Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/30/22: LIVE SHOW BOSTON END OF YEAR SPECTACULAR

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

Highlights from our recent live show in Boston!Krystal, Saagar, Kyle and Marshall break down the 2022 Year in Review, Predictions for 2023, and give out awards to notable figures for categories like Worst Midterm Ad and Unlikely Allies.Happy Holidays!AUSTIN LIVE SHOW FEB 3RDTicketshttps://tickets.austintheatre.org/9053/9054To 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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people, let's take a little bit of a journey back in time to the beginning of this year, and let's re-travel the ground and the road that we have followed this year, all of us communally together. We were originally going to do like a political story of the year and an economic story of the year, but as we started to sketch it out, we realized they were way too intertwined. I mean, it really was all one sort of complex, interesting, surprising, bizarre picture as we put it together. So we thought we would walk back through to think about how we got here. And we also want to give you a little bit of information about the way that the Breaking Points community grew this year, because that's, you know, what we were all a part of. So let's start with the less important part than the

Breaking Points community, the national and international picture of what the year was all about. Let's go ahead and put this first part up on the screen here. So this is the presidential approval rating. So if you're looking at this, it starts actually in 2021. And right where the lines cross and Biden goes underwater in terms of his approval rating and really never recovers. I mean, there's little bits of up and down, but more or less he's significantly underwater. That really started at the beginning of 2022. And we started with this because there is not a more sort of fundamental baseline political metric than how people feel about the president

of the United States. And the picture based on this chart was not pretty. And when you think about that, you're like, okay, well, the entire year seems basically set, right? It's going to be easy. You have 2021, a terrible year for the Biden administration. Nothing gets done. The legislation falls apart. Inflation is sky high. It seems to be a national story. But then Russian troops began going on the border of Ukraine. And some of us ended up being completely wrong. Griffin, let's go ahead and put that up there on the screen. Not one of the better moments having to do one of these shows.

Turned out, though, it was actually one of our biggest shows of the entire year. It was the biggest show of the entire year, which I just want to pause to say we're going to get more into the specifics of breaking points, but I feel incredibly proud that you all and many other people across the country and around the world trusted us in that moment to try to make sense of what was happening. Because this is something we struggle with in foreign affairs coverage too. It is the most difficult area to find actual, real, credible information. Everybody's got an axe to grind. They're getting leaks from the CIA. They're getting links from the Pentagon.

They're trying to promote this agenda or that agenda. And so it has been a real point of pride for us this year and something that we have done our damnedest to live up to, that people have trusted us to understand the realities of what is happening with this war. So I want to say thank you guys for making that the case. Thank you. But I think this underscores this show,

both with you guys and just to this year. What an insane year it was. The day that happened, it just felt like everything was up for grabs. And not in a good way. Now all of a sudden we're talking about nuclear war for the first time in 40 years. It's China going to invade Taiwan. What does this mean? Dictatorship, autocracy, America. What is our role? Are the actual, you know, NATO, is it set in stone? Is it going forward? What's happening? Germany, gas prices. When you consider the impact that this single event had on this entire year,

it scrambled everything. And that's why it was such a difficult, but I think an impactful year to learn so much about politics. Yeah. So speaking of gas prices, that was another important story, obviously, of this year, both politically, economically, and everything else in between. We had gas prices spike up over $5 a gallon. That was the average nationwide. Now that has a tremendous direct impact on people's wallets. It's really tough to make ends meet. It makes you feel like you're drowning when you see that price ticking up and up and up every time you go to fill up the tank in your car. And it also has massive political ramifications. I mean, between this and the low approval rating, seems like an open and

shut case in terms of what is likely to happen. And this was reportedly something the White House was very concerned about as well and went to some extraordinary lengths to try to bring down, not that, and now gas prices have come down some, I'm not sure you can really attribute it that much to what the Biden administration did, but suffice it to say they were worried about it. Yeah. And they should have been because Griffin, let's hit it. What happened? Well, again, it's not a particularly difficult story. You've got bad approval rating. You've got some crazy shit going on in the rest of the world.

Gas prices are $5 a gallon. What's going to happen? Well, it's obvious. You know, the baked-in political theory that all of us are operating on is that this means that there's going to be the red wave. The red wave is baked in. Famously in Chicago, I think I did a prediction. I was like, full red wave.

Every single one is going to go that way. We'll get into that. I did moderate that a little bit. I just want to give myself a little bit of credit. Well, that's why this dynamic works here, the two of us. But look, this was and has been, was up until election day, this was the guiding philosophy for the way that we thought about stuff because it was about fundamentals. And I think, again, a really amazing and interesting story this year is it wasn't about fundamentals. And that's interesting. Well, and here's another fundamental that was looking very dire for the Democratic Party, and more importantly,

for people everywhere in the country, which is we had the highest inflation since 1979, in particular, food prices skyrocketed. I know you guys saw it with your grocery bills, meat in particular, food prices skyrocketed. I know you guys saw it with your grocery bills, meat in particular, chicken. I mean, everything was just going up and up and up. Now, there were a variety of reasons for that, corporate price gouging among them. But the reality was this really hurt. And, you know, people continue to struggle with the fact that prices have been so elevated. And, you know, going back to the politics of it, it really painted quite a dire picture for the Biden administration, for Democrats.

It looked like it was going to be a total historic level wipeout. I think one of the things that unlocked, too, as we'll go to the next one here, is about the Federal Reserve, is that when Washington was faced with 1979, the highest inflation since 1979, what happened? Nothing. The government actually didn't do all of anything except for the Fed with the explicit target of raising interest rates and increasing the unemployment rate. That's something that we have spent so much time on the show talking about because we think it's so important to underscore that the only element

of the government that was doing anything about this was to try to increase the unemployment rate. Now, why does that? Because they want to drive down consumer spending. They want everybody to stay home. They want to reduce gas demand. That's the way that they miraculous plan to save gas prices. And that's just fundamentally bad. And they wanted to discipline labor, which was getting a little uppity with these strikes and worker organizing, et cetera, can't have that need to have a totally compliant workforce. So that was another goal of this Fed policy. And I mean, they all but stated it explicitly that, you know, Larry Summers out

there saying we need to have 10% unemployment. I mean, imagine the level of sociopathy to say something like that and the pain that that would cause to people across the country. So while there was so much that the federal government could have done to deal with an inflation that was caused by corporate price gouging, by supply chain issues, instead, they turned to the Fed to effectively crush workers and make people suffer as an explicit policy goal. As part of that whole situation, markets start to tank, and that was led by crypto, which some of us suffered, has remained relevant. Some of us personally suffered, has continued to remain relevant. And, you know, not only I mean, I feel bad for Sagar, but he's going to be fine. I genuinely do feel bad for people who

have lost a lot of money in not just FDX, but other crypto schemes. And at the same time, total mask off moment for elites in DC, for elites in the press, especially the business press that, you know, let Sam Bankman-Fried and others, but especially him, total con man, never got asked any questions, total puff pieces. We'll talk about that more later in the show. But that is one of the important stories of this year is the collapse of crypto and everything that has gone down with it. So why do we do this, right? There's up until this point, which is it's a basic story. You got GOP plus eight, you got high inflation, all of this. But then why did the fundamentals not become fundamental

this time? Well, the Dobbs decision. The Dobbs decision in June genuinely did change everything. And it was really interesting to watch. And I had a friend at the time who was a big Supreme Court watcher. And he was like, you know, a lot of people are sleeping on, we have one of the most culturally significant decisions of our entire lifetime that is happening just three months out before the general election. The thing was, though, is that even when it came out and you saw and we'll talk about some of the confounding variables that were a little bit of a prediction of what was to come. There was this fundamental tension in the way that we were looking at the politics. We're like, well, Dobbs, OK, abortion, it's like 60-30. But ultimately, you know, it's one of those things

