saying it's not just that this job report is bad, though it is, unemployment is up.47% in 2025 and increasing. It's that it shows what Trump hoped to do with the economy is failing. And I just want to pause on that point because it is, now that we have almost a year into the second Trump administration, fascinating, not surprising, but fascinating how closely they have tied themselves to AI because Trump, Trump, obviously, I mean, there are a million reasons that they've done that, but Trump obviously also saw AI as giving a shot in the arm to markets.

And so, I mean, the amount of stock increase that's tied to AI right now is stunning and horrifying. More than all of it. Yep. And, yeah, it's something like 80%. Like, it's crazy. And they now are going to have on their hands responsibility. People will point to them. They would have done it anyway, but they basically have bear hugged these big tech companies

that are going to paddle to the metal on LLM's artificial intelligence. And what's likely to happen in the next couple of years is mass displacement on the level of different periods during industrialization where we've seen mass job displacement because of automation. I'm not even making a judgment on whether that's good or bad, although we talk about that a lot, but I'm just saying it's happening. And it's happening as they bear hug these AI companies to juice the markets. And that, just politically, as it's unfolding before us, kind of look back at last year and you're like, you guys didn't see this coming?

Yeah, and the comment from Kevin Hassett there was ominous, I'm sure, for people, where he was saying, okay, yes, the CEOs are saying that unemployment might be up next year. But what about growth? They're bullish on growth. Yes. And if you live on Wall Street and work on Wall Street and live in upstate New York, then that's great. Unemployment's up, but growth is up too? Hey, that's even better, actually, because then you don't have any, have to worry about uppity workers demanding higher pay. But you're like, wait a minute. Hmm, what if, what are you saying here? So you're putting all your

money in AI and data centers and you're saying that we're going to continue to have unemployment rate, unemployment numbers going up, but the economy is going to continue to grow. How does that help the people that don't have jobs? And nobody's talking about that. If you had a party who was like, here is what we're going to do. Everyone's going to work 25 hours a week. And we're going to make sure that you're paid an amount that keeps up, not just keeps up, but gets you ahead. Because if we're getting all these productivity gains, let's enjoy it. Took us thousands of years as humanity to get to this place. Let's bask in it. Instead, they're like, nah, jobs are going to keep collapsing but growth is going to be good well on that note let's go

ahead and listen here to treasury secretary speaking speaking of ominous oh my god well this actually makes the point yeah your point about kevin has it here besant is uh flashing out i think even more we can roll this clip 2008 2009 2010 uh financial rules were too tight they have hamstrung the american financial system it was time for a change we are going to be safe, smart, and sound in terms of our deregulation, but we have to take the financial system out of this straitjacket. This substantial increase in private credit, which is outside of the regulated banking system, that tells me that the regulated system is too constrained and has not been able to compete with those who aren't regulated. So we're leveling the playing field,

And, you know, I believe that we can do that in a way that creates trillions of dollars in credit for this very strong economy we're going to see, and it will be non-inflationary. All right. So, Ryan, put your finance bureau hat back on. It's probably been since the early odds since you've had it on. But when he says the substantial increase in private credit, which is outside of the regulated banking system, that tells me that the regulated system is too constrained, what say you? So, I mean, what he's, what he's saying there is this rise of, like, you know, private equity, basically, says that we're being too hard on oligarchs and that we should just reduce the rules so that more people will then not follow the rules that we've gotten rid of.

Play around. Yeah, I mean, it makes no sense. Like, it just, it contradicts itself. it also leads exactly to financial crisis every single time. So it's also a kind of Hail Mary. Like, okay, nothing else is working. We need just a severe amount of deregulation so that we'll flood in, you know, so capital can flow.

You know, we can get another subprime bubble. We need more bubbles is basically what he's saying. Like we're out of bubbles. And when this next one pops, we're going to need another bubble. to keep things going. And then he has at the very end with no evidence. And it won't be inflationary. Oh, okay, good. That's the point of the regulations. Good. Glad to, glad you cleared that up. The Mike Consell post where he talks about, you know, talks about the rate of unemployment increasing, he also has a full thread. And maybe we can put it in the link so people can

dig into it more. But what he does is he compares what the president is, trying to do and what the president's team is trying to do to the economy with what is actually happening. And what he's trying to do is drive up wages for native-born workers, drive up wages on the low end in manufacturing. He's trying to reduce the amount of spending in health care. And he's trying to reduce the amount of spending for the federal workforce. And a key reason that you had an unemployment increase this month is because the Doge firings actually finally hit now. Yeah.

It's like because of the federal rules and on and on. But what he finds is that nothing is nothing that they're trying to do is happening. In fact, the reverse is happening. Manufacturing jobs are collapsing. He writes here, unemployment is up everywhere, but especially for younger workers, black workers and those with BAs and without a high school diploma. to the Trump base. And a bit more for men.

Yes, the people that he said he was doing all of this for are the ones who are actually getting hit hardest by this. And, you know, he chalked it up to all of the uncertainty that Trump is injected into the economy by making it really impossible to create a business if you have any reliance on imports whatsoever, deporting, you know, huge number. of workers and otherwise just being a chaotic dude.

