Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/24/22 Weekly RoundUp: Elon Loses Twitter Poll/Zelensky Demand More Weapons/Andrew Callaghan on CNN/UFO Media Cover Ups/2022 Sign Off

Episode Date: December 24, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss Elon's disastrous week at Twitter after losing a Poll to remain CEO, Zelensky demanding more Weapons in his visit to Washington, Andrew Callaghan triggering Don Lemon on CNN, Shocking UFO Admissions covered up by the media, and a Final Sign Off Thank You to all our audience members for 2022.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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. Sari'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 is the Christmas season. 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, yes, he should step down, one, fairly handily, 57.5% 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, True Social, 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. Right.

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 under 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 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 paying 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 sales that Elon has been doing. He's sold nearly $3.5 billion in Tesla stock. 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 percent 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 cost. So what would explain that? It's purely reputational. Second was the actual Q score, quote unquote, of like 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? Yeah. 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 was 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 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 checkmark. 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 he 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 ahead 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 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 them 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. 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, et cetera, because it shows you where the massive drain publicly that enough people are fed up, including on the Twitter platform, some 57% voting yes that you should step down. I personally voted yes, full disclosure.

Do you know why? Because I think he's better off spying on 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, like, 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, et cetera. 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, 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. Hilarious.

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? Yeah. Tesla investors very clearly are very happy about this. It definitely makes sense. Let's move on to President Zelensky and his visit to Washington, surprise visit

that happened. The news broke on Wednesday, which counterpoints brought to all of you. He ended up arriving on Thursday around 2 p.m. at the White House. Some two important public appearances where he spoke. The first was at in the White in the East Room, at a joint press conference where he faced questions from two American political journalists, of which asked very interesting questions around what type of weapons Zelensky still wants, the relationship between the two, whether peace could still be negotiated. Let's take a listen to that. I don't know what just peace is. It's a very philosophical description. If there is a just war, there can't be any just peace in the war that was imposed on us by these, I don't know how to describe that because we are

in the White House and I can't find the proper language. So these inhumans, I would say. And President Zelensky, you have made it clear that he is open to pursuing, well, let me put it this way. He's not open, but you're open to pursuing peace. You're open to pursuing a just peace. What's going to happen after Patriots are installed? After that, we will send another signal to President Biden that we would like to get more Patriots. That is a lie. We are in war. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. That is my appreciation.

How the U.S. calculated the escalatory effect of sending a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine. I did not discuss that at all with the president, but we do not. It's a defensive system. It's a defensive weapon system. It's not escalatory. It's defensive. And it's easy to not, and we'd love to not have to have them use it, just stop the attacks. That was a very interesting exchange, because what you saw there was that President Biden actually had to jump up, jump in and clean up President Zelensky's comments when he was asked specifically about a, quote, just peace. Zelensky said a just peace essentially

was not possible, spoke of the need for vengeance, reparations, and actually tried to even box Biden in clean up President Zelensky. The third question, which you guys saw there, was actually the reporter asking, when are you going to give Ukraine everything that it needs? And President Biden preempted it and just goes, his answer is yes. And then goes, here's my answer. And Zelensky just goes, I agree. Clearly, though, in that, and as you saw during that exchange, he was asking for more Patriot missiles, and he continued to elucidate on it whenever he gave his joint session address to Congress. So that's the, do you want to jump in? Yeah, let me just, a couple comments about that. To me, this was maybe the most clear-cut example of signs of disunity and also a sort of little bit of a peek into what some of the

conversation behind closed doors might have ultimately been. That's a piece I'm almost more interested in than what was said publicly, because part of the advantage of having someone face-to-face and being able to have potentially a one-on-one meeting with him in the Oval Office is, you know, you might be a little bit nervous doing like some sort of remote call, even though obviously they take all precautions to make them secure, that someone may be listening in on the other end. If you are face to face with someone in the Oval Office, you can really get into the nitty gritty of, OK, where are the real red lines? What is the public posture versus what is the real position? Here's how far we're willing to go.