where it doesn't necessarily touch everybody. The economy does, gas prices. I don't have to tell people here living in Massachusetts, I checked your guys' average gas price over the last couple of months. It's been tough. The weather's hard enough up here, man. So it was a tough time for everybody

across the entire country. You know, we have, you know, California, one of the biggest audiences for breaking points, still at $5 a gallon, almost $6 a gallon that was out there. And we were considering, like, this is something that affects everybody. How much is this ultimately going to matter? That was the biggest question in politics. Well, and we got some early indications that the answer was a whole fucking lot. It's going to matter a lot um so these two

election results ended up maybe being the most accurate sort of canaries in the coal mine for what would happen in the fall you had an abortion referendum in kansas kansas is kind of a red state might have hurt went overwhelming it wasn't even close double digits for the pro-choice position in Kansas so we're like that was interesting that was surprising I thought it would be close but I did not think it would be a blowout for the pro-choice side so like you know we thought this was directly on the question of abortion is it going to be the same thing when you're talking about random congressional district in, let's say, New York? The answer was yes. You had a special election. You had a Republican candidate who was heavily favored, both in polls and also based on the pundits. It was a district that I think Biden won very narrowly by like maybe one point. So if you're looking at red

wave, this district is gonzo. And Pat Ryan was the candidate that ran there, the Democrat, he's now a member of Congress. He wins, outperforms the polls, which as you guys know, Democrats haven't been normally doing that. And so that was another real head-scratching moment of, hmm, maybe this Dobbs decision really did turn this whole election on its head. As if 2022 wasn't crazy enough, Trump Mar-a-Lago raid happens. It's like European war, biggest since World War II, highest inflation since 1979, the overturning of Roe versus Wade. Yeah, no, let's go ahead and have the FBI raid the former president's house. And so now we're like, now what? What the fuck is going on?

So this was, again, though, an interesting moment for the people here who care about the GOP. Why? Well, immediately, Ron DeSantis comes out and he's like, this is an egregious assault

by the FBI. Glenn Youngkin comes out and speaks. Trump was never more powerful in the GOP than this day. And it remains to be seen. Is that the case? If he does get indicted, which we'll talk a little bit about.

What exactly is his power? To the extent extent do gop voters care about electability do they care about persecution but regardless this is an unprecedented situation you know cable likes to use those words like historic unprecedented it's like yeah all right but like every once in a while you look at it's like oh, shit, this actually is historical. This actually is unprecedented. Former president having his house raided by the FBI. Yeah, I'd say that qualifies. I'd say that one does qualify. So Democrats, obviously, they'd been doing the January 6th commission, leaning into the case that democracy is on the ballot.

And once you had not only the specter of the FBI raiding Trump's house and the increasing likelihood that the former president was going to be indicted, they leaned even more into a message about GOP extremism, which encompassed the abortion decision and also threats to democracy and also, by the way, some candidate quality issues that we'll get to in a moment. This all led to a very memorable speech with some controversial lighting choices. Take a listen. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans

represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. So. It's the red lighting. The red lighting. I mean, personally, I didn't have a problem with it he just went full dark brandon he was feeling himself right then he just went for it but um you know i was skeptical i i was pulling my hair out like talk about the economy my god like people

are struggling they're telling you their number one is the economy where is your plan what are you going to do and they're you know doing these major primetime speeches focused, I'm not saying it's not important, but focused exclusively on MAGA extremism. And I just thought, I don't know if this is the right strategy. And yet it's as if the Republicans didn't want to do everything they could to shoot themselves in the foot. Correct. And with certain candidate quality issues, one of those being a certain trip to the grocery store for vegetables.

Some people have another word for it. I personally learned that word for it. Griffin, play it for the people. I thought I'd do some grocery shopping. I'm at Wagner's. Wagner's. Wagner's. My wife wants some vegetables for crudite, right? So here's a broccoli. That's two bucks.

I have a ton of broccoli there. There's some asparagus. That's $4. Yep. Carrots. That's $4 more. That's $10 of vegetables there. And then we need some guacamole.

That's $4 more. She loves salsa. She loves salsa there. Raw asparagus and salsa. Shortage of salsa. Guys, that's $20 for crouton. This doesn't include the tequila. I mean, it's not racist.

We've got Joe Biden to thank us. We have watched that a thousand times at this point, and we still have so many questions. It hits every time it hits. No basket. Why are you buying it all separate? still have so many questions. It hits. Every time it hits. No basket. Why are you buying it all separate? They have veggie trays. Where's the ranch? You know, low-key, my favorite

part at this point is when he walks in and he's so confidently like, I'm here, Wegners. No, you're not. It's not a thing. So anyway, there were some candidate quality issues that were unfolding on the Republican side. I think we had a reminder, a sort of like last reverberation of that last night in Georgia with Raphael Warnock defeating Herschel Walker. And at the same time, shockingly,

Biden, the Democrats actually started to do a few things legislatively. So you had the CHIPS Act that passed bipartisan, you had the Inflation Reduction Act, you had the PAX Act, and you had student loan debt relief, which is something that Biden had been dragging his heels on. And that I think ultimately, you know, when you look at the margin among young people may have been quite decisive in a lot of these races. So you're starting to look at this and say, hmm, maybe this is going to be a lot different than the red wave that was originally predicted. But yeah, as with the yo-yo of 2022, well, we talked about the Federal Reserve. What about housing? You know, it's interesting for an insight. So YouTube just launched this quasi creepy feature where we could actually see what you guys are searching for on the research tab.

It's not actually as bad as you would think. You know what the number one search term is almost every single day? Housing, housing market, housing crash. And it really makes us and helps us understand about how so many of you are in pursuit of an American dream, which is lost. And we magnify it not just out from what's here, Boston, I don't think I have to tell everybody here about high rent prices or high real estate. But across the entire country, Boise, Idaho, rent is up 30%. People there are struggling. In the Catskill Mountain, in rural areas, the average home price is now at

a point where you need $100,000 a year to even make it. And then that's if you're lucky to have the 20% down payment. How are people supposed to make any of that work? And we see it consistently. And part of the reason why I would still bet I was betting then is I was like, I've never seen this level of just massive dissatisfaction. Like the American dream never has seemed more out of reach whenever you have high inflation, high gas, you can't buy a house. The worst time to buy a house in 40 years.

Like this is a catastrophe. And maybe, just maybe, that's gonna be enough to put the GOP over the edge. Yeah, and not only that, but voters were routinely telling pollsters that the economy really sucks. It's terrible. And it's our number one issue. This is what we care about in the fall. And by the way, we think the Republicans are better

than the Democrats on this issue. And so when you look at all of that, you start to think, well, Dobbs was a while ago, you know, maybe some of the potency and the raw emotion of the overturning of Roe versus Wade, maybe that's kind of faded. Maybe some of these other factors are going to be what ultimately wins the day. But that is not the story of what happens. No, put it up there. Turns out some of us have egg on their face for the millionth time this year. Democrats hold the Senate. What an insane story. And one of the reasons why, again, is the fundamentals were not the fundamentals this time. And there's a lot of questions that are raised as to why did people

vote the way that they did with the economy and all that. And I think it arises a couple of things, which we'll talk about. Candidate quality, of course. Crudité certainly doesn't help. But he's not the only one. It's the entire Senate. You know, what was it? This is the first time that the Democrats have kept every single Senate seat or any president has kept every single Senate seat since FDR in 1934. Yes. That's how extraordinary what happened in November was. And it's also the first time, based on last night's results, that a party in power both gained seats in the Senate and gained governorships. So I mean, you can look at this in a couple of ways, because on the one hand, you're like, yeah, but they still lost the House. So I mean, was it really that great? You know, aren't you kind of overselling

it? And I think that's fair. We do take for granted now this like divided government that yo-yos back and forth, and it's always going to be this close margin. It was not always the case. So I do think that, you know, both parties should aim higher to have a durable majority based on working class values and actually delivering for people. But given recent history, there's just no doubt that Biden defied the odds. I mean, he had a way better midterms than Barack Obama did, who was supposed to be the political savant. So, I mean, that's an interesting sort of plot twist there in and of itself. And then as if we needed any more added on top of this year, Donald Trump went ahead and announced for president. So here we go again. I mean, it's the rematch that absolutely no one in the country wants.

