Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/19/22: Elon Poll/Taylor Lorenz Banned/Twitter Files/Sinema Registers Independent/Trump NFT Sold Out/Binance Exposed/UFOs

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss Elon's poll on whether he should continue leading Twitter, the Banning of Taylor Lorenz, new updates in the Twitter Files saga, Sinema registering as an Independent, Trump's NFTs selling out, Binance CEO exposed on CNBC, and Shocking Admissions about UFOs.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Finding Sexy Sweat. At an internship in 1993, we roomed with Reggie Payne, aspiring reporter and rapper who went by Sexy Sweat. A couple of years ago, we set out to find him. But in 2020, Reggie fell into a coma after police pinned him down and he never woke up. But then I see my son's not moving.

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. I'm Michael Kasson, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content,

the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your support. What are you waiting for? Become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do.

Lots of big breaking news this morning. Elon Musk may have just sort of ousted himself as Twitter's CEO. Results of a poll. We will get into all of that after a bunch of other machinations and bannings and rule changes and all kinds of chaos has been playing out over at Twitter. So we'll get to all of that. We also have new Twitter files detailing some of the coordination between the deep state and Twitter under the old regime. We also have new news regarding Kyrsten Sinema. She, of course, is no longer a Democrat, and she is filing to run for Senate as an independent, putting Democrats in quite a bind for this next election cycle. Also, a little update for you on the whole Trump NFT sale that people have been very interested in.

Apparently, they sold out. So there was a market for them, whether we thought it was ridiculous or not. It is what it is. It is what it is. So Ari's going to dig into the latest with regards to alien life. I'm going to dig into the latest with regards to Binance. But before we get to any of that... Live show!

Put it up there on the screen. Austin, Texas. Paramount Theater, Friday, February 3rd. We will be there. Crystal, Sagar, and friends, we're going to do some fun stuff while we're down in Austin. So go ahead and buy your tickets.

I think you guys will all be in for a very interesting and special night and treat. So I think it will be a great time. It's going to be the last one, I think, for quite a while. Go ahead and buy your tickets. If you've been on the fence or buy it for a friend for a gift, as you said, it's a great Christmas present, guys. I would also not be remiss. We have a gift subscription going on right now on our website, BreakingPoints.com.

You can gift a subscription, a premium subscription to any friend or family member. I've actually heard of some people who share it and buy it for their parents. They watch the show together and they kind of talk about what they agree and disagree on, which is kind of a fun family bonding experience. Not sure how I would do it, but to each their own. That's something that you should consider if the show means something to you. So there you go. My dad has been retired for a while. My mom just retired this year, and now they both have started religiously watching the show.

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it. Yeah, I don't know. It's pluses and minuses. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, let's get to the big news to start this morning. Yesterday evening around 6 p.m., Elon Musk tweeted out this poll. Let's put it up on the screen. Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll. Very conveniently for us recording this show at 8 a.m., it was a 12-hour poll, so we have the official results. And yes5% of the vote. No, was that 42.5% of the vote? 17.5 million people voted. So assuming he does actually abide by the results of this poll, which he claims that he will ultimately do, the tenure of Elon Musk as head of Twitter may be coming to an end, which is all very interesting.

There's a lot more to say about that. Let me give you some of the context and the backstory of how we got to this point, because over the weekend there were a flurry of rule changes and journalists who were banned and journalists who were brought back and all sorts of things that were going on there. One of the big ones, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen, that caused a real kerfuffle, let's say, Twitter support out of nowhere tweeted this out. We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter. Specifically, they say, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, TruSocial, Tribal, Noster, is that how you say

that? Noster? I don't know. And Post. They say we will still allow cross-posting content from any social media platform. Posting links or usernames to social media platforms not listed above are also not in violation of this policy. We have a screenshot of the official policy that they laid out on their website providing some of the details. I mean, frankly, well, first of all, this is an insane overreach to start with. But second of all, it's really confusing because they're like, you can't post links to other sites, but also you can cross post links. The list of the sites that they were banning was extremely narrow and very random. Let's go ahead and put that next piece up on the screen. So you've got a ban on linking out to Linktree, to Facebook, to Instagram, to Mastodon, to Post and others.

But other things like TikTok, Rumble, Getter, Gab were not banned. YouTube also, notably for us, was not banned. And, you know, I mean, this is quite a far-reaching policy. How many people on Twitter have their various links in their bio? I mean, a very common thing. So it's a very heavy-handed approach. And clearly, because you have a lot of people now saying like, hey, I'm leaving Twitter. Come follow me on Mastodon. No accident that those types of sites were the ones that were listed and banned,

and the other ones were not. And then yet, this morning, what do we wake up to, Crystal? Overnight, they have decided to reverse that policy entirely. So we had a lot of commentary and I had a whole spiel about why the open internet is good and why I'm a supporter of open protocols and RSS. And now it's no longer even the policy on Twitter itself. What is it? Who knows? Stay tuned, I guess, as they say. Well, because I was waiting for the hammer to drop of, I mean, millions of accounts would be banned on this policy.

Because, again, like I said, it's so common to put in your profile, hey, here's my Instagram profile. Here's my link tree with all of my various links. And a couple things happened on Twitter. Elon actually tweeted out, going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies won't happen again. A lot of people thought this was in reference to this policy, though he didn't specify. He was also going back and forth with a right wing, I think, YouTuber who was like, hey, in a very friendly way, like, hey, just a heads up. You know, I include all my links posted here to promote my small business and other things that I'm doing. This seems like this policy is going to be a problem. And Elon was interacting with that and engaging in that in a, you know, sort of positive way. It was like, oh, that's a good point. Thanks for letting me know. So the other piece is that it was very likely that European regulators, like this would be illegal under their sort of like anti-competitive regulation. So that may have been a problem here

as well. I completely agree. Mr. Beast is one of those as well who came out and said, he's like, this is a ridiculous policy. He was like, if you're going to put policies in like this, I think you should step down as CEO. So to have, you know, probably the largest YouTube creator speak out against it. Has he been an Elon supporter?

I have no idea. I mean, I think he's been like enjoying the fun. Yeah. Is one way to put it. Yeah. In terms of who Elon gets to run it, we simply have no idea. He also tweeted, those who want power

are the ones who least deserve it. And be careful, or he's like, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish as you might get it. Somebody says,

he must have the CEO picked out already. Elon says, no one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor. When podcaster Lex Friedman

offered to take the job, he said, quote, you must like Payne a lot. One catch, you have to invest your life savings in Twitter. It has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May. Do you still want the job? Which could explain also some of the major stock sells that Elon has been doing.

