Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/22/24: Trump Attacks Nikki Haley And Retires 'DeSanctimonious', Biden NH Rival Surges, Javier Milei Sucks Up To WEF Elites, And Jan 6 Pipe Bomb Info Emerges

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump attacking Nikki as he drops the 'DeSanctimonious' nickname, Shelby Talcott on how the DeSantis campaign failed, Biden in trouble as New Hampshire rival surges, Javier Milei sucks up to elites at WEF, and new evidence on Jan 6 pipe bomb emerges.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/ Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots going on this week. Ron DeSantis, officially out of the presidential campaign. Can't say that we didn't call it, but anyway. Certainly called it. Lots to get into there. We also have some intrigue on the Democratic side. Dean Phillips, at least according to one poll, may be surging in New Hampshire. Biden's having to wage this weird write-in campaign, but also pretend like he's not campaigning. So we'll tell you about those dynamics as well. And then, of course, there are a lot of updates with regard to Israel and the broader war that

now is in full effect. We've got news that the Biden administration is planning for a sustained military campaign against the Houthis, although don't call it a war, even though what is exactly war if it's not just continuing to bomb and exchange hostilities with another actor. Anyway, we'll get into that. And Bibi Netanyahu continues to humiliate the Biden administration, once again proclaiming, I don't know why this is a mystery to anyone, that he is absolutely opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state. This comes on the heels of Biden insisting that he thinks somehow he's going to be able to persuade Bibi that they should actually have a two-state solution.

We'll tell you about that. I'm taking a look at Malay's speech at the World Economic Forum. Sagar is taking a look at some mysteries surrounding that pipe bomb outside of the DNC headquarters back on January 6th. So a lot of intrigue this morning. Yeah, that's right. Also, don't forget Shelby Talcott should be joining us from Semaphore. So that'll be fun. We've got a guest in the show. We've got two monologues. Lots of things are going on here. We also have a discount currently going on for our election season. We can put it up there on the screen, guys. You can go ahead and take advantage of it. It's for our yearly subscription. You can help us out in the election season to help build. We've got our RFK Junior Focus group, which has been rescheduled after the

snow that blanketed the Midwest, also blanketed us here in Washington. And Crystal, you are doing a live stream tonight with a couple of friends that we should flag for everyone. Yeah, that's right. So myself, Katie Helper, Brianna Joy Gray, we are all teaming up to do a live stream with Muin Rabani and Norman Finkelstein to really break down the ICJ case from South Africa against Israel. What is the likelihood of its success? What might happen from here? So really excited to talk to all of them and break all of that down for you people. So check out that live show. It's at 8 p.m. tonight. We'll go for a few hours and get into all of those things.

Good luck to you for staying up well past my bedtime. I told them 10 o'clock is the hard deadline. 10 o'clock. I can't stay up past that clock. I've been asleep for two hours at 10 o'clock. That's crazy. All right, let's get to the election. As we mentioned, I did a breaking news last night. Governor DeSantis did officially drop out of the presidential race. His main, I guess, contender against him, who was not named Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, immediately reacted to that on the ground in New Hampshire. Here's what she had to say. We just heard that Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the race.

And I want to say to Ron, he ran a great race. He's been a good governor and we wish him well. Having said that, it's now one fella and one lady left. Will I be using the name Ron DeSanctimonious? I said, that name is officially retired. So Trump says officially retired. Personally, never thought it was his best work. I think Meatball Ron was far better. But those are the two immediate. Now we've got basically a two-person race in the state of New Hampshire. Trump kind of making this evident.

He's been attacking Nikki Haley now for several days, which has led to a bizarre incident where he seemed to imply that Nikki Haley was actually in charge of security at the Capitol on January 6th. Let's take a listen. By the way, they security at the Capitol on January 6th. Let's take a listen. By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6th. You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know, they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it,

all of it because of lots of things. Like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people. So we think, Crystal, he was referring to Nancy Pelosi, but Haley now picking up on this and implying that Trump has lost some of his marbles. Let's take a listen to that. We need a president for eight years, even if you have a president for four years. The man was going on a rant about how I was keeping Capitol Police from going in on January 6th. He went on and on, mentioned my name multiple times about the fact that I stopped people from being secure on January 6th.

I wasn't in D.C. on January 6th. I had nothing to do with the Capitol. It's things like that. He said multiple times that he ran against President Obama. He didn't run against President Obama. These things happen because guess what? When you're 80, that's what happens. You're just not as sharp as you used to be. This is not personal. Y'all know I voted for him twice. I was proud to serve in his administration. This is the fact that we have a country in disarray and a world on fire. And we need to know that

we are not giving our kids options of two 80-year-olds going into a presidency. A little bit more of a general election argument there, Crystal, because I don't think a lot of Republicans feel that he has lost his marbles. But yeah, your overall reaction, DeSantis is out of the race. We certainly did call it. And I guess it's Nikki versus Trump. Good luck to her, I guess Trump would say. I mean, okay, so there's a few things. There's first of all, the short-term impact. What will it mean in New Hampshire? Where we'll get into in a moment.

I mean, some polls have shown her in single digits. It seems like the most recent polls have Trump expanding his lead back into double digits. To be honest with you, I don't know that it has that much impact at all in New Hampshire because Ron DeSantis really wasn't pulling that well in New Hampshire.

He's getting like 6% of the vote. So where will that 6% go? Will that be the difference maker? I sort of doubt it. My expectation, we'll do our official predictions probably tomorrow, is that Trump will win New Hampshire and be able to continue that momentum easily into the Republican nomination. So does Ron DeSantis really dropping out make a huge difference for Nikki Haley? I seriously doubt it. Although I have seen some people who are assuming that all of his support will basically go to Trump, and I don't buy that. No. I think it's more split. Yeah, it's probably split. I think it's probably maybe 60-40, maybe even 50-50. I don't know. But I don't think it's a huge difference maker because Trump has such a large lead. On other dynamics, there's a reason why from the

beginning, even before all of the indictments, even before all of this happened, you and I were both very skeptical that Ron DeSantis, even at his best, even after Florida did phenomenal in the midterms and Trump was kind of down and out because all his candidates had underperformed and the Republicans had underperformed. Even at that moment, we were very skeptical because Republicans still really like Donald Trump. They still really liked him. And he basically was an incumbent coming into this the way that they looked at him. You had to give them a big reason to move away from Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis proved himself really unable to come up with an argument. I don't think it was going

to be an easy thing to do. I don't even know if it was a possible thing to do that would move people off of Donald Trump and towards him. And in addition, perhaps his strongest argument to make was electability. Look at the school scoreboard. Not only did you have the example of him on the campaign trail being incredibly awkward and also, by the way, running a really poor campaign in the Twitter spaces debacle and people can go through the list, et cetera. But I don't think it gave people a lot of confidence like, oh, yeah, this is the guy that can definitely win. And meanwhile, Joe Biden is so pathetic that you're like, of course, Trump can beat him. I mean, anyone who looks at the scoreboard, so to speak, and doesn't think that Trump has a chance to defeat Joe Biden, they're just living in an