Biden versus Trump, right? If you ask the American people, like, do you want Biden, do you want Trump, they're like abso-fucking-lutely not, and the parties are like, how about Biden and Trump? What do you say? So here we go again, I guess is all I can say about that. Yeah, I mean, it is stunning.

It's like so much has changed in the last seven years, and also, like, nothing has changed at all. And when you see Trump, you know, the most boring announcement speech that we've seen in quite a long time. I did say, though, for those of you who are watching our live stream, I was like, you know, he can't hold this in. And lo and behold, within the two weeks, the over to the Constitution tweet, dinner with Kanye, the Nick Fuentes thing. I never even knew the guy already back to shit posting QAnon memes. So I was like, there's the man. There's the Donnie that we know and well.

That's right. Will people care? I don't know. You know, in 2020, not really-ish. I mean, he only lost by 40,000 votes. This time around, they're like, yeah, yeah, some of this is a little fucking crazy. Seems like people might kind of care at this point.

This is, look, it's a jump question of, we have no idea. And that's part of why it's so fun to do this show and to learn and experience so much of this with all of you, is that we're all just trying to make sense of this shit together. You know, sometimes the fundamentals matter.

Sometimes they don't at all. Sometimes exactly what you think is going to happen. You can even call the last presidential election, you could be totally wrong on the next one. You can call the last 20 and you could still be wrong with this. And it's given me actually just an even more like interest and faith in democracy. It was almost like a return to some of the old political rules. It's like during the Trump era, political gravity has

sort of been suspended. Like all of the previous truisms of politics were thrown out the window and we had to learn a whole new idea of how politics worked. One of those things was, you know, it used to be all politics is local. During the Trump era, all politics has been national. These midterm results were highly regional. I mean, if you just look at Florida, the red wave was in full effect. New York as well had, you know, significant gains for Republicans. And then the entire rest of the country goes in a different direction. The industrial Midwest actually was the strongest region in the entire country for Democrats. And then the entire rest of the country goes in a different direction. The industrial Midwest actually was the strongest region in the entire country for Democrats. You had ticket splitters. This is, again, something that was like a dying breed where

someone would go and vote for Brian Kemp, let's say, for governor of Georgia, and then go vote for Raphael Warnock for Senate. These are things that were supposed to be done over with. And you had a return of a sort to some older political norms and rules. Do they last? Does it change when Donald Trump's back on the ballot? I don't have a clue. And that is one thing. I shouldn't say this now because we're about to make fools of ourselves and make predictions for the next year.

But I am going to take a lot of humility from these results because even the polls, right? I mean, we were looking at the polls that were coming in and we're saying, okay, but in the last few elections, they have always understated Republicans. So I'm going to add in a few points for Republicans because that just is based on the previous trend, what makes sense and what seems to be responsible. And then you have Democrats outperforming the polls in certain places like New Hampshire, places like Pennsylvania, places that really ultimately matter. It's like, all right, well now I just have no idea. So we just have to all take it as it comes. With all of that being said, we did want to go ahead and throw some wild-eyed predictions out there.

So that, you know, what fun is it if we can't make total fools of ourselves in like a short period of time that you guys can hold against us. But anyway, here it goes. Clip it. Go ahead and hold it against us as you all like to do in the comments. Yes, I occasionally do read them. We'll take our medicine. Don't worry. Okay. Number one, it will not shock you all like to do in the comments yes i occasionally do read them we'll take our medicine don't worry okay number one it will not shock you great minds think alike we both had the same one trump will likely be indicted uh indicted in sometime in the year 2023 but for those who are clapping it may not be the result that you want um because let's lay out a couple of different scenarios okay trump is indicted well now he is

stronger in the gop than he ever was before like he was during the mar-a-lago raid squeezes out anybody from even attempting to run against him he raises 100 million dollars on persecution and very easily sails to uh winning the primary or being completely and totally uncontested possible very possible but yeah i mean if you look at now, you've got this special counsel whose name I can never remember because it's so blatant. Is it Jack Smith? Is that the dude's name? Jack Smith. So he seems like he's moving pretty quick. He just issued a number of subpoenas to election officials in places like Wisconsin and Arizona. The writing looks like it's pretty much on the wall here. So this of my predictions, this is the one I feel

sort of the most confident about. It's very likely to be tried in D.C. I think that's a very unfavorable climate for him. So not looking good for him on the legal front. My second prediction, it might be more of a hope than an actual real prediction, but I am hopeful that the war in Ukraine will end this year. And, you know, what I base my educated hope on, I guess I would say, is the fact that you have had a clear shift in the Biden administration's position. I still have all kinds of critiques of theirs, but at the beginning of this war, they were saying openly regime change effectively. Now they've said they're open to some sort of talks and pushing for, there are some in the administration at least, openly pushing for diplomacy. That's good. You have Russia saying the same thing. I mean, listen, you can't take any of these people at their word, but at least there is

some verbal indication that they might be open to negotiations. And at the same time, in both the U.S. and Russia, you have public opinion starting to turn. In Russia, public opinion has turned, whereas there was initially strong majority support for the, quote unquote, special military operation. That has now flipped completely on its head, and you have a public that is now done with this thing entirely. Yes, Putin is an autocrat, but he still is subject to political domestic pressure. So that's there. Here you also have a softening in support for endless blank checks. You have it falling on the list of priorities for Americans.

And, of course, you have continued high energy prices, which put pressure here, put pressure especially on Europe. And I think the European nations have always been basically following our lead. And we're always more open to diplomacy to start with, especially France and Germany. So those pieces together, and then when you combine it with a really brutal, awful, negative one, which is that with these hits on Ukraine's infrastructure, they are facing a brutal, cold, hard, difficult winter. I am just praying that we can come to some sort of a resolution to this horrific tragedy in the coming year. That's what I'm hoping for. I share that hope too. I have a much more light-hearted second prediction.

I'll save my hopium for third. My second one is for the Trump fans. Trump wins Iowa. I think he's going to win the Iowa caucuses, based on exactly what I said. I think he is going to be indicted, and I think that's going to help him in the GOP. There might be some DeSantis stans who are out there in the audience.

We see them every once in a while. And look, I get it. I get what you're going for it. The issue is, is that I just, with Trump, the X factor, yes, he certainly was boring in his announcement speech. But when he wants to turn it on, he's the single most popular figure in the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan. Like, it's almost a religion. There are people people out there almost half the republican party identifies more as trump republicans than as actual republicans can you actually beat that in a head-to-head also remember it's not just going to be one guy mike pence says he wants to run for president good luck john bolton says he wants to run for mike pompeo mickey haley we've got a whole cast of war criminals ready to step up. We'll spare everyone

the list of mediocrities. I tried yesterday to make Kyle choose between if you could only have Trump or John Bolton, which he would not play along. I did not get an answer out of him. It's a tough choice, I got to say. My third and final prediction is that neither the Fed nor the strike-breaking Joe Biden will be able to crush the growing grassroots labor movement this year. I think after the pandemic, when workers realized their bosses would literally kill them for profit, that was a bit of a game changer. And not only that, you got the American people wholly behind workers. They were behind the rail workers, even when they were told that, hey, if they strike, it'll be tough with the economy. And they said, we don't care. We back them. They deserve sick days. So I do not see that militancy diminishing across, you know, white collar,

blue collar, service sector. I think that could be the single most transformative thing that we see in our politics and our nation for working class people over the next decade and i am so glad as hell to see it my final hopium the economy gets better the stock market some of us are some of us recently lost thousands of dollars on a failed crypto exchange so this might be biased look the inflation it's still bad it's slightly cooling that's what they say uh your europe it seems to be going down gas is like back to 360 not great uh but it was 330 before russia invaded ukraine the fed we talked about how painful it has been over the last year well they say it'll still raise, but not as much.