He's sold nearly $3.5 billion in Tesla stock. Yeah. Not at a favorable price, by the way. The overall stock is 57% down on the year. This is something you and I were talking about before the show, but I do think is an important corollary to all of this, which is what is the impetus? It could be the chaos. I really think it is the reputational damage that's happening to the Tesla brand. It's the vast majority of his net worth, 57% down over the year. He's been blaming macroeconomic conditions, but that doesn't account for such a precipitous drop.

The other automakers are not seeing a similar drop. Especially when you compare to other automakers. And Tesla has far better fundamentals than the other automakers. They have much longer demand. Obviously, they have controlled supply. They don't have any sort of increasing costs. So what would explain that? It's purely reputational. Second was the actual Q score, quote unquote, of how people feel about Elon. And Tesla specifically turned negative for the very first time. Tesla was one of the most beloved brands in the United States up until the Elon acquisition of Twitter. So I think that the macro problems that this is having both on his wealth and really on the major company, the one he probably would be like when he dies, what's it going to say?

Like Tesla CEO. What's his legacy? It's going to be Elon Musk. There were a few investors who had before all of this started chirping and chiming in on Twitter being like, I really want Elon to stop doing this. I want him to focus on Tesla. So there's clearly some upset there. At the same time, by the way, let me just put this piece up there. There was another rule change that he announced just as context

leading up to this poll over whether he should stay or not. He said Twitter will start incorporating mute and block signals from Blue verified, not legacy Blue as downvotes. I mean, it's sort of opaque exactly what that means. But what people were taking this as is basically the people who pay for the $8 check marks, which, by the way, are likely to be a sort of Elon-leaning group ideologically. Anytime they mute or block someone, that is going to be taken into account over whether or not that person's tweets show up algorithmically. So it was a way of sort of, it was another suppression regime that he's instituting here with kind of his allies that are willing to pay for the $8 check mark. So another move that is the antithesis of free speech ultimately. So that's the backdrop. And then, Sagar, you were talking about the sort of financial pieces of this, which I think are probably the most important part of the story of how we end up with Elon putting out this poll, which I pretty likely knew what the

results were ultimately going to be. It's a way for him to remove himself, but save a little bit of face and pretend like he's just listening to the wisdom of the crowd by putting the poll out there. We had gotten word before this that he is seeking new investors in Twitter. Let's go and put this up on the screen. This relates to what you were saying in his response to Lex Friedman about how Twitter was on its way to bankruptcy since May. You know, they are in a real potential cash crunch because they took on a lot of debt, $13 billion, I think, in debt when Musk purchased Twitter. And that means they're just

to service the interest on that debt is a billion dollars every year. That's more than Twitter was pulling in before the Elon era. And of course, we know in the Elon era, some certain percentage of advertisers have fled. So what they say in this piece is that he's seeking new Twitter investors at the same price he paid. He has been open, and I in this piece is that he's seeking new Twitter investors at the same price he paid. He has been open, and I think everyone acknowledges that he wildly overpaid for Twitter. So the idea he was going to be able to easily find these investors is a little bit far-fetched. Semaphore originally reported this. They got a hold of a pitch document announcing the new investment opportunity. It's described as a follow-on equity offering for common shares at the original price and terms. And he is, as you pointed out, Sagar, also looking more financially

strapped himself. Now, listen, I mean, Elon Musk still has billions and billions of dollars. He's just fine. But he did just sell another $3.6 billion worth of Tesla shares on Wednesday. Presumably, they say, to put more equity into Twitter to lower its debt burden. It was the third time he sold Tesla stock since he said in April that he was done. And there's one other piece of this that is interesting. Let's go and put this photo up on the screen. So Elon actually tweeted out his own, quote unquote, assassination coordinates. He was at the World Cup in Qatar. And there's a photo here of him with Jared Kushner and a bunch of Qataris, Emiratis, people from the region in the fancy seats at the World Cup. And there was some speculation over whether this was just a visit to enjoy the World Cup, which, by the way, that game was

unbelievable and super fun and exciting to watch, or whether he was trying to pull in some additional investment dollars. And I think the presence of Jared Kushner there adds credence to the idea that this was more of a fundraising trip than a pleasure trip. It's possible that Qatar has had an initial stake in Twitter, the Saudis also, the Emiratis as well. I still really believe that a lot of this has to do with Tesla. It's also possible the Tesla board and many others. Remember, Tesla is a publicly traded company, so they have all those sorts of shareholder things that they have to abide by. It's very possible that the board may have given him some sort of directive not outside the realm of

possibility given the stock, and especially the fact that he's dedicating a tremendous amount of his time and burning the stock of one company based upon a private holding of his own. This isn't like Tesla and SpaceX, which in a lot of ways are complementary to each other. You know, one brand enhances the other brand. This is actually a direct drag and also not any financial gain whatsoever. Also, I think this conversation is important because a lot of this belies any of the debates around, quote, doxing, free speech, etc., because it shows you where the massive drain publicly that enough people are fed up, including on the Twitter platform, some 57 percent voting yes that you should step down. I personally voted yes, full disclosure. Do you know why?

Because I think he's better off spouting the car company. Because you like Tesla. Yeah, because I'm like, go and do what you're really good at, which is creating awesome rocket and car companies. You know, having to sit here and even try and tell people how cool what he did in those spaces almost sounds cringe

because what he's doing with Twitter is just so ridiculous. Yeah, and I'm like, listen, you've got to understand, he actually did a lot of cool stuff before this. You know, I was like, you sound like one of those apologias. I'm really not trying to do it.

That is kind of hard for me to believe at this point. I'm trying not to do it. It's true, though. Yeah, I really recommend people go look. Anyway, the point is, is that he clearly is feeling the squeeze. If I had to guess, it has most to do with Tesla stock completely. And he's gotten himself in a pickle. $44 billion was already overpriced at the time

that he paid it. Then with the market crash, it was probably worth no more than some $20 billion or so. Ninety-some percent of the revenue comes from advertising. A lot of that is drying up as a result of many of the capricious policies. And now he's done really irreparable damage to the Twitter advertising brand. Twitter blew really better work. I don't think, I would not bet on it personally, on it working just in the way that it's been rolled out and even the blocking signal. I doubt it would rescue them financially anyway. Well, we've talked about that. You'd have to make up some $5 billion a year in revenue. So let's say that they've had a 30 some percent drop in advertising. I mean, that is a hell of a lot. You can do the math in

terms of subscriptions that you would have to sell at $8 or $11 a month. And I think the financial picture here is going to be the major story, as much as it's fun to talk about free speech, etc. A lot of that, as we have both said from the beginning, much of it is secondary to the business aims itself. That's why we spend so much time focusing on this. That's exactly right. You could never have a situation where you were both concerned about maximizing profitability and you were dedicated to free speech. Those things are just going to be in conflict with one another and kind of relatively frequently going to be in conflict with one another. That's why all of these platforms are run the way that they ultimately are. Also, if you look at