alternate universe. So, you know, once that was off the table, the potential electability argument, there just wasn't a lot there to work with. So listen, I know a lot of people are being really hard on the Ron DeSantis campaign. There's plenty of material there to work with. But to be honest with you, Trump ran a really terrible, embarrassing campaign in 2016 and he won. The bottom line is Ron DeSantis was never going to be president this time. He's never going to be president, period. He's just not the guy. And especially when you have a Republican Party and especially when you have a person in Donald Trump who still really defines the center of gravity in both parties and focuses the debate, everything turns around this man in both parties. So without some gigantic situation that was going to move people off of him, which we have never seen unfold in the Republican Party since he jumped on the scene. I think that this campaign, regardless

of how perfectly it was run, was basically doomed from day one. Yeah, I mean, and look, Trump just has the it factor. You know, Ron DeSantis, whether Trump is in or is out, he's not going to be inspiring the same level of just reverence that people have. I mean, take a look at this. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is the line for people to get into the Trump rally in New Hampshire, where the feels like is minus one degree Fahrenheit. It is literally almost zero, minus 30 under freezing in the state of New Hampshire, in Manchester, where people were lining up for hours to get in there. Hundreds, thousands. You know, I mean, that's just something that you've never seen anything like that in modern politics.

And look, the only place you have seen it, Crystal, like you said, is amongst Democrats who hate Trump. And when they're willing to line up, they ain't lining up for Joe Biden. They're lining up to vote against Donald Trump, to chant, you know, wearing the pink hat. I almost said something else there. The Women's March and all those other things. Nothing wrong with that. It just shows you that it's the inverse, right, of the inspiration that he inspires among some voters is exactly the same thing that he applies for others. The thing is, as you said, too, in the state of New Hampshire, just to back up your point, put this up there on the screen just to give people an example of where the current polling is. Trump is currently at 55%. This is in the latest USA Today Suffolk poll. You've got 36%

for Nikki Haley. I mean, it's not bad, but it's definitely still 20-some points behind. DeSantis was polling at six. That's part of the reason that he dropped out. It would have just been this humiliating twist in the wind for more than a month until the South Carolina primary and eventually going into Super Tuesday. You know, you don't want to finish before, you know, three or four points. You want to be able to go out on quote unquote on top after you came in. Second, possibly curry some favor with Trump. As you said, I don't think all of that's going to go to Trump, although the majority of them, their second choice voter is going to be Donald Trump. They may just not show up to vote. And then, you know, I guess 3% or so would go over to Nikki Haley.

Now, listen, it's certainly possible. New Hampshire is a tough state to poll. It's weird. Trump definitely overperformed expectations last time. But things have defied some expectations this time around. Obviously, Iowa was like, you know, a little bit squirrely in terms of where things were going for the exact percentages, even though the Iowa Seltzer poll. But there's no real equivalent here in the state. Plus, you've got the open factor for a bunch of people who may have registered as Republicans

to go there. And that's the only reason why she might overperform expectations. But we'll see. Yeah. That's the real question. It's possible. It's possible she wins New Hampshire. I don't think she will, but it's possible. I think it is theoretically in the realm of possibility that she wins New Hampshire. If she does, she will still lose every state, including her home state, which is next, of South Carolina, which is, I mean, listen, on the one hand, this couldn't have lined up better for Nikki Haley, right? You have New Hampshire early in the lineup, the very first primary state. That's a great state for her. It's probably the best state in the country for her in terms of potential performance. That's fantastic. Then you go

into your home state of South Carolina. What could be a better lineup? She couldn't have planned it better. On the other hand, if you go into your home state of South Carolina and you lose, that's game over. Right? That's game over. Now, I really am kind of 50-50. I suspect she probably drops out after that. But I'm not 100% sure. She may stay in there even though it's completely humiliating and embarrassing to then get like 10 percentage points in every state after that, just as an option in case something

does happen with Trump that takes him off the field before the Republican nomination, she's the last one there standing. That's theoretically possible. But I think because, especially of the timeline of his legal trouble, that is not all going to unfold until maybe before the general election and maybe not even before then. But I don't think That is not all going to unfold until maybe before the general election and maybe not even before then. But I don't think any of that is going to ripen before the Republican nomination is settled. So it's probably more likely that after she loses South Carolina, that's the end of the road for her. I saw someone say that I think it's Harry Anton who works for CNN. He previously worked for FiveThirtyEight. He's one of the better polling

analysts. He was like, look, guys, here's the truth. We're shaping up for the longest general election in modern American history. And I think he's right. I mean, basically, we haven't seen something like this. I mean, technically, look, FDR, I guess, certainly had some challengers or whatever back in the day. Probably that's the last time that we ever had such a presumptive nominee here and such a presumptive nominee on the other side, even though, you know, technically the general election was only a couple of weeks. This is, you know, I haven't seen anything like this in a long time where you know exactly who both parties are going to be, technically with an open primary, at least that's what it was supposed to be. Just to give everybody again a preview of the state of the RealClearPolitics polling average, let's put this up there.

So Trump has got plus 15 on average over all of his opponents, roughly in line with what we just saw, 52% average that he's polling at. Nikki Haley at 37.5. DeSantis' average was roughly 7. So we'll see if you equally split that down the middle, you can see it puts Trump right at 55 or so, possibly Haley at 40. Now there is one outlier poll that's not listed here from American Research Group. It's not rated highly by 538 for what it's worth. It's like a C-plus polling outfit. And they have the race basically as statistical tie, I think, with Nikki Haley down two points, but that's within the margin of error. That's an outlier, but I do want to

acknowledge that it exists, that that polling is out there. They use a somewhat different methodology. Maybe they're picking up something that other people aren't, or maybe they're wildly off base. Very hard to say. We'll see what happens on Tuesday night. They also have, and we'll cover this too, an outlier poll on the Democratic side. The Democratic race, very difficult to poll in the state of New Hampshire. Because you have Joe Biden not on the ballot, people have to write in his name. And that just makes it very difficult to predict, very difficult to predict how that is all going to go down and, you know, what percentage point he will get in the state as well. But just wanted to acknowledge that that exists. One of the things, Sagar, that I wanted to mention, because we played the clip of Nikki

Haley picking up on Trump's, like, confusing her with Nancy Pelosi. And I saw that, too, that he, like, said he ran against Obama a couple times when he didn't. I mean, first of all, I do think it's reasonable to say the man is 80 years old. So these slip ups are going to happen more and more like that's just the nature of aging. It is what it is. I will also say, though, as someone who talks for a living and talks all the time, like I also make these stupid miscues sometimes. So I don't put too much stock in it. But I will say politically, not only Nikki Haley, but also Joe Biden is picking up on this. And to your point about the general election has already started, like everybody's

moved past these primaries basically and assumes it's going to be Trump and Biden because it is going to be Trump and Biden. Biden picked up on this and was also making fun of it and using Nikki Haley's comments to make fun of it as well. And do I think this is going to persuade people that Biden is more on the ball than Trump is? No. But it is a classic tactic just to try to muddy the waters. Like if Biden's biggest liability is that he is old and not all together with it and can't formulate a sentence and all of these things, if you can just muddy the waters a little bit and get people thinking like, yeah, Trump's not 100% either. He also is on that aging decline as well. That could be a useful strategy for Joe Biden.