Look, we have no choice but to hope. And I think that's my, from the year 2022, it was shitty in a lot of ways, but it was also amazing. It was a wild ride. It was insane. And like for all of the pain and someone, you know, the coming out of the pandemic

and the fucking culture wars over the masks and all that and dropping it for the new ones and then getting through it, I just see no choice but to look at our history pandemic and the fucking culture wars over the mass and all that, dropping it for the new ones, and then getting through it, I just see no choice but to look at our history and say like America, it's obviously come back and come out better for this. So look, there's a lot of bad signs. We talk about it a lot. I think newscasters, you know, even us can sometimes be guilty of like cherry picking and looking at the bad but you know, in the up times, in the boom times, or maybe even just in the moderate times and return to normal, it can be a fun story. So that's my hope for 2023. The economy gets better. All of your lives get better. The drinks get a little cheaper. There you go. All of that. All of that. It is time for our year-end superlatives. And I know

you all are going to love this. Alright, so here's what we did. We came up with a variety of categories, and so we wouldn't keep you here all night. Each two of us will answer each of them, and at the end, we have a sort of finale one that we'll all answer. So, our very first

category is Biggest Plot Twist, and our respondents in this category will be kyle and marshall kyle you are up first yeah so for the biggest plot twist i'm going how teflon don is no longer teflon don and he's now morphed into charmond don because because uh look i mean the numbers show it right here now to be fair there are other polls that have Trump ahead still, but the fact that Ron DeSantis is up over him in any polls is kind of amazing. So, I mean, because there was a time when he genuinely was Teflon, and everybody would say, oh, he's done, he's not going to win, and then he won, and he sort of defied expectations every

step of the way. But now we have the 2018 election, Republicans lost. 2020, same thing. 2022, same thing. And, you know, the candidates have his stench on him. And so now I think the conventional wisdom really needs to flip that this guy, he's the problem. And there was a time in, you know, probably around 2018, maybe even after that, where people would think, no, this is never going to end, the Teflon Don era. He's going to get indicted, and he may well be convicted. So it's over now. It's over. See, I think that helps. But when you say it's over,

what precisely do you mean by that? Okay, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. I'll answer. Okay, less than 1% chance he can win a general election. Clip it. You're booing me, but I'm going to be right. You're booing me, but I'm going to be right. And, and... Look right into the camera right over there.

And, and I think, I think at this moment he probably is not even the favorite to get through the primary. That's where I totally disagree. No, I think so. The whole audience is like, man. I think so.

You're booing me, but I'm right. You'll see. You'll see. Kyle and I have had this debate approximately one million times, so some of you have probably seen that already. But, you know, this man has made the Republican Party in his image. He has made it stop the steal. And they lost. No, the steal. And they lost.

No, they didn't. They did. They just lost. It was rigged, Kyle. It was rigged. That's Carrie Lake. I mean, but listen, that's literally what they think.

So if you're talking about general election, his stench on them, it's a disaster. No argument for me whatsoever. I have 1% chance that I would quibble with that. But do I think he's a problem in the general election?

Absolutely. In the primary, it still has to lose because it's a very different thing to theoretically be Ron DeSantis hanging out here and doing some things and getting some love from the conservative base. It's another thing to have to go head to head with this guy. And he has made it in the Republican party where he defines whether you are a true believer or a rhino who needs to be kicked out of the party so i find it hard to picture how desantis is able to go head to head against him and actually take him down when it counts i think it fits uh marcel why don't you go ahead because uh yours actually fits into this i was gonna say my my plot twist was gonna be stop the steel crystal. That would have been like a fun pivot we got last second.

But no, so mine was something, we talked about this, and I'd love to hear, Crystal, your version of this too, last night, where the plot twist was Democrats actually doing much better in the midterms. If you were watching the full extended midterms night showing of breaking points, we were really like yeah dems are gonna lose they're gonna lose the house they're gonna lose the senate we had a live skype in from a federman rally that wasn't very high energy and we're nodding solemnly like oh you know he's gonna lose the voters didn't care the early returns were desantis country so florida is doing well

for republicans and then halfway through holy shit like lauren bobert may lose like that was a real like that was crazy like didn't it make sense like after the fact but like you see that coming didn't see that so we totally need to rewrite the way we think about the next two years like to your point kyle the teflon thing comes from that not just taking um voters for granted so not just thinking oh yeah voters just don't really give a shit they're just pissed off and if they're pissed off you could just move to pennsylvania at the last second and become a senator that's not true and i think that's a good thing but that's a dynamic no i think you're right and look on the stop the steal thing again i don't know because look carrie lake she's still enormously popular with the gop uh she's been she basically lives at mar-a-lago now she seems to be

there every single night from what i can, while contesting the state of Arizona. And I look, Kyle, I think, you know, yes, he suffered in the 2018 midterms, almost won the general election in 2020. But he didn't. OK, but he almost did. And he was the GOP nominee, though. That was not a doubt. Right. There's there's definitely still a chance he's the GOP nominee. But he just two days ago was like terminate the constitution and i feel like his insanity is now actually like these are strikes against him now whereas previously when he said crazy things

he'd be like ah that's just trump trump's being trump now people seemingly across the board except like maybe 20 or 30 percent of the country are like, this dude's fucking crazy. This is the issue though, which is, and look, there's a lot of people in the audience here, but probably like open primary people, you're making general election arguments. Like there's a lot of like, Oh, like Democrats are the same. Like Republicans are the same. There's like overlap there on like policy issues, but like the voting bases are different. Like democratic party in 2020 cared about one question wasn't your position on health care it wasn't okay what's going to happen in afghanistan next year it was are you going to beat donald trump that was a scenario which joe biden won under in 2024 republican primary voters because they're not

thinking straight from my perspective are not asking themselves who is going to win in a post 22 in the department they're saying who do we like the most? They like Trump the most. My point is they might actually finally go, you know what? Electability concerns are kind of important. And maybe I'm being too kind to the Republican base when I say that. That's very possible. But I think that that now

might actually be a thought in their heads. I genuinely believe that. Well, another confounding factor here is you are unlikely to have just Trump versus DeSantis. You're unlikely to have just Trump versus DeSantis. And that's a problem. Yeah. Trump v. DeSantis, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, John Bolton, Liz Cheney. I mean, you're going to have a whole cast of characters. And I mean, that's exactly the scenario that he won under in 2015. Correct. No, so you're right. He could definitely get through the primary. But if they can, if the Republican Party could get it together enough to be like the Democratic Party was when they screwed Bernie at the last second, like if they can actually get together in a smoke-filled back room and have all those giant egos go, look, guys, you're not all going to be president. We're going to pick one could actually take him down. But I agree with you. There's definitely a chance he gets through the primary, but I just don't see

it in the general. I just don't see it anymore. One quick thing before we go on, because we can get on the record on this. If DeSantis beats Trump in the primary, does Trump run third party and sink DeSantis? Absolutely. That's the thing is I think the Republicans are totally fucked whether Trump is the nominee or not. Because if he's the nominee, they lose. And if he's not the nominee, he blows up the nominee and they still lose. So I mean, I'm not sure which is a worse scenario. What does everybody remember aside from the you've called women pigs and he says only Rosie O'Donnell? What was the second question at the GOP debate? They're like, well, anybody here commit to not running third party? He refused to raise his hand.

