Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/4/25: Mass Job Losses, Trump's Corrupt Pardon, New Epstein Images, Dem Special Elections

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss mass job losses, Trump's corrupt pardon, insane new Epstein images, Dem special elections. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him. Gabe Ortiz is a cop. His brother Larry, a mystery Gabe didn't want to solve until it was too late. He was the head of this gang. You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it.

When Larry's killed, Gabe must untangle a dangerous past, one that could destroy everything he thought he knew. Listen to the brothers Ortiz. the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of, you know, developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

Visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cuthurban.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Hey everybody, it's Chuck and Josh

from the Stuff You Should Know podcast and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 Days of Christmas toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right, maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly,

or Yo-Yo's, and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist, list on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent Media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

Indeed, we do. We got some new numbers on the economy. They are not looking good. We've also got a new pardon from Trump. This one of a corrupt Democrat. So a little bit of bipartisan corruption. Not that that's an unusual thing here in Washington. Take a look at that one.

This one impacts the House because this was a, This is a representative of the House who was indicted anyway. A lot of potential implications there. We've got new photos and videos released by the House Oversight Committee of Epstein's Island. We will show you that. They are also attempting to get more financial records that they could reveal to the public. So some significant developments there. We're taking a look at the political fallout after this Tennessee election was closer than comfort, I guess, for Republicans in that special. And what they are looking at heading into the midterms. There's a lot of Republicans. sort of maneuvering, like Johnson's getting thrown under the bus. So we'll look at that, Hillary Clinton and others letting it all hang out on Israel. CNN is partnering with Kelshi as

we descend further into this capitalist hellscape. And we've got some new details on those boat strikes as Admiral Bradley does head to the hill today. So some significant movement there as well. That's right. Thank you to everybody's been signing up, breaking points.com. If you can support our work over here, become a premium member. By the way, it's been very cool to see all of your Spotify wraps. If we were in your top, we did record a little video for all of you. And so thank you all very much. It is very, very cool to see. And we were looking, we achieved significant growth, actually, some 130% increase, apparently, in our podcast. I was looking at the stats that they sent over to us. So thank you all very much. And that was just on the

Spotify platform. So if you are listening to this as a podcast, please rate us five stars, share it with a friend, really helps other people find the show. Apparently a lot of you did that this year. So thank you all very much. Seriously, it does mean a lot. It's very cool to see the numbers. And it's also kind of fun to see what other people listen to. Yeah, very eclectic fan base. People listen to comedy, only news. It's kind of amazing. My last few months, it turns out, we're very dominated by K-pop Demon Hunters.

Really? That's really fun. In fairness to me, my 8-year-old is also listening on my phone. That's a funny thing, is all my songs are just songs that the kid will go to sleep to, right? So it's all, you're welcome from Moana is my number one song. I will say. I've moved down of the Disney Age and into the K-pop Demon Hunters era. For me, also, my podcast listening moments went down by 40%. So that's what fatherhood has done.

It's destroyed my podcast listening time. It's okay. It's all worth it. Anyway, thank you all very much. Seriously, very gratifying. I know YouTube has its own wrapped function as well. It's also cool to see us on that. So let's go ahead and start with the economy, some troubling job numbers coming from ADP

with an immediate reaction here from CNBC, summarizing how this was a major, unexpected, actually, job loss that hit Wall Street. Let's take a listen. Big miss on the ADP payrolls, the private payroll company saying private payroll shed 32,000 workers in November. That's the fourth negative number in the past six months for this series. Take a look here. The estimate was for 40,000. So the street was off on this one.

But the big story here, and I'll show you more detail on this, is what's happening with small business, down 120,000, medium and large business doing okay, up 51 and 39,000, respectively. But take a look at this chart here, virtually all of the business. job losses have come from small business, which has been negative in six of seven months since April without those losses, ADP numbers would actually be positive. But you can't get rid of or you can't exclude small business, at least according to ADP, additional weakness in the job market and small business getting hammered. And there is some information that some of this may be coming from being hammered by the tariffs. So there you go. You can see saying some indication in terms of the tariffs, but more importantly was the miss in terms of the ADP.

numbers, the fourth negative number in the past six numbs, and the estimate was for that plus 40,000. Let's go and put A2 up here on the screen, some interesting kind of firm by firm data. Actually, what you see is that the ADP losses is that most industries are doing layoffs. The only one still hiring are hospitality and health care. Wow. Actually, that explains a lot, right? So health care, we have this exploitive, insane, destructive system. Hospitality is entirely dominated by the top 10%. And so that means that the rich can continue to travel. Again, if you're a sucker for this type of lifestyle pornography, the Wall Street Journal every other day is always like, big hotels are booming than ever. Or like, why Rich Carlton is more

in demand than any other. I always click on them and I always read them because there is just something to this economy where you've got top 10% who spend 50% of the money. And so 90% of people overall, not doing either as well and not spending nearly as much. And so that, I think it's called K-shaped, right, in terms of the economy. But what you can see very specifically is that those smaller to medium-sized firms, really the backbone of American innovation and of community, is really hurting. So there was a one to 19 employees for something like our company has a reduction of some 46,000, and then the 20 to 49 employees down by 74,000. So these smaller firms are really having trouble. Larger companies are

hiring, but, quote, a tough year for small business due to tariffs and more selective spending from lower and middle class consumers. And I think that really hits at home is the lower middle class consumer and other. And if you really think about the Amazon's of the worlds, the Googles, and even

retail that goes after either everybody and or can selectively make it so that they're very desirable to that high income family, they're going to be fine, you know, in something like this, in addition to the big business. But if you're a smaller a median-sized firm, maybe you do like services or something like that doesn't necessarily that goes to everybody, not necessarily to the top 10%. That's exactly who's struggling in this.

And that's, you know, it sucks, right? Because if you think about smaller, medium-sized, maybe brick-and-mortar businesses and towns and others where, let's say, your income is below $150,000 per year in terms of the median, that's going to be a tough place to do business. Yeah. Well, it makes sense when you think about the tariff impact. When we first had a quote-unquote Liberation Day, we covered a number of these small businesses that were like, I have no idea how we're going to be able to survive. Because even though they had a profitable business, a lot of these small businesses, like, they're living sort of month to month. You know, they don't have a giant cash reserve so that they can wait until Trump figures out what the hell is going on or the courts

get involved and he changes the rates and makes it so that you can sustain yourself. In that time, you're bleeding, if not completely dying. So it makes sense on that level. It also makes sense on the level that you're not going to be the one that gets to go to the Mar-a-Lago dinner or gets to offer your gold bar in the White House to be able to be saved by the King. So, you know, I think that's another element of why small businesses are the ones being decimated in particular. They're also not likely to be the ones participating in the great AI revolution that is propping up so much of the economy at this point.