I don't think it's a stupid idea. I don't think it's a bad idea either. As you said, I mean, what you're best when you've got a negative, what you want to make sure is that it's not just a negative against you. If you can try to make it so they're like, well, Trump has something, too. And you've got a general election voter who's like, well, I'm mad about his aid. I'm mad about his as well. Then maybe I'll vote for my second tertiary or whatever type thing. It's kind of like the original documents case where you classify documents for Trump and then you came out on Biden. It's like the moment that that happened, it was like, politically, not legally, it's a wash.

So that's what you would really desire is that the other side does it too. Will it work? I'm not so sure. There's a lot of polling to suggest that Americans are a lot more upset about President Biden's age or at least much more concerned than President Trump. As you said too, a slip up every once in a while is actually, and again, this is not to be construed as speaking up for the man. It's just every once in a while when you're on camera all the time, as we have all learned here, you're going to say something, you know, you're going to miss- Swap your words. Exactly.

Yeah. But in the pattern that we've seen with Biden now for years and years, the degradation and the amount of time that he's on camera and where it's the majority of the time and not the minimal amount of time, as opposed to Trump, where I would say that's flipped, that's probably why it's a bigger problem. But if Biden can try to elevate this, we'll see. Obviously, it's going to be a pretty big dynamic, I think, in the general election. Yeah.

Like ageism against the two of them while they're running. Yeah. I also have seen there have been all these like resistance liberal conspiracies about Trump's health. Oh, the lesions on his hand? You mean the golf sores from when he golfs all the time? Oh, is that what it is? Yeah, exactly. It makes total sense.

Okay. I have golfed enough now to know you, is that what it is? Yeah, exactly. It makes total sense. Okay. I have golfed enough now to know you wear a glove and you don't get. Maybe. I mean, even as a brand new golfer, I wasn't getting that kind of thing on my hands. Anyway, I'm not buying the golf story, but I'm not saying. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. James Carville's out there like, it's the glove for sure.

Which is hilarious. Anyway, so there's that. There's like a video of him where people are like, oh, he's dragging that right leg again. So the resistance crowd is really trying to drum up a lot of concerns about Trump and his health and his mental fitness and whatever. I will say I don't know about the health thing. But on the mental fitness, I have seen enough clips now of him mixing up words and whatever to say, yeah, this is different than the sharpness that used to be there. I do think, I mean, again, he's going to be 80 years old. This does happen. He is, in fact, even though it doesn't often seem like it, he is, in fact,

a human being. So I don't think that's totally to be dismissed. And like I said, is this going to persuade voters that Biden is actually the one who's fit, the most fit and ready to be dismissed. And like I said, is this going to persuade voters that Biden is actually the one who's fit, you know, the most fit and ready to be president given his manifestly low energy levels and like unwillingness to do rallies or talk to the press or really capably do a bunch of anything? No. But can he make it a little less clear cut, make it a little bit so that's less of a factor going against him. Yeah, I think he could probably pull that off. Yeah, I think it's possible. We will see. It also depends on terms of the fitness of the two of them. Anyway, let's turn. We've got a great guest

standing by, Shelby Talcott. She's going to join us to talk about the demise of the DeSantis campaign. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I've never

found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that

to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop.

It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo,

your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important. And that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide. Listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us now is political reporter for Semaphore, and she is joining us live from the state of New

Hampshire. So you wrote an interesting new piece. Let's put it up there on the screen. 13 reasons why Ron DeSantis did not become the Republican nominee. 13, I'm not exactly sure that we needed all of them. No offense, just joking. Tell us a little bit about what you described. Were you surprised yesterday when DeSantis dropped out? I'm sure you guys were hearing things almost imminently about what was coming forward, but being on the ground there in the state, did it make sense for him to do so? Yeah, it absolutely made sense. I mean, he had actually left the state of New Hampshire to go campaign in South Carolina, partially because there really was no path for him here in New Hampshire.

And he was sort of hoping that there would be a path for him in South Carolina and that he could have at least a few days head start. The problem is, I heard that a few days ago, he got some bad South Carolina internals that played a role in him ultimately deciding to drop out. He had been planning on coming back here to New Hampshire, but really it felt like after Iowa, his campaign was sort of lost. They didn't really have a clear path forward

because there really was no clear path forward. And as I wrote, there are multiple reasons why his campaign sort of failed to launch. It started before he even got into the race. He took heavy fire from Donald Trump and he didn't reply to it. He had that disastrous launch on X. Once he launched, he had sort of a bloated campaign that he was forced to downsize pretty quickly. And instead of downsizing in just one news cycle, he did it in several news cycles, which of course, nobody wants three or four negative news cycles. The list goes on. Some

of it his fault, some of it not his fault, example being diamonds. But ultimately, it just wasn't meant to be. So out here on the ground, nobody was really shocked that he decided to drop out before Tuesday happened. Makes sense. What is the cope coming from the DeSantis camp about why this didn't come together for him? Yeah, I mean, I think they maintain when I talk to people from Team DeSantis that he was the best option for America, that he should have been president, but that voters simply were not ready to move on from Donald Trump. And that's sort of where they're at. They're also really glad that he did end up dropping out for New Hampshire, because I was talking to people over the past few weeks, even before Iowa, who really wanted him to

be president and still supported him and had this sort of I'm going to go down with the ship mentality, but also were concerned because they wanted him to drop out to save himself for 28. And so there's sort of relief within DeSantis' world at this point, because they believe that he has successfully saved himself and can run again when Americans are ready and when, you know, the country has perhaps moved past a Donald Trump presidency. Well, we'll see. So Shelby, you are on the ground in New Hampshire. So can you just tell us a little bit about like what the dynamics are with Nikki Haley? Certainly, we see that she has come up in the polls, but we also see Trump, you know, really consolidating 50 odd some percent and possibly even higher. So in the days now, so day, I guess, since DeSantis dropped out, what was the reaction

like? Do people expect all those voters to go to Trump or what's the general consensus? DeSantis didn't have that much voter support to begin with here in New Hampshire, but the anticipation is that much, if not all of those, are going to go to Donald Trump. And in New Hampshire, every percentage point is going to count. I will say Donald Trump's team is feeling very confident and very happy right now, especially with DeSantis dropping out, less so because of the percentage points that it gives him and more so because of the sort of knock down Nikki Haley in that sense. And it's less about getting votes and more about just that idea that he is so strong that Nikki Haley has no chance and sort of trying to sow doubt in voters' minds here in New Hampshire before they actually come out and vote. Now, I would say Nikki Haley argues that she's feeling very confident. She has that sort of undecided voter base locked up.