And it's like, yeah, this is what you're going to get. Well, yeah, the uncertainty question. And the increase in healthcare costs, of course. So there's no way around. And I mean, I think you even hear it in what HACID is saying. HACID obviously is under consideration for a Fed spot, and there's leaking against HACET right now. actually, interestingly enough, but they, what you're hearing them say is basically they're

conceding, they're in the middle of an experiment, they're very confident as to how the experiment is going to turn out when it comes to totally restructuring the economy. So we're talking deportations, manufacturing credits from the big tax bill, and trying to incentivize factory building and all of that in the United States. Why would we have a manufacturing collapse? Like, that's what I don't understand. Well, I mean, I think... If you're about to have a boom, you would at least be staying steady.

Because... But this is the point that... But instead, companies are like, no. Well, yeah, it's a point that you and Crystal have made since the very beginning post-liberation day, which is the uncertainty is going to send people to China. It is going to send people, not everyone. And that's what the administration is in the middle of trying to figure out

is where does it shake out at the end of the day? Do you come out on top or do you come out on bottom? And it looks right now like their skeptics are proving correct. Now, there are all kinds of things that they can do in the new year because they're doing all of the tariffs, as we know, while awaiting a Supreme Court decision ad hoc through the executive branch. And that means they have a whole lot of control over what happens in the new year if they want to create more certainty in the economy, if they want to do all of these like grocery

type carve-outs for things like, I don't know, bananas. They can find a way to do it. They can, you know, cross their fingers and hope that when their tax bill kicks in, more and more jobs start getting created. There are, of course, anecdotal examples of factories betting on the United States or companies betting on the United States and building factories here. And so the White House trumpets those examples constantly. But even they have to concede, they're in the middle of something. And that's where just thinking about the AI question, As you're trying to restructure the economy, to bring jobs back to the United States, you're bear-hugging an industry that is intentionally eliminating jobs in the United States.

I'm reading here from a CNBC story from late last month, but we've been talking about the college unemployment rate, so recent college graduates that are unemployed. This is one of the big blind spots in politics right now, is that you have so many young people rising youth unemployment as CNBC puts it. And that's because entry-level jobs are being, this is CNBC, quote,

some large employers have said they're replacing entry-level workers with artificial intelligence in order to streamline operations and cut costs. Concerns about the economy, persistent inflation, and a slowdown in consumer spending

are also likely contributors to an erosion of entry-level opportunities. Other research shows. And so on top of all of that, you have the administration saying, okay, well, college education pipeline, you need to incentivize vocational schools, technical great. We all agree with that. These are people who just got college degrees. There are

people who are going to graduate next year and the year after that with college degrees who are not going to suddenly say I'm picking up welding and the jobs are being eliminated and the latter is shifting. And so even just that's the substantive point, but like the political point of this that's going to play out during the Trump administration is absolutely mass employment displacement. It's happening right now. It's going to continue to happen. At least Bernie Sanders is responding to it. Interesting development from him last night. He put out a video calling for a moratorium on data center construction, which hits on both sides because the data center construction drives up your electricity bill

and threatens your water supply while delivering basically no jobs and if it works as expected will also take your job. So it's like, wait a minute. So Bernie's like, I don't know, how about we not do that? Let's roll a little bit of Bernie.

What will AI and robotics mean economically for the working class of this country? Well, don't listen to me. Listen to the people who are developing those technologies. Elon Musk recently said, quote, AI and robots will replace all jobs. Working will be optional, end quote.

Bill Gates predicted that humans, quote, won't be needed for most things, end quote. Daria Amodi, the CEO of Anthropic, warned that AI could lead to the loss of half of all entry-level white-collar jobs. Question, if AI and robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment, how will people survive if they have no income? They have no answer for that, and nobody trusts them to answer that question.

You know who they do trust is that guy. He looks spry. Maybe he could do one more run. What do you think? He looks like he totally knows what AI is, how it works. He gets it better than most. He probably does. No, I actually believe that.

I mean, he gets the gist, which is really all you need. Yeah, and I mean, some of this is, like, intentionally, we actually have such a murky picture of what's happening right now with AI and in the economy and what the company's plans are. But I don't necessarily support that policy, by the way, because what's happening in China and other countries is no matter what we do, that's going to continue to happen. So I think we have to be smart about it. But that is going to be, it's like the health care conversation that we're having in the next block. absent a genuine, decent solution from the capitalists who just keep saying, trust us, we have your best interests at heart, you're going to end up with either Medicare for all or in this case, you're going to end up with something like a moratorium because people don't want the stupid option of just saying, go pedal to the metal, eliminate all of the jobs, and we'll just trust you to give us UBI and be happy when it all shakes out.

And he's right. I mean, going back to those quotes from CEOs of tech companies, that is what they're saying. They're saying that aloud. That's what they think the future is going to look like. It's the question of how distant that future is. But I think you'd be ridiculous to think that's like multiple generations down the line when this is happening as quickly as it is happening. And so for the Trump administration to tie itself so closely, A to the economy. And then B to AI, just the politics of that are going to be difficult. no matter what. And so meanwhile, swinging into this struggling economy is the sledgehammer of these looming health care premium increases. We'll talk to Brian Blaze, who's a conservative health care economist about the latest going on in Congress about efforts to extend subsidies and why he thinks it's a terrible idea. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this?