So, you know, we're really starting to see the effects. And the other thing, you know, we normally in the past wouldn't have necessarily covered the ADP jobs report because of it. we would have relied on the government numbers. They don't put the numbers out anymore. Number one, I mean, during the shutdown, we didn't get anything. And number two, I don't think anyone has any confidence in these numbers whatsoever. So that has made the ADP numbers that much more significant.

There's another aspect of this, of course, which is the political aspect. How is the administration messaging all of this? Earlier in the week, Trump said that affordability is a Democratic con job. So that's what the language coming from the president of the United States. And you've got Scott Bessett, who has now made this claim, I think, a couple of times that the best thing you can do, and we covered this previously on the show, the best thing you can do if you're worried about inflation is move. Move to a red state because inflation is lower in red states. Turns out that is not true whatsoever. And he got called on it live. Let's take a look at that. People in her district are having an affordability problem. I should have said, well, she's in a red state. Affordability is worse. I mean, in a blue state, affordability is worse than a blue state. We can debate that, but keep going to go. There's no debate.

The number of 50 basis points higher inflation, the 10 highest, the inflation rates, they are in blue cities, but. Just so you know, because I went to look at this. This is the Joint Economic Committee, since 2021. The highest inflation of the past four years has been in red states, especially Florida. I'm talking about current, current, current, not over the past four years. Right. Today. Okay. I would think four years would be a reasonable to trend line to look at.

Just utterly absurd. I mean, the thing is stupid to start with. Like, oh, just uproot your whole life and move somewhere. We're not going to do anything. But if you're worried about inflation, go ahead and uproot your whole life, find a new job, sell your house, good luck getting a mortgage at the same rate, and move to a different place that has slightly lower inflation because we're certainly not doing anything for you. And then even on the merits of that, that he's getting called out that like, well, that's not actually really even true unless you have this like very slow,

well, in the past 36 days in cities only, then this actually works out. Just ridiculous. It's just so stupid. Yeah. It's like, dude, I mean, this is why him and there's what a few others, Kevin Hassett and others, Like, they are just like the Biden officials who would go out in 2022 and they'd be like, actually, we're tackling inflation, Bidenomics. And it was met with, like, you know, it was met with ridicule, I think, correctly. But I mean, not just by Wall Street, but by, I think, everyday consumers. And yeah, I mean, fundamentally, what exactly is the message? Like, living in a red state is better. Like, yeah, maybe. I mean, it depends on what you value, right? I mean, that's the whole point of living in different states. Yeah. We all have, you know, every state gets to do things. a little bit differently. For example, if you're in Florida, you can live in a boomer hell

where they want to reduce property taxes. That's your right. As Americans, you can do that if you would like. You know, you certainly can. And then, you know, you can also live in, you can also live in what? What's the highest tax date? California, you know, some people, they're like, sunshine is worth it to live with a bunch of fentanyl bums who are living around me, no criminal justice or anything. That's fine. You can do that if you want to. That's America, All right. So it's just one of those where you get to choose. By the way, after Zoran's election, you know, there was a, oh, the rich people are going to leave New York. Apparently luxury real estate sales are actually up in New York.

So everybody relax. I wouldn't say that's necessary. The rich people are staying in New York City if that was a concern for you. Yeah. I mean, it was never a particular guy. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the global rich in New York City or Los Angeles or any of these other places. But, yeah, I mean, this is part of what's so stupid, I think broadly around. the thing, and it also just gets to also the being out of touch, importantly with the economy

whenever it comes to these officials. Affordability is a con job, just uproot and move, if you would like. It also just gets to the point of, you know, what we always talk about with Trump is division, division, division, and he's used that very, very effectively. But the thing is right now is that this idea of, like in terms of the red state versus the blue, trying to pit people against each other. What I think that misunderstands is that on economic questions, people are actually a lot more united

than ever before. They're really not in a war. In the same way, they might be on culture or anything else. They are pretty united in saying that housing and inflation are the two pillar problems. And that's why I think that rhetoric

like that really doesn't land and it actually makes light of a very serious situation no matter where you live. And that's part of where the division strategy, which is very effective on culture, I don't think it lands even close on economy

or on immigration, right? It's just not the same issue set. Yeah, that's an interesting thought because certainly at other times, like when Trump was in his initial political rise back in 2015, 2016, there was more of a sense of like, the cities are doing great

and the rest of the country is getting screwed. Now the sense is everybody's getting screwed. We're all getting screwed. And, you know, the rich people are right in the rules. They're rigging the system. They're sucking up everything. They're doing their AI thing. They're, you know, looking at being trillionaires.

And meanwhile, you know, we'll get to CNN now doing deals with Calci so that they can, you know, get you further addicted to gambling and exploit and abuse you. Even more, like, we're just at this point of absurdity in terms of where the capitalist system is. So, you know, I mean, all the stress signs are there. People are screaming loud and clear. We do not feel like this economy is going well. We don't think it's going to go well. We are not hopeful about our future. we're not helpful about our kids' future.

We don't feel like you're focused on the things that you said you would be in the campaign. Now, whether or not they were right to think he'd really be great on business, I mean, I think it's reasonable to, I think it's reasonable for an ordinary piece of person to be like, you know what, the economy was better under his first administration. He's a business guy. He's going to be focused on this. It's going to be better for me and my family. And to feel a genuine sense of disappointment and, frankly, betrayal that that has not been

his focus. and then the audacity to tell you that affordability is a con job made up by the Democrats while you're looking at him hanging out with Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman and these other characters giving them the world while they build out their data centers and spike your electricity bills, yeah, you're going to be disgusted and you're going to, the Republican Party is going to pay a massive political price for abandoning people at a time when they are increasingly feeling the squeeze. These ADP numbers are just one more sign that, you know, that there was a lot of hopium from the, from MAGA insiders here that you and Emily both were speaking to that they felt like, oh, you know, we're going to do this tariff thing.

There's going to be some pain. But, you know, a year from now, things are going to be turning around when we're going into midterms, people are going to be feeling like things are great. Now it seems like even they've abandoned that to, you know, falling back on, well, just move to a different state if you feel bad about things the way they are. or, you know, just pretend like none of this is a problem. Affordability is a con job. Just deny the reality that you're living literally every single day. On the tariff question, if you think about it, it was paired specifically with it's going to make America richer. It's also going to bring back business.

That is just simply not been the case. Why? Because as we said a myriad times, there's no problem with tariffs. Tariffs are fine. I support tariffs. You use them as a tool in a... You pair it with a lot, not just industrial policy, but a concerted bureaucratic, strategic effort that says these are the types of things that we want to. Now, actually, in some ways, they have done that.