Here's where our population is. Here's where I'm going to apply pressure to get you to go back and negotiate. Those are the pieces that I'm really interested in. So to me, this moment was a tiny, tiny glimpse of some of the more difficult discussions that were likely happening behind closed door. And the other one thing I want to note about that press conference, which was relatively abbreviated, they just took a handful of questions. But like, every question was a hawkish question. Like the one you just said, the reporter was just like, listen, you said at one point that you weren't going to do a Patriot defense, missile defense system. And now you are. So why don't you just cut to the chase and give him

everything that he wants? And, you know, the reality is there actually is an inconsistency in what Biden is saying, because he, on the one hand is saying, well, we'll do whatever we can. We're behind you. 100 percent will give you everything you need to because he on the one hand is saying, well, we'll do whatever we can. We're behind you 100 percent. We'll give you everything you need to be successful on the battlefield. But we are also holding things back. And in my opinion, for very good reason to try to avoid World War Three. And so that kind of distance between those two, the real position and the stated position was a constant source of kind of a little bit underlying tensions. It also bears explanation as to why the patriots were not sent in the first place in the early days of the war, which is there's a direct acknowledgement by U.S. officials that the

Ukrainians don't know how to use a Patriot defense missile system. And if we did, we would have to send U.S. soldiers on the ground. And so actually, the administration has yet to answer a direct question as to whether U.S. troops will be deployed into eastern Ukraine in order to operate these Patriot missile defense systems, or if the Patriots, they will be somehow trained on it. If that's the case, these will not be available on the battlefield for months on end. This is a very highly sophisticated system, which you can't just simply deploy and use within a matter of days. And unfortunately, President Zelensky continues to push that. It was one of the key elements of his speech before

Congress. Much of it, which was kind of nice to finally hear, was thank you to the American people for bankrolling this war, especially because Congress is poised to send another $45 billion. I'm doing a monologue on that, bringing our total to more than $100 billion in aid within a single year. But he pushed in that speech for additional Abrams tanks directly supplied from the United States, along with F-16s. Let's take a listen to that portion of his speech. Can perfectly operate American tanks and planes themselves. That was the key moment from President Zelensky's speech. It was only about a 22-minute address or so within the chamber. Much of it was, you know, filled with, you know, thank yous to the American people, delivering a battle flag.

Parallels. Yeah, parallels between the U.S. Battle of Saratoga and the U.S. Battle of the Bulge. But finally, that was the major policy ask of the entire speech, asking directly for U.S. Abrams tanks for U.S. F-16s. So if we can bring the Vesitana together, there are three things which Zelensky sought to get out of this. It wasn't just the Patriot missiles. He knew that was getting him. What we have here, and let's go and throw the next one up there on the screen, A-4. Number one is he wants longer range missiles that are capable of striking deep inside of Russia, so-called ATCAMs. These are something that the administration has refused point-blank in order to give

President Zelensky. Two, he wants those Abrams tanks. Three, he wants the F-16s. Four, I guess, is even more Patriot missile defense systems than what we're already giving here. So this was not simply a thank-you address by President Zelensky. This was really a shopping trip on his behalf for his military as it's stuck in the middle of this Christmas winter battle before the fighting season opens up in March. And of course, the Russians relentlessly were shelling and bombing all of Ukraine while he was here in the United States. Ukraine, Kyiv specifically, remains completely blacked out at all hours of the day, on and off as they work to restore power. But their energy infrastructure is

in a very tough bind. There are reports of people in hospitals having to do amputations and heart surgeries, literally off of a generator, or in some cases with no electricity at all. And I mean, it's like 20 degrees in Ky Kiev right now, 20 degrees Fahrenheit. It's a brutal, brutal winter, as I've said before. For four months out of the year, the average temperature, the highest temp on average is like 35 degrees. So this is not a joke what the Ukrainian people are going through right now, hence why he's here trying to get as much as he wants.

And, of course, all of this comes right now, actually this morning, Crystal, very likely that the Congress of the United States will pass that $1.7 trillion spending bill, of which includes $45 extra billion to Ukraine. But clear here in his remarks that Zelensky's message is it's not enough. We need even more than that right now. I mean, he outright said that. At one point, he said, quote, we have artillery. Yes. Thank you. Is it enough? Honestly, not really. So, I mean, it was, you know, it was sort of like, thank you for what you've done, but also pony up. I need a lot more. I understand where he's coming from, but it also was quite, quite bold to be, to be totally honest with you, quite bold and consistent with, remember there was that report over the

summer that Biden actually got really frustrated with him and actually kind of yelled at him on the phone because they had just given him some big aid package. And then immediately Zelensky is on the phone, like, I need more, I need more, I need more. Again, I understand where he's coming from as people are at war. The speech was very much tailored. You know, he has gone to great lengths

whenever he has spoken to, you know, leaders of other nations and congressional bodies in other countries, legislative bodies in other countries. He has gone to great lengths to sort of tie the Ukrainian struggle into whatever their sort of previous national historical struggles are. So to make these historical connections. So, you know, we talked about American independence, talked about World War II. All of that was sort of expected. He also really situated it in terms of a sort of global fight for freedom and democracy. So you're not just giving us cash. You're investing in global democracy.