Musk's previous track record, like he doesn't have a track record within his companies or within his life of being an actual free speech absolutist. There's reports that he, you know, asked the Chinese government to censor criticism in China. There's reports that he, right. So, and also I do want to note TikTok notably not banned under the policy. Interesting. Interesting. And he's also suppressed speech of workers who want to unionize. So, you know, the way he has operated this has been consistent with the way that he has sort of operated the whole time. There's a lot of very petty and thin-skinned behavior, like Ken Klippenstein, who has been a big Elon Musk critic. He's completely shadowbanned on Twitter right now. If you search for him and you don't already follow him, he just doesn't come up,

even if you enter in his direct username. So there's a lot of stuff like that going on too. I don't know that Elon is having as much fun running Twitter as he thought he ultimately would. It's been a total financial catastrophe for him. It's hard to see how he digs out of that hole. And so ultimately, I do think that this poll was kind of a clever way to

save some face as he ultimately wanted to step down, was under pressure from a variety of sectors to step down and now can kind of go back to focusing on Tesla and the other things he was up to. That's what it looks like to me. Hilarious view of this. Immediately after the poll closed, pre-market trading of Tesla is already up by 5%. Oh, really? Tesla investors very clearly are very happy about this. It definitely makes sense. All right, let's move on to Taylor Lorenz and talk about the journos and the bannings and free speech and doxing and what does it all matter. So you guys got an initial take there from Ryan and Emily on Friday, but let's pick up where things really left off yesterday. Journalist Taylor

Lorenz, a guest friend of the show, let's put her up there on the screen, has been banned from Twitter, although she's been unbanned since then. So she writes here in her sub stack about how basically with no notice really whatsoever, she was suspended from Twitter after asking Elon for comment, which we'll get to in a little bit. I do also love the way that she gets upset about her banning. She says, I've been on Twitter since 2010. Never once in my 13-year career have I received a single Terms of Service Community Guidelines violation for my personal account or any account that I've ever run. Twitter has served as an essential real-time news source and played a crucial role for the journalism world, but the arbitrary suspensions

you report on him should worry about people who value journalism and free expression, something, of course, she cares quite a lot about. She actually reacted to her banning and broke the news on her personal TikTok. So we will let the lady say it in her own words. Live the TikTok. I've actually never wished suspension on other people. Let's not get that twisted guys. Um, I have always, as I said earlier, um, I've always actually advocated for a discord like approach to Twitter. So I think it should be up to the users to determine what experience they want on Twitter.

I think people, if they want the full craziness of Twitter and they don't care and they're like, you know what, give me all the hate on the world. Like I don't care what people say, go for it. Have that version of Twitter, right? However, if you just want like a small version of Twitter, you just want to post to like your, your mutuals, um, you want a locked account, you want to like segment your audience, you know, whatever you should have that, you know, there it's crazy that there's no way, um, to do that. And no, uh, I did not ask Twitter to ban you. Hiya. I did not. I reported on your account. Um, it's up to Twitter what they want to do. As you know, you got seven strikes, which is actually preferential treatment because most people are banned. I think three to five strikes is the ban. So Libs of TikTok actually enjoyed

special treatment from Twitter, which is something that we found out from the Twitter files, which I thought was very interesting. The person she was responding to was actually the Libs of TikTok account that was trolling, being like, how does it feel to get suspended after you tried to get me suspended? Finally, though, and I do think this is important, as loathe as I am to defend this woman, let's put this up there on the screen. Our last tweet was, hi, Elon. I've sent you a couple of emails. We've learned some information we'd like to share and discuss with you. We're taking this very seriously and want to ensure this is pursued in the right way. Thank you. This was some story that they're probably about to publish over there. I'm sure it's some overwrought opinion journalist piece. That said, he shouldn't just be banning accounts for no reason.

Eric Weinstein, to his credit, also spoke out. Let's put this up there on the screen. Soliciting an Elon reply, he says, you know that glee positively elated childlike that the woke experience when folks who they claim to be horrible are canceled or banned. You've seen that. Oddly, I'm not having that right now. In fact, I'm getting a bit concerned to which Elon then replied, this is a temporary suspension due to a prior doxing action by this account. It will be lifted shortly. So what he's referring to is a previous incident of which the details, there's an ongoing lawsuit out there that you can go and read where a Instagram, sorry,

a TikTok kind of social media influencer manager was based, in my view, like unfairly smeared. And her personal details were published by Taylor Lorenz after she had specifically told Taylor, I don't want this to be out there. However, this happened, I think almost two years ago now at this point. So she had pointed that out and Elon had replied saying, wow, this is crazy. And I guess banned her for doxing somebody two years ago. Now I don't agree with the doc, but the problem is, is that clearly he saw it and just decided to ban it without any consistency, without any transparency. This comes now on the heels of the whole private jet conversation, which I'm sure many people

are astuned. Let's just put this out there right now. Let's put aside whether the account itself should be free speech or not. I would only say he himself already said that it was free speech because he literally tweeted, I will not ban the account as a result of my free speech absolutism. All right. So let's put that aside. Second, though, whether you even agree that the account itself should be banned, the ElonJet account, banning journalists who were not even really linking to the account per se, who were covering the story of the ban is ludicrous.

And especially when you combine that with the previous block where they were talking about banning Mastodon accounts and more, this is like banning the New York Post for the Hunter Biden laptop story. You are picking and choosing what links, publishers, stories, etc., which get to be banned on the platform or not. If it arises to the editorial standards of the New York Post, the New York Times, the New York Times, breaking points of Matt Taibbi or Glenn Greenwald's Substack for us to cover the Elon

Jett account, who are you to say whether that coverage of that or not falls within the bounds of your service, especially whenever you abide by a, quote, free speech absolutist position? So that's the way I think of squaring it, even if you don't like the Elon Jett account, even if you think it's wrong or it's doxing or whatever, which I would have heavily dispute given FAA and court rules. And even, even the way that Jack Sweeney, the guy who runs that account puts it all together, it is all publicly available information of which yes, he has used a sophisticated way to put it together. But I mean, look, uh, the allegation is that a foreign government could use the account that a foreign government could

use the account. Any foreign government that has precision guided munitions is capable of doing exactly what Jack Sweeney did. Yes. All right. So let's also put that in there as well. Crystal. Yes, indeed. I mean, there are two pieces here. Number one, are you living up to your pledge to run Twitter as a free speech absolutist platform? I mean, originally he said any speech which is legal is allowed on Twitter. And as you point out, Sager explicitly said that this account would be allowed. I mean, it's clearly the ship has long ago sailed on this being a free speech absolutist platform by a variety of moves that he's made from banning this account, banning journalists, banning keeping Alex Jones banned, banning Kanye temporarily. I