It's just to the benefit of only the AI industry. But if that bubble pops, that's a big problem. And as I just showed all of you. And it's not something that really benefit. I mean, there's some construction, like the construction industry is doing okay because of the data center build out. But in terms of long-term jobs, those data centers require like 50 people. It's minimal. Technology is a power law business. The wealth vastly accumulates to the founders and to the employees. That is literally the story of Silicon Valley and of software engineering. That's why it makes them all filthy rich. That's fine. But the point is, is not to say that that should be the basis of the entire United States economy. And in fact, if you want industrial policy or something, you want to be able to support the other types of businesses to industries that don't have power law returns necessarily, but are really important to your overall industrial base, things like cars,

Things like, I mean, you know, metals. Again, we don't even have to be woke about it. oil refineries, if we want to, nuclear power plants. All of these are highly capital-intensive businesses, but the returns are much more broad-based across society, and they actually help lift everybody up together. We don't have a lot of that. And so that's where I think the big failure is. And I also, look, it's December 4th. Trump has literally almost been president for a year, what is it, 11 months now, I think, almost exactly, to the day. So you've been president for 11 months. And the same thing, you know, if you think back to Biden, even Obama, Obama, things very much soured on his term by this point in people's presidencies. Bill Clinton is the same thing.

It's very difficult, actually, to turn around once you're at this point. You can become kind of a manager and just hope things go on the upswing, but, like, that's not their style. And so in the absence of that, you're going to have issues. The last thing I do want to mention is about this tariff stuff, because this could create a new fresh round of craziness. Let's go to the next part, please. This is Besson at that same conference said that the Trump administration will be able to replicate tariffs even if it loses a Supreme Court decision. So as we had said here before, it's pretty clear that the Supreme Court is very skeptical of the Trump tariffs and may even require refunds. But there are other longer solutions where they would be able to implement the same tariffs.

They just have to go through more of a bureaucratic process, which takes a little bit longer. But he's saying that they are committed to doing that. I'm only saying this because it means that you could have similar Liberation Day style craziness in our markets and in our economy, but this would be six to eight months from now, which just happens to be around the time of the November elections. It also means that even if the Supreme Court rules, then there's still no certainty. Right. You know, it's not like, okay, well, we can't do this.

So we're just not doing this. Maybe they just abandon it. That's possible. Or maybe they try to, you know, go through a different process. Maybe, oh my God, they could actually work with Congress, but I don't think Congress is going to give them what they want at this point because Republicans, I mean, Republicans were never all on board with this direction to begin with. And now Donald Trump is significantly weakened after the, you know, off-year election losses. You know, one last thing to mention you're talking about, okay, well, what was promised with their terrorists? Like, what was the argument?

The argument, as we covered at the time, was incoherent and all over the place, right? Sometimes it was about fentanyl. Sometimes it was about I'm mad at Brazil over Bolsonaro's treatment. And sometimes the sort of, you know, if you give them the most charitable reading, it was like, we're going to bring back American manufacturing. We're going to have these good, you know, middle class factory jobs are going to be back in America. Well, we've now had our ninth straight month of manufacturing decline. So, you know, now maybe, I mean, I guess you could say, oh, but over time,

but there's just no policy put in place that is going to actually rebuild or encourage U.S. manufacturing. In fact, the fall in has been exactly what we predicted, which is that it's going to create a lot more uncertainty and actually create incentives to move that manufacturing elsewhere or do layoffs, et cetera. And that is what we are seeing. And that's a shame because, you know, under the Biden administration, got all kinds of gripes with them. We've named them all here on the show. Some of their industrial policy was actually working. There was actually an increase in manufacturing activity. The first time in the modern era that coming out of a recession, you actually had more manufacturing jobs created.

The story of the last 30, 40 years has been whenever there's a downturn, manufacturing jobs go away and they don't come back. So they had through this policy, that's why wouldn't we say, like, tariffs can work when they're done right, when they're targeted, when they're paired with industrial policy, Biden was nibbling around the edges of that, and it was showing some results. And now all of that has been completely wiped away and we're going in the polar opposite direction. the entire economy on this AI future data sender build-out and inflating this gigantic bubble that is either going to pop and be a disaster or come to fruition and also be a disaster. I mean, they're trying to rip up the entire social contract.

Again, not exactly what was sold on the presidential campaign to people. And yet, here we are. It's 5.23 p.m. One of your kids is asking for a snack. Another is building a fort out of your clean laundry. and you're staring at a half-empty fridge and thinking, what are we even going to eat tonight? Or you could just hello-fresh it.

With over 80 recipes to choose from every week, including kid-friendly ones, even for picky eaters, you'll get fresh ingredients and easy step-by-step recipes delivered right to your door. No, last-minute grocery runs. No, what do we even have, fridge staring? And the best part, you're in total control.

Skip a week, pause anytime, pick what works for you. It's dinner on your terms. can even help you cook. Yeah, it's going to be messy. But somehow, they tend to eat the vegetables they made themselves. Try HelloFresh today and get 50% off the first box with free shipping. Go to hellofresh.ca and use promo code Dinner 50. That's hellofresh.ca promo code dinner 50. Hellofresh.com. Canada's number one meal kit delivery service. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How is that not a story we all know?

What's this, where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you? From smartless media, campside media, and big money players comes crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoville, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank.

a crime. Who catfish is a city? And meet some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap if you think, she's a witch. And it freaks you out. He has x-ray vision. How could I not follow him?

Honestly, I got to follow him. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us. Two brothers, one devout household, two radically different paths. Gabe Ortiz became one of the highest-ranking law enforcement officers in Texas. 32 years, total law enforcement experience.

But his brother Larry, he stayed behind and built an entirely different legacy. He was the head of this gang, and nobody was going to tell him what to do. You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry is murdered, Gabe is forced to confront the past he tried to leave behind. behind and uncover secrets he never saw coming. My dad had a whole other life that we never knew about. Like my mom started screaming my dad's name and I just heard one gunshot.

The Brothers Ortiz is a gripping true story about faith, family, and how two lives can drift so far apart and collide in the most devastating way. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Trump with another pardon. This one, I would say surprising, apparently surprised in Mike Johnson and has direct impact on the Republican majority. This is of Representative Henry Quayari represents a increasingly sort of right trending South Texas district. And as I think the most conservative Democrat left in the House at this point has been more hawkish on things like border security and was indicted him and his wife for alleged, you know, fraud, money laundering, just taking bribes and then doing the bidding of

various companies and various governments, by the way. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Trump explaining why he decided to pardon Quayar. Did you speak with House Republican leadership about your decision to pardon and Congressman Henry Poir and are you concerned that you made a vulnerable Democrat perhaps less vulnerable with that decision? It didn't matter. He was a respected person. He was treated very badly because he said that people should not be allowed to pour into our country. And he was right. What happened is he got indicted for speaking the truth.