And he also threw in there, you know, some shots at Iran for people who are like very, you know, anti-Iran and sort of hawkish on that to try to try to win them over as well. And some of the other context here is this is in some ways a really good moment for Ukraine because they have been succeeding on the battlefield. They've done far better than anyone had thought. You know, they've really come a long way. They're in a strong position. Russia is really struggling. And all of that is the case. But at the same time, you have the brutal winter set in right now, as Sagar is talking about. Zolensky talked about people celebrating Christmas by candlelight, not because it's romantic, but because they have no power. So the toll of war, which has long been very harsh on Ukrainians, is really harsh across the entire country.

Speculation that Patriot missile defense system will actually be used to protect some of that energy infrastructure to try to keep the lights and the heat on for as many people as they possibly can. So that's the Ukrainian domestic situation. You also have, of course, in the U.S., Republicans set to take control of the House and Kevin McCarthy, who is very likely to be the next speaker, saying that, you know, it's no longer going to be a blank check. Now, I think ultimately the Republicans are mostly going to fall in line with whatever the Biden and the Democrats ultimately want. But there's probably a little bit more nervousness on Zelensky's part that, hey, I got to get these people on board and make sure that I can continue to get these outflows that

I've been getting from the United States. And then you also have the Europeans enduring a difficult winter with very high energy prices. And polls both in Europe and here in the U.S. indicating that, you know, people are still very much with the Ukrainian cause. But some of that support has softened and the level of prioritization has certainly softened. So that's sort of the backdrop and the context and why Zelensky decided now was the time to leave Ukraine for the first time since the war started and come to the U.S. And of course, as Sagar is going to lay out very explicitly in his monologue, which has been overwhelmingly, of course, the biggest backer and benefactor and has really enabled the Ukrainians to get to where they are at this point. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's just no question about it. They're military. I mean,

he basically even said it's true. And one of the journalists even said, he's like, without America, he's like, my country, my family would be dead and my country would be gone. It's actually true. I would like to hear that a little bit more often from their side, despite other calls just for even more and more. But I think it's an important acknowledgement, at the very least. At the same time, though, in terms of the geopolitical picture, European support for the way things are going right now, and I'm not talking about the UK, more about France and Germany, it's a very different situation. Let's throw this up there on the screen. At the very same time that President Zelensky is visiting Washington, Emmanuel Macron actually is calling on Europe to reduce the reliance on U.S. for security and specifically to provide some sort of security guarantees to Russia. This was a huge

pushback from the Ukrainians and even from the U.K. and from the United States. But essentially what he said, Crystal, is that, look, for this war to come to an end, we are going to have to provide some sort of security guarantee to Putin so that he does not feel as if he will get invaded. Now, that look was met with tremendous outcry from the Ukrainians and from the UK and the US, mostly because they're the most hawkish and they don't want to provide any sort of security guarantee. But you see a much more and a different clear-eyed view from Macron as to what an actual negotiated settlement is going to look like. A negotiated settlement is one in which Russia feels secure and it no longer is going to continue its military operation against Ukraine. And Ukraine feels secure and it no longer feels as if it's going to get invaded or be waged war upon by Russia. Right now, those two poles are very, very far apart,

but Macron is being chided in the West for stating the obvious. He's also, Macron, if you look at this, is very interesting. He even says mostly about the United States. He's like, look, the point is, is that by mortgaging all of our defense costs and socializing them in the US, we now no longer have nearly as much say over our own European security affairs, of which I would say, congratulations, Mr. President. Now, though, you should ship a lot more weapons to Ukraine so we don't have to send as much. And then you can have much more say over what's happening considering it's on your continent in the first place. So there's a big split in the transatlantic alliance right now.

This has been the case basically since the beginning of this war and even before the war. I mean, Macron was the most aggressive in keeping lines of dialogue open directly with Putin and trying to negotiate. He and Germany have long been more in favor of diplomacy and talks. There's been this kind of divide between the US and UK. and U.K. and France and Germany. So he's attempting to assert himself here a bit more. Let me read you the quote exactly, because I think it's very interesting. He says, peaceful times will require talks, first and foremost for guarantees for Ukraine for its territorial integrity and its long-term security, but also for Russia, as it will be party to an armistice or peace