How is that not a story we all know? What's this you? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you? From smartless media, campside media, and big money players comes crimeless.

Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoval, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like

a high-level prank than a crime. Who cat, Fish is a city. And meet some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap if you think she's a witch. And it freaks you out. He has x-ray vision.

How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow me. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.

Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Black Pumas, Alessia Kara, Sarah McLaughlin, and more. Check out my new episode with John Legend. I feel like, in a lot of ways, our careers are paralleled in some ways, but they just never intersected for some reason. I know. I just fell and started screaming. If you lost someone you loved in the most horrific way.

I said through your shot 22 times. The police, right? But what if the person you're supposed to go to for help is the one you're the most afraid of? This dude is the devil. He's a snake. He'll hurt you. I'm Nikki Richardson,

and this is The Girlfriends, Untouchable. Detective Roger Galoopsky spent decades intimidating and sexually abusing black women across Kansas City using his police badge to scare them into silence. This is the story of a detective who seemed above the law until we came together to take him down. I told Roger Galoopsky, I said, you're going to see my face till the day that you die.

Listen to the girlfriends, Untouchable, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. In a moment, we're going to be joined by Brian Blazers, a conservative health care economist to talk through Republican health care policy and strategy, which is currently this week, it seems to be collapsing a little bit. Yeah, and Brian is the guy to talk to. So there you go.

On the right. So here's Donald Trump talking about where he is right now. What do you want to see Congress do this week if it relates to health? care and the expiring ACA. That's a good question. I'd like to see the people get the money. I'd like to see all of the money that's going to the Democrat insurance companies. You know, the insurance companies are making a fortune.

They're up 1,700 percent and more. Obamacare was set up, and I said it right from the beginning, for the benefit of the health insurance companies, of the insurance companies. They're making billions and billions of dollars. Their stock is through the roof. I don't want to give them anything. I want all money going to the people and let the people buy their own health care.

It'll be unbelievable. They'll do a great job. They'll get much better health care at a much lower cost. So he sort of wants to end subsidies and just turn, you know, basically just, we'll talk with Brian about what his idea is there. There are a bunch of different ideas that Republicans have been kicking around to try to stave off the increase. You can put up B2 here. we were expecting a vote tomorrow in the House of Representatives. Mike Johnson's saying no, because we're not ready for that.

We can put up B3, Jake Sherman, prowling around Capitol Hill. He reports the deal between House GOP moderates and House Republican leadership is breaking down. Disagre agreement over the language in the amendment to extend Obamacare premium subsidies. So the four will go to Rules Tuesday to offer their amendment. If they're rejected, that means they will be free agents. This is if it's given Kiggins, Velado, and Lawler, which matters because a lot of them are up for re-election and have tight races. What he's saying is if they become free agents, that could put Hakeem Jeffries' three-year ACA extension over the finish line if you get enough Republicans and join with Democrats. Now, Rokana was recently on Fox News making the pitch for a Boulder plan, Medicare for all its role.

roll con, and then we'll go to Brian. The high cost of the Democrats' health care plan did not work. That's just not true. Look, private health insurance is what's bankrupting America. It was happening before the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act helped slow the growth of private insurance. But of course, it's not the solution. The solution, as everyone knows, in my view, who studied this, is Medicare for all. People should have national health insurance. Health care is a human right. You should not be subject to these private insurance companies that have 18% administrative costs that are making billions of dollars of profits. So as executives are making millions of dollars, they're hurting our manufacturing. It's one of the reasons jobs are offshoreed.

They're hurting workers' pay going up. They're sucking on money from our economy, and they're denying people care. Even people on the MAGA right have recognized that the system is not working. The system is broken. It's time to get Medicare for all in this country. Well, we're excited to be joined now, as we've teased long enough, Brian Blaze, who is of the Paragoni, founder of the Paragon Health Institute, and really at the center of this policy conversation on the right, and more broadly, as Mike Johnson seeks to strike a deal. So thank you so much for joining us, Brian. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Now, maybe you could start just by telling us a little bit from your perspective of where things stand right now, because I'm sure you're hearing what's going to happen or what people want to happen. What's your prediction?

based on what you're hearing of how this all ends up before years end. Yeah, so thanks for having me on. And just let me explain exactly what the situation is before the Congress. Perfect. So Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, took effect in 2014. It's mainly affected the individual market for health insurance, which is where people go that don't get a plan from their employer or through a government program.

Its regulation significantly increased the price of insurance, and it contained large subsidies to help people afford the coverage that the government regulations had made more expensive. Those subsidies are permanent. They mean that the taxpayer pays a very large share of the premium. In 2021, as a pandemic measure, Democrats used reconciliation, and they passed an expansion of subsidies. They put those subsidies in place for two years, and then in 2022, they extended them through 2025. So at issue is the expiration of these enhanced COVID-era subsidies. If they expire, the typical Obamacare enrollee would still have very large subsidies.