So indicted for speaking the truth. Well, in reality, he was indicted because he allegedly funneled over $600,000 through sham consulting contracts, took money from a state-owned energy company in Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank in particular, and was doing favors for them in exchange for that cash. Those are the allegations. He's been indicted. He has not been found guilty. This has obviously directed. I mean, Trump has just been on this like pardon spree. He apparently does not think white collar crime is actually crime. We covered earlier in the week some of the other pardons. We have some updates on that as well. But it also has direct political implications because this is a swing district at this point, a difficult one for Democrats to hold. Quayar has, you know, strong standing in the district. People know him. He's been there a long time, et cetera. And so if you're rescuing him from his, legal troubles, it makes it more likely that Democrats will be able to hold on to this seat. I don't think it's probably going to matter anyway because it looks certainly like a midterm wave is building where Democrats are going to take control of the House pretty handily and don't

necessarily need this seat in South Texas. But, you know, this is not certainly a help to Republicans. On the other hand, I guess it's possible. He's saying he's still going to run as a Democrat. I guess it's possibly flips parties. He did issue a statement thanking Trump. We can put B3 up on the screen with his reaction. He says, I want to thank President Trump for his tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts. I thank God for standing with my family and I during this difficult time. His decision clears the air. Let's us move forward for South Texas. This pardon gives us a clean slate. Noise is gone. Work remains. I intend to meet it head on. Thank you, Mr. President. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. Hakeem Jeffries.

We got some bipartisanship here, Sagar, everybody coming together to support the pardoning of this, you know, corrupt member of Congress who abused his position of power to take cash for him and his wife allegedly from foreigners in order to do their bidding. Let's put B4 up on the screen. He says this is exactly, Jeffries says this is exactly the right outcome. Listen, the reality is this indictment was very thin to begin with, in my view. Charges were eventually going to be dismissed. If not at the trial court level, then by the Supreme Court, as they've repeatedly done in instances just like this. Put B5 up on the screen. as well. We've got a list here. We've got 12 members of Congress now who've been pardoned by

Trump. So, you know, if you're an elite and you say things or do things or give cash to the right person, you can do insider trading. You can take money from foreign governments. You can lie to the FBI. You can obstruct. You can, you know, if you're George Santos, you could steal identities and lie about everything you could possibly imagine. Any of this is just perfectly fine. If you're an elite, And Trump likes you for some reason. So we have 12 members of Congress, pardoned, or I guess commuted. And those 10 Republicans and two Democrats, the two Democrats are now Quayar and Rod Blagojevich blasts from the past there with that name. So anyway, there you go.

Trump just letting white-collar criminals go at a pace we have never seen before. And as we've covered before, Zogger, certainly Trump not the first to abuse the pardoned power. but the level, the shamelessness and the sheer scope and scale of what he has done is truly without parallel. Yeah, he just takes what is usually the quiet part and then says it out loud. Sometimes

his political strength also just rubs it in your face. If you don't remember the details, just let's go over them again. Between December 2014 November 2021, Congressman Quayar and his wife allegedly accepted 600,000 bribes from two foreign entities in oil and gas company

wholly owned by the government of Azerbaijan and a bank headquartered in Mexico City. The bribe payments were allegedly laundered pursuant to sham consulting contracts through a series of front companies and millmen into shells owned by Imelda Quayar, who prefermed little to know legitimate work under the contracts. In exchange for the bribes paid by Azerbaijani oil and gas,

Kauaiar agreed to use his office to influence U.S. policy in favor of Azerbaijan. In exchange for the bribes paid by a Mexican bank, Commerce from Quayar agreed to influence legislative activity and pressure high-ranking U.S. executive branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the bank. So that's the indictment that was actually leveled there against Mr. Quayar. I think there should be, to me, there should be elevated sentencing if you are a public

official that engages in some of this. I think there is. There's like a sentencing guideline whenever it comes to abusing your public trust, but we never even got to trial. Like, that's ultimately the problem here. And I mean, they are, maybe it was going to be thrown out by the Supreme Court because they have basically made it so that corruption and bribery is like by and large. legal. They've taken such a narrow view of what actually constitutes crimes, you know, criminal

acts of bribery and corruption that maybe it would have been thrown out. But it's so disgusting that these people just get away with this. I mean, it truly is an attack on our entire system and the trust and fate that people put in you. It's so grotesque to me. And then for them all to be let off the hook on mass like this is, you know, it's, it's beyond a slap in the face. It's really disgusting. Let's go to B6. Let's show everybody the next particular one. So we covered this previously, this Ponzi schemer. Well, the commutation issued to David Gentile actually wipes away all further fines and restitution. He had been sentenced to seven years for the $1.6 billion scheme that had defrauded investors and prosecutors had been seeking some $15.5 million

in forfeiture. So he has wiped away all of that. And so that's money that. So that's money that. was meant to go to the over a thousand victims of this man and his Ponzi scheme. And now they get nothing. They get nothing. So he was able to rob them and, you know, through this Ponzi scheme bullshit, found guilty, right? So this is not alleged. Found guilty. And now the victims get nothing because Trump came in and said, oh, I'm good with this guy. Go free. Enjoy your life. Nothing to see here. That's right. And actually, yesterday, he actually, he actually, actually commuted or pardoned someone that his own DOJ indicted some five months ago. That's my personal favorite.

Well, and you know who had prosecuted this case against Gentile, I think, was that Emile Bovet? Yes. He was like his guy. Yes. And he was, you know, I think justifiably, like, proud of putting this guy behind bars. And now he comes in and, oh, never mind. We think this was, you know, we don't think this was correct. People were asking, okay, why this guy?

And we still don't really know. you know, many of these people who have gotten pardoned, there's sort of obvious either like political or they, you know, they gave money. We covered one of them who got pardoned or had a sentence commuted where mom had given millions of dollars and raised money. And right after she goes this dinner with Trump, well, and behold, the guy gets let free. And then I think that was the one that immediately started defrauding people again. And by the way, a number of the people that Trump has pardoned have already gone out and committed other crimes and offenses. So you are literally letting criminals loose on the streets, Mr. Law and Order.