At the same time, her team has sort of been tempering expectations from a win here in New Hampshire to a strong second-place finish, which, of course, always sort of indicates something to me. So we will see. What do you think her endgame is here, Shelby? Because she's not going to be the Republican nominee. I mean, even she wins in New Hampshire. She's way behind in her home state of South Carolina, which is next. And that's her next best performance in the country. There's no other state where she's even anywhere close. It does not appear that there's some like group waiting in the Republican primary to have the

permission to vote for Nikki Haley. Republicans like Donald Trump, and that's very clear at this point. So what do you think her play is? Does she want to remain relevant in Republican politics? Does she want a media gig? Does she want to be Trump's VP? What do you think her endgame thinking is at this point? I mean, that's the ultimate question, right? Because I do agree with you. I think a few months ago, there was sort of some sliver of hope that if she did really well in Iowa, had a second place finish, she did not, did really well here and won, that there would be sort of this sect of people in South Carolina who had just been waiting for permission to vote for her. That doesn't seem to be reality. And so that's one

of Trump team's arguments is she really has no path forward. When I've talked to them about the vice presidential pick, she told a pair of voters this week in New Hampshire that she was out on VP. That is not something she wants. Of course, every candidate says that, I think, until the opportunity arises. At the same time, I've talked to Trump folks who say, well, listen, we've been so aggressive at Nikki Haley. It's going to be hard to put that sort of thing back in the box. So I don't know where she goes from here. She has sort of distanced herself from that MAGA movement.

And in a way, there's not really a place for her in this kind of Republican party, quite frankly. Yeah, I think that's a great point. I mean, we originally were going to talk to you about some veep stakes and what things were looking like inside the Trump team and what their thoughts are. So can you just give us a general sense? I've seen Elise Stefanik's name floated. I know online it's popular to say it's going to be Vivek. I personally don't see that happening, but maybe I'm wrong. What do you think? I also don't see it happening partially because he's so green.

Trump's team has always been talking about they want someone who knows what they're doing. That's part of the reason I also don't think it's going to be Kerry Lake, because you want someone who is a quote unquote winner. He's looking for loyalty first, of course, especially after this Mike Pence thing where he felt like Mike Pence was disloyal. So that's the number one thing. But he also wants someone who's not going to necessarily outshine him in the media. And all of these names that are floating around, Elise Stefanik, J.D. Vance, Sarah Sanders, they're all in the mix. But I think it's really important to note that every time one of these media stories pops up right now, it is accurate. Donald Trump is asking around about these people. But at the same time, that's what he does. Anytime somebody does something he likes, it piques his interests. He polls people. He polls people at Mar-a-Lago at dinner.

He polls his aides. And so I would caution to read too much into these sorts of media stories. It's clear that he has some sort of general list, but that list has not been finalized. And this is what he does. He likes the media questioning who he's going to be. It keeps him in the news cycle. He doesn't have to do anything. And he also likes sort of sitting back

and watching these VP hopefuls sort of fight for it. And I think that's the next stage that we're starting to see here in New Hampshire. Yeah. And lastly, Shelby, you mentioned before that some of Rhonda Santis' biggest supporters

were glad he pulled out now to preserve his chances for 2028. I mean, what do you think about his chances for the future in the Republican Party? How does the Republican base feel about him? How does the donor set feel about him? Because they sort of abandoned him for Nikki Haley in the middle of this race. I think most people would agree with your assessment that the campaign was very poorly run. He was an awkward campaigner out on the stump. And so the more people saw of him, the less they were interested in casting their vote for him. So what do you think that Ron DeSantis' future looks like

within the Republican Party? I think one of the big things, quite frankly, is that he has sort of gotten back into Trump's good graces by endorsing him. That was certainly a strategic move. Partially, he just had no interest in helping Nikki Haley. It was very clear there's no love lost between those two. But also, I think if Donald Trump goes to, say, he wins office in 2024, he's now back on Donald Trump's good side. And that alone can sort of help him get those MAGA-type voters that he failed to get this time around. At the same time, you think 2028, there's going to be a whole number of new top Republicans that opted not to get in this cycle who are going to be really tough to beat, you know, Glenn Youngkin types.

So it's going to be really interesting to see if he can, in the next several years, sort of refine that awkward persona and learn from his mistakes enough to remain, you know, the top 28 contender as so many people believe he still could be. Well, we'll see what happens, as Trump often likes to say. Who knows? He may himself decide to endorse or run again. You never know. You never know. I'm going to guess Ron doesn't launch next time on Twitter spaces. Yes. Yeah, that's right. He's going to launch on the Apple Vision Pro.

Oh, my gosh. On the Apple Vision Pro 2.0. You can tell I'm excited. Next level debacle. I'm excited. All right, Shelby, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thanks.

Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough. Someone who inspired people.

Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust

and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives.

My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Yeah. Now I'm curious, do they, like, rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now, too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's really the GOAT. He's a legend.

So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. That's what's really important and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that i'm really happy or my family in general let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple

podcast or wherever you get your podcast okay turning now to the Democrats in the state of New Hampshire, possibly the only real primary that we're going to get this time around. Polls are looking interesting. So it's a very difficult state to poll, especially because you've got Biden running this strange write-in campaign. But things are not looking terrible for Dean Phillips. Go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is a brand new poll. This is from ARG, the American Research Group, rated as C+, from 538. But they actually show Joe Biden at 54% for a write-in, Dean Phillips at 32%. 7% say they are undecided, 4% other, 3% for Marianne Williamson. So, I mean, it's kind of interesting that Phillips has seen a surge, at least in recent times. And Phillips himself is truly like opening up all the stops in terms of the stop Biden argument in the same

terms that I think Cenk Uygur has talked about here on our show and others. He's like, look, there's just no way that this man can beat Trump. I just don't see it at all. He believes apparently so much he's even willing to float a no labels bid. Let's put this up there. Pretty interesting. Basically saying that if Biden is going to rig the primary against him, that on Saturday, he said he would even consider running on the ticket of no labels, which is that centrist group who we've interviewed here in the past, exploring an independent bid against Biden and against Trump. This was in a New York Times interview. He said for the first time that he was considering it, that he was in regular communication with the group's chief executive and that, quote, Democratic allies of President Biden have been alarmed by no labels,