Right. It was arguably the most iconic moment, aside from that, of the GOP primary. So, I don't think that the man has changed all the time.

You don't think he's going to quietly be like, great race, Ron. Congratulations. Have my support. I'm going to campaign for you across the country. My total and complete endorsement.

Do you guys, do you guys, do you guys remember when he talked about his dick on stage in the middle of the debate? Of course. Remember that? Yes. I'm going to campaign for you across the country. My total and complete endorsement. I'm having trouble seeing that one. Do you guys remember when he talked about his dick on stage in the middle of the debate? Of course. Remember that? Marco started it. Marco did start it.

That's true. They keep saying I have tiny hands. I don't have tiny hands. I promise you. And they say if that's small, other things are small. I promise you there's no problem. I'm going to be honest. I miss that energy. Okay.

All right. Next category. Hard twist. Hard turn going to be honest. I miss that energy. Okay. All right. Next category. Hard, hard twist. Hard turn. Hard turn here. The next category is Unsung Hero. Sagar and I have picks in this category. Sagar, go ahead. So this is a woman I've thought a lot about. This was one of the most impactful stories, actually, for Breaking Points that a lot of you, it really resonated with. And what I loved about it is it was one of those universal moments where in a tragedy, all of us could come together and just say one thing, fuck the Uvalde PD. And the unsung hero of the year to me is the mother who came to the school and dragged her kids out and was placed under arrest. Let's play the initial interview with her.

So we are hearing this morning from a mother who ran inside the school in Uvalde, Texas to protect her kids. She says that police held her back and handcuffed her as the shooting unfolded. Right away as I parked, U.S. Marshals started coming toward my car saying that I wasn't allowed to be parked there. And he said, well, we're going to have to arrest you because you're being very uncooperative. I said, well, you're going to have to arrest me because I'm going in there. And I'm telling you right now, I don't see none of y'all in there.

Y'all are standing with snipers and y'all are far away. If y'all don't go in there, I'm going in there, and I'm telling you right now, I don't see none of y'all in there. Y'all are standing with snipers, and y'all are far away. If y'all don't go in there, I'm going in there. That woman, I mean, and you know, the back story is even crazier. She heard about the shooting, got in her car, drove 35 minutes, was placed under arrest, was placed not under arrest, went into the school, grabbed her children, came out all before the Uvalde PD, Border Patrol,

federal agents, FBI, and all these other G.I. Joe motherfuckers decided to go in there and actually kill the shooter. It remains one of the most shameful elements of, one of the most shameful stories of the entire country. I will never be over it.

No, we can't. I will never be over it. I will never be over it. And it also underscores accountability. Did any of these people get fired? No. Did, you know, that's the amazing thing. I learned about a Supreme Court case that apparently the police actually don't have a responsibility to protect you. And we're like, well, that's really interesting.

Whatever we consider, like, especially in that town, how much these guys were getting paid, how incompetent they were and just that video which we also played on our show of the husband who was literally held back and the the level of political cover-up oh yeah too to try to cover their asses after they stood around for minutes and minutes and minutes as precious babies were being murdered. Unbelievable. And you know what else? After this, because she was speaking to the media, the police went and harassed her at her house, were outside with their sirens, their lights, harassing and trying to intimidate her to get her

to stop talking to the media. It's crazy to me that the Uvalde cops are not in jail. And I know that there was a previous case where the police weren't locked up so i feel like they should pass a new law and says you know if there's a mass shooting and the cops don't want into the building to do their damn jobs they should be in prison not just fired yeah that's right and you know unfortunately there was a recent another mass shooting at the uh at the club q in colorado and what happened a A army veteran immediately sprung into action, wrestled the gun out of the guy's hand, and said, fuck you, and beat him over the head with it.

Yeah, and a- Normal people. While a drag queen was kicking him in the head with her stiletto heel. Mine is, I guess, a little lighter-hearted, but still a serious topic. You all might be aware that Elon Musk bought Twitter. You might have heard that. And for a brief moment in time,

he made one of his crazy decisions and decided that he would let for $8 anyone pretend to be anything on the platform. And it was amazing. It was kind of fun. So one of the people that took advantage of this little brief window. The guy named Sean. He works at More Perfect Union.

And he set up an account. He went through it. It took like no time whatsoever. He paid his $8. He became Eli Lilly and Company, and he set up an account. He went through it. It took, like, no time whatsoever. He paid his $8. He became Eli Lilly and Company, and he tweeted out, We are excited to announce insulin is free now. And what you see there over on this side is Eli Lilly's stock price, as they lost billions of market cap like that.

And, oh, by the way, it wasn't just Eli Lilly that is the top maker of insulin. It was every insulin maker saw their stock price plummet. It was glorious. Glorious. Speaking of criminals who should be in prison. Yeah. There were people in the UK

who were watching one of the presidential debates one time. I saw this whole thing unfold on Twitter. And when they learned for the first time that we actually have pharmaceutical ads in our country, they were like, what the fuck is this? Why would they allow? Why would I ask my doctor? Yeah. It's like when you get sick, you go to the doctor, they'll just tell you what to take right like they why are you doing like you know an ad for lung cancer medicine or something like it's crazy it is i want to add one quick spoiler to this um we need the unsung corporate heroes award and the unsung corporate heroes i brought this up last night, of this entire disaster were the social media managers who, in a 15-minute period,

obviously, had to sit down and get every single possible permutation of their company. Like, you know this happened. Like, they lost billions of dollars. Like, Nike and Jumpman. Nike.2. Eli Lilly and Co. Boeing with an E.

Boeing with an E. Underscore. Like, that was, like, I actually, like, I'm very even joking here. Eli Lilly and co. Boeing with an E. Boeing with an E. B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E.

B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E. B-O-E.

B-O-E. That was like, I actually like, I'm very even joking here. That was like probably the worst 48 hours of their career. Just so, they are the Aung San corporate heroes of that period. Marshall just has deep empathy for like the worst ghouls in the entire country. It's his most redeeming quality. Our social media managers are our biggest resource. We have to keep them safe.

Next up, our next category is biggest media fail. Kyle, what do you got here? Yeah, so there's a guy by the name of Sam Bankman Freed. And he gave a lot of money to a lot of different media outlets, and he effectively got, like, puff piece coverage as a result of it. And so you guys can see, it's up on the screen there, that somebody did a word count. Understated genius look. Somebody did a word count in the New York Times puff piece,

and you could see, like, the stuff he actually did wasn't said, but they talked about, oh, is he getting good sleep, bro? I wonder, is he all right? Is he doing okay? And then, you know, they go with the like eccentric genius line and they try to act like this guy's amazing. And, you know, what I find incredible is that I'm not the smartest guy in the world. I'm just a regular dude. And something smelled fishy all along to me.

But then you have these like giant media outlets that are responsible for giving everybody good information. And they're sucking off the fraud man. Like, what are we doing here? So the fact that there were, you know, so many positive pieces about him. Like, oh, look at this genius. I mean, that tells me everything I need to know about corporate media. And that there's a real conflict of interest when they're funded by the same people that they're supposed to be objectively covering.