But in any case, people were like, you know, we didn't, it wasn't immediately clear why this particular fraudster got off the hook. He had a partner in crime who did not get let off the hook. So it was, you know, eyebrow raising like what exactly is going on here. There's one possibility that's been raised with a B7 up on the screen. Apparently, he had a bunch of connections that were sort of like two degrees removed from Rudy Giuliani was as close with some of the people that this guy, David Gentile, was close to. So this is Jacqueline Sweet did this reporting. She says Trump commuted the prison sentence for a financial fraudsters with ties to Russian tycoon allegedly linked to organized crime. This Russian tycoon, by the way,

guys, now lives in Israel and is also very close to the entire Israeli government, number of whom were at his daughter's wedding, et cetera, et cetera. So I'll just read you a little bit of this and you guys can make of it what you will. So she says, Trump inexplicably commuted the sentence of a billion-dollar Ponzi schemer, Scientologist, private equity, exec, an accountant from Long Island, just days into a seven-year sentence leading to widespread speculation about why. David Gentile is not just any financial fraudster, however, his business history has long intermingled with former Russian oligarch Michael Churney,

wanted by Interpol for alleged ties to Russian organized crime, and Churney's family and associates records reviewed by Disaster Girl Reveal. Michael Churney has long worked with another allegedly Russian mafia-linked figure, Eric Kisland, whose uncle Sam Kisland is one of Rudy Giuliani's oldest friends and supporters who once reportedly helped Trump stave off bankruptcy. Although it's unknown exactly who advocated for Gentile's release. His business ties bring him within two degrees of some of Trump's oldest backers in the Ukrainian and Russian-American business world and the highest levels of the Israeli government. So could be, could be something going on with that. That kind of fits with everything

I know about some of these people. So for example, the Honduran president, I was finally reading into it. It was like a Roger Stone guy, right? It was no, but it's also Matt Gaye. So it was a MacGate's Roger Stone that kind of bubble up the case. Then it gets intertwined with the elections and the State Department starts to see. It's just like a Byzantine network to basically get up to the favor of Trump. I mean, for example, this entertainment lawyer who he just pardoned a couple days ago, it's really crazy. Like this guy was indicted by Trump's DOJ five months ago. And then he was just pardoned. And nobody really knows why. Like he was the CEO of entertainment group, quote, for orchestrating a conspiracy to rig bidding process for an arena

at a public university in Austin, Texas. Nobody really understands how he got to Trump. They do know that he was represented by Trey Gowdy. So that's kind of the only, you know, the only, like, connection, really, than anybody knows. Trey Gowdy is the former Republican congressman, the guy who did Benghazi, and now he's on Fox News every once in a while. Like, that seems to basically be the way that this all came about. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, the whole, it's totally nuts, right? I mean, this is somebody who was literally indicted by Trump's own DOJ. So to throw out and say the politicization just seems, I mean, it's a bit crazy.

It's debit, but that's how things are working right now. Yeah. And then lastly, just to give you a sense of the how different this is on a, you know, in terms of the scale versus what other presidents have done, put B8 up on the screen. CNN compiled this data. So here's the number of pardons by presidents in reverse. recent years. So George W. Bush, 189, and that was over his two terms. Obama, 212, also over his two terms. Trump, in the first administration, 144, so sort of in line with what others were doing. Biden, 80. And now Trump, 2025, 1,500 plus. So, you know, I mean, this is really kind of, I guess,

typical of Trump and especially Trump 2.0 where every president has abused this pardon power, it really needs to go away. It has to be reformed. It needs to go away. President should not have the powers of kings. But in any case, bipartisan affair to abuse the pardon power. And yet somehow Trump takes it and puts it on steroids. And it's like, okay, well, we're just going to do this to an insane degree. It's going to be brazenly obvious the corrupt ties that these people had to me, it's going to be, you know, it's just going to be in your face and constant so that you can't even keep track of all the, all the, we didn't even know about criminals that were just setting free. Yeah, I mean, like this one, he was indicted, the sports thing, again, when I think

it's so extraordinary is these are some people in the antitrust division who spearheaded this indictment that went through and then somehow through Trey Gowdy or whatever, you can just get a full pardon from the United States. It's just like outright corruption. It's totally crazy. But yeah, I guess that's how the government works right now. Apparently. All right, let's get to Epstein. It's 5.23 p.m. One of your kids is asking for a snack. Another is building a fort out of your clean laundry, and you're staring at a half-empty fridge and thinking, what are we even going to eat tonight? Or you could just hello fresh it. With over 80 recipes to choose from every week, including kid-friendly ones, even for picky eaters, you'll get fresh

ingredients and easy step-by-step recipes delivered right to your door. No, last-minute grocery runs. No, what do we even have, fridge staring? And the best part, you're in total control. Skip a week, pause any time, pick what works for you. It's dinner on your terms. The kids can even help you cook. Yeah, it's going to be messy.

But somehow, they tend to eat the vegetables they made themselves. Try HelloFresh today and get 50% off the first box with free shipping. Go to Hellofresh.com and use promo. code dinner 50. That's hellofresh.ca promo code dinner 50. Hellofresh.ca. Hellofresh. Canada's number one meal kit delivery service. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How is that not a story we all know? What is this? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you? From smartless media, campside media,

and big money players comes crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoville, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank

than a crime. Who catfishes a city? And meets some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap, if you think, she's a witch. And it freaks you out. He has x-ray vision. How could I not feel?

Follow him. Honestly, I got to follow him. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us. Two brothers, one devout household, two radically different paths. Gabe Ortiz became one of the highest ranking law enforcement officers in Texas. 32 years, total law enforcement experience. But his brother Larry, he stayed behind. and built an entirely different legacy.

He was the head of this gang, and nobody was going to tell him what to do. He was going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry is murdered, Gabe is forced to confront the past he tried to leave behind and uncover secrets he never saw coming. My dad had a whole other life that we never knew about.

My mom started screaming my dad's name, and I just heard one gunshot. The Brothers Ortiz is a gripping true story about faith, family, and how two lives can drift so far apart and collide in the most devastating way. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Going now to Epstein, some new images of Epstein's Island Villa that were released by the House Oversight Committee. Let's go and put these up here on the screen. let's just keep this one up here for a while.

I just want everybody to sit with this. It's like a dental chair and weird, creepy masks that are all around. There are some videos and images of bedroom, but I mean... It's like faces of old men. You know.

There's no explanation for that. There's no innocent explanation. Also, yeah, Larry Sell. Hmm, interesting. I wonder who Larry is there. In terms of his speed dial on his phone, these are some images. This is like a bathhouse or it looks like a steam room maybe, not exactly sure, that was being used for storage purposes that was on the island. We can continue a little bit here in terms of what we

have from the island itself. Let's go to C2. Just a walkthrough, video walkthrough. I'd watch a little bit of this previously. It's nothing explicitly groundbreaking. But I guess really what it comes down to is these images and others, been released by the House Oversight Committee, some of these are inside of these so you know the epstein files the epstein estate and i really just think we should all sit with like the image themselves of let's say that that creepy mask stuff that was there you have the famous bill clinton painting you have you know all of the insane like weird sexual artwork throughout the e 71st street villa you have cameras you have the design the mansion now we have the emails and we have personally read like thousands of the man's emails

Like the level of psychotic disposition this guy had in terms of his arranging massages and constantly like requesting photos from his assistance of girls and just like constantly be like she's too fat or something like that. It's gross, right? And so you put all this stuff together and yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's just, and by the way, like I said, having read through a lot of the guys' emails, he micromanaged this estate to a way like you can barely imagine like he was constantly asking for updates while the compound and the island was being built and he'd be like rejecting this and rejecting that and so like everything there is his own aesthetic design and taste as executed by galane maxwell and it's like this empire basically of his like from his own

mind uh that was created combined with the birthday book it's just pretty disgusting yeah it's really i mean again i just i think we all have to sit with like eyes wide shut was real like weird masks of old men on the walls, like, there's no innocent explanation for that. I'm sorry, there's not. Especially when you put in the totality of everything else was going on. All the houses and the book and the emails and the underage girls, like, it's open and shut, okay? There was also another photo that had a blackboard.