worrying that any candidate it runs could siphon off votes for him. Phillips said this specifically, people are criticizing them because they believe whomever will offer on their ticket will hurt Biden. That's false. If they put someone at the top of the ticket who could actually drive votes away from Donald Trump, every Democrat in the USA should be celebrating it. They have not made that determination. So he's running, you know, very much on the rigged primary saying that he's somebody who he thinks that Biden certainly just can't win against Trump at all. I actually don't think that's necessarily true, which is, it's funny, the electability argument has been made by Dems against Biden and by DeSantis and Haley against Trump. And yet every poll shows that the two of them are probably the strongest that they've been able to put up from their own parties right

now, which is pretty difficult for them. You mean that you think they're the strongest candidates to win in the general election? I disagree with that. Well, no, within their own parties against each other. I mean, so for example, the idea that Trump cannot win against Biden is ludicrous because we've seen poll after poll that shows that he possibly can. Yeah. Biden as well. I mean, Biden certainly polls pretty well against Trump. We've seen the recent Quinnipiac poll. I'm not saying they're the best by far, but I'm saying within the realm of like what's available right now, the two of them have certain strengths that some of these others don't have.

I mean, I do think so like generic Democrat. Oh, that's different. others don't have. I mean, I do think so, like generic Democrat. That's different. Dean Phillips is like the living embodiment of generic Democrat, does better than Joe Biden, generic Republican. And Nikki Haley in most polls does better than Donald Trump does against Joe Biden. So I think if the Republicans nominated either Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley, which obviously DeSantis is not an option now, and Nikki Haley is barely an option at this point, I think they would easily beat Joe Biden. I don't think he would even stand a chance. I think probably the only candidate that he has a chance against is Donald Trump. And Trump, I mean, likewise, probably the only candidate he really stands a chance against

is Joe Biden because of his weakness. But one thing I would say is the Democratic Party base is very unsure about Joe Biden going up against Donald Trump again. They feel very unsure that he can win once again. They feel very unsure about his capability of serving another full term in office. But they have not really, the media has made sure that they are not aware that there are even other options. And let's be fair, too. I mean, Dean Phillips came into this race quite late. Very late. He has been a little bit all over the map. I want to be charitable towards him because, you know, I appreciate him for a variety of reasons

getting in this race. I think it did take some courage. You know, he was nice enough to come here and engage with us in a back and forth. So I want to be charitable towards him. But I don't really understand this. He's kind of all over the map. I mean, he's a problem solvers caucus dude who voted 100% with Joe Biden. He framed himself as this very centrist-y dem as a member of Congress. Then he gets into the primary and sees that a lot of the dissident energy is on the left. And then he's like, well, actually, I support Medicare for all, and I support some of these other Bernie Sanders-style priorities or things that actually Marianne Williamson has been running on since the beginning of the primary. So it's like, OK, well, that's I appreciate if you his explanation to me was that he got out

there and talked to people and saw the need and got out of the D.C. bubble and became aware. But now you're like taking money from billionaire Bill Ackman, changing your website to reflect his priorities, floating a no-labels bid. I just don't know. I just don't really understand the endgame with Dean Phillips. The poll we put up on the screen, this American Research Group poll, they're the same ones that had the outlier in New Hampshire for the Republican side. This is also an outlier on the Democratic side.

The other polls of New Hampshire do not show Dean Phillips anywhere near 30-something percent of the vote. So I am skeptical that he has this level of support in the state. But we'll see. I mean, like I said, the dynamics here, New Hampshire is already hard to pull because you have independents can vote in party primaries. So there's a lot of crossover. So that makes it a bit of a wild card who's going to show up for which primary and how they're going to vote. So there's that piece. Then to really complicate things, you had Joe Biden in an attempt to thoroughly rig the primary, basically screw himself in the state of New Hampshire, but try to kick him to the back of the line. They couldn't move their primary because of their state constitution. So he's having to mount this write-in campaign. But also,

they don't want to be seen as even campaigning in the state. So it's not even his campaign that's doing the write-in campaign. They've left it to a state party that is really pissed off at them, by the way, and not happy about what they've done in terms of moving the primary. There's been a minimal amount of dollars that have been spent towards this write-in campaign. And so I just have no idea how that is going to work out. I have no idea what percentage Joe Biden will get. I think he will probably outperform this ARG poll that we had up, but maybe underperform some of the other polls that have shown him, you know, at 65 percent and really trouncing the entire field just because who's going to even be motivated to come out for a

Democratic primary when the media has been consistently telling been telling you there is no Democratic primary. There are no opponents. So why would you bother to show up? How would you know that you have to write in Joe Biden's name? I just think it's a complicated set of dynamics that makes it very, very, very unpredictable how this is ultimately all going to unfold. The last thing I'll say about the Democratic primary is, you know, Marianne Williamson has been running as like the left challenger to Joe Biden. And, you know, she's come out with regard to the unconditional support for Israel. She's come out, she's voiced dissent, she's called for a ceasefire. But I think she had a real opportunity to lean into that issue, to really make that a centerpiece,

because in terms of the energy and the opposition to Joe Biden, especially among young voters, especially among left-leaning voters throughout the Democratic coalition, this has really become a lightning rod and a real central focus of dissent and of upset against him to the point that many young voters who were with him last time around are saying, there is absolutely no way I could support this man. And in sign of the fact that she failed to make this an issue that she was sort of identified with and synonymous with and seen as being a consistent advocate on, the fact that there's this write and ceasefire campaign going on where people are being encouraged to, instead of voting for any of the candidates on the ballot, to literally write in the word ceasefire just as a protest against Joe Biden. If she'd done a better job, I think,

positioning herself as a dissident on this topic and really leaned into it, turned up to protest, talked consistently about it in a way that, you know, was landing with the people who were upset about it, then I think that campaign would have been vote for Marianne Williamson as a protest against Joe Biden instead of vote for a ceasefire. Yeah. So we see some of that. We can put B5 guys, please, up on the screen. Let's put it up there from the Boston Globe. So we have New Hampshire primary voters here urged to write in ceasefire to send Biden a message. Very much, you know, demonstrating exactly what you're talking about, Crystal, which is that if she had made her name synonymous with that, then this entire effort wouldn't really be necessary. There's also been some sniping between Andrew Yang and

Marianne Williamson, an interesting moment at one of their rallies for Dean in the state of New Hampshire, where Yang said that Marianne Williamson should drop out and to join him and Dean Phillips. He says, Dean is our best chance. Here's what he had to say. I ask you to join us in challenging the true enemy. The true enemy is the political establishment that does not care about our families and communities, and a media cabal that will suppress or demonize anyone who wants to change things on behalf of the people of this country. Marianne Dean is our best chance to change things. I am looking forward to serving in his administration, and I hope that you will join us.