treaty. He also went on to say, whoever reproaches me for asserting myself on this topic should then explain to me what they propose. What the people who refuse to prepare and work on this are proposing is total war, a total war that will involve the whole continent. So, I mean, that's pretty striking comments from Emmanuel Macron. Yeah, absolutely. He's been consistent there since day one. And I do believe that given the change, first of all, you know, why is Congress passing this $45 billion? It's because they know that it's very likely to be the last one. Zelensky actually made a lot of appeals here. He's like, I understand bicameral, bipartisan support is necessary to us, but we also need to

consider that things are changing here. Our domestic populaces want to continue giving a blank check to Ukraine is well below 50% now at this point. It was at some 90% at the very beginning of the war. On top of that, how are the Russians responding? As much as the Russian economy is a disaster, as much as they have been humiliated on the battlefield, Russia is not backing down in any way. They've been shelling the hell out of Ukraine, including with missiles now for a long time. And actually, in response to Zelensky's visit, let's put this up there on the screen, which is they are now announcing a 30% increase in the entire size of their armed forces, bringing their standing army to 1.5 million combat personnel from 1.15 million, in addition to a $15 billion increase in their annual military budget. So

whatever remaining money that they have left, they are throwing it straight into the military. No sign of backing down whatsoever. Their new commander is very much dedicated to going attacking the center of gravity, which is the Ukrainians' will to resist, as in taking down the energy infrastructure of the entire country. And if you see any sort of combined offensive in the winter or after the winter, it's going to entail probably a much more brutal campaign than even what we saw in some of these liberated cities. So we're in for, I think, a tough winter, both for the Ukrainians and also in terms of the geopolitical situation.

Things are changing fast. Remember, it's only been 300 days. We should always try and put things in the context of history. Imagine trying to guess the outlook of World War II, 300 days into the war. You'd be like, oh, Hitler's going to win. You know, oh, France and Germany are gone.

The entire, you had the entire phony war. And, you know, Norway. It's like you can convince yourself of a lot of things. All the way up until 1917, the Germans thought, and probably correctly, that they were going to win the First World War. So things can turn on a dime. These things take a long time.

Go back to the Civil War, I can tell you the same thing. The point is, is that nobody knows where things are headed. All we see is a rocky future ahead of us. I talked to our friend Yegor about the domestic political situation in Russia and a couple things that he suggested to me. One is, and there was some talk from the Kremlin about this, there's kind of an expectation there may be another draft. They recognize they need to increase their armed forces yet again. And, you know, in some ways, the conscription process the last time around was kind of a disaster for them. On the other hand, it's not like there's been a mass revolt that has brought down the regime. So, you know, they have some level of complacency and, you know, support among a good portion of the Russian public.

The other piece, though, that he pointed out to me is just like here, you have people who are high placed and influential in Russian society who are making a lot of bank off of this war. And that creates a, you know, a perpetuating process of its own, a dynamic that we are very familiar with here as well. So keep in mind some of those background factors going on in Russia from the domestic political situation as well. One of our favorite segments here, YouTuber Andrew Callahan appeared on Don Lemon's show over at CNN to promote a new documentary, which looks really interesting. And he really triggered Don Lemon when he commented on the cable news business model. Let's take a listen. The movie's not just about the Capitol riot and all that. It's also about media echo chambers,

you know what I mean? And the dangers of the 24-hour news cycle and how I think mainstream media like Fox and even CNN competes for views by running constant 24-hour news cycles based upon fear, division, outrage, and panic, probably to sell ads. So it's not just about the Capitol riot. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure. First of all, I don't agree with what you're saying. But I'm not exactly sure of how that played into people going into the Capitol and rioting on January 6th. There's nothing fake about CNN. Oh, I'm not saying like fake news. I'm just saying ramping people up and increasing division

during that period of time, just watching people kind of fall down the rabbit hole and be pushed into action and like, just, yeah, falling down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Wow. He really triggered him there in the most Don Lemon way possible. I don't necessarily agree. And look, what you're watching is the lack of ability to grapple with what their job actually is. Andrew has him pegged properly. Their job is to gin people up so that they stay tuned in between the ad breaks. That's it. That's all you're supposed to do. The ad breaks are the only business. The actual news is just secondary.

It's what gets people glued to the screen. And so he was like, look, you and Fox are both ginning people up, which causes people to go down rabbit holes. You do it for business purposes. And that has real world consequences in our politics, of which resulted in January 6. I really appreciate him not just doing the typical like Fox News doing this. You know, they're the only ones because, yeah, look, of course they are. But it's everybody. The whole point is that it's an entire system which is designed to gin up hate against others

and which can have devastating consequences then in the real world. And look, clearly Donna didn't like that very much. And he doesn't want to take any responsibility for his own role over the last, what, four years, five years or whatever in the Trump era of doing the exact same thing that he accuses Fox of doing every single night, Crystal. Yeah. And they want to say, oh, we're not as bad as Fox. We're not as bad as OAN. We're not as bad as like whoever. But, you know, ultimately, CNN, MSNBC, all of them are kind of poison.