mean, clearly that is not the way that he is running Twitter. That's number one. So given that, OK, that ship has already sailed, there's another question of, OK, well, can you apply whatever your actual rules are in terms of service in a fair and consistent way? And what has been abundantly clear to that is the answer is absolutely not. I mean, the Taylor Lorenz thing is a perfect example, right? She asked you for comment on a story. You got some tweet about like, hey, she did something in the past I didn't like. And then on a whim, you decide to reach back two years into the past to temporarily suspend her based on new terms of service that you just

wrote in order to apply to a specific situation related to you that you didn't like. I mean, this is classic, like based on his whims, based on his proclivities, based on his opinions. He even said with the Kanye West thing, like, well, the swastika, him tweeting a swastika incited me to violence. So, again, it's his standard versus any sort of consistent terms of service judicial standard. I mean, I would prefer that you actually have a platform that truly abides by the First Amendment and follows judicial precedent there. That's going to be messy and difficult. None of that is going to be easy. There are gray areas. It's challenging. I would prefer that. But if that is off the table, which I have little hope that we're ever going to see that, then at least you would want terms of service which are fairly and consistently applied. And clearly what you see here is that that is not

the case. That's why Eric Weinstein is reacting in this way. You also had Barry Weiss, who I want to give credit to as well. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. You know, Barry has gotten a lot of attention, a lot of followers, a lot of subscriptions for her new outlet based on her relationship with Elon and posting Twitter files. Now, I don't want to say that's like the only thing Barry's known for. She's built up her following on her own before this, but this was clearly a boon for her. And she was willing to be critical of what Elon is doing here. She says the old regime at Twitter governed by its own whims and biases. It sure looks like the new regime has the same problem. I oppose it in both cases. And I think those journalists who are reporting on a story of public importance should

be reinstated. Elon clearly not happy about that. He's going back and forth with her, trying to get her to respond, saying, what should the consequences of doxing someone's real-time exact location be? By the way, no one was doing that. And also he says, Barry, this is a real question, not rhetorical. What is your opinion? Rather than rigorously pursuing truth, you are virtue signaling to show that you are good in the eyes of media elite to keep one foot in both worlds. And I just want to say again, Barry Weiss, who I have other disagreements with, she is the one being consistent here. I mean, she is the one.

I have no doubt that this was difficult for her because now very likely she won't get to publish the next Twitter file. She just launched this new outlet. I'm sure some of the people who subscribed are Elon fans and are on his side. So there was a real sort of immediate business cost to coming out against Elon versus what he's saying there, that this was all to her benefit career-wise. Yeah, it actually really drives me crazy, these types of responses. I got some of the same thing when I also tweeted my opposition to the policy. And it's one of those things where like, well, come on, you know better. I'm like, or maybe I just think differently than you. Maybe, you know, this is something I really wanted a free

speech platform. It's something I really desired. I thought it could have set an amazing precedent for the possible future of social media. And instead, basically since day one, it's been put to the side. And so that's disappointing for some of the people who support and like that policy. And whenever somebody violates it, even if they are like somewhat ideologically aligned on other areas, why is it so bad to just say what you think? Like the level of tribalism, all that has occurred here is ridiculous. And he is the one who changed his position. He said, I won't ban the account. And now he's claiming that the account itself led to the attack on his son. By the way, there's actually not a lot of evidence to show that.

There is no police report, no evidence to show that this was the exact way that the account, that the attack itself happened. And on top of that, I even said here before, nobody forces you to fly private. It's not like your house. It's not like a permanent abode. There are many ways that you can go about flying in a way that is secret. You can charter a jet. You can fly commercial. Also, it wasn't even him who was on the plane. So the other point is, you know, they call it, quote, assassination coordinates. As I've said, the only person, entity capable of doing that would be a nation state, which I'm pretty damn sure doesn't need

the Elon jet tracker to find out where Elon is in their airspace. Plus, they just want your money. They just want you to build a Tesla 5. I'm just like, what are you doing? Yeah, exactly. They're not trying to murder you. Yeah, first of all, yeah. Second, they're not trying to murder you. All they're really trying to do is get you to invest in their country. That's what they want. Yeah. Listen, guys, Sagar and I, you can country. That's what they want. Yeah. Yeah. That, listen, guys, Sagar and I, you can go back and look at the chart. Yeah, watch it. I, we defended Kanye West posting a swastika, okay? We've defended Nicole Hannah-Jones, who we have ideological, strong, we just in this segment defended Taylor Lawrence, okay? I have defended so many people

on the right that I do not like, that I do not care for, that I think are odious, deplorable, whatever, because I believe in free speech. And so if you hold that principle, there is no way you can look at the moves that Elon has made and be like, this is free speech. There's just no way you can do it. And so, yeah, actually, you know, you said you voted yes on the poll for Elon to stay as to go. You wanted him to go as head of Twitter. I also voted yes that I wanted him to go as head of Twitter. But I have to say I was a little reluctant about it because I've sort of enjoyed the Taylor Lorenz who have been in favor of censorship and now are getting a taste of like, oh, maybe handing a whole bunch of power to these social

media oligarchs in collaboration with the deep state. Maybe this doesn't always work out the way that I thought. Now, do I think these people are actually going to learn that lesson? No, I don't think that they're going to learn anything at all because they think, you know, their suspensions are different than other suspensions, whatever. But I have enjoyed that. I have enjoyed seeing who are the hypocrites on the right who claim to be free speech absolutists and they claim to be against censorship. And then the minute it's applied to their ideological adversaries, they're either silent or they're outright defending it. And I also have appreciated seeing who does have a shred of a principle

and a shred of integrity to actually stand with the things that they have said in the past. I've enjoyed all of that. I've enjoyed the mask off of what it, you know, this is, I said this before, in some ways, Elon Musk,

it's equivalent to like when Trump was president. He took the already corrupt regime and he just like pulled the mask off and went even further. So it was just like undeniable the way that Washington works. And it's kind of like that with Elon. I mean, when you have whether it's Zuckerberg or Elon or Bill Gates or Jack Dorsey or whoever it is, when you have one person or a small group of people in charge of these outlets, they have way more power than they should. And they can make capricious decisions based on a win that have major impacts on people's lives, major impacts on our sort of democratic infrastructure.

And I have appreciated, in a way, having that all really revealed in an undeniable way. That being said, I think we've all, you know, learned what there is to learn from this experience and it's time to move forward. What's the Leninist phrase? It's like, heighten the contradiction. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it, that's it. Anyway, great phrase. I guess you can always look to the Bolsheviks for good stuff. Indeed. All right, let's go to the next one and put it up there on the screen as well because this is important.

He says, should I unsuspend accounts who doxed my exact real—by the way, that's not what happened— exact location in real time because he's talking about the, he's talking about the journalists themselves. 43% voted yes, they should be posted now. If anyone posted the real time addresses of New York Times reporters, he said the FBI would be investigating. That is actually true. He then posted a second account saying, should I unsuspend all of these accounts? And the unanimous answer there nearly was yes. So there's, there we go.