In fact, the subsidy would cover more than 80% of the premium for a typical enrollee. Now, there are some people who would face significantly higher premiums. That is because the law originally capped the subsidies for people making less than four times the poverty line. Now, that's a small number of Obamacare enrollees. It's only about 6% of Obamacare enrollees. People making less? Only about 6% of enrollees have income above 400% of the poverty line. So most of the examples that you see from Democrats right now on people that face high premiums

because these COVID-era subsidies expire, they are for individuals right above four times the poverty line. But for the vast majority of people, the government is going to pay the vast majority of the premium next year. Now, I think these subsidies... Poverty line is what? For a family of four, 60? For a family of four, the federal poverty line is about $30,000. For a family of four? So we're talking 120,000. So if you make more than 120,000 for a family of four, then you're getting hit with that. Then you would face the higher premiums. Okay. Right. So but 95% but 95% of enrollees would maintain subsidies and the subsidies would cover on average about 80% of the premium. Now one of the problems from the enhanced subsidies, they made coverage fully subsidized for a share

of enrollees. And what we have seen is that far more people report that they have income to receive those fully subsidized enrollees. So we have done research that estimates that about a quarter of all of the Obamacare Exchange enrollees are improper. They don't have, they don't meet the eligibility requirements. Because you have to have how much income? So this is between 100 and 150 of the federal poverty line. The COVID-era subsidies made that coverage fully subsidized,

and almost half of all Obamacare enrollees claim that their income is in that narrow band. What we did at Paragon was look at sign-ups in that income range with the actual people that have income in that range who would be eligible for the program. And we estimate 6.4 million people are enrolled in a fully subsidized plan who don't have that coverage.

There's been pretty sophisticated schemes to enroll people because, again, these subsidies, to the president's point, they go directly to the health insurance companies. So if people don't have to pay any premium, that is a reason for people to sign up. And brokers have developed pretty sophisticated schemes to get people, get their information, to get them enrolled. So there's millions of people that have been enrolled that aren't aware of their coverage. Now, if we've enrolled a lot of people that aren't aware of their coverage, one thing that you might expect is a lot of people don't use their health plan. In August, CMS released information on the number of enrollees.

Obamacare that didn't use their health plan a single time in 2024. And it was 12 million people. So 35% of all enrollees in the market didn't use their health plan a single time. So we think there's, do you think they got paid? Like does the broker say here, if you get $1,000 up front to sign up? Like how does it, like why would, why would you sign up for insurance and then not use it? So there were sophisticated, um, uh, social media campaign. They advertised cash and gift cards if people would call the number. People called the number. They asked for the cash and gift card.

They gave their information. They didn't get cash. They didn't get a gift card. They got signed up for an Obamacare plan. The epicenter of the fraud. South Florida is like the epicenter. Always. Put bars around all of South Florida.

It's the worst in South Florida. And actually, DOJ, just a couple of weeks ago, closed the case. Two brokers committed massive fraud like this. The main beneficiaries are the health insurance companies because they're getting monthly payments on behalf of people that aren't enrolled in coverage and that aren't using it. The best kind of customer doesn't take your product. That's right. So these two brokers, the amount of improper subsidies just from these two individuals was $230 million. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Rick Scott's like, that's real money. Okay, so on that point, this explains a bit about why Republicans are hesitant. There are some obviously real problems, and it explains a bit why Republicans are hesitant to just rubber stamp an extension of the deal. There are all kinds of political questions going into a midterm cycle that are different from the policy questions and that. But what then, Brian, do you think actually could be done because we're almost at years end here? there's going to be an increase for some people, as you just explained, what could or should be done from your perspective when they have such, Republicans have such narrow margins, Democrats are pushing, as we heard from Congressman Kana, Medicare for All. What are you thinking right now should happen

in the next couple of weeks if there is anything to be done to stop people from getting higher costs right away? Yeah, so I think there's action that's needed the next couple of weeks, and then there's the development of sort of free market health plan. I think what the Senate passed, Finance Committee Chairman Crapo and Help Committee, Chairman Cassidy introduced legislation that would redesign a portion of the Obamacare subsidies. It would open up the cheapest type of Obamacare plan to more enrollees, And it would take these enhanced subsidies and do what the president is advocating, direct them to individuals, has HSA contributions, rather than as payments directly to health insurance companies. I think that legislation, there's a lot to like about that.

I think what the House is looking at doing today is to expand, further expand options for small businesses, allow them to join together, to get some of the regulatory advantages that large employers get when they offer coverage. So I testified from the Senate Finance Committee about a month ago. I suggested nine ways that Republicans could, you know, from expanding health savings accounts to addressing some structural flaws with the Obamacare subsidies and to opening up different coverage options that they could do in the near term. Fundamentally, I think the worst thing that Congress could do is throw good money after bad. The way to guarantee that we don't reform a very inefficient. program and sector of the economy is just to continue to oversubsidize it because that reduces

the pressure for real fixes. And we have a health care affordability crisis in the U.S. I don't think it's right to just shift all those costs to the American taxpayer. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How is that not a story we all know? What's this? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you? From Smartless Media,

Campside Media, and Big Money Players, comes Crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoval, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws.

Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime. Who catfish is a, a city. And meet some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap if you think she's a witch. And it freaks you out. He has

X-ray vision. How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow me. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people

so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Levei, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolfe, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Black Pumas, Alessia Kara, Sarah McLaughlin, and more.

Check out my new episode with John Legend. I feel like in a lot of ways our careers are parallel. in some ways, but they just never intersected for some reason. I know. If you lost someone you loved in the most horrific way. I said through you y'all 22 times. The police, right?