Put that up there. You can see. Yeah, there's the blackboard. And it's hard to read those words, but it says power, truth, music, deception, intellectual, political and then there's presumably names here that are redacted by the committee um so you know who among us doesn't have this sort of thing on a blackboard somewhere in our house i guess that's around the corner from the weird old guy mask and dentist chair room yeah just just normal stuff totally nothing to see here plants deception uh yeah so and here's a thing is like

you know if this was just if that's it that's all we knew about up stamp i mean okay it's a little, he's a little weird, right? Okay. But, you know, this is part of a larger portrait that we have at this point based on, you know, based on the investigations into him, based on what the survivors have said, based on the records that have been released, based on things like what Donald Trump said about how much he likes him young. And based on certainly the recent email revelations that have been dug into in particular by Ryan, Maz, and Sager, and other journalists out there like Jason Leopold that, you know, gives you starting to emerge a more complete picture of what's going on here. And the other thing with this is this continues to put pressure on the government and

basically signal, look, we're not going to, this is, we're not going to let this go. We pass a law now. You have to release what you have. You have 30 days to do that. And, you know, as you're preparing these files, whatever you're going to release, we are continuing to get information from various subpoenas that we've used our power in Congress in order to provide some level of transparency to the American public. Yeah, what let's go to and put, so the files thing is very interesting, you know, from the NBC News tear sheet about asking for the status update. Because remember, the law requires them to release it within 30 days. And this was on November 19th that it was enacted. So we really only have 15 more days before this is all supposed to come out.

They say that the Justice Department announced their investigation. quote, into numerous figures, including Bill Clinton and Larry Summers, in response to that request, quote, in the interest of transparency and clarity, we request a briefing in a classified or an unclassified setting to discuss the full contents of this new information, but no later than Friday, December 5th, so that's tomorrow as of the day that we're all recording this. The new law, remember, though, could be thwarted if they are able to say that they can cite an ongoing investigation and redaction and overall. like just, you know, the process that they've got about doing this, which is extremely clunky

and it makes it seem as if there's a cover-up. I also want to say, like, with the so-called Epstein files, like everyone needs to be careful. Like, even what Ryan and I and Ma's, like, what we've all gone through, this is a tiny fraction of what's in the Epstein estate, okay? That's nothing. We're just looking at emails from one particular Gmail and Yahoo account from, like, 05 to 08. By the way, again, as I reiterated in our segment, the 05 email was created after the feds or after the police started looking into him. So what's in the pre-O-5 emails, right? What happened to that?

And there's a lot of them that have been deleted even inside of this inbox. Yeah. And so then what about after, you know, his conviction is jail sentence, right? So there's a lot of stuff that still hasn't come out. Well, the email you reported on where he's coming up with legal strategies

and like, you know, drafting this email. And he says, I have to assume the feds know about probably 20 underage girls. Well, guess what would be in the government files? What did they actually know? You know, how much information did they have at the time when they were convinced by, you know, Epstein and his legal team, including Alan Dershowitz, that like, you know, guys, this is really not, they're going to handle at the state level. You guys really don't need to worry about this. Like, how much information do the government have at that time when they did kick it to the state level and say, okay, you guys down there, Alex Acosta, do your sweetheart deal, do your thing.

just as one example of the sort of things that would be contained in the government records. There's a lot there, and we've only gotten a glimpse of a tiny, tiny fraction. Yes, absolutely correct. And I do want to put C4 up here on the screen, just to reiterate this. This is, look, I'm not a financial professional. I have gone through a lot of his stuff, like the financial stuff inside of the deals. I will say none of it seemed all that sophisticated to me. Like, you know, all the claims are about all these sophisticated hedge fund transactions.

Maybe there's a different email. I'm just saying, from what I saw, it was very standard. Like, hi, Jeffrey, I'm raising money for X, Y, and Z, and I could use a few million or somebody trying to buy some shitty movie studio. A lot of it also was, like, directing Les Wexner charities. Like, nothing was very, like, nothing explained becoming a billionaire is really what I'm saying. And that's kind of the mystery, right? And so what the Epstein survivors have said is that they are supporting this Ron Wyden bill,

which would force Treasury to turn over Epstein Bank records. And I do want to give credit to Ron Wyden because it's actually been beating this drum now for a while. The banks and the Treasury departments are sitting on over a billion dollars of suspicious activity reports that they updated after Epstein's death. All of those, like that is the real stuff here, the wire transfers, because we have a very special. small slice, which I've cited before. The New York Financial Services Department put out a fine of Deutsche Bank years ago, I think back in 2020. And I did several monologues about it at the time he can go watch. But it details the exact scheme through which he was wiring money to the Eastern Europeans. But again, this is just one bank. And he had bank accounts at J.P. Morgan Chase and all

of these other, like, high finance institutions where he was moving millions of dollars. That's literally 1.1 billion or so around in ways that should have. have triggered like investigations by the federal government. So then you're like, okay, well, why the bank's not do anything about it? Like, you know, you or I, as anyone, recently, I'd send a wire transfer from our bank account for business purposes. It takes forever. Yeah, they're like, are you sure you author? You know, it's like, and that's us, like a small business. You can't just move money around the world. It doesn't work like that. When I try to ride in an Uber in a town, I haven't been in for a while. Right. Right. Yeah, you're like fraud alert. You know what I'm saying?

exactly like everybody like when you interact with the world in the financial system like i can't send a wire transfer without having to call the bank and be like yes i authorized this purchase and they're like well what's the uh have you been contacted by fraud and this guy just gets to wire billions now maybe that's just part of the course for billionaires it probably is if we're being honest but at the very least like when you're moving all this money through these banks like they have k yc know your customer laws and stuff they have to determine they're like well where this money come from? It's a legitimate purpose, right? Are you money laundering? And so they clearly violated in many cases because they've been fined for it and they've been sued for it, a lot of

their own internal guardrail. So like that, again, I know everybody wants to talk about the black book and, you know, there's no client list, there's no client list, any of that. The nexus of it all, it's all in the money. That's the whole story from the Intel. That's what made him useful. That's what made him powerful is the money enabled everything else. Get access to that. And that's I think you're actually going to, you'll take down some real people. Well, and we may, we may get some progress on that just in the coming days. So in addition to these photos and videos, Robert Garcia, who's the Democratic, the ranking member on the Oversight Committee, it says they're going to be releasing more financial

records in the days ahead. So we could be getting some more information there today, tomorrow, over the coming week. So that is something to keep an eye on. And again, I think it's important to keep the pressure on. Listen, none of us, you know, we're not Pollyanna here. We're not actually expecting the government to completely come clean and release everything, but, and we know that they've spent lots of time and close to a million dollars, taxpayer dollars, going through these things to redact them and scrub them. I mean, I don't think anyone expects them to release anything that's going to be incriminating to the president of the United States because they, you know, they'll be out of a job if they do so. But still, like, whatever comes out,

whatever additional pieces of the puzzle, and if they're not about Trump and they're about other people, other, that's, you know, it's a step forward. And so every time the House Oversight Committee releases more tranches of documents, it keeps the story alive, it keeps the pressure on,

and it keeps the public focused on putting pressure on the government to follow the law that has now been passed by Congress and signed into law by the precedent. Exactly right. And yeah, everyone's like, oh, why do they release?