That's where we stand kind of right now. It's so funny that he was like, well, there was too many odds. Let me redo it. And then he still got the opposite of the result

he wanted. And put this up there on the screen. It's not just Barry Weiss and others who spoke out against it. Ben Shapiro did as well. He actually quoted

something that I said which I found humorous. Glenn Greenwald as well. He said, quote, even if it's, quote, doxing, this ban seems arbitrary and excessive. So that's one of those where you can see that many actual people were very principled in this matter in their response to what was happening. And the only one who really was Elon who went back on his word, I've even said,

look, I can sympathize with a father whose kid was attacked and it's probably a scary situation, but the whole point is it shouldn't be in your hands and based upon your emotions that you get to decide my user experience on a platform which, according to you, is critical to the town square and public discourse. Yes, indeed. I think that's all well said. Twitter files. You know, the great irony of all of this is that belying the story of doxing and everything else happening on the platform, this was it. This was the major story yet to come out of the Twitter files. So we pulled the four most important things from Matt Taibbi's Twitter files drop, revealing FBI, DHS, and Intel cooperation with Twitter. Let's go ahead and put these on the screen. So number one was this. The Twitter files showed the FBI subsidiary, Twitter personnel in the case went on to look for reasons to suspend accounts, including those from all literal small accounts, which were jokes, including quote, civic misinformation. And also just to show you that this actually happened

in two different directions. They also asked Twitter to review a blue-leaning account for a joke that was actually more obvious about voter misinformation, quote-unquote. And the takeaway, as Taibbi says, is, quote, what most people think of as the deep state is a tangled collaboration of state agencies, private contractors, and sometimes state-funded NGOs. The lines become so blurred as to become meaningless. And just to give people an idea here, we're literally talking about very tiny, small accounts, which are basically shitposting about how Wednesday, November 9th, is election day. Yeah, they're like, hey, Republicans, get out and vote on Wednesday. Get the joke. Funny. Hilarious. Yeah. It had three retweets, and the FBI is flagging this stuff to Twitter at the time of the election. Like, as Taibbi said, he's like, don't you have other better stuff to do?

Like catching, like, sex predators or crime or murder? Who planted the bomb on January 6th? What was going on January, maybe covering up role in January. So there's so many different things that would be more productive for these people to be doing. And they clearly have an army of folks both in the FBI and inside the intelligence community who are flagging tweets from like very low follower accounts, arguably that have no influence really whatsoever. It's just clear and direct government censorship by asking and requesting Twitter to take action. And in some cases, Crystal, what we're seeing with the latest drop of the Twitter files last night is they were

even admonishing Twitter for not doing every single thing that they told them to and were demanding written explanations from the company. Wow. So much so that it even made Yoel Roth, the guy who defends the Babylon Bee account, getting taken down and the Hunter Biden laptop censorship. It made him uncomfortable that they were demanding so much compliance.

Wow. But of course they still did it. Yeah, I mean, the same agency that apparently couldn't get their shit together to take down Larry Nassar after decades of abusing young gymnasts, even though they were tipped off to the fact that he was like criminally molesting young girls over and over again. vote on Wednesday joke and flag this like it's some grave national security concern. And I think Matt puts it in the right context in that, listen, this capability starts with the 9-11 and the war on terror, right? And, you know, people looked at this sort of cooperation and it's like, okay, well, they're flagging ISIS accounts.

They're flagging terrorists. They're flagging Al Qaeda recruitment accounts. All right, well, we're comfortable with that. But then this gets expanded dramatically after you have the whole Russiagate insanity, because now this idea of foreign interference in our elections means basically you can look to the domestic population of like, oh, well, who is a potential Russian collaborator? Who is spreading this election misinformation? And that's where this thing is really ultimately off to the races. And so he sort of tracks the way that this, you know, explodes because of Russiagate and the derangement that it inspired and the way that justified even

further abuses of an expansion of security state power. Yeah, absolutely. And just to give you an idea, though, of what the actual response to this, again, this should be a huge scandal. Nobody even seems to be talking about it. Are actually some of the folks who are just outright defending the policy, Ted Lieu, the congressman, being one of those, despite previously casting himself as some ACLU free speech defender. Let's take a listen to what he said. So recently, he put out a statement on social media saying what he's going to focus on is Hunter Biden's laptop. Actually, it's even more irrelevant than that. He's actually concerned about what Twitter was saying about Hunter Biden's laptop. What Ted is talking about there after a prolonged speech on social media and more is basically trashing Matt Taibbi, Elon, and others for even bothering about this story. It also reminds me of the time that we interviewed him, Crystal, on Rising, and we asked him about whether he cared that Hunter Biden was serving on the

Burisma board. And he said, well, people serve on boards all the time. And it is basically saying it just didn't care really whatsoever about the entire scandal. So I mean, I guess consistent since becoming an apparatchik, but it just goes to show that a lot of people are either ignoring or just outright defending the fusion of this. And the fact that they were flagging those shit posts from people saying that they want Republicans to vote on November 9th shows you how absurd this entire thing is. Why should the nation's premier law enforcement agency be worried about this? I think unequivocally, we should all be like, no, absolutely not. And then for Twitter itself to, in many of these cases, take these down, never having done so in the past, like according to their own rules, shows you

who's in the driver's seat. Well, and according to the reporting of Ken Klippenstein, what was the name of the terrible disinformation governance board or something like that? That, you know, there was a big public outcry over and ultimately they were backed off of like, okay, we're not going to do that. You know, what they really did is they just did it more quietly. They didn't really not do that thing. They just decided like, we're not going to public that. You know, what they really did is they just did it more quietly. They didn't really not do that thing. They just decided, like, we're not going to publicize it. We're just going to internally move forward with our plans and have a less sort of less polemical or less publicly

firebrand of a head to lead this effort. So really important information that ultimately is exposed here. And, you know, in part because of what Elon has himself done over the weekend with all of his insanity. It's really flying under the radar, even though I think these were some of the most important revelations we got out of the Twitter files. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, the major takeaway here is we now have the initial Twitter files revelation of weekly meetings. We now have specific examples of FBI involvement. We have now examples of FBI agents browbeating Twitter staff to do everything that they want them to do. What more do you need to show? And also, I mean, Elon, I guess credit for

releasing this, but he needs to also show us proof that this artifice has been dismantled, that they're not going to comply with future types of law enforcement requests, because we have no idea what's happening even right now with the staff. Yeah, very good point. Very good point. All right. At the same time, we have a little bit of domestic political news we wanted to update you on. So we brought you previously the news that Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who has been a thorn in the side of Democrats and basically everyone else and really just sort of consistently carries water for her corporate donors, she decided to deregister, I guess, as a Democrat and become an independent. That raised a lot of questions about what she might do for the next election cycle. And now we have an answer to that. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. She is taking the formal step of filing paperwork as an independent candidate for 2024, even though she has not publicly said she will seek reelection. A