But what if the person you're supposed to go to for help is the one you're the most afraid of? This dude is the devil. He's a snake. He'll hurt you. I got you. I got you. I'm Nikki Richardson, and this is The Girlfriends, Untouchable. Detective Roger Golubski spent decades

intimidating and sexually abusing black women across Kansas City, using his police badge to scare them into silence. This is the story of a detective who seemed above the law until we came together to take him down. I told Roger Galoopsky, I said, you're going to see my face till the day that you die. Listen to the girlfriends, untouchable, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

We could put B5 up on the screen just to make that point. This is a Gallup poll. The headline here is Cost leads Americans' top-of-mind health care concerns. So to the point Brian just made people agree. Everyone basically agrees. This is one of the top stressors on the economy and individual families' budgets. And then we can put up the final one too. so put up B6, when Obamacare was passed, you were sitting at about 30%, a little over 30% said that

they would prefer a government-run system. ObamaCare, you know, rejected the public option, rejected Medicare for all, rejected even a Medicare buy-in for people 55 and over. It was very close to being included. Joe Lieberman pulled it out at the last second. And so people have gotten this interaction with a bastardized version of a private system, which is the only thing we have actually around the world, right? There's no pure kind of private health care system that I know of, outside of, you know, in a kind of developed country. Maybe I'm not. Outside of Singapore. Okay, outside of Singapore. I don't know much about Singapore health policy. You can teach us more about that. But as I was listening to you talk about the brokers and the, and the, in the scams and the

fraud and how complicated this system is. And you're asked, and I assume the reason that you can fudge it is that they ask you ahead of time, what's your income going to be for the next year? I don't know. Most people are like, I don't know. Like if some people are like, this is my salary, I hope I don't get fired. So I expect this to be my. But maybe I will get fired and I will fit into this nice little band where I get all the subsidies. Or you just kind of game it. Like, I guess I'm going to make this. Or we could just do Medicare for all and then focus on the fraud. Like put a ton of money into, like if these chatbots and this AI, the LLMs are good for anything,

they should be able to find this fraud. Like you guys, you have a couple interns and you compared the number of people that exist, right, in this economic band and the number of people claiming the subsidies in that band. And you're like, this doesn't match. you would think our LLMs could help us with that. And then say, okay, Medicare for all, we're going to make this simple. So people don't go around not knowing that they have insurance. You know because you're American.

You've got it. Why don't we just do that and be done with all of this? Well, I think of how much government has already screwed up. And the fact that you get the example out of Minnesota recently with that Medicaid fraud and dramatically increasing autism diabetes. parents to diagnose their children. It's going to be a constant cat and mouth game. Americans are very clever, and so are the newer Americans.

I think fundamentally the problem with health care policy is that the individual consumer and patient is not in control. So only about 10% of spending that people make on health care comes directly from them. Most of our expenditures come from third parties, whether it's government programs, whether it's insurance that takes the form of an employer-sponsor insurance plan. We have created a market that is not responsive to the individual consumer and patient. So it meets the needs of the insurance company, it meets the needs of the government program, it's not responsible to the individual.

We have no idea what prices are, right? Prices in most sectors of the economy, that's what coordinates behavior. And we know how to value things relative to other things, but prices are basically just made up. Nobody has any idea. And people don't have any incentives to care about what the prices are. So I think fundamentally what we need to do is address these problems with government programs that have centralized control and power in the hands of the intermediaries and the middlemen and return as much control to the individual as possible so that they can choose the care and coverage that works for them. And so the health care providers, the doctors, the nurses are serving actual patients and meeting their needs.

The reason I'm cynical about that is not just because of what most people say, which is that health care can't be a normal market because, you know, if you don't buy the thing, you could die. And so that, you know, creates an imbalanced amount of leverage in the transactional relationship between you and the person who holds your life in their hands. Pre-existing conditions. Yeah. But setting that aside, the United States government doesn't seem to care about markets anywhere. else. Like in every other industry, we're okay with a monopoly or an oligopoly, you know, whether it's airlines or youth sports or beef or poultry or, like, actually, it's harder to find an industry that we haven't allowed to consolidate into just one or two producers that set prices. And so then we're expected to believe that, oh, no, when it comes to

health care, which makes up a third of the economy or something, we promise we're going to do strong antitrust enforcement, and we're going to really crack down on the giant scammers. There were the medical providers, and we're not going to let private equity just roll this up and have giant companies, you know, let three companies control the entire healthcare industry and then set prices. And so then you have a situation where it's not just like beef, because like with beef, okay, you know, you have four beef companies and control everything. I guess I could eat less beef. Maybe go eat some chicken and some more soybeans or whatever. But when it comes to health care, it's like, you're going to have to pay the piper. And the U.S. government,

I just don't trust to not make it so there's like three pipers. I don't trust the U.S. government either. I do think in some places it would be great if we would have four competitors. we have produced a lot of local hospital monopolies. Exactly, right. Local hospital monopolies are a real problem. Right, so why are those hospitals going to... Well, what I would look is where's the government policy that incentivizes consolidation and reduces competition in the market?