This doesn't show anything new. I don't know. More the better. Okay? The more you keep it alive, the more that people take an interest in this. That's the one thing I have been very heartened by is that even though Trump and Maga and all of them want to move on, you know, many of us came to this long before Trump was ever in the picture. It was never about Trump. Long before Democrats were super focused on it. Yeah, long before, yeah, by the way, when the Dems were all like, it's a conspiracy, it's anti-Semitic to say he was connected to,

never cared then, didn't care now. We're just going to keep on, keeping on. And there, by the way, Shout out to Pablo Torre, our friend. He's been doing some sports angles in the Epstein story. Oh, really? Yeah, he just did a segment on it yesterday. It was fascinating, actually. And so he will have, actually, I've been speaking to him a little bit. He should have more stories potentially soon on the sports angle.

And so this is the fun part. It's like, as this goes out, people with different niche areas can look into their own, like, spheres of influence, Hollywood. For example, I pointed out, this isn't my area of expertise, but I'm reading through. and I'm like, yo, Epstein's getting all these invites to all these Hollywood premieres like Michael Clayton and the Sopranos and all this stuff. I'm not a variety reporter, but some Hollywood person should probably go dig into that. Yeah. So I'm just looking at Israel and Israel intelligence and the actual case.

Pablo Tori. Yeah, whoever that person is. Yeah, although I feel like Hollywood media is probably more compromised than anybody else. That's just my opinion. Very possible. Okay. Let's get to 2026. It's 5.23 p.m.

One of your kids is asking for a snack, another is building a fort out of your clean laundry, and you're staring at a half-empty fridge and thinking, what are we even going to eat tonight? Or you could just hello fresh it. With over 80 recipes to choose from every week, including kid-friendly ones, even for picky eaters, you'll get fresh ingredients and easy step-by-step recipes delivered right to your door. No last-minute grocery runs. No, what do we even have fridge staring? And the best part, you're in total control.

Skip a week. Pause anytime. Pick what works for you. It's dinner on your terms. The kids can even help you cook. Yeah, it's going to be messy. But somehow, they tend to eat the vegetables they made themselves. Try HelloFresh today and get 50% off the first box with free shipping. Go to hellofresh.ca and use promo code Dinner 50. That's hellofresh.ca promo code Dinner50. Hellofresh.com. Canada's number one meal kit delivery service. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How is that not a story we all know? What's this? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you?

From Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players comes Crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoval, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime. Who catfishes a city? And meets some memorable anti-heroes.

There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap if you think she's a witch. And it freaks you out. He has X-ray vision. How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow me. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimeless on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcast. Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us. Two brothers, one devout household, two radically different paths. Gabe Ortiz became one of the highest ranking law enforcement officers in Texas. 32 years, total law enforcement experience. But his brother Larry, he stayed behind and built an entirely different legacy. He was the head of this gang, and nobody was going to tell him what to do. You're going to push that line for the cause.

Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry is murdered, Gabe is forced to confront the past he tried to leave behind and uncover secrets he never saw coming. My dad had a whole other life that we never knew about. Like, my mom started screaming my dad's name, and I just heard one gunshot. The Brothers Ortiz is a gripping true story about faith, family, and how two lives can drift so far apart and collide in the most devastating way. to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

So some interesting numbers here from CNN and Harry Enten talking about how it looks very much like a massive blue wave is coming and based in part on the election results from this week in Tennessee. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. Republicans should be running for the hills this morning because the blue wave is building, my dear friend, Mr. Berman. What are we talking about here? Well, Van Epps, Matt Van Epps, the Republican candidate. He won it by nine, but this is a district that Donald Trump won by 22 points, 15 points, 17 points. This is a 13-point gain for the Democrats in terms of the margin. An excuse time for Republicans is over, because I hear all about these special elections.

Oh, the turnout's so low. It's not representative of what would happen in the midterm election. The turnout last night in Tennessee's 7th District was, equal to the turnout in the 2022 midterm election. I love the people in Central Tennessee, but Central Tennessee is nothing special compared to the rest of the country. But what we see happening is take a look here.

Okay, 2025 U.S. House special elections. Dems out running Kamala Harris. A lot of blue here, a lot of blue, which is what I think the nation might look like a year from now if these results hold. Arizona 7, you see a 17 over outperformance of Kamala Harris. 23 points in Florida won, 16 points in Florida. 13 points in Tennessee, 7, 28 points in Texas, 28,

and then 17 points in Virginia, 11. So we've seen it throughout the nation, whether you go from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., all the way to southwest, to the southwest in Arizona, whether you're looking at Texas, whether you're looking at Tennessee, whether you go down to Florida. We have seen the democratic outperformance

of Kamala Harris happening across the political map. We actually have history to show that what happens, in special elections, doesn't just stay in special elections. It spills over to the midterm results. Special elections and midterm results. I just keep going to this. When a party outperformed in special elections since 2005, five out of five times, they went on to win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. So pretty interesting to see those numbers there. Let's put the next element up on the screen. You can see some aggregate in comparisons to prior years. So this says overperformance in special elections. You got 17 and 18 Democrats plus six, 19 and 20 Democrats plus two.