spokeswoman declined to comment. And by the way, filing a statement of candidacy doesn't actually bind her to a run, but it does allow her to raise money. And so, listen, here's basically the play that she is making here. She was going to lose a Democratic primary bid. Ruben Gallego and there are a couple other potential candidates. He's a congressman from Arizona. They were looking very strongly at running and all the polling showed she was not just going to lose. She was going to get crushed in a Democratic primary. And so that avenue was more or less closed to her. Republicans don't like her

any better. If you look at her approval ratings with the Republican Party, it's not like they're impressed with her carrying water for big pharma and private equity either. So that was not really a viable option for her to potentially run as a Republican in a Republican primary. So her bet is here, if she files and runs as an independent, she puts Democrats in a very tough position because ultimately you would assume she's going to take more votes from the Democratic Party. So now if they have a nominee, let's say it's Ruben Gallego, and it's a three-way race between Ruben, Sinema, and potentially Blake Masters looking at another run again, well, that suddenly becomes a much more difficult landscape for Democrats. And so they have to

choose, are we going to get behind our own candidate or are we going to accept like and tacitly sort of back Kyrsten Sinema as our best bet ultimately to hold the seat? Senator Mark Kelly was asked for a comment about her leaving the party and about whether or not he would back her. He's, of course, the other senator from Arizona, and he wouldn't answer. He says, you're getting into hypotheticals, but I've worked very closely with her for a long period of time. So you can see he's kind of, you know, not sure where to land and considering his options here ultimately. So that's the play from Sinema. And, you know, ultimately, does it work out for her? I don't know. I mean, if she actually runs

as an independent and Democrats put up their own candidate, there's no way she's going to win. But could she blow up Democratic chances? Yes. So that's essentially her threat. This is her only option in order to have a shot at winning this Senate seat again, is for Democrats to basically be forced by her blackmail to step down and tacitly back her, even though she couldn't win a Democratic primary. Do you think this is 100% that she is going to run again then? I don't think so. Or is she just leaving the door open? I mean, I think she, if I had to guess, I think she is going to run again or at least she's going to. This is sort of a trial balloon to feel out what Schumer and Mark Kelly and the other Democrats are ultimately going to do.

If she gets the signal, maybe ultimately that they're like, screw you, we're going to run our own candidate anyway. I think there is a possibility she ultimately backs down because clearly she's preserved her options in terms of going and cashing in in the corporate world. She could go and serve on any number of boards. Pharma would have her. Wall Street, various Wall Street industries, hedge funders, private equity, they would have her. There's all sorts of things that she could do in the corporate world and make a whole lot of money. It has always seemed like that was where her real commitment ultimately lay. So for her, it doesn't seem like a terrible option to sort of float this, see if she's got a chance

at it, and if it doesn't look like it's going to work out, go and flee to some sort of boardroom somewhere. Yeah, I kind of read it the same way. I mean, it was a smart move to try and box out because Ruben Gallego, very certain, probably at least could have given her a run for her money. We've looked at her favorability numbers here before, and she has low favorability amongst every single party identification group, including independents, Republicans, and Democrats in Arizona. I really think the smart move for her would just be retire. Yeah, go cash out. I mean, what's the point for you staying in the Senate, especially given the fact that Mark Kelly just won in Arizona by a pretty sizable margin, by five points. It's not like the bench in Arizona is all that deep. Who are they going

to run? Carrie Lake? And actually, if she does run, it would just embolden the case for some sort of unanimous candidate. So I don't know. I guess I could see it both ways. She could blackmail the party, or she could also just say, you know, enough. It's going to be too tough of a run for me to actually even take this on. She's got a lot of enmity in the state regardless. So I don't see how it would really work out for her. Yeah. And like I said, she could sort of float this trial balloon, see, test the waters of which way Democrats are ultimately going to go, whether her threat is going to work out for her or not. And if it looks like it's not going to work out for her, she could just pull the plug and go cash in. Right. Because that's clearly what she's been angling for. Absolutely. All right. We

got a little update for you here on the big Trump special announcement. This was so classic last week. You guys probably followed this, but we got this, you know, Trump, since he announced his campaign, which was very boring and lackluster, has not really done anything. There've been no rallies. There've been very limited appearances, all of them basically by Zoom. I mean, he really has been extremely quiet with essentially the exception of like having dinner with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West is the most we've heard from him since he launched his presidential campaign. So we get this announcement on true social, like, big news, big news coming on Thursday. And we're like, oh, maybe he's going to do something. And then it ends up being the most ridiculous thing ever, this series of Trump

NFTs, the artwork for which was apparently ripped off from other artists to start with. But there was still apparently an appetite for it. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This says that Trump's NFT trading cards sold out and raised over $5 million, though the NFTs, they say, were widely mocked by both Trump supporters and detractors alike. All 45,000 sold out in around 12 hours at $99 each. That means $4.45 million has been raised. The collections creators also received 10% of every sale in the secondary market. Thus far, traders have spent $5.2 million either trading the cards on OpenSea, netting creators, and extra $520,000.

And apparently, you know, the cheapest of these cards now on the secondary market are going for about $650. Some of them are going for thousands of dollars. Guys, I don't know what you're doing. Don't understand. But apparently there was some appetite for this thing after all. I mean, I never question whether it's an appetite. I just do want to remind everyone this does not go to his campaign account. This literally goes to his personal bank account after his wife, Melania Trump,

did the exact same thing. So, you know, just an interesting way. Oh, did she? I didn't even know that. Of course, yeah. In which she gets to monetize, he gets to monetize some of his fandom, even though, I mean, if you're worth a billion dollars, like why is $5 million even worth it to you?

That's a really interesting question. I also saw a hilarious comment when I was talking about this on Instagram. They're like, I wonder how many of the boomers who bought these will wait for them to arrive in the mail. Because they thought that they're literally buying physical cards. You and I both know that it's possible. There is some percentage, yeah, for sure. As you pointed out, put this up there, His NFTs also appear to have used photos from other small clothing brands. They found the address behind the auction is out of a UPS store in Utah.

And some of these were just blatantly and totally ripped off. I don't even know. In many ways, whenever you think about Trump and the NFT collection in the context of Trump Stakes, Trump University and so on, it's like I find it sad. Like I really do because so many of these people, he's bilking them for $4.5 million of which at least according to him, like he doesn't need. How many old people out there were bought these as like a gimmick or something or bought them, you know, from their Social Security savings or even then the quote unquote like Trump faithful. If you bought this as a an investment, like I honestly we can't help you at this point. Yeah. I mean, maybe. Listen, I think NFTs were the moment when a lot of people were like, you know, I don't know about this whole crypto thing. They were like a bridge too far. And then, of course, we saw like the market spiked and then it like instantly collapsed.