Interesting moment. Immediately, though, Marianne shot it down. Let's put it up there, please. She says that that's not going to happen. She tweeted out, quote, wow, Andrew Yang, the days of a woman stepping aside on the assumption that a man can do better of the job are over. Deeply disappointed in you guys, and the answer is no. To which Dean then somehow walked back. Let's put the final element here. He says, I respect Marianne Williamson, a woman of courage, conviction, and strength. I hope she stays in the primary with me as we shine light on American suffering, propose solutions, and promote democracy while our party suppresses it. So not exactly sure what happened there. My guess is that Andrew talked a little bit off script and then everything had to be walked back. But in general, as you said, Marianne squandered a moment a bit there by this, plus Dean and all of that. And Biden, I mean, who knows?

Like you said, going in in a presumptive election where you're not even on the ballot to go write-in Biden is a weird thing to do. I did send, Crystal, one of our viewers sent me a photo of the write-in flyers that have been going around for Biden. They say, you have the power to stop Donald Trump's attack on our democracy. Vote Joe Biden for president. It says, voting for Joe Biden is easy as one, two, three. Start at the bottom of the ballot with a pen. Fill in the oval for write-in and write Joe Biden on the line. So that's what they are sending to people.

Thank you, one of our viewers, by the way, who sent that to me. Yeah, the last thing I'll say on all of this is this will be, you know, controversial. I actually think there was more of a chance to unseat Biden in the Democratic primary than there was with Trump in the Republican primary. I mean, way back early on. Yeah. If things had gone different, if there had been a unified campaign against Biden, consistently challenging him, making people aware that there was another option, if there had been a unified coalition, I genuinely think there was an opportunity here because you had all the polls. I mean, the Biden team was clearly nervous about this, right? They saw the polls too,

that the Democratic base, a majority of them were like, we would like someone else. We would like to see another option here. We are not comfortable with this man as the nominee. Once again, we don't know that he can defeat Trump. We don't know that he can serve four more years in office. And, you know, we've always talked about this with regard to Trump and Biden. Biden's support isn't really support for Joe Biden. It's very soft. Anti-Trump, yeah. The most people feel about him is like, he's fine. You know, that's like the strength of the depth of the feeling about Joe Biden. Whereas with Donald Trump, I mean, look, we showed you before the pictures of the people out in the freaking zero degree minus 20, whatever, whether to come and see him

at a rally, literally no one. I don't even think Joe Biden's wife would do that at this point, right? So it's much harder to move those people off of Donald Trump than it could have been in an alternate universe where there was a unified coalition and a concerted effort from the beginning. And then especially at the end here, you know, if you had made that noise and you had laid the groundwork and then, you know, with his unconditional support for Israel, which is not just unpopular, by the way, in the Democratic Party with young people, it is unpopular across the board. It's actually especially unpopular with young people, obviously Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, but with black Americans, too. Some of the strongest numbers in favor of a ceasefire

and oppositional to his unconditional support are among key components of the Democratic base. So the opening and the possibilities were there. And, you know, you can say on the one hand, listen, the media just made it impossible. I do think that's a lot of it. There was just a concerted media effort to say there is no Democratic primary. There is nothing even to look at here. Yeah, Biden's weak and maybe it'd be great if there was a challenger, but there's no challenger, even as there are literally challengers in the race. But again, I think if you had a unified effort from the beginning, you could have potentially overcome that media blackout. And there was more of an opportunity on the Democratic side than there really was on the Republican side. This is where I think machine

politics has come into play, where the machine was not as actually stronger, I think, today than it was in the past. And you can look at the Carter-Kennedy election for an example, where, I mean, maybe it's just because Kennedy was literal of royalty in the party at that time, and nobody could tell him not to, even though the majority didn't want him to run, at least in the Democratic Party establishment. But he had enough money, and he was able to mount a serious campaign, and it went for a pretty long time. But the thing is, is that with Kennedy, Kennedy recognized Carter's unpopularity and lack of strength a year, you know, year and a half into the actual race. And so that's why he mounted up from the beginning. He

said, there's no way this guy's going to win in 1980. And he was correct about that. He mounted an electability case. He said, if we're actually going to be, you know, going forward, you've got to look at the way this man has led the country. It's been a total disaster. He's going to get his ass kicked, you know, in the election. The problem was, is nobody had really the strength to say that from all the beginning, unless you were, you know, literally an independent media or somewhere else on MSNBC, the organs and all that, at least to their credit, the press at that time were forced to cover it. And they were a little bit more neutral, too. It was a whole era of pre-cable. And they were like, listen, President Cardner's tremendously unpopular.

Mr. Kennedy says that he can't win and he's going to run against him. Democratic voters ultimately did go with Carter after a pretty brutal campaign. But at least that argument was made. But that doesn't exist right now. The ability to even do that doesn't exist. Here's the thing. I mean, one piece of this is that Democratic voters still really trust the mainstream press. Yeah, that's true. And so that gives them a lot of power. We saw this in 2020, right? When the mainstream press decided, all right, Joe Biden's the guy, we're all lighting up behind him. The dominoes fell like that. I mean, tremendous shift against Bernie Sanders, like over over literally overnight. And Joe Biden sweeps into the Democratic nomination. No problem. So that's one piece of the problem. The other thing is that, you know, the challenger to Joe

Biden from the beginning was Marianne Williamson. And because she doesn't have that like, you know, elected D.C. credential, they found it easy to ignore her. So I think personally, somebody like Gavin Newsom should be kicking himself right now. I think if you had someone who was like a governor, you know, like Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or whoever, who the media had built up as a quote unquote, you know, certified serious person and they had the right credentials and whatever, I think it would be have been very difficult for them to completely ignore what was going on there. And I personally think there was an opportunity for someone like that if they jumped in the race early on and were consistently making the case in a nice way, not a mean way against Joe Biden, but about like,

listen, he's right that democracy is on the line. He's right that Trump is this existential threat. He's right that we have to do everything we can to win. Thank you for doing that for us in 2020. Now it's time to hand the ball off to the next generation who is more able to do that in 2024. I do think there was an opportunity for that. But they very effectively kept everybody within the elected Democratic establishment in line. They kept them in line. And that Joe Biden then, even though it was like a house of cards waiting to be knocked over by a stiff breeze, was able to remain assembled. And so now Democrats are stuck with

this dude hobbled with him going into a general election. And we'll say he may still win. Trump is also a terrible candidate and people really hate him. He may still win, but they have made it so much less certain and are playing an incredibly weak hand with a man who, you know, consistently can't formulate a sentence. They can't be confident in putting him out

even for like the friendliest of interviews. He's incapable of campaigning. If he does do debates, it's going to be a bloodbath against Donald Trump. This is the hand that Democrats have decided to play. Well, Crystal, look, if he does lose, at least you can say, I told you so. And I will say, a lot of people like Newsom and Whitmer and all them, they're going to have a lot less credibility if he does lose because people will be like, hey, man, where the hell were you?