21 and 22, Republicans plus four, 23, 24 Democrats plus two. This time, so far, Democrats plus 11. I'd like to see the pre-T party numbers. I bet you it was similar, right? Somewhere around 09. Yeah. Think back to that time. It was very similar to the plus 11. Yeah, that would be interesting to see. But I think Enten points out what is the most sort of critical component of the Tennessee results, which is, you know, the cope from Republicans, like these special elections, you know, you've got your Democrats have these high propensity voters now. It's not emblematic. It's going to be different when we come to the midterms. And no, it's not a presidential year, but midterm turnout is going to be a lot higher. Well, the turnout in Tennessee was really high. And still, they moved

the margin by 13 points. If you manage to do that across the country, I mean, it's a bloodbath that, you know, is, I think, beyond even what we saw in the 2010, you know, Tea Party wave election. If you truly had that result across the country, it would be an extraordinary political reckoning. Now, can they pull off 13 points? That's a very tall order. But that's the reason why Republicans should be freaking out here is because you didn't have, you know, some sort of, like, Republicans aren't paying attention and only the demo, like the white college educated liberals showed up. No, this was a high turnout, midterm level turnout election. You had a literal socialist as the Democrat, by the way, and you still had a 13-point shift towards the

Democrats. I mean, that really is a red alarm. Yeah, it totally is an alarm. And the reason why is that, as you said, with that sample, is if it was low turnout, you can cope yourself away. But also, though, even with midterm level turnout, if the midterm turnout is going to be still so heavily democratic and indicate some swing, that's a big problem. Now, obviously, it is Tennessee and it is a single election. But these are basically midterms always are about enthusiasm when it comes to voters. Most people don't, at least a lot of voters, don't pay as much attention to the midterms. And it's usually an opposition party. Now, let's give the caveat case is Glenn Yonkin.

wins in Virginia, right? There's a clear view of a red wave that's coming. Then Roe versus weight happens and it changes everything. So like a lot could still change. It's a whole year, right? I mean, we have no idea. There could be a major international incident. There could be a war in Venezuela. So things could potentially go even more south. Or maybe he would ride some commander in chief wave. Nobody knows. A lot of shit can happen in the next 11 months. But as things stand right now where things also, I think, are trending. We can only live in the moment that we are right now. It doesn't look particularly promising. And I also think there will be a lot of accountability at the Republican level for everybody but Trump. No Republican can admit that it's

Trump's fault. But already the knife fighting, like we're about to show with Stefani. People already know. Like they, like everybody knows. And Mike Johnson, he's not long for this world. Yeah. Well, we'll put D3 up on the screen. So at least Stefanik has taken the knives out pretty aggressively against Mike Johnson. Now, she is running, she's, you know, New York representative. She's running for governor. She is down, like, extraordinarily large amount in the polls. And Trump really screwed her over by embracing Zoran and, you know, taken any sort of heat out of the case she was making against Hockel, being close to Zoran and trying to make something of that. Not that I thought that was that great of an attack to begin with. But she was really betting a lot on that, and that was

sort of undercut by Trump. Anyway, it says here, Trump ally Elise DeFonik attacks Speaker Johnson's leadership. She called him an ineffective leader who is losing control over the GOP conference headed into the midterm elections. Quote, he certainly would not have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll call vote tomorrow. The New York lawmaker said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, I believe the majority of Republicans would vote for new leadership. It is that widespread. And your read of it, Sager, is exactly my read of it. She can see things are going south. They're going sideways. She wants to separate herself. from the Republican Party and say, I'm not like them, I'm critical of them, I have my own way

that I would do things, I'm not like these people that you hate right now. But she can't point the finger at Trump, who's the one who's really to blame? I mean, is that Mike Johnson is nothing more than Trump's puppet. Like, he's sort of irrelevant to the whole equation. But so she decides that the person that it's safe for her to go after is Speaker Mike Johnson. And I think you will see other people certainly following in her footsteps and pulling out the knives from Mike Johnson because it's a similar way. I mean, you see this, saw this thinking back to 2010 with Democrats when things were going well. They're like, okay, let me go after Pelosi because that will signal that I'm not like the rest of this Democratic Party that you hate. I'm different from

them. But and they also went after Obama too at certain times as well. But Trump has this, you know, stronghold. He's very, you know, the retribution from him. You don't want to be on his bad side. You don't want him coming in and messaging against you, et cetera, or screwing you over in your, you know, whatever you're trying to do in your state. So that's the place where she's trained her fire. And what it will mean is that the race, the race for Republican leader will be fascinating. Like if they lose. Who would want? Oh yeah. First of all, who would want? I think Steve Scalese would probably get it because he's already the number two. Trump likes him. He's, you know, I mean, he's, he's a little bit different from Mike Johnson, but not all that. But I mean,

there should be enough holdouts. Some people could credibly say like, hey, you guys were a disaster. Like, you were really bad at your jobs. Like, why would we reward you? And there's enough shitsters that somebody might actually do something about it. I really don't know, actually, what's going to happen. But the point, I think, that stands really with Stephanic and the attack is that this is a preemptive ability to distance yourself from a very unpopular Republican Congress. And in some ways, like, look, fundamentally, yeah, they should attack Trump.

But they're not wrong. Like, the healthcare thing is a huge problem. It's not even just people like me saying it. Steve Bannon. I was just reading this morning, Matt Boyle, like the Breitbart guys, they're like, yo, we need to do something before December is over and these premiums are locked. I mean, we have, what, 20-something days? Most of that's a holiday. Everybody knows the House of Representatives. By January 1, we're all in it. Like, we're in it together. Premiums go up. And that's it. Like, that is enough. That's 7 million people just on Obamacare. So yeah, that's not that many people, but compounded to the private market with

overall 25% increase. By the way, that's the other funny thing about our Byzantine health insurance system. How many people even know whether their insurance is connected to Obamacare or not? If it goes up, because of the headlines, they're going to be like, this is Trump's fault, right? Of course. Yeah, exactly. Regardless of whether it's employer-sponsored or not, because of the cycle, they're just going to blame the administration. It's kind of fair, though. I mean, you know, we had a whole shutdown fight over this. They refused to cave. Trump said, remember when he was,

oh, we were on the verge of announcing some health care plan from what happened with that? That's just gone. We're not talking about that anymore. So it does, I mean, that's fair to blame him for these specific increases that are coming. Well, yeah. You could do something to stop it.

Yeah. I'm just saying, like, in terms of it. The point, though, is just, yes, shit goes uphill whenever you're the president and you are going to suffer the consequence. So nothing right now looks all that. good. I do want to say Representative Nancy Mace has put D5

on the screen here is considering quote, this is from the New York Times, Nancy Mace has told people she is so frustrated with the Louisiana Republican and sick of the way he's run the house, particularly how women are treated there, that she is planning to huddle with MTG next week to

discuss following her lead and retiring early from Congress. And so it could mean another early retirement there for the GOP even further screwing over Mike Johnson, but also just showing how dysfunctional and insane the entire thing is. So I would not, I don't think things are going that well there from Mike Johnson. And I think he will be one of the shorter-lived speakers in history.

Like, he's not, I don't think he's going to be long for this world. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him. Gabe Ortiz is a cop. His brother Larry, a mystery Gabe didn't want to solve until it was too late. He was the head of this gang. You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry's killed, Gabe must untangle the dangerous past,

one that could destroy everything he thought he knew. Listen to the brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

Visit gentlemen's cutbuburn.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gendelmanscut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Hey, everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes.

We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right. Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or Yo-Yo's, and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast Guaranteed human