And there were all these scams. I mean, this all happened like over a year ago. And then Trump jumps in with his NFT collection, totally ripped off from other art. He couldn't even get in like an artist to do original artwork, which would cost you very little ultimately in the grand scheme of things. Classic, classic Trump ultimately. And then the other piece of this that is classic Trump is not very long ago, he was completely trashing crypto overall. Let's take a trip down memory lane and listen to that. What do you think about crypto? Because, you know, New York and Miami is really getting cryptocurrency into their financial system. I never loved it because I like to have the dollar. I think the currency should be the dollar. So I was never a big fan, but it's building up bigger

and bigger and nobody's doing anything about it. And it's I know it so well. Look, I want a currency called the dollar. I don't want to have all these others. And that could be an explosion someday, like the likes of which we've never seen. It'll make the big tech explosion look like baby stuff. I think it's a very dangerous thing. So basically, what's that? That was in reaction to his own wife's NFT. That's why it's funny.

Yeah, so he kind of knows this is all like a scam, but that's no deterrent to Trump. He's just, you know, this is his chance to get in on the scam. So there you go. Congratulations to him. Congrats to the boomers, to the others who, quote, invested in this. I'm sure some people will make some money on it. I think the vast majority will probably get stuck holding the bag. But hey, that's the story of Donald Trump.

It's not like it didn't work out for him. He literally became the president. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, we want to be transparent. We want to set the golden standard for reliability, solidness in this space. So do it. Would you be able to handle it if somebody asked you for $2.1 billion back? Would that be okay? Would you be able to still withstand things? We're financially okay. Including you have $2.1 billion to give away? If somebody came to claw that back, you'd still be fine? We'll let the lawyer handle it. We are financially strong. Now that Sam Bankman-Fried is sitting in a Bahamian jail cell accused of stealing billions for his own personal use and to build an illegal political influence empire, everyone is looking around at the crypto landscape and asking, who's next? Which major industry player will suddenly collapse? Which

supposedly brilliant leader will be exposed as nothing but a con man and a fraud? Well, as of this morning, we've got some major red flags about an absolute giant in the space, crypto exchange Binance. Now, Binance is led by a guy everyone calls CZ, this guy you just saw insisting everything was all good in an interview with CNBC. Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world, critical infrastructure facilitating exchanges everywhere. So here's a few things you should know about Binance straight away. Much as FTX was operated at the seemingly sole discretion of SBF with no corporate oversight and no board, Binance is seemingly run at the sole discretion of CZ. There is no traditional shareholder structure or board of directors. In fact, it's a stretch to even call Binance a company. It's not headquartered anywhere, and CZ himself

hopscotches the globe in search of friendly regulators who will allow them to operate schemes which would be illegal in many countries. Here is how Bloomberg describes this state of affairs. Quote, Legally speaking, a Cayman Islands firm named Binance Holdings Limited owns its trademarks. That entity's ownership has never been disclosed. Zhao, that's CZ, is the sole owner of Binance Holdings Limited owns its trademarks. That entity's ownership has never been disclosed. Zhao, that's CZ, is the sole owner of Binance Capital Management, registered in the British Virgin Islands. Many Binance operations are also entirely owned by CZ,

either directly or through an entity he controls, according to corporate filings. Most of the trades on Binance go through the flagship exchange, Binance.com, which is based in who knows where and owned by God knows whom. What if I told you that Binance is also under investigation by a who's who of government regulatory bodies? Everyone from the DOJ to the SEC, the CFTC to the IRS to plenty of their counterparts in countries around the world. CZ's track record? Not too hot either. For example, he spent a lot of time promoting so-called algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD as a safe investment, and he himself invested a bunch of money into it.

TerraUSD, of course, has since completely collapsed. Reporting also suggests Binance workers might be getting rich off of insider trading schemes based on their knowledge of which so-called shitcoins are going to get listed on the exchange next. Binance became a juggernaut by opening up the floodgates to these shitcoins in the first place. So, that is the backdrop you should keep in mind as you evaluate this latest series of events. Binance has been weathering a run on the bank as investors flee over concerns that this exchange could be the next big crypto player to collapse. And amid news that U.S. government prosecutors may file criminal charges against CZ himself. In one 24-hour stretch, investors withdrew something like $3 billion from the exchange. Now,

CZ has consistently claimed this is no problem for Binance because they hold 100% of their customer asset values in reserve. So he claims even if every customer removes all of their assets, they'll still be fine. Confidence in this unsupported claim has been significantly undermined in recent days, however, by CZ's words and by his actions. First, Binance temporarily halted withdrawals of a certain type of coin. Not exactly the behavior of a bank that is totally cool and not having any problems at all. But he assures us this was simply a timing issue and not actually a liquidity issue. So that day we had more users trying to buy or trying to deposit

BUSD and withdrawing USDC. And we ran out of that. And the bank that does the conversion doesn't open until six hours later. And that's a bank in New York. So we're actually blocked. This issue was actually caused by a bank. The only evidence we have for his claim that they are actually solvent and all good is a so-called proof of reserves. Now, listen, a proof of reserves is already pretty weak tea. The process and output, very different from an independent audit, shows what assets a firm has, but does not show what money they might owe to other entities.

There's no analysis of other risks or whether the firm's bookkeeping and accounting methods are actually sound. But now, the firm that prepared that proof of reserves, it's called Mazars, has pulled it down. And they have stopped working with Binance and other crypto firms altogether. As they wrote in their explanation for halting service, quote, proof of reserves do not constitute either an assurance or an audit opinion on subject matter. Instead, they report limited findings based on the agreed procedures performed on the subject matter at a historical point in time. Translation, proof of reserves are bullshit to start with, and this firm no longer wants to be associated with them whatsoever. So, we are left with nothing other than CZ's word. And the hosts at CNBC, at least, so recently burned by SBF,

are highly skeptical that that word is worth anything at all. Here they are asking him, hey, if you are so financially strong, why don't you prove it with an audit by a reputable firm? This is where it gets really good. Take a listen. The audits don't reveal every problem. No, but an audit from a Big Four auditor would reveal that, CZ. If you could get a Big Four auditor to say that, if you're saying that some of them don't want to work with you, that raises questions too.

They don't want to work with you because you don't have the files and the data that would make them feel comfortable signing off and giving that stamp of approval? Actually, many of them don't even know how to audit crypto exchanges. They don't really, when they audit, they're very used to auditing a firm. Does Coinbase, CZ, Coinbase has a big four? Coinbase has a big four auditor? Actually, I don't look at Coinbase. We don't really look at... I think so, though.