And in that chaos, you know, from the ashes rise in Phoenix. So you never know. I mean, I can be very hopeful. The more likely is that we're going to come up with like Russiagate 9.0 and that we'll have a whole other entire different scenario where, you know, some fake stop the steal on the Democratic side. That's actually the most likely scenario, given what happened in the past. There's nothing I can cheer for at this point. It's just like, well, we'll see what happens. I enjoy chaos, personally. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband

at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her,

until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right?

And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes.

Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah yeah because i bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that,

I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? In a sign of the vapid, degraded, and pitiful nature of our public discourse, a facile speech seemingly written by a 15-year-old upon their first encounter with Ayn Rand has dazzled the world's billionaire class and quite a few way-too-online

fanboys, up to and including their leader, Elon Musk. New Argentine president Javier Millay took a break from banning protests, laying off thousands of workers, and spiking inflation over 200% to come preach the gospel of neoliberalism to the choir at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Now, of course, annually at Davos, the world elite gathers alongside their political pawns, their media enablers, and grifter wannabes to see what they can do to further extract global wealth, expand their monopolies, and solidify control over world affairs. These deals, which are the real action of the event, occur behind closed doors, while the public face of Davos is a fake do-gooderism where the very people creating many of the problems of the world, from war to hunger to climate catastrophe, wring their hands

about these very issues. Apparently, however, even this pretense of benevolence has become too much for the world's billionaire class, judging by the rapturous reception of Javier Millay. World Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab gave Millay a fawning introduction, lauding the, quote, new spirit he had brought to Argentina. This new spirit, by the way, is just the same old neoliberal shock doctrine that the West has long imposed on developing nations. Malay's message to this group can be summed up in three words. Greed is good. To governments, get out of the way and let the world's oligarchs extract wealth to their heart's content. To the billionaires, who he described as heroes, keep doing what you're doing. You can see why

they loved him so much. Who wouldn't want to hear their vice lauded as virtue? Therefore, in concluding, I would like to leave a message for all business people here and for those who are not here in person but are following from around the world. Do not be intimidated, intimidated either by the political caste or by parasites who live off the state. Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges. You are social benefactors. You're heroes. You're the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we've ever seen. Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money, it's because you offer

a better product at a better price, thereby contributing to general well-being. Do not surrender to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself. You are the true protagonists of this story. And rest assured that as from today, Argentina is your staunch, unconditional ally. Now, his message was both radical and completely supportive of the status quo because the status quo ideology of the ruler class is, in fact, quite radical. As a politician, he's telling the powerful he will be their lackey. He will strip the power of the state, an imperfect but theoretically democratic institution wherein citizens at least have a shot at exerting influence, and hand it to multinational corporations headed by a short-sighted and self-interested billionaire class.

I'm struck by the childlike fairy tale nature of the story he tells and what it says about our infantile rulers that they lap it up like hungry puppy dogs. Millais paints a picture of extraordinary men made wealthy by creating, innovating, designing products to benefit the whole world. When in reality, every year if you take a look, the most new billionaires come from the finance sector. People who are only skilled at new creative methods of extraction and mathematical trickery. Whose innovations are designing new exotic financial instruments like credit default are only skilled at new creative methods of extraction and mathematical trickery, whose

innovations are designing new exotic financial instruments like credit default swaps that eventually blow up the entire world economy. In Millet's billionaire bedtime story, there is no such thing as market failures. He says this explicitly. So any and all regulation is both unnecessary and wrong. He specifically argues that even one of the classic examples of market failures, the monopoly, is actually a good thing not to be messed with. Given the large number of monopolists in attendance, I'm sure this message was like chicken soup for their greedy souls.

Anyone, of course, with a basic grasp of reality outside of an imagined libertarian fantasy world can see that this attack on literally all market regulation is insane. Unless, of course, you're a fan of Dickensian-style child labor, indentured servitude, and poisoned food and water. I'm not sure I've ever seen this particular fantasy deflated as quickly as in this infamous clip of Joe Rogan educating Dave Rubin on the need for building codes. Just take a listen. What problem would you have? Everything you're building here right now, right? Do you want the government to tell you how to do all these things and all the regulations that you got to have your electric thing this far from this and like all of the regulations like that for

construction are important though. You do have to make sure that people don't do stupid shit, but make sure you don't have a power lines near a water line. There's a lot of, but I would put most of that on the builders though. They to build things that are good now i get it oh that's not true listen people no no people are going to build corners all the time like you have to have regulations when it comes to construction methods or people are going to get fucked they cut regulate they cut corners when there are regulations anyway they do they would cut a lot more if there weren't regulations i'm not totally third world countries and look at construction methods they're fucking dangerous yeah that's why schools collapse on kids in foreign countries sometimes listen man i was in construction my whole life my dad was an architect

i've been in construction since i was a little kid you fucking need regulations these guys a lot of people that are in construction they're they'll do whatever the fuck they can to make money and it's not good for the people that have the house because they might have that house for five, ten years before that problem manifests itself. The people who are establishing these codes are licensed builders or people that have been involved in construction for a long fucking time. And they know what's safe and what's not safe. That's why those codes exist. It exists to protect the consumers. Perfect example there. I could give you thousands of similar instances from the unregulated Titanic submersible to kids getting

sucked into meat grinders to the Great Depression and the Great Recession to the old company towns where workers were paid in script and forced into permanent debt so they could never leave their brutal jobs until they died from black lung at age 40. And the big picture of no regulation just looks like an acceleration of the absolute worst of what we've got right now. Governments which are even more corrupt and undemocratic. Wild inequality, where billionaires construct multi-million dollar bunkers to escape the apocalypse they are helping to usher in, while the vast majority are locked out of the basics of food, shelter, and healthcare, and a deep moral rot that would place human worth, creativity, and flourishing below the demands of the profit margin and the needs of Malay's billionaire heroes.