You know, another thing is it underscores these people are not actually even good at their jobs. So look, consider this. I did a monologue. Maybe some of you guys might've seen it. There was a short seller named Mark Cahedis who literally brought a story in July to Bloomberg. And he was like, Hey guys, I'm telling you, FTX is totally full of shit. Here are the documents. Here are the exact questions that you need to ask SPF. Bloomberg had five people working full time, literally full time to cover FTX into crypto. You know what they told him? It'll take too much time. He wouldn't answer our questions. It would be bad for business. And if there are any crypto people in the audience,

I still consider myself like I'm halfway over there. And guess what are any crypto people in the audience, I still consider myself like, I'm a little halfway over there. And guess what? It's actually the crypto media are the people who broke the story. They're the ones who got the leaked documents. Not the Times, not Bloomberg, not any of the major financial journalists who publish, oh, it turns out the

balance sheet is total bullshit, which is what caused the entire thing to fold. So it's not just a fail. It's a massive incompetence. That and the fact that crypto is just made up numbers on a spreadsheet. That too. That was another sort of core issue with the whole crypto SBF situation. But I mean, there's a few things to say. It really does remind me the media angle of the Theranos Elizabeth Holmes and her personal, she cultivated this specific look. She was trying to copy Steve Jobs.

She thought this would be the thing that would sell herself to elites so she could get these investors in. And then once you've got the elite classes start buying in, that stood in place of anyone doing any due diligence. It was like, oh, you have that person who's an investor, or you have that person on the board. It must be above board. It must be above board. And so Sam Bankman-Fried just basically bought the positive coverage,

bought the politicians, and was able to escape any scrutiny. We listened to, he went on a Bloomberg podcast where the host listened to him describe what he was doing and was like it sounds like you're in the business of ponzi schemes and spf was you know used a lot of fancy words but basically was like yes you're correct in between tweaking out and yet yeah after that you know you still getting the understated genius look blah blah he's still being welcomed on capitol hill and all of this mask off moment for a whole set of elites not just sam beckman freed by the way marshall biggest i was glad that kyle and i were combined for this one because his critique is very like structural like the entire media ecosystem from bloomberg to cnbc just like blew this one i picked a very

literal and individual level. So folks know obviously that Elon Musk acquired Twitter this year and a individual reporter, Deidre Bosa of CNBC, fell for the Rahul Ligma controversy. Do you want to tell the people what Ligma stands for?

Yeah, so I said this before. This is a PG-13 show, so I'm not going to explain what Ligma Johnson means, but I suggest we use our critical thinking caps. And once again, more empathy. Like, I just, she's kind of like, oh, just say it. You just say it. This is a story that everyone's just deeply afraid of. Like, it sounds kind of stupid, but, like, I don't want to be like,

I don't know, Rojo Ligma. I'm not going like i'm not gonna like assume it's like not a real name like sir is that actually your name are you actually from here sir like you're just not gonna do that so the other dead giveaway that was him having uh michelle obama's uh memoir in his 1990s like i'm leaving my job thing we were talking about last night we're like do people even have those boxes anymore they actually should have been a dead giveaway within 10 minutes of Elon Musk right this was the worst employee fired within 10 minutes with his box this got picked up all kinds of places I mean because it fit the narrative and the moment so

perfectly and they just took the bait like nobody's business. Did they all put the name in there, too? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So all the headlines were like, Ligma Johnson is... That's unbelievable. Sorry again for the spouses, girlfriends, et cetera, who were dragged here.

Amazing. All right. Next up, we have worst midterm ad. Sagar has a very uncomfortable one that he has chosen. Go ahead. So here's a warning. This is weird. I had to be convinced to even play it.

It's long, too. It's a little long. The length, it's important. It has ASMR involved. It's odd. And that oddness probably contributed to a certain gentleman losing the Senate race in Arizona. Griffin, let's play it for the people. This is a Walther PPK, otherwise known as the James Bond gun. This is chambered in.22LR, and I've got a dead air mask silencer on it.

I've wanted this gun for a long time, ever since I was a little kid. Made in Germany, 007 gun. Why would you not want this? Let's load it up and see how it shoots. Silencers sometimes get a bad rap. People want to pretend that it makes it easy to commit crime or something like that. Why would you think that? But actually shooting with the silencer just makes it a whole lot more pleasant to shoot because you don't have to worry about giant ear protection. This man belongs in the US Senate. Hopefully you can hear how quiet that is. I think the key thing...

It keeps going. The key thing here is that through the projector, through him losing his Senate race, I legitimately have a fight or... A flight or fight response to this. This feels deeply threatening. If you're scared, I'm like, where's my wife? Where's my family?

This is just not the vibe you want to project. Hair on everybody's neck standing up. Listen, unpopular opinion. I appreciate that he leaned into his true serial killer vibes. He's just like, you know what? I'm going to own it. Yeah. If you watch the full clip, he also says the word German like five times.

He's like, made in Germany? It kind of suffers from the same problem that Kamala was having in that clip, Marshall. He had this thought of like, I'm going to make an ad. It's going to be different. It's going to be deep. It's going to be profound. I'm going to comment on guns. I'm going to tell where this gun's from.

That's what those people want, right? We're going to take people on a journey. It's not going to be like your typical political ad. It's like, you know what? Maybe you should have done the typical political ad or probably just not run for office because you're a weird creep stop yeah he's got he's got incel vibes for sure that's not like the nicest thing you could say about him honestly um so uh mr desantis made a number of ads this uh election cycle that could have won in this category. But this one, to me, just for the sheer like self-righteousness and kind of like Beto O'Rourke, I'm born to be in it vibes, this one

really took the cake. It's called God Made a Fighter. And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, I need a protector. So God made a fighter. God said, I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, kiss his family goodbye, travel thousands of miles for no other reason than to serve the people, to save their jobs, their livelihoods, their liberty, their happiness. So God made a fighter. Yeah. Yeah. The level of ego on these dudes, I just will never understand. The Messiah complex too. Like who told you that this was a good idea? Apparently this is the ad that gave Trump the idea of the DeSanctimonious nickname.

Yeah, he nailed that one. He was right. And now when I hear it, I'm like, you know what? You did kind of nail it. That does kind of land. But like, who's the audience for this? Like, are there Florida grandpas and grandmas who are like, I brought a tear to my eye? My runner-up.

His family liked it? His wife might have liked it? Yeah. I doubt it. I don't think his wife liked it. My runner-up for what I picked last night is Dan Crenshaw

getting into the DeLorean going back to 1985, meeting a fake Ronald Reagan who shakes his hand and said that he was the Messiah born to carry on the legacy. Oh my God. Again, to underscore,

these people who are the most mediocre have the biggest egos, are great, great representatives. The one thing I'm like fascinated by, the first ad is 100% on Blake Masters. Like that clearly was, he pulls off on the side of the road. He's like, let's tape this shit.

This is it. Let's tape this. Also, another quick note on that, too. What I love about it, too, is he raises a very valid concern about silencers and murder. He doesn't actually refute it. He just says it's more fun. So the actual implication is it does make murder easier, but it also makes murder a little more fun. More satisfying?

Is that what he said? Or more pleasant? I don't know. Whatever. It was disturbing. But with DeSantis like that was a team of people right like ron desantis did not like start sketching on his whiteboard like i'm god like an actual team of people like sat in the right guys we're gonna win by like fucking 15 points and what we're gonna do here is we're gonna put god on it and that happened in a meeting and it's kind of just like incredible

it is it is a trend with the republican politicians we i mean rick santorum he said god chose him mike huckabee he said god chose him uh mitt romney are there any that i'm missing pence pence for sure definitely yeah i i don't know what it is i don't know that seems like such a bold claim to just say you know and i don't i don't think it's just the republican politicians i think they wear it a little more overtly. But, yeah, my mind went to Beto when I saw that, when he did that cover. Oh, Beto knows there's no God. Beto knows there's no God. No, he thinks he's, like, picked by somebody.

He is a God. A little escalation. A God that is on top of God. Wasn't us, I can tell you that. Okay. All right. In the next category, we had a unanimous decision from Kyle and Marshall. In the category of worst public humiliation, it went to Kanye West.