They're all bad for the country. And so, you know, Andrew, who is a very interesting creator, a really strong creator, actually I encourage you to check out his YouTube channel. He kind of has some dead to rights here. And at the beginning of the segment, they set it up like,

oh, you know, this is all about January 6, this new documentary about January 6. And he clearly takes issue with that. And it's like, well, you're kind of missing some of the point here, because you may want to use this to just exclusively serve the narratives that you're interested in. But there was actually a broader point here about the news media's role in this and the divisiveness of that and the problem with the 24-hour news cycle and serving your advertisers and keeping people glued to the screen. And he and Caitlin Collins both get very uncomfortable with that part of the conversation, immediately try to shut it down and move back to the points that they are comfortable opining on. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the I encourage people to watch this trailer and to check out the doc whenever it's out.

I also watched Into the Storm, the QAnon documentary, and I just came away with that with like a much deeper understanding of like, wow, this stuff is real. People really can just lose themselves entirely in this. And it's a broader societal problem of which the media is complicitity, but what leads to society to like get to this point where people are so angry that they're willing to willing to storm the Capitol based on the word of Donald J. Trump? That's a really interesting question. If you want to look into it, it doesn't have to be just, you know, like about other people being bad. But, you know, whenever you have the business model that they do, well, that really is the only one dimensional view that you're allowed to take. So I really appreciated his appearance on CNN and kind of setting the record straight. I also love that he is just very he's like, yo, come on. He's like, that's what you guys are willing to do here in his own very Andrew way. It was great. The other thing that I enjoyed about this exchange is it was sort of like two worlds colliding.

You know, they don't quite know what to do with him. And it's it is like a traditional media and new independent media, like being oil and water effectively in this interview. They're engaged in two very different processes and engaged in two very different activities. So it's kind of funny to see those two worlds collide and Lemon and Caitlin Collins really having no idea what to do with him. 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, insiders, 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 US airspace and US 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 have 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 handpicked 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. This is actually our last full show of the year. We are not going to leave you guys high and dry, though. We have plenty of content that we'll be uploading, including some really fun clips from our live shows, including some sort of big picture looks at the year that we've been recording

and saving up so that Sagar and I can take next week off, which it's good for us to reset our brains sometimes and think bigger pictures. With the family. We appreciate you guys giving us the opportunity to do that. But one thing I wanted to mention, given that this final full show of the year has been focused a lot on Ukraine,

is this has been one of the big topics that's defined the year, and we've been really grateful to you guys for trusting us to sort through what is a very complex and difficult and nuanced and hard to understand and hard to get accurate information on situation. And in fact, one of the things we learned from our Spotify information, what do they call it? Year-end wrapped. Wrapped at the end of the year. Like for our brand. Yeah, is that our number one downloaded show of the year was right after Russia invaded Ukraine.

And so I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you guys for making this incredible year of growth and challenge. Thank you for trusting us with some really challenging news topics that we've done our very best to try to sort through. And we've got big plans for the new year, some of which are already coming into fruition. So we are endlessly grateful to you all for having our backs, for believing in what we're doing here, for supporting Breaking Points, for welcoming Ryan and Emily into the family and all of our great partners, because we really enjoy doing this. We don't take it for granted and we're excited for what the new year is ultimately going to bring.

Absolutely. Thank you especially to the premium members and all those who've helped us out over the last couple years. It's just been amazing. It's going to be a fun ride, guys. 2024, the cycle, it all starts next year. We're gearing up. We're ready for it. If you can help us out, link in the description. Other than that, happy, what is it? Happy Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Christmas. Did I cover all my bases?

I think so. Go with it. There's probably a few more that are out there. Wiccan, whatever. Happy holidays. Yeah. Happy New Year.

Many blessings to you and yours. Enjoy the time. Take some time. Don't listen to Sagar. Eat what you want. Don't eat what you want. And we will see you guys back here in the new year. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very

despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. 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 also want to address the Tonys. On a recent episode of Checking In with Michelle Williams, I open up about feeling snubbed by the Tony Awards. Do I? I was never mad. I was disappointed because I had high hopes. To hear this and more on disappointment and protecting your peace, listen to Checking In

with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. He was out of his mind, and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeart Podcast.