A really good example comes from the Medicare program. Medicare pays much more for the same service delivered in a hospital than if it's delivered in a physician's office. What does that lead to? That leads to incentives for hospitals and physicians to sell out, So the hospital acquires the physician practice, and then you have an integrated health care system, and you've reduced competition in that area. There are examples where we've allowed market forces to work in health care and consumerism to work of people making cost-conscious decisions and driving health care services to lower-cost providers. and those low-cost providers don't want to lose consumers, so they do lower their prices.

So we do have examples. They are too few and far between, unfortunately. But where I want to go is what can we address in government policy that reduces consumer control and leads to these incentives for additional consolidation. And just zooming in on the politics of this quickly, I think one of the reasons that Republicans, and you'll know this better than I do, never landed on a consensus repeal and replace plan is that they never landed on consensus. There was never something that brought everybody together, you know, everyone from John McCain

to, you know, Marco Rubio at the time in the Senate. So do you feel that as these conversations are happening now, and it seems to me, again, this is probably a frustration you've had for much longer, but that Republicans just keep putting health care on the back burner while voters say this is on our front burner, this is the thing that is like eating us up. Right now, this has forced the conversation. Do you think Republicans are getting anywhere close to a consensus, either tweak, as you say before the end of the year and then big fix in the new year? Or is it still just kind of we're going to tinker around the edges, do what we can when the crunches on and hope that, you know, doesn't come up

again before we have absolutely have to have some type of comprehensive solution? Yeah, so I do think Republicans have to do, conservatives have to do a better job on health care policy. I mean, it's one of the reasons that I founded Paragon was because there was a job. There was a gap on the free market side on health care policy. And like you said, I mean, health care is 20% of the economy. We need it. And the health care sector is, the system is not working for most Americans, so we need policies. I think that there are, like, they recognize that Obamacare hasn't made health care more affordable. I think there's widespread agreement that just continuing to throw good money after bad and propping up an inefficient regulatory structure is unwise

policy. I think there is agreement on how we should expand options and make some improvements on the margin on Obamacare. And I think what we have to do is just, I mean, one comprehensive plan, I don't think, is the right strategy. I think the right strategy is to look at what's not working, correctly diagnosed the problem, like I mentioned on Medicare paying much more for hospital services than doctor services. That's a bipartisan problem. It's recognized by Democrats and Republicans. Now, who's the main obstacle to getting that policy through?

It's hospitals. Hospitals are very powerful. If you look at the American Enterprise Institute has what they call a chart of the century and it looks at the price increases by economic sector since 2000, the number one, the highest growing price inflation is hospitals. That to me is where we have our main health care affordability problem is we need to drive down hospital prices in the U.S. and these site neutral payments in Medicare should be a starting point, but it's going to require reformers to go and combat the health care industry. What do you think is going to happen? Do you think that these four Republicans or more will join with Democrats

and pass the three-year extension in the House? And if it does, does it have a shot in the Senate? I do not. So I don't know if they'll join with Democrats and pass an extension. I do not think that that is a realistic policy. I mean, right, but we've been doing unrealistic policy for decades, so. Well, I don't think it's, there's not going to be a clean extension of the subsidies. I mean, I think there's so many problems with the subsidies.

The fraud is one major problem. There's not going to be a clean extension of these COVID-era credits. I mean, there might be some compromise out there. I think there's certainly a way to deal with the, problem for the people that I mentioned just above four times the poverty line, like that is a relatively cheap fix. You would allow the enhanced subsidies to expire for people below four times the poverty line who still get very generous underlying Obamacare subsidies. You deal with the cliff that was created for people just above four times the poverty line. And you introduce

some reforms to address the cost drivers in Obamacare. Yeah. So interesting. and just, like you said, Republicans had such a gap on this. So we appreciate you coming in, Brian, and helping walk us. We'll have to have you back on to talk about Singapore's health care system. Yeah, I want to hear my word. My appetite has been peace. All right, thank you. Brian Blaze, founder of Paragon.

Appreciate being here. Thank you. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How is that not a story we all know? What's this? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you?

From smartless media, campside media, and big money players comes crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoval, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into

some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime. Who cat Fish is a city. And meet some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap if you think she's a witch.

And it freaks you out. He has x-ray vision. How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow me. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much

that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Black Pumas, Alessia Kara, Sarah McLaughlin, and more. Check out my new episode with John Legend. I feel like, in a lot of ways, our careers are paralleled in some ways, but they just never intersected for some reason. I know.

I just fell and started screaming. If you lost someone you loved in the most horrific way. I said through you got 22 times. The police, right? But what if the person you're supposed to go to for help is the one you're the most afraid of? This dude is the devil. He's a snake.

He'll hurt you. I'm Nikki Richardson, and this is The Girlfriends, Untouchable. Detective Roger Galoopsky spent decades intimidating and sexually abusing black women across Kansas City using his police badge to scare them into silence. This is the story of a detective who seemed above the law until we came together to take him down.

I told Roger Galoopsky, I said, you're going to see my face till the day that you die. Listen to the girlfriends, Untouchable, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So I think a friend of Donald Trump's must have told him that he was losing the capacity to shock people with his truth social posts. And so in the last few days, he shocked the entire world with his response to the brutal murder

of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, now is following it up with one of the most unhinged remarks he's made about Venezuela yet. We could put up this true social post. We'll read this entire thing. He says, Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America. I'll pause on that to note. Are you really invoking the Spanish here? Like, what are you doing?