Let's take a listen. The thing about the red hat that drove me to a point of exhaustion, which was misdiagnosed by a,'m not gonna say what race what people doctor and what hospital and what media went to we know I can't say that it was a Jewish Hey, wait, right after this, I'm gonna send you crazy and I'm gonna take your family away from you. We're not done with you yet. You cannot cause free thought. We have to control the history books, we have to control the banks, and we have to go and kill people. I swear in the power of God.

So... Even Alex Jones doesn't know what to do at that point he actually got him to break character even alex was like you know my favorite my favorite take about the first kanye clip beyond just like the anti-semitism and the disastrous nature of it so i'll point out like kanye has great comedic delivery the way he like you know it notice, he says it, he sets it up, but he's like, it was a Jewish doctor. This is why he gets the genius documentary. This is a man who was like, he's like Bo Jackson.

He was born to act, he's born to dress. He was born to have a public mental breakdown for the nation to see. The ironic thing is that if he listened to that jewish doctor then he'd be in a much better place right now because it wouldn't be all the public humiliation that we've seen you know and uh that jewish doctor was looking out for him yeah sure and the easy point like everybody already says is alex jones genuinely comes across looking moderate and reasonable in that interview and it's like this is the dude who denied, said Sandy Hook was a hoax.

But he gave him so many outs, too. He was like, you just mean the Nazi uniforms, right? And he's like, no, I love Hitler. Nobody clicked that. Wait, wait, Sagar, one thing. Could you tell people who he was actually impersonating in the second clip? Because that was kind of incoherent.

That's in Yahoo. Okay, so it's's a net and he also had a what was it? A yoohoo chocolate milk. So he had a net and yoohoo chocolate milk so Netanyahu together using the net.

And I like how we're not even commenting on the gimp mask because everything else is gimp. He's wearing a gimp mask and everybody's like just don't even comment on that. That's like 13th on the listimp mask because everything else he's wearing a gimp mask and everybody's like just don't even comment on that that's like the 13th on the list of interesting things that's the least of what's going on here yeah i mean it it really is a testament to because he's a celebrity because he is rich or at least was rich um because we've been told like oh these are people to look up to and they're a genius and they're operating on this other level that people don't see what is clearly and obviously going on here

which is this man has untreated mental illness that is not an excuse for the hate and the bigotry there are plenty of people who are bipolar who are not nazis but i mean you're witnessing a mental breakdown live on repeated podcast platforms and it's like what else do you think that you're gonna get out of this man at this point why are you continuing to talk to him and like just let him spew on about how much he loves hitler and not okay we get it dude go take your meds i'm calling for a total and complete shutdown of kanye interviews until we can figure out what the hell is going on. Amen. Next category. Next up we have strangest bedfellows. Sagar, what do you got for us? So, let's go ahead and play this. I chose a possibly hopeful story. This was

right after the railway workers vote in the U.S. Senate. Ted Cruz, we actually had our team zoom in here, went over to Bernie to give him a fist bump after voting for paid sick leave for railway workers. And it actually looks like Bernie rejects him there a little bit and then he goes for the fist bump. But the reason I chose this one is, it's an interesting story, which is, look,

do I believe that the seven Republicans who voted on the paid sick leave uh were acting necessarily in the best faith no uh do we care though because at the end of the day we're talking here about what i think should be basic yeah i think that the people who make this country work should get sick leave and i don't think that and even if you're republican libertarian even the idea that you have a deal negotiated with a company and that you personally don't want to work and that the fucking government can come in and force you to have your work conditions that you don't want to have and you have no recourse to do that to have six or seven

republicans join on that vote it's extraordinary that's one of those things where is it cynical maybe should we care no something that we have really come to crystal is like politicians don't act in our interests what you have to do is make it in their best interest cynical best interest to do the right thing so if we can align conditions in the right way that's how change actually happens in this country um and we should point out that this failed with i think it was 51 or 52 votes yes so it got the most votes and it lost because we have a permanent filibuster where you need to get to 60 votes um with the only area i disagree is that i do think if it really came down to ted cruz's vote to get to that 60 number i think he would have voted the other way maybe i think he was virtue signaling to be like,

I like workers. You know... No, you don't. True. But what is more hopeful to me, even than, you know, what Ted Cruz did here, or, you know, Marco Rubio, like, conditionally under one circumstance,

saying maybe I support this one union drive, what I find really hopeful is you see the numbers in the Republican base have shifted dramatically on issues of corporate power, on issues of labor unions. And that in and of itself is extraordinary. I mean, there has been a sea change, recognition, bipartisan across the country, elites or not, about who exactly is screwing you and holding you down. And at some point, that sort of 70%, 80% mass of people, they are going to be heard in some sort of way. They are going to cause a shift in some sort of way. We're already seeing it with the grassroots slavery movement that swept the country.

Don't you think, though, because the polls have been on the side of the issues that I prefer for a really long time. Not on unions. Okay, that's fair, not on unions. Even like seven years ago, if you do a poll and you ask Republican voters, hey, should we raise taxes on the top 1%? They say yes. And like, that just doesn't seem to translate into actually getting it through. On the specific issues of unions and also on curbing corporate power, like the antitrust, anti-monopoly movement, there has been a major, major shift. So like, okay, I'd love to bring up this example in, I forget when the

election was, but anyway, got 60% in Florida in a direct ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage, right? And so, I guess my point is, I think that's always been there, but it doesn't seem to translate and get through, and then also these same people who might be correct on the individual issues might then turn

around and vote for Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis, so there's like a disconnect there is my point. The disconnect is there. Change takes a long fucking time. That said, look, you look at that, I have no choice but to hope. That's the theme of the show. All right.

So for my strangest bedfellows, I'm sorry I had to go back to the Kanye well because I was not expecting to see new black nationalist Kanye along with white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Let's take a look. A lot was said. And the big headline is, of course, the most provocative stuff.

And I kind of don't like this about the interview. I thought the interview was like a movie. It was a great interview. The whole three hours are totally compelling. It's funny. It's informative. It's interesting. But the media, of course, is only focusing on the part where he said he loved Hitler. So what's that all about? He said other things, too.

He said other. I don't know why I can't just get over this whole Hitler Nazi Holocaust denial thing. What's the big deal? It was kind of funny we were watching earlier today Stephen Crowder interviewing Alex Jones like after this all went down and even they Crowder was like you know sometimes media is not right about things they throw these terms around they're not accurate doing their whole thing but he's like weren't they right kind of right about this one and kanye being an anti-semite alex went on some whole other tangent but the answer was basically yes yes it's kind of undeniable at this point yeah all right we won't we'll spare you the sanctimony about uh grifters using mentally ill billionaires for their own purposes i have though i have a quick runner up in this category that we don't have an element for

but that i thought of early today and belonged in the show, especially since Sagar and I are both big Swifties, which I think another strange bedfellow this year was Taylor Swift and the antitrust movement coming together. Fuck Ticketmaster! And pressuring Ticketmaster, and indeed, as we are all gathered here today, having all personally been gouged by Ticketmaster. Yeah, wait. Fuck Ticketmaster. And indeed, as we are all gathered here today, having all personally been gouged by Ticketmaster. Wait.

Fuck Ticketmaster. They might drone strike us. We need to shut up. Yeah, go in. We don't need you in our house. We sold the fucking tickets. That's actually a great point, though. Yeah.