Now, Malay is, after all, a man who would buy and sell human organs, so he is perfectly willing to literally put a price on humanity. In a particularly nonsensical part of his speech, Millais equates communists, Nazis, fascists, socialists, social democrats, national socialists, Christian democrats, Keynesians, neo-Keynesians, progressives, populists, nationalists, and globalists, saying, nationalist, and globalist saying, quote, in the end, there's no substantive difference. The preposterous nature of erasing the clear differences between a very wide range of ideologies goes without saying unless you are a literal child or a member of the oligarch class which Malay services. But there's a reason why these elites are so excited to hear all of this

and to see moderate reformists like progressives equated with radical evils like Nazism. And it's because they feel themselves under siege by some of these name-checked movements. After all, the greed is good radical libertarianism that Malay espouses and which had been ascendant in America since Goldwater and forced on much of the rest of the world since Reagan has been repeatedly rebuked by regular people all around the world. Look at the wellspring of radical billionaire-friendly market radicalism, the Republican Party itself, and you can see how these ideas have been rejected. In practice, Trump has largely continued the Reagan-like policy of the past with a few exceptions, but he became the lodestar of American politics by advocating for a clean break from that neoliberal market radical era. Young Americans who have been thoroughly failed by Malay-style market radicalism are even more clear in their rejection of this model. The speech also arrives at a moment when a decisive conflict is brewing between the needs of humanity and the

needs of the market and owner class with the advent of super intelligent AI. It is clear that in this potentially existential battle, Malay's view is to hell with the humans. It is therefore a diseased mind which could with a straight face call any of this freedom as Malay does. Free to work all your days for global monopolists who set all the terms of your exploitation, unless, God forbid, you are unable to work or a robot eliminates your usefulness and then you are free to quietly die. Don't be fooled into thinking this man is some sort of truth teller or challenge to power. The adoration of the Davos set tells you everything you need to know about who his ideology actually serves, whose freedom it actually preserves. And in that ideology, you are just a liability on a billionaire's balance sheet. And Sagar, it was interesting.

And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders.

I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too.

So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's

what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that i'm really happy or my family in general let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a lot of weird things that happened on January 6th. Likely federal agents, instigators in the crowd, protesters, the way said protesters have been prosecuted since the event, the way that the media has even treated it. But perhaps the weirdest of all is the plotline that has mostly disappeared from view and could actually shed light on some of the deeper questions of the day.

What happened to the so-called pipe bomb investigation? The FBI, as part of their investigation, claimed that on January 5th, 2021, more than three years ago now, an unidentified hooded man planted pipe bombs at both the RNC and DNC headquarters on Capitol Hill, intending to cause damage as part of the protest. The pipe bomb was often discussed in the immediate aftermath of the attack, as it was a key piece of media evidence of the violent intent of many protesters going into the day rather than a spontaneous explosion of rage. Mysteriously, though, years later, as local DC media notes, that pipe bomber has never been caught.

Despite many protesters being identified by tapping phone records, using facial recognition software, and every other spyware known to man, it simply disappeared as a talking point and we're supposed to just forget about it somehow. But some interesting new evidence and analysis has actually come to light that questions a lot of this. Footage of the Capitol Hill area on the day of the alleged bomb was discovered, shows that approximately at 1.05 p.m. in broad daylight, a man in a backpack approaches nearby police and Secret Service agents to tell them that he thinks that there is a bomb that is currently nearby a bench in the DNC. That man, it was later revealed, is a plainclothes Capitol Police officer.

The officers in the video, which was released in the Congressman Thomas Massey, do not immediately react when they're told this alarming information. Now, keep this in mind. Vice President Kamala Harris is actually inside of the building at this time. They are supposed to be on high alert. And yet, as Darren Beattie at Revolver News notes, quote, note how casual and unperturbed both the Metro officers and Secret Service officers are. Ask yourself whether this is how you would imagine the Secret Service would normally respond to the discovery of a bomb right outside of the building housing their protectee. Now, the bomb first appears on camera approximately five minutes after the police were tipped off.

After that, police officers still allow actually a passing group of pedestrians, including kids, to walk by. A police officer then walks up to the bomb. He takes a photo of it, then before alerting others. He holds up his thumb, thumbs up. The video actually cuts off right around there. But the facts we can take away are this. The cops were tipped off to the presence of the bomb by an undercover cop in a hoodie. That did not appear at all alarmed by it, even though the vice president was inside the building. Three years later, nobody knows who this man was, and they also don't know who planted the bomb. The rest of the facts are pretty crazy. As Darren Beattie has

written, the official narrative from the FBI is that the pipe bomb was actually placed on the bench outside of the DNC at 7.52 p.m. That was the night before by a man in a hoodie. It was not discovered until a full 17 hours later when the tip-off came. Add in this detail, the pipe bomb was one of two. It's a mere 15 minutes earlier at 12.40 p.m. A random pedestrian allegedly nearby found the first at a Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C., which is nearby to this location, meaning that the two bombs, which were allegedly placed there 17 hours earlier, according to the authorities, were somehow discovered within mere minutes of each other.

Even stranger, according to the report, is that the two pipe bombs were equipped with one hour mechanical timers. So while they included live explosive material, if they were planted 17 hours earlier, they were never actually seriously armed to explode because they literally couldn't. All of this, let's just say it's odd. It doesn't prove anything, but it gives us a few possible scenarios. Number one is that this is total and complete incompetence on the part of law enforcement. It is possible, unlikely though, in my opinion. Catching the so-called pipe bomber would have been a huge headline for the FBI, Joe Biden, and the media. They were able to catch MAGA grandmas and people wearing masks who walked through the Capitol,

but they can't find someone who allegedly tried to bomb it? According to the FBI, the January 6th investigation is the largest in the history of the Bureau. This is one where lack of resources and attention after the fact is just not a viable explanation. The other that Revolver puts forward is that somehow this was somehow known to law enforcement, that perhaps the reason the police did not immediately act is because they knew it was BS, or that perhaps the Capitol Police officer who tipped off the cops is the one who in the hood planted himself. One easy way is to just talk to that man. Three years later, we don't even know the idea or the name of that Capitol Police officer. It has never even been released,

despite many questions from members of Congress. So that's where we just leave a few things. I mean, I wrote this monologue exactly three years after Joe Biden took the oath of office, when this was one of the biggest stories in the world. And yet it's mostly disappeared. And to be clear, that doesn't mean nothing bad happened on January 6th and the people involved are not responsible for their actions. But it does mean that within the cloud of all of this, as with many tumultuous events, there are major parts of the story that do not pass the smell test, and ones that need to be investigated to this day. To date, nobody but Revolver, few other independent journalists, have even touched this story. The reasons are obvious. If you dig deep, it's pretty clear where some of these things are going

to land. Crystal, I mean, one of the things I even discovered... And if you want to hear my reaction to Cybert's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband

at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for.

If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough. Someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment that was, you know, dying.

This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was my son and my daughter gonna be proud

when they hear my old tapes. Yeah. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, cause I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting

to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like, he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so

the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate you. We'll have a great show for you tomorrow. So lots of new Hampshire coverage and we'll see you then.

I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios.

Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. 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 podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.