He says, it will only get bigger and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before. Until such time as they return to the United States of America, all of the oil land, what? And other assets that they previously stole from us. Yes, Venezuela stole our oil land and other assets. The illegitimate Maduro regime is using oil from these stolen oil fields to finance themselves. The horror. Drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder, and kidnapping for the theft of our assets and many other reasons, including terrorism, drug smuggling, and human trafficking. The Venezuelan regime has been designated a foreign terrorist organization. Therefore, today, I am ordering a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela.

The illegal aliens and criminals that the Maduro regime has sent into the United States during the weekend andept Biden administration are being returned to Venezuela at a rapid pace. America will not allow criminals, terrorists, or other countries to rob, threaten, or harm our nation, and likewise will not allow a hostile regime to take our oil, land, or any other assets, all of which must be returned to the United States. immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Donald J. Trump, president of the United States. I don't understand how Venezuela could return land to us promptly. I understand the oil thing. Like, there was a meme during the occupation of Iraq that said, how did our oil get under their sand? It beats me. But however it got under there, we're going over there and we're taking it back. Someone's got to find out. I understand the oil part. uh the land how are we going to take how did venezuel take our land jesse waters last we talked about

i think last week said south america is ours it's in the name america america maybe that's what he means it's not that hard it's america ironically uh trump recently seized venezuelan assets they seized an oil tanker we seized sit go like we took their oil company Now we're going to, now they took our land? I mean, also another part of that where he's saying, on the one hand, Maduro sent criminals into the United States during the Biden administration. On the other hand, Maduro is a vicious dictator.

These two things are in conflict because what's actually happening is that Maduro is a dictator, and people fled Maduro to come into the United States, which is why there's debate. among the Republican Party over whether or not to grant asylum to people who, in the case of many Venezuelans, not all of them, actually is pretty sound for asylum fleeing the Maduro regime.

There were real reasons for people to be fleeing the Maduro regime, just as though there were real reasons for people to be fleeing Cuba over the last several decades. And so on the one hand, Trump is acting as though this was intentionally set up by Maduro to infiltrate the United States. But on the other hand, Maduro is so bad, well, if Maduro is so bad, then it stands to reason people are going to flee into the United States, which is exactly what happened. It wasn't, it's similar to the trafficking narrative that they're trying to build. Of course, I think there's pretty significant evidence that there are state actors in the trafficking.

And, you know, many people would argue there were state actors on our side in the trafficking as well. But that's the argument the United States government is making. But to say that this was intentional, that the migration from Venezuela and the United States was an intentional invasion infiltration, they're doing the same thing with drugs. And actually, what's happened is that people are poor and desperate and are trying to make money or trying to get to a better country. And so that actually confirms the administration's argument about Maduro being a dictator. But of course, they're trying to have it both ways. And already a couple tankers apparently have been turned around, have turned around because they're nervous about getting caught up in this American Spanish armada, which is throwing the Venezuelan economy into complete and total turmoil. Like it was already deeply struggling under this incredible tightening regime of sanctions that we have going on there, as well as the collapse of oil prices over the last decade.

which was kind of propping up the Chavista Socialism Project, what that's going to do is create, like you said, an outflow of migration, as well as create like starvation and suffering and misery. Which there's plenty of already. And create instability. Part of this, you know, there's a right-wing movement going on now in South and Central America. You've had the right-wing-win elections in Ecuador, Honduras, Chile, Bolivia, recently.

And a significant, non-trivial amount of that is there were like 8 million Venezuelans. Yeah. Who getting into Chile. Poured out of, into lots of other countries, like a half million or so came to the U.S. Yep. It's another seven and a half million went elsewhere around. And that generally throughout world history has created kind of a right-wing pull. So when I first saw this news, I was like,

Maduro, you want to call him a dictator not, he's offering to step down in exchange for lifting of the sanctions and not drone striking him, offering to let American oil companies come in. He's basically saying, what do you want? Well, he doesn't want what Trump is threatening to bring down right now. He doesn't want to be killed. And so, like, I don't understand why Trump won't just say yes. Like, okay, you get your regime change, you get the oil, you get everything.

everything, but you don't get, I guess, a war. The only thing I can think of is, and this is like, no, this can't be what he's doing. Like, maybe he misses a border crisis. Like, the border is very calm right now. And maybe to Trump, he needs a crisis at the border. And so he's like, oh, I need to create an enormous amount of instability and suffering in Venezuela so I can drive more people to the border. And then in 2026, point to the caravans. of the people at the border and be like, Democrats, I don't know quite how you finish that equation, but Democrats, Gary Brown people, you have to vote for me. It hasn't worked in the past, like when he had the big caravan in 2018 that didn't help him. What on earth is he doing?