Because that was one where it actually hit in the cultural zeitgeist in a way that I hadn't seen. Everybody knows fucking processing fees. What, just so I can get this on my phone it's 2022 how is that even possible but for that to reach that level the doj to come in and say like hey actually it is kind of messed up to have this merger and all these hidden processing fees and you're making huge promises to artists and to others and you know look we said this openly on the show like you'd be shocked uh at what the actual cuts are and the way that these all things work it's not right and it shows you that you can be one of the biggest artists in the world i mean it's not even just about us crystal imagine the people who do this this is their only job imagine if you're selling

out a theater or something like this and you have to do it every single night in order to try and make a living because you're working against forces that you have not one iota of control. And side benefit, I have never seen Matt Stoller so excited. He was pumped. Big moment. Big Swifty that guy is.

All right. The last category that we all have entries in is best news of the year. We thought this would be a good place for us to end the show on a hopeful note i am optimistic about 2023 ultimately so kyle what did why don't you kick us off what was your best news this year yeah so mine was pretty simple um it was us getting engaged. No, just kidding. Yes. That is the correct answer. I agree with what she said. Be used to that. Fetterman beating Oz, to me, was phenomenal news.

Because, honestly, I think the fact that he had the stroke, and then he struggled in the debate, and then he still went on to win, that was definitely a moment of hope for me because it shows me that voters can sort of overlook this stuff that doesn't matter that much and just get to like where's this person's heart at like what do they really care about and oh we'll find out speaking of run the clip. Ladies and gentlemen, the man himself, Dr. Oz. How many houses do you own? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Rich people think different. So, you know, picking the guy who's in favor of $15 minimum wage, who's in favor of unions over the snake oil salesman on TV, that made me very happy. Yeah, and the way Fetterman won, also, he ran this very economically populist campaign. He had been a steel town mayor. And the places that he picked

up the most ground were like these rural counties with large working class voting bases that had moved really far to Trump. And they didn't move all the way back, but he picked up enough ground there to win. And it wasn't ultimately even all that close. So it was, there was a lot to take note of in that particular campaign. Very interesting. Marshall, what about you? Mine is very basic, very straightforward. Republican voters not voting straight ticket for Republican candidates who were stopped and steal. So like Carrie Lake in Arizona, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. I was like thinking about this, like a lot of our politics

and like the shows we do come out of that 2015-2016 moment where it felt like there were just no rules. Like, holy shit, like we woke up one day and Brexit happened. Holy shit, Trump is running for president. Holy shit, Trump won the primary. Holy shit, Trump is now president. It kind of made us feel as if there was just like no bottom. And not just bottom in the sense of like morality, but anything was possible. So I think going into 2022, going to these midterms, a lot of people are like, look, anything can happen. You could just psychotically say you're not going to endorse results because you want that much of ambition for power.

But there actually was a line. And I think it's actually really good that there's now just clear benchmark that Republicans are about to consider for the next two years, which is, hey, black blasters, you cannot have a primary ad that says, I think Donald Trump won in 2020.

Like, that was crazy that that happened. And now there's just clear evidence that that just doesn't work. And now actually we have even more evidence in Marshall's favor because Warnock won the election last night. Yeah. And what's even crazier is we were looking at a breakdown of the governor wins by eight points. You had like the lieutenant governor won by five points. All of these are Republicans. The agricultural commissioner, almost every single down ballot.

The only person to win as a Democrat was Raphael W wornock and he won by what is it three and a half points it was it's gonna be around three yeah that is a over performance of 11 which means that 11 of voters in the state of georgia actually split their ticket it's i mean we haven't seen that in american politics but at least for the last decade it's really crazy yes yeah and at the same time that fetterman was winning uh joshiro, the gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, who was up against a true psycho in Doug Mastriano. Right. He won by double digits in Pennsylvania. So he was at January 6th, that guy.

Yeah. He was there on the day. And he was like plotting with Trump and the fake elector stuff. I mean, he was he was all in. So, yes. Yes. All of that. All of those things um for my best news i am going to

let the man himself lay it out christian mother we got the juggler we went for the juggler and we went for the top dog because we want every other industry every other business to know that things have changed. We're going to unionize. We're not going to quit our jobs anymore. And, you know, this is a prime example of the power that people have when they come together. Chris, what's your message to Amazon executives today after this victory? Oh, they're going to have to negotiate with their workers now. You know, my message is that now we have a union that they're going to have to collect a bargain with.

And between Chris Smalls at Amazon Labor Union defying history, beating one of the richest men on the planet in Jeff Bezos, then you have the Starbucks workers, that continuing to pick up speed. We've seen grassroots organizing efforts across the country. And you all know, in my view, this is one of, if not the most hopeful thing that is happening in the entire country. Because what Chris says there, oh, we're not quitting our jobs anymore.

We're gonna organize. That is a whole revolution in and of itself. He's that cool in real life, too. We met him in real life, and he's really cool. So Crystal and Marshall and Kyle all picked very well-thought-out, well-meaning, deeper ones. I decided to go for the easy one, but the one that I just had to do. The best news for me, 2022.

Put it up there, Griffin. The failure of CNN+. It brings a smile, a grin to my face every single time. Warms my heart. One of the best things that we were able to do is with your hard-earned money, previous subscribers, we purchased the NFT from the CNN vault, which, by the way, they have since discontinued,

so you remain proud owners of that, of what they hailed as the biggest moment in CNN history since the launch of the network. But, okay, dunks aside. They were right, just not in the way they thought they were. Yeah, they were right. It was a big moment. I asked this in Atlanta.

I forgot to ask this in New York. How many people here subscribed to CNN Plus? Are you serious? I subscribed to CNN Plus. As usual. As usual. Boo! The defense of me on this one is, on HBO Max,

CNN makes really good documentaries. I mean it. I like the decade series. The 90s. They're actually 60s, 70s, 80s. They took them off HBO Max. CNN makes really good documentaries. I mean it. Like, I like the Decades series. The 90s. They're actually... 60s, 70s, 80s. They took them off HBO Max. So I was like,

okay, I'll take a, you know, a subscription. And then they took, they got rid of them. So I've been triple owned on this. Very sorry for your

They didn't even do that. Didn't they do like, you know, Raising Kids with Anderson Cooper? Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the additional, the exclusive subscriber.

That's extra stuff. Oh, okay. Look, I just wanted my content. They took it from me. You, you were there for Jake Tapper's book club and we all know it, Marshall. Stop lying. On a serious note, though, it has been an insane year on a media front. We had our year in review for you guys. 55% new audience in 2022, increase in views. Thanks to the premium subs, we were able to hire and add a show. CNN spent $300 million on this bullshit to fail in three days.

Yeah. Three days. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, collective ratings are down by almost 40% across the board this year. Hallelujah. And this isn't just about breaking points. It's about the entire internet. Independent media is actually thriving more than ever before.

So look, I know there's a lot of media failure going on out there, but it really is at the structural level for the people who fucking deserve it. And I once again want to say, just as a closing thing, look around at all of you. There are people here who probably voted for different parties who never would be in the same room otherwise. And that is a testament to something that these people spent the last 25 years of our lives working against, trying to split us up to make it so that this entire thing is impossible. And we consider it the great privilege of our life to have an audience like all of you

to show up for us in this way. So with that, thank you to Kyle and Marshall. Thank you to Griffin, our new producer, who you guys helped to hire. Shout out to Griffin, who was running all of this. Thank you to all, our new producer, who you guys helped to hire. Shout out to Griffin, who was running all of this. Thank you to all the crew here tonight. And guys, 2023, I think it's going to be a great year. Thanks to you all and what we're all building together. So thank you guys.

We love you all so much. And we'll see you from the Breaking Point studio on Monday. Thank you. Thank you, Austin. Thank you. We love you. Great crowd. in the Breaking Point studio on Monday. Thank you. Thank you, Austin. Thank you. We love you. Great crowd.

The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Yeah, we're moms, but not your mommy. Historically, men talk too much and women have quietly listened and all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. Listen to the Good Moms

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