So did you catch that? CZ claims here that big four accounting firms, they just don't know how to audit crypto. Problem is them. It's not me. And when he's faced with the fact that, well, actually, another crypto exchange, Coinbase, is audited by a big four accounting firm,

he stammers and pleads ignorance. Brazenly caught live in a lie on air. So bottom line, CZ is asking you to put your faith in a company that is based everywhere and nowhere, with a founder who has gone to extreme lengths to avoid regulatory scrutiny, who is reportedly fearful of stepping on U.S. soil because he could be arrested in an industry where lies, scams, and fraud are a core business model. Listen, maybe they weather the storm. They may well be able to live to fight another day. Maybe CZ is actually telling the truth and is really a man of his word.

But bigger picture, it is no accident that shady characters have risen to the top of the crypto game. It's a wholly unregulated industry selling magic beans like they're a surefire ticket to riches. Do not be shocked when it's con men who are best positioned to succeed and when the bottom drops out of the next scheme. So listen, if Binance collapse, that would be- And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at?

Well, December 16th has passed, a few days ago. You probably didn't really think too much about it, but in reality, it was actually a very important date for those interested in the UFO topic, as my friend Jeremy Korbel reminded me. It's five years to the day since the New York Times first published one of the most extraordinary admissions of our lifetime.

UFOs or UAPs, whatever they want to call them, they're real. They're video and credible accounts of seeing them inside the Pentagon. There's been, of course, fierce debate on the UFO topic since the publication of that article. Are the pilots deluded? Was it equipment malfunction? Was it a failure? Does it have a terrestrial explanation like China or Russia?

Is it the US government? The point though is that since the publication of that article, a genuine sea change has occurred here in Washington where public pressure and an inside campaign by pissed off Navy and Air Force aviators has forced the issue so far forward that we know more today than arguably at any time since the Roswell incident in 1947. However, as always with the UFO topic, we have our chief foe in trying to learn more about possibly one of the most important things facing humanity today. Almost since the day of Roswell, the Pentagon, through its initial project Blue Book and many other secret programs, has done its best to cover up UFO information from the American public,

smearing pilots, believers, and ciders, obfuscating evidence, spinning the institutional media to direct the interest in the topic towards things that they can at least control or at the very least push the public away from curiosity. Since the publication of that Times article, their hand has now been forced by Congress. Congress, of course, had its interest piqued in what the Pentagon was hiding and has since mandated the release of two separate reports from the Pentagon asking what it knows about UFOs. Those reports themselves have been shrouded in misdirection and in media campaigns, but bears reviewing them both on its face. The first was extraordinary, because the Pentagon basically admitted, in at least 18 known

instances, UFOs demonstrated an advanced technology unknown to human science, that they have zero information to explain it at all. But of course, that's not how the Pentagon spun it. They went to their pet outlets at the New York Times, and they got the headline that they wanted. Government report finds no evidence that UFOs were alien spacecraft, they blared, which was then picked up by several outlets. What they failed to mention is that they also found no evidence for or against. They just didn't find anything. That seems pretty important to point out. Now, despite their machinations, they failed again, and Congress demanded even more, resulting in another report that actually dropped this October. Again, the Times gained early access to this classified

document, and they spun it in the way that the Pentagon wanted. Quote, many military UFO reports are just foreign spying or airborne trash that it reads, revealing a few couple of insane things. Number one, apparently Chinese-made drones are frequently flying over U.S. airspace and U.S. foreign spying or airborne trash that it reads, revealing a few couple of insane things. Number one, apparently Chinese-made drones are frequently flying over U.S. airspace and U.S. nuclear facilities all the time. That is crazy on its own. It also offered some possible terrestrial explanations for the original 2017 videos. But furthermore, it still admitted some pretty extraordinary things. Number one, many UFO sightings have conventional and even foreign spying explanations, but many don't have any at all. And as I wrote at the time, quote, nobody in the UFO community has ever disputed many of these incidents have

conventional explanations. They've always been focused on the 0.1%, which are fantastic mysteries. And the Pentagon wants this narrative out there so they don't face public and or congressional pressure. As always, though, they are masters of the game. That's why when the entire discourse was on fire about Elon banning journalists and whether posting publicly available flight data is doxing, another amazing event happened right here in Washington that nobody's noticing. The Pentagon convened a hand-picked list of journalists and decided to talk just a little, only for 20 minutes or so, about the UFOs on the record, what is known or not. I went through that transcript, and I was astounded by some of the admissions. First is this, a question poised to the new head of the Pentagon UFO Task Force. Does any of the incidents that you're looking at represent a threat to U.S. national security?

His response was an unequivocal yes. Next question. The Pentagon then is also not just reviewing the 144 originally described incidents that it can't explain. It now has, quote, several hundred that don't bear any human or known explanation under review. That is also a new definition of UAP or UFO. The Pentagon is expanding its search into past incidents to even include, quote, submerged and transmedium objects which fly or move underwater. And then finally, my personal favorite. It's an answer on the question of whether the Pentagon has any evidence of alien life or evidence from past crash landings. The new head hedged his answer very carefully, saying, quote, in terms of holdings that I have seen, holdings that we have gone through,

I have not yet seen anything in those holdings to date that would suggest there has been an alien visitation or an alien crash. Note the operative word, that I have seen. Also, by definition, what did he just admit? There are holdings. Of what kind? He does not elaborate. He even admitted there are, quote, many compartmented programs that this department has had over the years that are charged with, quote, such holdings. It's extraordinary stuff here. And to finalize, what does the media go with? You already know. Headline from the Washington Post, no alien life discovered on Earth, Pentagon says.

It's almost comical at this point. They say they have no evidence for it. There's also none against it either. The truth is, we just don't know. All we're left with right now, questions, mysteries. Will we ever really know the answer? Probably not, honestly. But you've got to keep pressing. It's just too interesting of a thing to let go. I really enjoyed reading through that transcript. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, guys.

We've got a great show for you guys planned tomorrow and a great week. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas week. Isn't that—we get to say that, right? Merry Christmas week. Sure, yeah. It's an entire week. Holiday week.

And I think Hanukkah is happening right now. Is it today? All right. Happy Hanukkah. I think it's going on. There we go. I don't know. I gotta eat some latkes.

Man, those are so good. Although I'm more of a sour cream guy, not an applesauce guy. I've never understood. Same, same. Applesauce with potatoes. What are you people talking about? Anyway, whatever.

It's madness. Enjoy the dreidel, all that other stuff. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Love you guys. See you tomorrow. years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call

678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jeff Perlman. And I'm Rick Jervis. We're journalists and hosts of the podcast Finding Sexy Sweat. At an internship in 1993, we roomed with Reggie Payne, aspiring reporter and rapper who went by Sexy Sweat. A couple years ago, we set out to find him. But in 2020, Reggie fell into a coma after police pinned him down and he never woke up. But then I see my son's not moving. 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.

I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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