Well, correct me if I remember, but Maduro has said his counteroffer, part of it is allowing his, like, kind of him to handpick a successor who would reign in power for a couple of years, right? And while there's elections, yeah. And that successor would not run for re-election. Right. My guess is that if there was any chance of Donald Trump himself cutting a deal with Maduro, that's probably a brick wall in the negotiations. But I think that's a simpler explanation. They're just going to put the Nobel Peace Prize winning Machado forcibly on the throne? Like, no. But that's what I was going to say. The simpler explanation is that you have to think about this as President Marco Rubio as opposed to President Donald Trump. And President Marco Rubio doesn't

want, like, knows that the United States, to paraphrase, the Zelensky conversation holds all the cards here, except for the American people largely not wanting this, but wants to make a point and wants absolutely no quarter, wants absolutely no remnant, which is impossible, but wants absolutely no remnant of the left, the socialist left, or the whatever you're going to call it in Venezuela. It's a country that has a left. Yes. And has convinced Trump. I mean, we saw just what a couple of days ago, Trump declared fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction that this could lay the groundwork for potential military action in Mexico. Because if you're declaring fentanyl at WMD, there's all kinds of legal questions about what that actually means, what that actually does. But that's laying the groundwork for Mexico. That has nothing to do. I mean, this is, we're talking about cocaine in Venezuela. And so that's, that's, that's, that's. of it. Yeah, I think that's the best guess is because Trump does like making deals, but I think he has basically outsourced this to Marco Rubio. And about half of,

so if we manage the transition, then we can approve, you know, who becomes, you know, interim president leading into the elections, and then we can get somebody who's friendlier to the United States. If we don't manage the process, if we just drive some kind of chaotic regime change, about half of Maduro's deputies are much friendlier to China than they are to us. Yeah, and that's why... And so you might get one of them instead. Which is why I think Rubio wants to do a total takeover. Again, though, with what? Like, who's going to... Like, Machado and what army? Like, you're really going to, like, you're going to occupy Venezuela? I don't know if you... Part of the Susie Wiles... We'll talk more about this in a second, but part of the Susie Wiles

Vanity Fair story, I'm sure this jumped out to you as well. She's saying, we know who's on those boats. We have the CIA. I'm paraphrasing it, obviously. But she says that to Chris Whipple in the Vanity Fair article. And with what Army is a great question, always has been a great question, could have learned that lesson during the Bay of Pigs. But it's, I imagine, intelligence coming from the CIA, which we know has been authorized to operate on the ground in Venezuela by the president, probably saying, you can do this, because that's what happens every damn time. You have the people. You have the weak links in the military.

You can do it. And that's my best guess as to why there's the full bravado for complete and total regime change, is that they're once again convinced that it's doable and that anything short of that just gives a foothold for or leaves a foothold for China and Iran and the new access of evil. And meanwhile, Trump is going to get somebody killed in the air, put up C2. So for the second time, civilian aircraft nearly collided this time with a U.S. Air Force tanker because all of these American Armada planes are flying around the Caribbean with their transponders off, not communicating with air traffic controllers. And as he said, it's the largest force maybe ever

that's been in there. And so you have civilian aircraft constantly going through there. You know, it's a big sky and hopefully that none of them go down. But this is extremely reckless and dangerous. Nobody is asking for it. And he hasn't even bothered to try to lie much about it. This whole like weapons of mass destruction fentanyl thing is is like offensively like lazy. Like this is what you like it is maybe they just maybe it's like we can do whatever we want. Well yeah and I think the best way to think about the Venezuela policy is just again President Marco Rubio. I think Trump is not as interested as Marco Rubio is and this Venezuela regime change he's been brought on board with it because he can use it.

from a kind of PR perspective to say this is the crackdown on drugs, even though that is going to be digested by every, most Americans to be related to fentanyl, and this is clearly not related to fentanyl. So anyway, all that is to say, the trip wires right now, when you have CIA operating on the ground in Venezuela, when you have the armada, as Trump put it, that is, we are in the middle of a recipe for escalation and that Americans could be dying in battle over

Venezuela. And Americans, like, could crash into the sea. Yes. Yeah. And they took out another drug boat, alleged drug boat just recently. And meanwhile, Hegeseth is saying he will not show the video that he is so proud of where

they executed these two survivors. And he says, absolutely, the right battle decisions, keeps calling it a battle, not a battle. They're like basically unarmed. And you're sitting in like Florida, hitting them with the drone. They're not coming and shooting at Americans. They are, by their own omission, what this is, they're trafficking cocaine, allegedly trafficking cocaine. And without the outboard motors to get to the United States. Like they're going somewhere. Suriname or wherever. Mexico, somewhere. They're not going to the, they're not making

into the United States with that. Eventually, maybe they will. A lot of, like, cocaine users are hoping they do. Right. Bro, like, this is what we do here in the United States. Why are you killing our suppliers? But to compare it to kinetic battle. Right.

And so he's so proud of it, and he would make the decision a thousand times again. But no, you can't actually see the footage of it. And, oh, we've destroyed footage of similar strikes. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? Who catfish is a city? Is it even safe to snort human remains? Is that the plot of footloos? I'm comedian Rory Scoville, and I'm here to tell you Josh Dean and I have a new podcast that celebrates the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. It's called Crimeless, a true crime comedy podcast. Listen on the IHeart

Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leveh, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Black Pumas, Alessia Kara, Sarah McLaughlin, and more. Check out my new episode with John Legend. I feel like, in a lot of ways, our careers are parallel in some ways, but they just never

intersected for some reason. I know. We should take it slow with just ordinary people. we don't know which way you go Listen to Nora Jones is playing along On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast health stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dabolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled,

Do I Have Scurvy at 3am? And on our show, we're talking about health in a different way. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Listen to health stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

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